🚀 go-pugleaf

D. A. Tsenuf wrote:
> "Jim Elwell" <jelwell@visi.com> wrote in message 
> news:11ndatvd5ip3ha4@corp.supernews.com...
> 
>>
>>D. A. Tsenuf wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Anyone from either camp claiming that their pet theory is better than the 
>>>other one, is an idiot who is clueless about the scientific method.
>>
>>Uh, right.  Care to elaborate on your version of the scientific method?
>>
> 
> 
> You provide a theory
>     Then you and other people look for data and try to see if the data fits.
>     Other people try to repeat the experiment to see if it can be repeated
>     If the data fits another theory better, then that theory is a better 
> answer

More precisely, your theory provides the basis from which you derive a(n)
hypothesis.  Then you devise an experiment which can yield results which
will falsify your hypothesis.  In other words you try to prove that your
hypothesis is wrong.  If the experiment falsifies the hypothesis then you
know that there is something wrong with your theory.  If the experiment
fails to falsify the hypothesis, then your theory is supported and grows
stronger.  But at any time in the future, someone else may devise a new
hypothesis which is falsified and your theory is knocked for a loop.

Historically, when hypotheses are falsified, the theory is tinkered with
to try to accomodate the new finding.  When a theory has been battered
about enough that it is weakened, it is abandoned because a new one will
come along which explains more of the observed universe better than the
old one.  This phenomenon is the original meaning of the term paradigm
shift.


> 
> 
> 
>>In order to provide a testable hypothesis, a theory should provide at 
>>least a few predictions or testable hypotheses.  What, exactly, does ID 
>>predict?
>>
> 
> 
> BZZZZZT
>     Mostly Wrong
> A hypothesis may or may not be testable.
> Predictions are potential extranpolations arising from the theory
> Predictions are not necessarily required when a theory attempts to explain 
> something.
> 
> 


-- 
  Has anyone else ever watched C-SPAN cover a three-hour House
  debate on cloning? What a scene. Two hundred six Caucasian males
  in blue suits, white shirts and red ties all declaring their
  all-out opposition against cloning.
  Mark Shields