Re: [Popper] Re: paleonet Homo sapiens / H. erectus introgression

[John Jackson <strangetruther@xxxxxxxxx>]

Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:40:16 +0200 (MEST) 
From: "Nikolaus Malchus" <n.malchus@gmx.net>  Add to
Address Book 
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk 
Subject: [Popper] Re: paleonet Homo sapiens / H.
erectus introgression 

    
> Hi John and all interested,
>
>> As for Popper, far be it from me to warn against
him,
>> indeed I celebrate him here...
>> 
>>
http://www.geocities.com/strangetruther/pottedpopper.html
>
> Overall nicely potted, :-) 
> (after browsing through 1/2 of it, the other half
must wait)

Thank you - I hope you were entertained!  That will
make two of us who have read it!  (As usual I must
recommend his excellent bedside material "Conjectures
& Refutations" over his almost unreadable "The Logic
of Scientific Discovery".)

>> ...but perhaps crystalised Popper is enough:
>> 
>> Evidence is NOT observation(s) "somewhat"
compatible
>> with one theory, but observation(s) better
predicted
>> or explained by one theory than another.
>> 
>> I don't know of any palaeontologist except Pete
Wagner
>> and myself who appears to recognise this as the
>> definition of science.  snip
>> 
>
> Sounds strange to me. You can put me on your list
(and I guess most
> paleontologists) provided you are saying
>
> evidence = observation(s) better predicted or 
> explained by one theory than another (which is 
> practical and non-dogmatic).
>
> The only 'critique' I have is that (this) "principle
of science" is not
> equal to "definition of science".

I would like to think there were more people who took
the principle seriously, but I would suggest the
benefits of taking it as "the" rather than "a"
principle of science include:

*  Clarity; avoiding a confusing list of equal
guidelines which allow anyone to justify anything. 
The Bible is one counter-example; a less-excusable one
is Lipps' list of guidelines for judging scientific
theories, which includes the standing within his
discipline of the author of a theory.  This excuses
famous old failures of ignoring interesting new ideas
from outside the field, and violates itself since the
authors of this type of idea (cf also that "umbrella
hypotheses" thing) are never qualified philosophers
themselves.  

*  Popper really only suggests one principle - at
least for what science does; he has a related one for
the definition of a scientific theory, which is a
slightly different thing: if the business of science
compares how well theories withstand testing, theories
that intrinsically cannot be tested for some reason,
cannot be involved.

*  Thinking/acting machines can be/are being made
which manage their beliefs using this principle as an
overriding main goal.  Time will show that nothing
works better.

*  We can subsume "parsimony" so beloved of those who
understand it so little, into a small part of the
first word of "better predicted or explained", and
examine the peer-review racket as part of the process
of comparing the predictive/explanatory powers.


The phrase "Peer review" is absent from the indexes of
the best-known books on phil. of sci., as it is merely
a method of limiting and abusing the principle of open
discussion and comparison of theories, for the benefit
of editors and established academics.  However, the
word "evidence" is also absent from Popper's main two
books on the subject!  Might you Niko be in a position
to comment on whether this is because the word does
not exist in German?  I've seen English-German
dictionaries where equivalent translations are given
but I can't judge them.


Going back to the reason why I don't think most
palaeontologists accept comparing
prediction/explanation in theories as the basis
guiding principle is that all dinobird palaeos seem to
say "Here is my theory - it is somewhat consistent
with what we see, so this is proof my theory is right"
(and implying they are justified in not allowing
competing theories to be heard since they must be
unscientific).  The work of Prum and Brush in
particular seems to be nothing but this kind of
rubbish, though almost all dino-bird palaeos who get
to the media claim "The undeniable similarity of birds
and certain dinosaurs PROVES birds came from
dinosaurs, feathers evolved first for insulation etc
etc", without ever considering the basic requirement
(that they are actually being paid to observe) that
they should be identifying all competing theories and
comparing them.


Must stop now, Dr Who part 2 is on.

Cheers, 

JJ

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