1 Topic by Justinian I (edited by Justinian I 30-Nov-2008 09:02:06)

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Topic: Empirical Testability

I would like to know the value that you place on things being empirically testable when you formulate your beliefs. By empirically testable, I mean that a belief can be tested from experience to be false. For example, the belief that I have 5 blue pens can be tested with my sense of sight. More complex beliefs may require instruments such as a microscope. By contrast, statements like "there are cloaked aliens on the moon" are not empirically testable. We have no means of designing an experiment to test that it's false. Perhaps a better term would be falsifiability.

Though I think a lot of people expect things to be testable, they will allow some exceptions for things like religion and ethics. For me, I take a very radical approach. If it can't be empirically tested, I am not going to assent to it. Instead, I am going to suspend judgment about it.

What's your stance?

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Re: Empirical Testability

I'm sitting, actually.

Morbo: Morbo can't understand his teleprompter. He forgot how you say that letter that looks like a man with a hat.
Linda: It's a 't'. It goes "tuh".
Morbo: Hello, little man. I will destroy you!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpP7b2lUxVE

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Re: Empirical Testability

So you don't believe philosophy and reason have any value?

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Re: Empirical Testability

> V.Kemp wrote:

> So you don't believe philosophy and reason have any value?>

You could consider that a philosophy, though it would limit valuable philosophies down to the skeptical/empiricists.

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Re: Empirical Testability

You can't do destructive testing on society.

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Empirical Testability

Not even on Canadian society?

tweehonderd graden, dat is waarom ze me mr. fahrenheit noemen, ik reis aan de snelheid van het licht, ik ga een supersonische man van u maken

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Re: Empirical Testability

So ye're a utilitarian through an' through, Justinian I?  Greatest amount o' happiness?  What else is measurable t' judge moral from immoral?
Yaaarrrrr!

LOL @ sittin' duck

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Re: Empirical Testability

yes bomb th' french fer all i care tongue

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Re: Empirical Testability

"You can't do destructive testing on society."

Apparently someone forgot to mention that at the first Republican national party meeting and subsequently everyone there after.

"In a world of global deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell

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Re: Empirical Testability

Yay you're ignorant. Get a room.

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Re: Empirical Testability

Who's testing? Republicans were following a blueprint

Now they're following a magic 8 ball

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Empirical Testability

Not all that is or was can be tested empirically. Things like particle research, psychology or history. Are those pseudo-sciences then? I don't think they are..

God: Behold ye angels, I have created the ass.. Throughout the ages to come men and women shall grab hold of these and shout my name...

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Re: Empirical Testability

Psychology is generally studied as empirically as possible. Its roots in science are what make it useful. Things like psychoanalysis tend not to be so scientific, but they are not the whole or the majority of psychology.

Isn't the same true of particle research? Otherwise they'd just be making stuff up. tongue

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Re: Empirical Testability

There's a difference between empirical proof and making things up Kemp!

"I mean that a belief can be tested from experience to be false."

You can't experience particles, nor psychology tongue

God: Behold ye angels, I have created the ass.. Throughout the ages to come men and women shall grab hold of these and shout my name...

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Re: Empirical Testability

Rational science says the cat is dead and alive at the same time and your observation of it tips it one way or the other

So shh

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Empirical Testability

well, using your OP, wouldnt you be believing in your senses which you cant empirically test?

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Re: Empirical Testability

Like this is the matrix

Not many people know this, but I own the first radio in Springfield. Not much on the air then, just Edison reciting the alphabet over and over. "A" he'd say; then "B." "C" would usually follow...

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Re: Empirical Testability

Particle physics is mathematically based. If the mathematics requires a particle to exist then the particle will be said to exist. Experiments are then set up to detect that particle in order to verify the mathematics. Well, not so much the mathematics which must be correct but the original assumptions that the mathematics is based on.

tweehonderd graden, dat is waarom ze me mr. fahrenheit noemen, ik reis aan de snelheid van het licht, ik ga een supersonische man van u maken

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Re: Empirical Testability

Angels or atoms? Moden science backs up its atom theory pretty damn well. But to you that's a good comparison? Maybe you just need an education :-p. Physics is fascinating stuff. It's the math that's a pain to learn!

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Re: Empirical Testability

"which is why i've always found physicists who claim to be atheists hilarious. they believe in things no one has ever seen, write books about them and lecture about them. just like most any other religion"

Deci, you clearly haven;t studied physics to a very high level. Particles may not be seen visually because they are obviously way too small, however their effects are observed and therefore it can be deduced that they exist and are there. To give a rather obtuse example, you cannot "see" gravity can you? But you know it is there because it's effects are measurable. Similarly, no one has ever seen a neutrino but it is known that it must be there because of it's effects on the spectrum of energies in beta decays. There is no blind faith that a neutrino is emitted but there just must be otherwise the measured spectrum of energies would be impossible and emitted electrons would be mono-energetic. Particles are theorised in this way and their existence tested by experimentally searching for the presence of particles of the required properties. The existence of God may have been theorised but it has been done so in a much less logical manner. I also am not aware of any experiments performed which have shown God to exist, this is in complete contrast to particle physics. Particle physics is also capable of revision where it is shown to be wrong. However, the bible is still as wrong now as it was in the beginning. Physics is not a religion.

tweehonderd graden, dat is waarom ze me mr. fahrenheit noemen, ik reis aan de snelheid van het licht, ik ga een supersonische man van u maken

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Re: Empirical Testability

yikes Deci!

Look up 'field ion microscope' or 'scanning electron microscope'. I had a play about with a top-end SEM recently. Amazing stuff.

Pixies My pokemon brings all the nerds to the yard, and they're like you wanna trade cards?

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