Popper

=== Popper foreshadowed ===
Below it seems that Charles Hodge in his book What is Darwinism fore-shadowed Popper's principle of falsifiability.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19192/19192-h/19192-h.htm#Footnote_34_34
".....2. There is no pretence that the theory can be proved. Mr. Darwin does not pretend to prove it. He admits that all the facts in the case can be accounted for on the assumption of divine purpose and control. All that he claims[Pg 145] for his theory is that it is possible. His mode of arguing is that if we suppose this and that, then it may have happened thus and so. Amiable and attractive as the man presents himself in his writings, it rouses indignation, in one class at least of his readers, to see him by such a mode of arguing reaching conclusions which are subversive of the fundamental truths of religion...."
It is this "mode of arguing" that Popper identified as being unfalsifiable. Theories that can't be proved is a different way saying they aren't falsifiable. Charles Hodge , Samuel Butler and probably others identified Darwin's propositions as unfalsifiable, Popper gave this insight a name.
Darwin alternates between 'principle of natural selection' and 'process of natural selection' in OoS reflecting his confusion between principle/process, cause/effect and pattern/design.
He correctly identified Aristotle's concept of "..those constituted weren't perishable (or favorable) as a principle1(logical validity) labeling it principle1 of natural selection. In a certain context Aristotle's concept is a type1 tautology1 or logical validity like 'what happens, happens' is a validity. But because Aristotle used a validity as a proposition to argue for a conclusion his tautology1 supportive scaffolding became tautology3.
The fallacy of rhetorical tautological narratives involves using assertions as propositions making the conclusion a non-sequitur. Logical validity's are assertions or principles, they are not mechanisms or processes.
A theory will make bold predictions involving a process, such a theory will have assertions or tautology1 structures as assumed premises.
=== Limits of falsification ===
The only reason I can think of that the universe wasn't created 5min ago with the past a collective trick implanted into our heads by Loki the trick god is because I don't believe it.
There is no falsifiable(not scientific) means of determining whether everything wasn't created 5min ago: our only evidence is faith and faith is the evidence for things we know to be true but will never be able to prove.
We have to assume something, something that isn't open to Popper falsification.
=== Notes ===
http://www.amazon.com/tag/evolution/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx3026SUV1GMAPD&cdThread=Tx1XJHC5OMMNB1P&displayType=tagsDetail
=== Notes 1 ===
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7Gq8lOLVzG4J:www.philosophypress.co.uk/%3Fp%3D744+%22elliot+wave%22+falsifiable+OR+unfalsifiable&cd=15&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=za
It’s a pity that Wolpert slags off Karl Popper as being a waste of space. I wonder which book he read, with such disdain? If it was ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery’, then I can understand his frustration, as this is difficult and intricate. But I found, e.g. the first chapter of “Objective Knowledge” thoroughy illuminating and quite unpretentious. Indeed one of Popper’s great virtues is to write modestly and with great clarity. As a social scientist I was abolutely stunned by Popper’s arguments showing that (i) the search for certainty in science is misguided, (ii) that we don’t progress by collecting facts and then interpreting them with a theory, and (iii) that the thing to try to do is to make a bold falsifiable conjecture and then test it. Popper was not writing a handbook on how to do science; he was pointing out what was of enduring value in the scientific method. The logical assymetry between the weakness of amassing positive examples (”every swan I’ve ever seen is white, so all swans must be white”) and the power of devastating negative examples (the very first black swan I see falsifies the rule: “all swans are white”)remains important, it seems to me. It might not have done it for Wolpert but for me, Science was never the same again.
 Posted by Richard Fox | October 23, 2009, 12:40 pm
 10.
=== asdf ===
http://www.geocities.com/criticalrationalist/#online
=== asdf ===
On Oct 19, 7:13 pm, wf3h <w...@vsswireless.net> wrote:
> > And there being no intent is a way of saying: What will be, will be.
> > This was the Aristotelian , Epicurian, Empedoclian view, reformulated
> > by DArwin as natural selection, a term he lifted from Patrick
> > Matthews.
