An Unscientific, Unfalsifiable Theory Could Be True SicetNon

[_SteelHead]

An unscientific, un-falsifiable, un-testable theory could also be false. It is by definition un-knowable.

[_mikwut]

Hi Philo,

Yes my suspicion is Dan is wanting to leave the door open for faith in propositions that have no evidence.

How are you defining the word evidence?

In general if something isn't testable or we can experiment to see if it comes out right or not, falsifiability is necessary.

So, when you propose Jesus does not exist, is that falsifiable? We don't need to have a derail discussion on that, its just that historical truths, we could take the Spaulding hypothesis which also isn't falsifiable, often leave us with judgment based on verifying arguments that construct possibilities that are not falsifiable, don't they? I can see the crack left in the door for skepticism but that seems to me to just be the reality of our living situation.

Our ideas must have predictive power or else what good are they?

I often see this rhetoric that seems to me to go in only a couple directions, i.e. veriifed, falsified, successfully predicted etc.. If you are speaking philosophically do you consider the possibilities of more than one conclusion fitting data? Not falsified and predictable? What then?
mikwut

[_Puck Mendelssohn]

You know, I don't know why this notion seems to lend people so much comfort sometimes.

Yes, it's true that an idea which is not falsifiable could be true. It may be unfalsifiable for practical, evidentiary reasons (e.g., nobody can demonstrate that there was not a guy with a brown mustache at the corner of Elijah and Isaiah streets in Jerusalem on December 8, A.D. 442), in which case its probability might at least be judged through other inferences. But if, as is usually meant in this situation, it is IN PRINCIPLE unfalsifiable (e.g., "undetectable dragons roam about in the walls of my home), it's of no use to anyone and not worthy of a lot of consideration. Didn't Wittgenstein conclude with something along those lines, in the Tractatus? "There are some things of which one cannot speak; thereof, one can only be silent," or some such.

Now, let's take something like young-earth creationism. If we have anything in the way of ordinary standards, YECism is falsifiable. We have the rocks that are too old, and the fossils in 'em, and excellent methods for dating. But as one subjects it to that kind of scrutiny, the attempt is invariably made to pull back into the world of limitless ad hoc excuses. The world might be 6,000 years old, but perhaps the fact that it is 6,000 years old is undetectable, due to the actions of Satan or the strange caprice of the gods, and all of the evidence points the other way. That's not falsifiable, but the real crime of the thing is that it sustains itself by being unfalsifiable in principle.

Now, can a god have made a world where the creation of living things happened by a process that it plainly doesn't appear to have happened by? Well, if we like the usual sort of definition of omnipotence, sure; why not? But what kind of a person could possibly be interested in an idea which he cannot, in principle, scrutinize at all? Thinking has got to have some purpose; without that, one may as well play Minesweeper on the PC all day long. If thinking can't get you anywhere, why bother? If evaluating the evidence can shed no light, who cares about anything?

So, yeah. Things can be unfalsifiable but true. But I think there is a much deeper insight to be had in the classic "Whoooooaaa, man, did you ever, like, LOOK at your hand? I mean, really LOOK at it?"

[_moksha]

It makes perfect sense for Dr. Peterson to make that point since much religious cosmology is contingent upon the possibility of such things being true. Even if the dowsing rod does not point to improbabilium for you, it does not mean that improbabilium cannot be found by someone else.

[_Puck Mendelssohn]

Even if the dowsing rod does not point to improbabilium for you, it does not mean that improbabilium cannot be found by someone else.

Indeed. And while that's true, the question most of us are presented with, in practical terms, is that multiple people claim to have discovered mutually inconsistent sorts of improbabilium, each inscrutable in its own inscrutable way. How to judge between them, if there are no criteria by which they may be evaluated or scutinized at all?

[_EAllusion]

A unfalsifiable idea we hold to be true would be something like, "human senses are generally a reliable guide to reality." There's no way to confirm or disconfirm this. Experience can't weigh in on it because you can't reason with experiences without first assuming it to be true. So it is just assumed to be true because we cannot make sense of the world through interaction with it if this is not, at some level, true.

Creationism, here meaning the belief that life was designed and scientific evidence sufficiently demonstrates this, relying on unfalsifiable suppositions is not a point in its favor. It's difficult to imagine how one could establish creationism using a transcendental argument like I offered in the case of reliability of the senses. Yes, it could be true that life was designed by an ultra-powerful intelligence. But why should anyone think it is? The idea that there is a good, positive scientific case for this view is false. It does not exist.

The lack of falsfiability of creationism is a major topic for anti-evolution writing because its scientific critics many years ago tended to be influenced by Karl Popper-style pop philosophy and focused a great deal on creationism's lack of falsifiabilty as a reason why it was not valid. Then, in a very important court case that effectively wiped out the legal viability of creationism being taught in public schools, the philosopher Micheal Ruse gave testimony on demarcation criteria in science that in part focused on its lack of falsifiablity as a demonstration of its inadequacy as scientific theory. Ever since then, creationists have been on a mission to counter this by relying disputes within philosophy of science about what makes something scientific.

I think it's a mistake to focus too much on this because the viability of creationism doesn't rest on demarcation criteria debates in phil of science. Either its pseudo or nonscience or it's just bad science. It doesn't matter. In either case, it is not reasonable to think. The fact that its core design inference isn't actually testable is a serious problem. When you combine that with the fact that it is used as a means to Trojan horse religious beliefs into schools, you have the reason why it should not be part of public school curriculum. If philosophers of science are able to find edge cases where something might reasonable be described as scientific while not risking disconfirmation, that just doesn't matter as far as our attitude towards creationism is concerned. Creationism still relies on a mixture of bad anti-evolution arguments married to a wall of obfuscation and arguments from ignorance.

[_EAllusion]

So, when you propose Jesus does not exist, is that falsifiable?

To say a theory is falsifiable is to say that there exists a potential set of observations that would make it likely false if those observations occurred. Philosophers of science following Popper sometimes talk about theories having to be "risky" meaning that it's actually plausible that these set of observations could be obtained if the theory is false.

I'm not a falsificationist, but Jesus mythicism strikes me as falsifiable. In fact, as a non-mythcisist, I'd say it's reasonably thought of as falsified.

[_mikwut]

Hi E.

I agree. Reasoable falsification is what I was striving to articulate. I used the Jesus idea because Philo uses a Bayesian system defending it. This is just adding verification to the hypothesis. It begs questions like creationism. For example if you can historically invoke fraud to make a hypothesis more plausible.

If that's a bad example historical construction itself is replete with examples. What is more interesting to me is where more than two competing hypothesis vie for acceptance and are not currently reasonably falsifiable. Some interesting ideas on quantum mechanics for example.


Mikwut