falsifying the idea of falsification

[The Grand Nudger]

So much spam. Whats the point of posting anything you refuse to discuss?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Please don't quote Bich.

[chimp3]

A claim that something exists (god) is a claim about reality. Falsification is applicable. No special pleading for religious morons (Drich?).

[arewethereyet]

Wow! Do you get more and more stupid with each word you utter?

Ahem...have you listened to Trump?

Some people just can't help it.

[Paleophyte]

the title pretty much says it. with this chinese flu killing trillions I'm been writing scripts and making videos.

OLB already called you on this but it's so impressively bad that it needs more scorn. My condolences to all the greenbacks that have suffered and died.

"Chinese Flu" is imbecilic as it is neither Chinese nor influenza.

because the term falsification and how it is used in the philosophy of science is being used in the most incorrect in fact the opposite way it was intended to be used for.

Many use it as a panic stop button in any theological argument that is getting out of hand. "well oh'yeah your idea can't be falsified."

Falsification is not simply for science. A statement that cannot be falsified cannot be demonstrated. At that point the argument devolves to:

A: I believe in Fairies.
B: I don't.
A: You can't prove that they don't exist!
B: So you can't prove that they do and until then I see no reason to believe your foolishness.

If your best defense is that your beliefs can't be falsified then my only reply need be, "Well isn't that cute."

[Pat Mustard]

Many use it as a panic stop button in any theological argument that is getting out of hand. "well oh'yeah your idea can't be falsified."

The correct response to that is not discussing a scientific theory is , so what.

But the thing is drippy we're discuusing an assertion which puroprts to describe reality. That makes it subject to falsification and vigorous testing. Just because you don't want to deal with the twin facts that your worldview has a) no evidence for it and b) a lot of evidence suggesting it's supefluous, doesn't absolve it from needing evidence to be accepted.

[downbeatplumb]

the title pretty much says it. with this chinese flu killing trillions I'm been writing scripts and making videos.

OLB already called you on this but it's so impressively bad that it needs more scorn. My condolences to all the greenbacks that have suffered and died.

"Chinese Flu" is imbecilic as it is neither Chinese nor influenza.

because the term falsification and how it is used in the philosophy of science is being used in the most incorrect in fact the opposite way it was intended to be used for.

Many use it as a panic stop button in any theological argument that is getting out of hand. "well oh'yeah your idea can't be falsified."

Falsification is not simply for science. A statement that cannot be falsified cannot be demonstrated. At that point the argument devolves to:

A: I believe in Fairies.
B: I don't.
A: You can't prove that they don't exist!
B: So you can't prove that they do and until then I see no reason to believe your foolishness.

If your best defense is that your beliefs can't be falsified then my only reply need be, "Well isn't that cute."

Indeed by saying it cant be falsified he has basically admitted its not true.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

the title pretty much says it. with this chinese flu killing trillions I'm been writing scripts and making videos.

OLB already called you on this but it's so impressively bad that it needs more scorn. My condolences to all the greenbacks that have suffered and died.

"Chinese Flu" is imbecilic as it is neither Chinese nor influenza.

because the term falsification and how it is used in the philosophy of science is being used in the most incorrect in fact the opposite way it was intended to be used for.

Many use it as a panic stop button in any theological argument that is getting out of hand. "well oh'yeah your idea can't be falsified."

Falsification is not simply for science. A statement that cannot be falsified cannot be demonstrated. At that point the argument devolves to:

A: I believe in Fairies.
B: I don't.
A: You can't prove that they don't exist!
B: So you can't prove that they do and until then I see no reason to believe your foolishness.

If your best defense is that your beliefs can't be falsified then my only reply need be, "Well isn't that cute."

Simply because a statement cannot be demonstrated does not necessarily mean that the statement is untrue. God (for example) can be - and frequently has been - defined in an esoteric enough fashion that the statement ‘God exists’ is not demonstrable. This doesn’t determine whether the statement is true, but does make the statement not particularly useful.

Boru

[Belacqua]

Indeed by saying it cant be falsified he has basically admitted its not true.

I don't think it quite works that way.

There are non-falsifiable statements about which we may be unsure, or even have reasons to believe the truth of.

Here is a useful summary from a Virginia Commonwealth University astronomy class:

Falsifiability

Statements that belong in science must be about reproducible observations. However, as Karl Popper pointed out, there is a much stricter requirement.

A scientific statement is one that could possibly be proven wrong.

Such a statement is said to be falsifiable. Notice that a falsifiable statement is not automatically wrong. However a falsifiable statement always remains tentative and open to the possibility that it is wrong. When a falsifiable statement turns out to be a mistake, we have a way to detect that mistake and correct it.

Examples of Non-falsifiable Statements

An alien spaceship crashed in Roswell New Mexico.
A giant white gorilla lives in the Himalayan mountains.
Loch Ness contains a giant reptile.

In each case, if the statement happens to be wrong, all you will ever find is an absence of evidence --- No spaceship parts. No gorilla tracks in the Himalayas. Nothing but small fish in the Loch.

That would not convince true believers in those statements. They would say --- "The government hid all of the spaceship parts." "The gorillas avoided you and the snow covered their tracks." "Nessie was hiding in the mud at the bottom of the Loch."

None of these statements is falsifiable, so none of them belong in science.

Examples of Falsifiable Statements

No alien spaceships have ever landed in Roswell New Mexico.
Find just one spaceship and the statement is disproven. An exhaustive elimination of possibilities is not needed. Just one spaceship will do it.

This critter (just pulled from Loch Ness) is a fish.
Just one observation --- "Uh, it has fur all over it." --- is enough to disprove this statement, so it is falsifiable.

How to Tell if Something is Falsifiable

In most cases a falsifiable statement just needs one observation to disprove it. A Statement that is not falsifiable usually needs some sort of exhaustive search of all possibilities to disprove it.

I happen not to believe that aliens crashed at Roswell. The fact that it isn't falsifiable, though, doesn't mean people will certainly lack all reason to believe it. There may be mountains of circumstantial evidence -- enough to persuade even a reasonable person. And even if you think that in the Roswell case there isn't enough evidence, there may be in other cases. 

Metaphysical statements operate this way, too. The existence of eternal transcendent intelligibles may be unfalsifiable, but millennia of logical argument have persuaded some people. It's not a question for science, but that doesn't mean it's not something you can have a reasonable debate about, and something you may form [tentative] beliefs about.

[Mr Greene]

Well you could start by looking at what we know was flying out of Groom Lake (Area 51)