> > The fallacy is to say: What happens , happens(natural selection or
> > theory of evolution) and then therefore a monkey gave birth to a
> > human, which doesn't follow logically.
http://www.geocities.com/criticalrationalist/#online
Sections 19 and 20 of Popper's "Logic of Scientific Discovery", in which he discusses "conventionalist stratagems" to rescue a theory from falsification. Popper writes, "Whenever the `classical' system of the day is threatened by the results of new experiments which might be interpreted as falsifications . . . the system will appear unshaken to the conventionalist."
Popper goes on to explain the stratagems the conventionalist will use to deal with the inconsistencies that have arisen between the predictions of the theory and the results of experiments:
1. Blame our inadequate mastery of the system.
2. Suggest the ad hoc adoption of auxiliary hypotheses.
3. Suggest corrections to measuring instruments.
4. Modify definitions used in the theory.
5. Adopt a skeptical attitude of the observer whose observations threaten the system by excluding his observations from science because (a) they are insufficiently supported; (b) they are unscientific; (c) they are not objective.
6. Call the experimenter a liar.
What is taking place is that Darwins concept as interpreted by Osborn, Burroughs, Kingsley and Waagen is being redefined , but the same terms are retained leading to huge confusion as to what we are talking about. Because Aristotle's what happens , happens notion reformulated and rebranded as
theory of evolution can' be falsified. Nr.4 says that the conventionalist modifies definitions used.
=== Steven ===
stevedoetsch(7)
http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/06/20/karl-popper-and-evolution-is-evolutionary-theory-based-on-a-tautology.htm
Some claim Popper recanted in 1976 yet in 1982 Popper maintains the very thing he is said to have recanted. Evidence from the text shows Popper’s “recant” to be a tongue and cheek response to his critics. Whatever people report on this subject from now on, they will be violating the ethics of full disclosure if they report that Popper recanted his claim that NS is untestable and neglect to report that he continued to believe that evolution is a “metaphysical research programme.”
You say, “Only creationists and people who really don’t know anything about evolution expect evolution to have anything to say about the origin of life.” Daniel C. Dennett in “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” says that evolution is an algorithm that can turn chaos into order, and order into design. He concludes that a natural process by which chaos becomes design has far reaching ramification in all spheres of study overlapping biology, like a “universal acid” that burns everything it touches. Dennett shows that evolution is relevant to the origin of life, and I wouldn’t call him a creationist, or some one who doesn’t really know anything about evolution.
The deeper one’s knowledge of evolution the better one sees its inability to explain the origin of species. Whether this is because NS is a tautology and therefore has no power to explain, or it is because NS has no power to explain and is therefore a tautology, I haven’t yet figured out. Whatever we label NS, it cannot explain a straight line in development from a single cell to you or me.
We can, of course, debate the tautological status of NS ourselves, without making calls to authority. That is, unless you think NS taboo and you think it shouldn’t be questioned (Though I find questioning my assumptions to be very enlightening.)
To start, you keep making the claim that NS is observed, which is a fact irrelevant to the tautological status of NS.
“As to the origin of new species, that’s been observed in both the field and the laboratory – and natural selection explains it just fine.”
No one says NS has not been observed. Tautologies can be observed and NS is an observed tautology. “All naked people are not wearing clothes” is a tautology that can be observed “in both the field and the laboratory”. Just because something is observed doesn’t mean it’s not a tautology. Explaining why there are naked people in the field and laboratory is distinct from observing that they are there. If one offers the definition of an occurrence as the cause for that occurrence one offers a tautological explanation. Tautologies can’t be used as explanations because they attempt to use the observation of something as the explanation for that same thing. In short, tautological explanations confuse effects for causes by stating an effect is its own cause.
(BTW- new species form via various modes of a process called “speciation” and nobody debates its occurrence. It just can’t lead from single celled organisms to the diversity and complexity of life around us today, since speciation results in a reproductively isolated genetic subset of the original species. The subset of the genetic information in a single celled organism is not a step toward the information in you or me. Speciation is empirical evidence that genetic information decreases in a population over time.)
