The Falsifiability Criterion

[BCP1928]

What you have here is the same nonsense we see in every creationist thread. Creationists are, for some reason, desparate to prove that scientists present their theories, especially the theory of evolution, as absolute truth and won't take "no" for an answer. It's a lie, and I don't see the point of it.

 

[BlueGreenEarth]

I’m not saying that papers are necessarily false or fabricated. I’m sure that most of the writers who get published generally do their best. However, I am saying that peer-review is not a guarantee that dissenting views have been considered. This is in addition to the posting by AV1611Vet.

First of all, AV1611Vet's post was not a relevant response because I wasn't arguing that the peer-review process couldn't be or ever was compromised. I asked you to describe the reasonably obtainable evidence you would expect to find if your claim about the peer-review process for relevant journal articles about the Theory of Evolution is false. Is your claim falsifiable or unfalsifiable?

 

[BCP1928]

I’m not saying that papers are necessarily false or fabricated. I’m sure that most of the writers who get published generally do their best. However, I am saying that peer-review is not a guarantee that dissenting views have been considered. This is in addition to the posting by AV1611Vet.

Of course it is not guaranteed. Sometimes scientists with dissenting views have to work hard for them to be considered, and endure periods of ridicule and exclusion. But if the idea has merit, the evidence will eventually lead the scientific community to it.

Here, though, I get the impression we are talking about something rather different, that is, dissenting views which have already been given due consideration and rejected due to lack of scientific merit.

 

[Jerry N.]

First of all, AV1611Vet's post was not a relevant response because I wasn't arguing that the peer-review process couldn't be or ever was compromised. I asked you to describe the reasonably obtainable evidence you would expect to find if your claim about the peer-review process for relevant journal articles about the Theory of Evolution is false. Is your claim falsifiable or unfalsifiable?

I think you are misunderstanding my post. I was just writing about the peer-review process in general, and it had nothing to do with evolution other than that peer-review is not a guarantee that dissenting views have been considered.

 

[Jerry N.]

Of course it is not guaranteed. Sometimes scientists with dissenting views have to work hard for them to be considered, and endure periods of ridicule and exclusion. But if the idea has merit, the evidence will eventually lead the scientific community to it.

Here, though, I get the impression we are talking about something rather different, that is, dissenting views which have already been given due consideration and rejected due to lack of scientific merit.

You might be right. I wasn’t intending to insert myself into this discussion on evolution. I was in this circus a few months ago, and I think that minds will not be changed. I favor intelligent design, probably because I am an engineer and a Bible believing Christian. However, it upsets me when peer-review is given too much authority.

 

[BlueGreenEarth]

I think you are misunderstanding my post. I was just writing about the peer-review process in general, and it had nothing to do with evolution other than that peer-review is not a guarantee that dissenting views have been considered.

I never dismissed that possibility or probability, but it would be a fallacy of composition to conclude that every instance of peer-review activity within the scientific community must be compromised because someone alleged the process had been corrupted in one or more other circumstances. If you want to claim the peer-review process for a particular scientific journal article was compromised, then it is your responsibility to identify the reasonably obtainable evidence you would expect to find if your claim is false. Otherwise, your claim is unfalsifiable (at least as far as you are concerned) and impossible to investigate or logically justify. So, is there any quantity or quality of evidence that would falsify your claim to your satisfaction?

 

[Jerry N.]

I never dismissed that possibility or probability, but it would be a fallacy of composition to conclude that every instance of peer-review activity within the scientific community must be compromised because someone alleged the process had been corrupted in one or more other circumstances. If you want to claim the peer-review process for a particular scientific journal article was compromised, then it is your responsibility to identify the reasonably obtainable evidence you would expect to find if your claim is false. Otherwise, your claim is unfalsifiable (at least as far as you are concerned) and impossible to investigate or logically justify. So, is there any quantity or quality of evidence that would falsify your claim to your satisfaction?

I don’t know what you are up to here. My posts were clear, and in the words of my fellow Poles “It is not my circus and not my monkey.”

 

[AV1611VET]

What you have here is the same nonsense we see in every creationist thread. Creationists are, for some reason, desparate to prove that scientists present their theories, especially the theory of evolution, as absolute truth and won't take "no" for an answer. It's a lie, and I don't see the point of it.

They say they won't, but ...

... ask their Steves.

 

[BCP1928]

They say they won't, but ...

... ask their Steves.

No, they don't. The provisionality is implicit in the definition of a scientific theory, and I can't think why creationists deny it.

 

[AV1611VET]

No, they don't. The provisionality is implicit in the definition of a scientific theory, and I can't think why creationists deny it.

