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ike comments on How to provide a simple example to the requirement of falsifiability in the scientific method to a novice audience? - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Val 11 April 2016 09:26PM

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Comment author: ike 11 April 2016 11:55:59PM -1 points [-]

Does the flying spaghetti monster work?

Or the example in http://lesswrong.com/lw/ip/fake_explanations/?

Comment author: Val 12 April 2016 03:38:16AM 4 points [-]

This and Russel's teapot are just unverifiable claims, and not a study of understanding how a system works which would fail because we committed an innocent mistake.

Besides, they have strong ideological undertones, so all they would manage to do is to cater for the ego of those who agree with their ideological implications, and make angry those who don't. They won't really convince anyone.

Comment author: ike 12 April 2016 12:35:47PM 1 point [-]

You didn't mention what kind of audience it was. For some it would be an appropriate example.

What about the second example?

Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 14 April 2016 05:06:01PM *  0 points [-]

I think the second one works. It's unfalsifiable because it makes no predictions. If any heat-related thing can be explained by 'convection', then convection isn't saying anything.

Even nastier is Feynman's one about the baby-physics book which said 'What makes it move?' and the answer was always 'Energy makes it move'.