In logic, a tautology is a statement that is always true in a truth table. No matter what is plugged into the variables on one side the result is always true on the other. Tautologies can’t be scientific explanations since they can’t be empirically tested for their validity. They are true simply by definition. Statements can be tautologies by their logical structure like, “All crows are black or not black”. The statement is logically expressed “either X or not X”, and is always true no matter what we use to replace X. Statements are also tautologies when they make recursive claims like, “All naked people are not wearing clothes”, and “If dogs could sweat they’d perspire.” The fact that NS can be stated as the tautology “survival of the fittest” is a clue that it is a tautology, though this is by no means the end of the evidence.
NS is always true since it “predicts” all levels of complexity. The increase, decrease, or stability in complexity of organisms in a population are all “predicted” by NS. For example, if beetles with wings outlive beetles without wings then the beetles with wings are more fit because their wings allow them to travel further, and search for mates and food more easily. If beetles without wings outlive those with wings because on a particular island the wind blows flying beetles into the sea, then the beetles without wings are more fit. NS is a tautology because it “predicts” that organisms will survive that have traits that help them survive.
Your confusion arises in that it seems quite obvious to you that NS can explain the change in the average beak size in a finch population on the Galapagos after a drought, for example. But NS does not explain the change in beak size; it is the observation of the change in beak size. NS is simply the label we give for the death of a portion of a population that leads to a shift in the proportion of traits in that population. NS is an empirical observation that organisms that don’t die replenish the population. NS becomes recursive when we try to use it as an explanation for the same observation. We can’t make NS into its own explanation. If we start with the assumption that beaks of various sizes exist, and then we remove most small beaks (this is natural selection), we are of course left with bigger beaks on average. The cause of the big beaks is not that we removed small beaks, but that we started with big beaks as a premise. Since big beaks exist, then if they don’t cease to exist, they will continue to exist. The observation that something that exists has not ceased to exist does not explain why it exists in the first place. NS is a tautology because it restates its premise as its conclusion.
So NS is true (after all, tautologies are always true), it does occur “in both the field and the laboratory” as you said. You attack a straw man when you say it’s observed because no one, not even creationists, say that it’s not observed. Traits in living populations have been observed to change in proportion within the population. Some animals do die while others do live. The living, of course, replenish the population with their genes, and the dead do not. This is not an explanation of the source of life sustaining genetic info, but simply the observation that there is life sustaining genetic info. All parties agree that life sustaining genetic info will spread thru a population if it is present. The debate is over whether life sustaining genetic info spontaneously occurs in nature. But really there’s no debate because this has never been observed in either the field or the laboratory. Anti-evolutionists are simply trying to convince evolutionists that something that is not observed, but is deduced from a set of beliefs, cannot be a scientific fact. As soon as the formation of new genetic information is empirically observed the attempts will end, as there is no empirical evidence anti-evolutionists (including biblical creationists) reject. Since information has thru history been confirmed to be the product of the human mind alone, the best available theory says that whatever produced genetic information has a thinking and reasoning capacity similar to, but greater than, our own.
(There is one way evolution could be the origin of species. Devolution.)
(There is one way that NS is not a tautology. Inversion. NS explains the specific reason an organism didn’t die, not the reason it’s alive in the first place. But not really, NS is the observation that it happened)
May 15, 2006 at 1:05 pm
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=== Time of PID infusion ===
We are told that the mass of biological literature defines the theory that doesn't exist on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Evolution
This might be so, but isn't a Popper bold falsifiable prediction. It would take many years to scour all the journals to find this theory. A bold falsifiable prediction would be to refer to a single paper that explains how the transition matrix that maps poly-peptide space to chicken space held the PID control algorithms "in reserve" somewhere before infusing it into the chicken brain. A theory must have a good grip on the problem description. 
Evolutionists claim to have a theory but don't grasp the problem. We have a real-time algorithm or brain problem: the brain stores and executes the IPC (inverted pendulum control) algorithm, but where did the algorithm come
from during the development of the Chicken embrio when it had no functioning brain?
With genes an assumption is being made: it contains the complete information to form a chicken including the abstract control algorithms. From a YEC view, Jesus Christ himself, Language personified, infuses the algorithms from an unseen dimension, he literally stores the PID algorithm and instills it into the chicken storage mechanism,brain at a certain point.
== notes ==
Popper
http://www.uncommondescent.com/religion/david-berlinski-and-the-devils-delusion/
Popper says: "....that historically speaking all — or very nearly all — scientific theories originate from myths..."
".....At the same time I realized that such myths may be developed, and become testable; that historically speaking all — or very nearly all — scientific theories originate from myths, and that a myth may contain important anticipations of scientific theories. Examples are Empedocles’ theory of evolution by trial and error, or Parmenides’ myth of the unchanging block universe in which nothing ever happens and which, if we add another dimension, becomes Einstein’s block universe (in which, too, nothing ever happens, since everything is, four-dimensionally speaking, determined and laid down from the beginning). I thus felt that if a theory is found to be non-scientific, or “metaphysical” (as we might say), it is not thereby found to be unimportant, or insignificant, or “meaningless,” or “nonsensical.” But it cannot claim to be backed by empirical evidence in the scientific sense — although it may easily be, in some genetic sense, the “result of observation.” ........................"
=== Falsificationtific instead of scientific ===
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem#Falsificationism
....Popper saw demarcation as a central problem in the philosophy of science. In place of verificationism he proposed falsification as a way of determining if a theory is scientific or not. If a theory is falsifiable, then it is scientific; if it is not falsifiable, then it is not science....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific
....This article is about the general term, particularly as it refers to experimental sciences. For the specific topics of study by scientists, see Natural science. For other uses, see Science (disambiguation). Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[1].....
Replace 'testable with falsifiable.
rephrase:
..... Science is the organizing of knowledge in the form of falsifiable explanations ....
rephrase:
..... Science is falsifiable explanations ....
rephrase:
..... Science is falsifiability ....
Finally: 'Science' is the synonym for falsifiability.
Lets now rephrase: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem#Falsificationism
....Popper saw demarcation as a central problem in the philosophy of science. In place of verificationism he proposed falsification as a way of determining if a theory is *falsifiable* or not. If a theory is falsifiable, then it is falsifiable; if it is not falsifiable, then it is not falsifiable. .....'
Do you see that we now wind up with tautological nonsense? A or not-A isn't falsifiable, this doesn't mean that it is rubbish. Thus what we assume to be irrational will ultimately depend on what we assume but will never be able to prove. Thus as a matter of logic falsifiability itself can't escape the implications of Godels theorem :
http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Godel's_incompleteness_theorem
In determining whether we have a rational view we must avoid the fallacy of *Infinite regress*. Carl Sagan said that the universe itself might not have an explanation, but if it does have an explanation then the best explanation would be the Lord God Jesus Christ.
If we designate something as the best explanation, that explanation does not itself need an explanation, or we have infinite regress such as with Dawkins question: Who made God? We can generalize it to: Why does a phenomena defined as possessing attributes, not have those attributes. The question is irrational.
=== Popper fails to note tautologies ===
p.345 http://laboratoriogene.info/Ciencia_Hoje/Popper1978.pdf
In its most daring and sweeping form, the theory of natural selection would 
assert that all organisms, and especially all those highly complex organs whose
existence might be interpreted as evidence of design and , in addition, all forms of 
animal behaviour, have evolved as the result of natural selection, that is, as the result of chance-like inheritable variations, of which the useless ones are weeded out, so that only the useful ones remain.---------------
useful and remain are the disssimilar terms that self-referentially refer to the same fact, saying the same thing twice. If not even Popper could spot a tautology then it is no wonder the rest of society has such difficulty.
Note the many ways of using dissimilar terms to say the same thing twice:
* 1) Favorable attributes are preserved - Wikipedia version.
* 2) useful ones remain - Popper
* 3) Perpetuators proliferate - Standford tautologies
* 4) Those constituted were preserved - Aristotle.