It may be in their documentation, but how much do they actually adhere to it?

 

[BlueGreenEarth]

You might be right. I wasn’t intending to insert myself into this discussion on evolution. I was in this circus a few months ago, and I think that minds will not be changed. I favor intelligent design, probably because I am an engineer and a Bible believing Christian. However, it upsets me when peer-review is given too much authority.

Reputable scientists have no faith-based loyalty to scientific claims because they will be compelled by intellectual honesty to abandon them the moment those ideas are reasonably falsified by evidence. So, your claim that minds will not be changed is without a logical justification.

As for the "Intelligent Design" claim, it is unfalsifiable as far as I'm aware unless you are able to identify reasonably obtainable evidence that we should expect to find if the claim is false.

 

[BCP1928]

It may be in their documentation, but how much do they actually adhere to it?

It can't be avoided, being foundational to scientific epistemology and the inductive logic on which it rests.

 

[BlueGreenEarth]

I don’t know what you are up to here. My posts were clear, and in the words of my fellow Poles “It is not my circus and not my monkey.”

The only think I'm up to is critical thinking and exposing logical fallacies where they exist in arguments.

 

[AV1611VET]

As for the "Intelligent Design" claim, it is unfalsifiable as far as I'm aware unless you are able to identify reasonably obtainable evidence that we should expect to find if the claim is false.

Science went back to the drawing board to "reexamine" things when they found out the dust on the moon wasn't nearly as deep as they once thought.

But they took care of it.

They ended up concluding the moon has still been around for billions of years.

Now ... HOW we got our moon is a different wedge of cheese.

Scientists have some seven different theories as to how it came about.

 

[AV1611VET]

It can't be avoided, being foundational to scientific epistemology and the inductive logic on which it rests.

Then how did Thalidomide slip through the cracks? the Deepwater Horizon? Pluto? the Challenger? the Hindenburg? L'Aquila? Three Mile Island? Apollo 1? Chernobyl? the "lifesaving" Florida footbridge? Y2K? the Harmonic Convergence? Rely's toxic shock syndrome outbreak? Vioxx? Covid 19? the Columbia breakup? the Tuskegee Syphilis Study? the Nazi Concentration Camp Experiments? Unit 731 Research experiments? the BIA 10-2474 Safety Trial? ROCKET Trial (2016) therapy? the TGN1412 Fiasco? the Titan submarine? the Creation of CRISPR Babies? Andrew Wakefield and the MMR Vaccine fraudulent study?

To name a few.

 

[AV1611VET]

The only think I'm up to is critical thinking and exposing logical fallacies where they exist in arguments.

Mother Nature is our harshest exposer of science's oversights.

I wonder how many Nobel prize winners need to give their prizes back?

And I like referring to Pluto as "Tombaugh's Folly;" but since Tombaugh got all sorts of accolades for it, he's untouchable.

 

[BCP1928]

Then how did Thalidomide slip through the cracks? the Deepwater Horizon? Pluto? the Challenger? the Hindenburg? L'Aquila? Three Mile Island? Apollo 1? Chernobyl? the "lifesaving" Florida footbridge? Y2K? the Harmonic Convergence? Rely's toxic shock syndrome outbreak? Vioxx? Covid 19? the Columbia breakup? the Tuskegee Syphilis Study? the Nazi Concentration Camp Experiments? Unit 731 Research experiments? the BIA 10-2474 Safety Trial? ROCKET Trial (2016) therapy? the TGN1412 Fiasco? the Titan submarine? the Creation of CRISPR Babies? Andrew Wakefield and the MMR Vaccine fraudulent study?

To name a few.

None of those events was base on scientists asserting that a theory was absolute truth.

 

[BCP1928]

Mother Nature is our harshest exposer of science's oversights.

I wonder how many Nobel prize winners need to give their prizes back?

And I like referring to Pluto as "Tombaugh's Folly;" but since Tombaugh got all sorts of accolades for it, he's untouchable.

Are you saying that Tombaugh did not discover Pluto? That is a slanderous lie.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

To name a few.

A good number of those have nothing to do with science but on people ignoring science and being pressured by outside groups to not listen to scientists, and a minor number have nothing to do with science at all, such as the Harmonic Convergence; that was just 'New Age' quackery.

Also, Three Mile Island... no-one died and it actually showed how good American nuclear safety protocols were BECAUSE no-one died. That one's a little bug-bear of mine

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Are you saying that Tombaugh did not discover Pluto? That is a slanderous lie.

It really does seem that AV was personally slighted by Pluto being reclassified.