🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0p0LA.CpH@unx.sas.com>, sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
|> 
|> In article <schiller.726741489@hpas5>, schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) writes:
|> |> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
|> |> 
|> |> >>In article <schiller.726487694@hpas5> schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) writes:
|> |> >>>My position as a scientist is that facts, i.e. the  results of observation,
|> |> >>>are the basis of theories. There are no "well-known" flaws of this position. 
|> |> >>>
|> |> >I'm afriad that this is simply ill-informed. The observation-theory distinction
|> |> >has long been a matter a controversy in philosophy of science. The best-known
|> |> >"flaws" are put forward in Putnam's "What theories are not."  The position
|> |> >outlined there is a little technical, but the central example is that one
|> |> >cannot establish, through obsevation, that a thing is red unless one has
|> |> >a conceptual scheme for colors that includes red in advance.
|> |> 
|> |> You are right: one needs a concept of red. But a concept and a theory
|> |> are two different things. Red is a concept formed by children
|> |> before they are six months old, and it gives a name to certain class 
|> |> of colours. When a child says: "it is red", it just says, "it has a similar
|> |> look than all the previous things I have observed, which I call red".
|> |> The statement "It is red" therefore just compares different observations.
|> |> Not much of theory there.
|> |> 
|> |> 			Christoph Schiller
|> |> 
|> 
|> You are right: one needs a concept of electron. But a concept and a theory
|> are two different things. Electron is a concept formed by physicists
|> before they are given degrees, and it gives a name to certain class 
|> of particles. When a physicist says: "it is an electron", it just says, "it has a similar
|> look than all the previous things I have observed, which I call an electron".
|> The statement "It is an electron" therefore just compares different observations.
|> Not much of theory there.
|> 
|> I wonder why the physicists need so much more funding than do the children.
|> Facts are facts?
|> 

I originally posted this as a kind of reductio of Schiller's position.
However, given his latest posting I see that it will have little force
since he actually *embraces* this view.  There is definitely a problem
when you strive to reduce the other guy's position to an obviously absurd
one and he just says "Okay."  Back to the drawing board.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm