How do you decide if something is factual?

[Loudmouth]

And that means evolution is a fact?

"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered."--Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

I would suggest you read the whole thing.

So you really are saying none of science is based on opinion?

I am saying that scientific theories are not opinions. Evolution is a scientific theory.

And when you say testable, do you mean the tests show a certain proof?

I mean tested. All theories are tentative and no theory is ever viewed as being absolutely proven.

"Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor)."--Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

A lot of your mistakes could be avoided by reading Gould's essay.

I'm assuming you think my parents created me....if so, think bigger/further back. If not then you'll need to further explain.

You need to present some evidence.

 

[The Brown Brink]

I guess if you don't know or understand the science it could be...

Much like the origins of water on Earth, there are several good exlpanations - it's less a mystery, more a question of how much each contributes.

I think it's the "provable" requirement.

In science, if you can't objectively prove it, you can't claim it.

Good explanations don't really meet the requirement...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I think it's the "provable" requirement.

In science, if you can't objectively prove it, you can't claim it.

Good explanations don't really meet the requirement...

Science deals in falsifiable explanatory models, not proofs - that's the domain of the analytic fields - maths & logic. See The Scientific Method.

So, no.

 

[The Brown Brink]

Science deals in falsifiable explanatory models, not proofs - that's the domain of the analytic fields - maths & logic. See The Scientific Method.

So, no.

I'm sorry...I don't understand the "So, no."
What are you saying "no" to?

 

[Kylie]

To quote one of them:

"I have written this book mainly for people who believe, as I do, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God from cover to cover."

The author of that remark is a neuro scientist at Cambridge, and certainly no YEC.

Wow, that has no context.

What book is that? Is it a book arguing for God? A book arguing against YEC? Why can't you just answer with a yes or a no?

 

[Kylie]

As for not seeing the shower running the conclusion was we had no idea HOW or WHAT could cause this but the conclusion (all of us hearing it and the room full of steam) was deduced by the facts (which cannot be tested). There is no natural explanation. Something invisible to the human eye caused this to happen. Ghosts? Who knows, but not explainable by the laws of physics at that time.

How can you deduce anything from facts that can't be tested? And if you can't test them, then how do you know they are facts?

But let's not get away from the point which was your example was of something you know and your examples (experiment) was to show your daughter it was true not false.

And do you have something to say about it?

 

[Kylie]

So are you saying the premise you believed was that the speed of falling objects was based solely on their weight? And you were trying to prove this wrong? No...I do not believe that is what you believed (but I cannot test this) I believe you knew already that it was not true and you were demonstrating as true that which you already knew to be true.

No, I am saying that is what my daughter believed. And I did the experiment to prove her beliefs were wrong.

 

[Kylie]

But it should not be accepted as a fact if you can't think of something that proves it wrong.

Change the wording to "might prove it wrong" as "thinking of something" does not prove it wrong. And NO! Just because something cannot be disproven does not make it true.

I really don't think you understand what falsifiability actually means.

Let me give you an example. Suppose I make the claim, "All snarks are boojums." Can you think of anything which could falsify that claim? Of course - you could find a snark that is NOT a boojum. Do you agree with this?

 

[Kylie]

You seem to be totally confused over the meaning of the word "refute". It means to prove another wrong. I'm still waiting on your refute but you seem to be running away. Is it because you cannot prove me wrong? Of course it is. God Bless you

Yeah, I know what it means.

And you seem to be under the silly idea that prior to 2016 that scientists had no idea that water was required for life?

Besides, it wouldn't have been to difficult for people back then to see how important water was. Especially since they lived in a desert.

Now stop trotting out the same weak argument.

 

[pshun2404]

Wow...

Apparently, when you plagiarized those SAME GENES from Yahoo Answers, you failed to actually check up on them.

Nope! I do not read Yahoo answers...maybe they read the same comparison somewhere.

 

[Kylie]

Then let us see Who made them?

Gen 1:21 And God (Elohim-The Trinity) created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after Their kind,

God blessed them AFTER He created them. Amen?

So now you are getting to your point after starting with irrelevancies.

But let's see what else you wrote EARLIER in this thread, shall we?

From post 87, You said:

Jesus always makes temporary things, things which are subject to death on this Earth. God is telling the Son to bring forth living creatures from the GROUND, from the EARTH. God made ETERNAL creatures from WATER. Gen 1:21 SOME of them were made after His (Jesus kinds) since they are the "common ancestors". Adam, made from the ground, is the common ancestor of ALL Humans. That's WHY Humans MUST be born again by the Trinity IF they want Eternal life. Gen 1:26 Gen 5:1-2 and John 14:16 Amen?
​

So, according to you, if something was made by God, then it's eternal. And if something was made by Jesus, then it's temporary.

Now, also according to you, God made the fish. You said, "God made ETERNAL creatures from WATER." That would include fish, no?

And Jesus made cattle from the ground. You said, "God is telling the Son to bring forth living creatures from the GROUND, from the EARTH." So God tells Jesus to do it, but it's Jesus, not God, who actually makes them from the ground. And according to you, made by Jesus = temporary.

So by your own claims, fish, which were made from water by God, are eternal, and cattle, which were made from the ground by Jesus, are temporary.

