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Luke_A_Somers 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: Luke_A_Somers 12 April 2016 12:27:31PM 0 points [-]

No, it isn't. Unless you mean we should jump straight to continuous Bayesian updating, in which case it isn't at the level he's talking about.

Comment author: SanguineEmpiricist 12 April 2016 09:00:24PM *  0 points [-]

I'm not sure I understand claims are supposed to be *) Universal *) not spatio-temporally restricted right? I thought pseudo-statements were a good example....?

I'm not even sure what he is asking for..

Wikipedia lists the "all swans are white" as an example for a falsifiable statement, but it is not practical enough. To prove that all swans are white would require to observe all the swans in the world. I'm searching of a simple example which uses the scientific method to determine the workings of an unknown system, starting by forming a good hypothesis.

Falsifiability was created for non spatio-temporally universal statements right? The point is that those are unverifiable. So OP saying "all swans are white" is not verifiable is part of the point for why falsifiability was introduced and cannot be merely taken out.

OP seems to say he wants a statement where you could verify all claims(?) Or hints towards that (by expressing displeasure against the all swans are white example) but the point is that claim is not verifiable, but falsifiable. So why is that example unsatisfactory? He seems to want to make falsifiability something other than what it is.

again > To prove that all swans are white would require to observe all the swans in the world.

Help me out here?

Falsifiability is used to separate science vs metaphysics, as a criterion of demarcation, so how is the OP's example of the 2-4-6 game even make sense? I'm not quite sure I understand what any one is asking.

"We must clearly distinguish between falsifiability and falsification. e have introduced falsifiability solely as criterion for the empirical character of a system of statements. As to falsification, special rules must be introduced which will determine under what conditions a system is to be regarded as falsified. "

So the flying spaghetti monster example or my example does work, doesn't it? Ok fine I see this line was the critical one here.

"A good working example would be one, where we want to study a familiar concept, but by forgetting to take falsifiability into account, we arrive to an obviously wrong (and preferably humorous) conclusion."

And it's written by val so I assume it's for CFAR?