The formulators of these rhetorical tautological sentences have different views on the scale by which attributes were acquired: Spontaneous such as Aristotle or gradual as Darwin had it. But note how Darwin lifted Aristotle's tautological proposition, guaranteeing the truth of his proposition(Spontaneous generation) to formulate a different guaranteed proposition from which he derived a different conclusion. Because tautologies guarantee the truth of the proposition, it allows one to come to any arbitrary conclusion. This allows evolutionary theory to adapt itself to the facts like a fog adapts to a mountain.
== Parmenides ==
http://sci.physics.relativity.narkive.com/PLfqb3kb/sir-karl-popper-on-einstein-s-block-universe
At the same time I realized that such myths may be developed, and
become testable; that historically speaking all  or very nearly
all  scientific theories originate from myths, and that a myth
may contain important anticipations of scientific theories.
Examples are Empedocles' theory of evolution by trial and error,
or Parmenides' myth of the unchanging block universe in which
nothing ever happens and which, if we add another dimension,
becomes Einstein's block universe (in which, too, nothing ever
happens, since everything is, four-dimensionally speaking,
determined and laid down from the beginning).
== Falsifiability is not falsifiable ==
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/philosophy/science-does-not-require-metaphysical-assumptions-t32582-880.html  If science doesn't work, then it is uninformative, so it cannot inform us that it doesn't work. Alternatively, if science works, then it cannot inform us that it doesn't work, as that would be misinformation. Accordingly, we cannot apply the principle of falsifiability to science, and in particular, we cannot apply it to the notion of falsifiability. This means that falsifiability is not falsifiable, and doesn't meet the standards required for scientific testability. In short, we have an untestable assumption that is essential for the conduct of science.
https://www.google.ru/search?q=%22falsifiability+is+not+falsifiable%22&btnG=%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA&newwindow=1&hl=ru&gbv=1
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/talk.origins/QAqD6hJ_pmA/lMPBW0-HCScJ
When a traffic robot is both green and red due to intentionally 
connecting it as such at the street we have a contradiction. A picture 
of a green/red robot in a book is an oxymoron at first sight, it only 
becomes a contradiction when we know the intent . A tornado hits a 
robot shorting the wires and lighting up the green/red leds, we have 
an oxymoron and not a contradiction because tornado's don't have 
intent. Only intentionality,will, volition or purpose maps an oxymoron 
into a contradiction and a pleonasm into a tautology.
Only premises could be contradictory or tautological. A sentence isn't 
a premise, because a sentence as a symbolic representation of a 
premise doesn't constitute the essence of Purpose1, will or 
volition. Maxwell's equations describe the property of magnetism but 
not the essence of magnetism: nobody knows what energy or magnetism; 
its essence is. Sentences have a physical location, but purpose or 
will has no physical location. This is not a falsifiable view, but 
neither is the reverse. God and humans with intentions use *sentence 
objects* to express their premise, their premise can only be decoded 
by signal receiver if there is mutual agreement on the symbolism with 
either an acceptance or rejection of Type Video1 or Type video2 
symbolism.
Question: Is falsifiability itself falsifiable?
Video1 and video2 - only two types of videos possible: 
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/53a61d86f9a5a68d
It is not clear what the Aristotelian editors of the Wikipedia ID 
article mean with undirected. They insist 
that undirected isn't the synonym of random, nor the antonym of 
directed, non-random, will or Purpose1. Therefore 
to get at the premise behind 'undirected' replace the object with 
either one of two objects: lead or copper ball picture 
in the article. Clicking on the picture takes us to a video Youtube 
clip demonstrating what the materialists could possibly mean with the 
symbol undirected.
The following video clips are shown:
Vid1(no purpose): Cat walks on the table and knocks over container 
filled with alphabetic letters made out of wood.
Vid2(purpose): Man walks into room picks up container and throws out 
the letters on the floor.
A copper ball is placed on the table beside all videos of type Vid1 
and a lead ball besides all videos of type Vid2, meaning we 
symbolically represent a pattern with a purpose with copper and those 
without purpose with a lead ball. This raises the question: What other 
possible means could there be as to how these wood letters fell on the 
ground? Any other way would only be of two *types* Vid1 or Vid2.
