From: spice@convex.csd.uwm.edu (James G Spice)
Subject: Re: Scientific Theory (was: Re: UFO's
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 19:32:21 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.141955.19017@m.cs.uiuc.edu> mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>In article <21577@optima.cs.arizona.edu>, tzf@csl.biosci.arizona.edu (Theron Friedman) writes:
>|> In article <1992Sep3.051211.4460@uwm.edu>, spice@convex.csd.uwm.edu (James G Spice) writes:
>|> 
>|> |> Second, no test of any hypothesis can ever *prove*, or *verify* that
>|> |> hypothesis.  Corroberation is a more appropriate word.  On the other
>|> |> hand, one test result contrary to the hypothesis falsifies it (if
>|>          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>And, in fact, it is not even a very GOOD theory of how science works.  It
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^
>is in fact an ideological claim about how science "should" work.  
>
I am the poster who discussed theory, verification and corroboration.
This is *not* a theory about how science works. It is a philosophy.
I must concede to Robert that, yes, it is only one of many philosophies
about how science *should* work, but I would have to disagree that
it is not a particularly good one.  Do you know why it's good?
Because I like it.  Try to counter that one.

>If you want to know how people make decisions, you have to look to psychology.
>In the case of scientific reasoning, you could do worse than reading
>I. J. Good (or more recent) on Bayesing (sp?) statistics.  This model 
>views hypotheses as being believed with some probability from 0 to 1 (not
>just T or F).  New evidence is combined with the existing belief with a 
>"weight".  Weekly held beliefs may be swayed by small amounts of contrary 
>evidence, hypotheses either very strongly held or with lots of evidence 
>in their favor require really strong or a really large amount of counter 
>evidence to "move" the belief.  Almost no single piece of evidence has 
>high enough weight to overthrow any but the most trivial hypothesis,
>a converging series of findings, however, multiply together and can "move"
>the probability of a hypothesis.

This does not sound unreasonable to me.  I can see some benefits
as well as some drawbacks.  First, to be acceptable to me, this
probability curve would require the value 1 to be an asumtote (sp?),
with probability of "truth" approaching but never reaching one.  The
reason being to never reach certainty, or "truth". The
benefit of this philosophy, as I see it, would be in its application
to applied sciences (redundant).  Yes, if we have amassed a huge
corroborative base, for all practical purposes (i.e. designign television sets and space shuttles) the "truth" value may be useful.  But, the main
drawback I can see, is for pure science.  If scientists get too
bogged down by what they believe is real, the overall advancement
of a scientific base would be endangered. IMHO, a paradigm shift
is not something to be avoided, but welcomed.

>
>In the case of the light speed limit, there are numerous theoretical
>reasons and probably billions of experiments that are consistent with 
>the hypothesis that the speed of light is fixed and cannot be exceeded.  
>There are few theoretical reasons and no experimental evidence to show 
>otherwise.  The "weight of the evidence" is clearly in favor of the 
>"accepted theory".  This isn't "proof" in the religious sense, but it 
>is an explanation for why scientists believe what they do, and it is 
>very reasonable for all of us to believe the light-speed hypothesis to 
>be basically correct.
>
>-- 
>  Robert E. McGrath

I don't think we are in a great deal of desagreement.  I simply
think you may underestimate the power of falsification

-- 
--------------------------------------     Jim Spice
And we're off, like a dirty shirt!         U. of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee
		--Lester Earnest Spice     Dept. of Political Science
======================================     spice@convex.csd.uwm.edu