(February 4, 2015 at 3:09 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote:(February 4, 2015 at 9:26 am)watchamadoodle Wrote: I agree with the points in your post, but I quoted your comments about assuming Drich's claims.
I think what you mean by "assuming Drich is right". is putting much confidence in Drich's claims? I agree with that.
Of course we need to assume Drich's claims are true to design experiments that might falsify his claims. That is what I mean when I say "assuming Drich is right".
No, we need not assume his claims are true in order to test them.
I can't believe we are arguing about things that I'm sure we both already understand fully. Are you guys trying to needle me until I leave the forum? That's the impression I'm getting.
Science is similar to a proof by contradiction. That is why the claims must be falsifiable. We assume the claim and look at the implications of that assumption. We design an experiment in hopes of demonstrating that the implication is false and therefore the original claim we assumed is also false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_contradiction