 

[Kylie]

I think it's cool how the Bible tells about the Flood coming from God...
Some say that God kept a reserve of water somewhere in the sky...

And science has no real answer as to how all the water on our planet got here...just that it likely came from space...from the sky...

Kinda cool...

Science and the Bible agree.

No, they do not agree. Water was around before even single celled organisms were alive. Origin of water on Earth - Wikipedia

 

[Kylie]

Frances Kelsey ... from St. Margaret's school?

Yes, and she had a great love for SCIENCE, and it was SCIENCE she was doing which showed her the risks, wasn't it?

So you are so quick to blame science for bad things, but you leave out two important things.

First, it was science that also fixed the problem.

Secondly, religion did nothing about it.

 

[AV1611VET]

First, it was science that also fixed the problem.

Science had BETTER fix the problem.

They created it.

Unless your attitude is:

Johnny! You march upstairs and clean up Suzie's mess right this minute!

 

[pshun2404]

I really don't think you understand what falsifiability actually means.

Let me give you an example. Suppose I make the claim, "All snarks are boojums." Can you think of anything which could falsify that claim? Of course - you could find a snark that is NOT a boojum. Do you agree with this?

Well since we are discussing fictional characters YES if we found a snark that is not a boojum this would disprove that ALL SNARKS ARE boojums. Now whatr does that have to do with your claim that something you believe you test over and over trying to prove it wrong? Which you DID NOT demonstrate. Plus, if you did 10,000 tests to prove it wrong and failed this does not mean some test at some time could not prove it wrong. You know the way this works. If people do a test that may indicate something they already are convinced of as true is not, many do not admit it, they do other tests, or alter the controls and variables until they get the result, or alter their explanation to explain away the possible discrepancy.

And I do understand what "falsifiability" means and your original claim was not a good example of that. Regardless of the soundness of the concept of falsification most experiments do not INTEND to disprove.

 

[Kylie]

But even if you found none of those, it still hadn't disproved that I did eat strawberries. But that's beside the point. I could use "It is a fact that I just raised my hand and put it down before I made this post" instead, or many others to show that facts do not have to be falsifiable.

But if you claimed that you ate strawberries and yet I found no indication of them - no chewed up strawberries in your tummy, no strawberry stems in your garbage, now strawbery seeds between your teeth - then that is evidence that your claim is wrong, isn't it?

Falsifiability could mean:
(1) able to be proven to be false (common definition)
(2) capable of being tested (verified or falsified) by experiment or observation

Since I equate "fact" to "truth", something that is true cannot be proven to be false, regardless of whether human are capable of testing its truthfulness by experiment or observation.

Yeah, you really don't understand what it means.

Falsifiability - Wikipedia

That's what I said in post #74:

And in that we are agreed. Something which is not falsifiable - the claim that I am a fairy, for example - should not be considered fact. But there are things which are not falsifiable and yet are believed true by many people, things which have ways of explaining away any apparent mistakes. The belief in astrology, for example. Whenever there is something which does not fit the model of astrology, adherents find ways to explain why the inconsistency doesn't count. Their belief in such things is irrational.

You seem to be under the idea that falsifiable means it is wrong. It does not. Something can be falsifiable and be absolutely true. I am sitting in a chair right now, typing this post on my computer. This is, I guarantee you, 100% factual. But it is also very easily falsified. Because you can easily think of something that would show it to be wrong - you could find me out in the back yard mowing the lawn right now. That would prove false the claim that I am sitting in a chair writing this on a computer.

"Evidence" is subject to interpretation.

Which is why it is tested again and again. In many different ways by many different people.

 

[Kylie]

Yes I am suggesting that, simple because the bible does not support the idea of evolution.

For a Christian to believe in evolution they have to read into the bible things like millions of years that reading what the bible says does not support.

So you think that your interpretation of the Bible is the only correct one?

 

[Kylie]

Science had BETTER fix the problem.

They created it.

Unless your attitude is:

Johnny! You march upstairs and clean up Suzie's mess right this minute!

By your logic, shouldn't it be the same scientists who invented thalidomide who need to fix the problem?

 

[Kylie]

Well since we are discussing fictional characters YES if we found a snark that is not a boojum this would disprove that ALL SNARKS ARE boojums. Now whatr does that have to do with your claim that something you believe you test over and over trying to prove it wrong? Which you DID NOT demonstrate.

Because I'm attempting to educate you on what falsifiability is.

Plus, if you did 10,000 tests to prove it wrong and failed this does not mean some test at some time could not prove it wrong. You know the way this works. If people do a test that may indicate something they already are convinced of as true is not, many do not admit it, they do other tests, or alter the controls and variables until they get the result, or alter their explanation to explain away the possible discrepancy.

But peer review is likely to catch that. Science is not done in isolation. When findings are presented, they are looked over and scrutinised by other scientists.

And I do understand what "falsifiability" means and your original claim was not a good example of that. Regardless of the soundness of the concept of falsification most experiments do not INTEND to disprove.

You do not speak like you know what falsifiability means.

 

[AV1611VET]

By your logic,

By my logic?

It's your logic too.

I'm actually agreeing with you.