If we were to sit there with a video camera from now to eternity 
capturing each event of the container spilling the letters on the 
ground of what possible type could they be other than Vid1 or Vid2? 
The reasonable answer would be none, based on experience: there are 
only two Platonic primary binary contrasts either the letters on the 
ground is a pattern with a purpose or a pattern without a purpose.
Earthquake, tornado -> type Vid1 
Clock timing device pulling in relay to knock over container -> type 
Vid2.
Copper itself, representing only itself is not the contrast to the 
lead ball: the only contrast is the contrast in *concepts*. The only 
literal meaning that the copper ball and lead ball have are copper and 
lead, they only represent themselves. The copper ball does not mean 
events of type Vid1, it is only an arbitrary object used to 
metaphorically represent events of type Vid1. Meaning is only 
something observers of type Vid1 and Vid2 can agree on.
YEC are using volitional type language that was used to represent all 
concepts as either type Vid1 or Vid2. Atheists disagrees that type 
Vid1 and Vid2 are our only options and are using the same semantic 
objects YEC use to represent a world view where Platonic primary 
contrasts are not *assumed*. Note that I wrote assume and Dawkins also 
wrote that he does not *assume* Platonic opposites, because this is 
not a matter of falsifiable scientific testable constructs but about 
what unfalsifiable untestable validities we *assume* as logical.
By the precepts of empiricism the claims of logic are not falsifiable 
and since our falsifiable theories must assume logical validities , we 
have to make clear what we assume, that which we know to be true, 
neither refutable nor verifiable for eternity.
There is therefore no such thing as a literal meaning with alphabetic 
objects found in a dictionary, all semantic objects are used in either 
the majority metaphor or minority metaphor. Dictionaries document the 
majority metaphor.
Many dictionaries post Darwin around 1901 started to list a *third 
option* for the object 'selection'. Before around 1901 its majority 
metaphor is to make a decision (type Vid2) and its minority 
metaphorical usage is type Vid1 , after this the dictionaries began to 
list its Biological usage.
But from the YEC Platonic primary contrasts there can't be such a 
thing as a Biological meaning, only a type Vid1 and Vid2 meaning, 
since this is our only experiential reference frame.
By analogy , if people across the world were to agree on a copper ball 
representing patterns without a purpose then it would be documented as 
the *majority metaphor* in dictionaries.
Undirected does not mean the concept displayed with Vid1(no purpose): 
it is an arbitrary object or symbol we agree on to *symbolically* 
represent Vid1 and Vid1 we understand as the contrast to Vid2. 
Undirected can merely be some *defined* majority metaphor and we find 
these definitions in dictionaries.
The semantic objects you choose to use is whatever you want. In many 
cases an object such as 'random' is used in the minority metaphor such 
as representing purpose(Vid2) , when a person does Probability 
Sampling(selecting).
What type of Vid1(no purpose) or Vid2(purpose) is represented with 
undirected in the ID article on Wikipedia? If neither type then 
explain what would be the third option and how we would avoid infinite 
regress.
A device through which random sized balls are thrown have rings with 
round holes ranking from large to small spaced 
down a tube with an equal set distance between the rings. It will 
sort(algorithmic design) the balls from large to small and is an 
object with a Purpose1 generating a pattern with a 
Purpose1. The specific balls that will filter through first 
is random2, but the end result is predictable.
In other words instead of informing me as to the "meaning" of 
random,undirected,non-random etc. designate the type of video(vid1) 
or Vid2 you would upload to Youtube to represent what is meant with 
'undirected' in the ID wikipedia page. One would especially be 
interested in Video type 3 , the video demonstrating the third 
alternative to a pattern with a purpose and pattern with a purpose, 
this is the type of video John Wilkins, Dawkins, Burkhard actually 
mean with the objects random,non-random. If only they would upload it.
Category:TauTology
Category:falsification
Category:Charles Hodge