🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct27.023900.29811@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Brett McInnes) writes:
>daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>: I've included sci.physics in this discussion since there was a recent
>: discussion about the contributions (if any) Karl Popper has made to
>: the philosophy of science, and I think that Karl Popper's theory of
>: falsifiability is relevant to the question of confirming universal
>: laws (such as all crows are black).
>: 
>I think that Carlo Rubbia's Nobel should be given back. After all, by
>establishing the existence of the W bosons, he didn't falsify anything,
>right? In fact, the only successful particle theory experiments, a la
>Popper, are those which find nothing.
>Or did Rubbia falsify the belief that W particles do not exist?

     Actually counting black crows is a part of it as well.
     The theory that posits existence of W bosons is certainly falsifiable, 
     and Popper certainly includes positive corroboration as a part of
     the process of science.  I think correctly, though, he is very
     careful to state that this does not imply that the
     theory is 'true' or even 'probable'. 

     But I think Rubbia should still have his Nobel taken away 
     for blustering in "Vogue" about finding the top quark.

>I suspect that physicists like to pay lip-service to Popper because his
>theories portray them in such a romantic way: as daring iconoclasts,
>rebels against dusty orthodoxy. How boring to say that the job of the
>scientist is to establish what is true! It's so much more sexy to

     If this is your job, then I'd enjoy seeing a definition of 
     'truth' and your algorithm for establishing it.  

     Actually, a watertight definition of 'truth' will do.
     I'd like to see how you get around this without sounding like
     a flaming positivist or establishing a new religion.

                           dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926