Tetronian comments on The Strong Occam's Razor - Less Wrong

13 Post author: cousin_it 11 November 2010 05:28PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 11 November 2010 08:57:49PM 0 points [-]

I disagree, since prediction != theory. It is certainly possible to have a theory (e.g. Freud's ideas about the ego and superego) that make no predictions. In the comment above, cousin_it is correct in that "unfalsifiable prediction" is a contradiction, but "unfalsifiable theory" is not. It just means that the theory is not well-formed and does not pay rent.

Comment author: komponisto 11 November 2010 10:50:26PM 0 points [-]

It is certainly possible to have a theory (e.g. Freud's ideas about the ego and superego) that make[s] no predictions.

Though cousin_it will have to speak for himself, I believe he was specifically disagreeing with this when he wrote:

Show me any unfalsifiable theory, and I'll invent some predictions that follow from it, they will just be "impossible to test".

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