tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post4878618649722659426..comments2024-03-22T06:22:08.010+00:00Comments on Stephen Law: The myth of a "scientific controversy" about IDStephen Lawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-1321124147769884322009-04-24T05:22:00.000+00:002009-04-24T05:22:00.000+00:00"If the "straight-cuffed Newtonian" wants to come ..."If the "straight-cuffed Newtonian" wants to come back with some group of undetected forces, the onus is her to demonstrate them."<br /><br />That is precisely the point. Their existence would be demonstrated in the fact that all these objects are moving so peculiarly. Remember, this is a very odd universe you have proposed. <br /><br />"Yes semantics is interesting. "opted out" because it no longer fit the available data and falsified. Besides the words, what really is the difference?"<br /><br />A drop in a commitment to retain the law in an unmodified state. <br /><br />Look, it's really no skin off my back if you don't accept this. You may be right, but I'm not yet seeing why. If you don't like the way I am presenting this idea, perhaps you might find Kuhn or Poincare's presentation of it more convincing. <br /><br />"Having said all that, using Newton's laws, you can still get a scientific probe to Neptune with only very minor corrections."<br /><br />Yes.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-84338853965784629112009-04-24T04:24:00.000+00:002009-04-24T04:24:00.000+00:00"What the person who sees the 2nd law as unfalsifi..."What the person who sees the 2nd law as unfalsifiable can say about Einstein is simply that he opted out of it."<br /><br />Yes semantics is interesting. "opted out" because it no longer fit the available data and falsified. Besides the words, what really is the difference?<br /><br />Having said all that, using Newton's laws, you can still get a scientific probe to Neptune with only very minor corrections. <br /><br />HavingM. Tullyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06056410184615941086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-33993118552700035402009-04-24T04:16:00.000+00:002009-04-24T04:16:00.000+00:00Kosh,
"The most that would show for the straight-...Kosh,<br /><br />"The most that would show for the straight-cuffed Newtonian is that you hadn't accounted for all the forces."<br /><br />No, if in all useful applications, the data didn't bear out, the hypothesis is falsified. <br /><br />If the "straight-cuffed Newtonian" wants to come back with some group of undetected forces, the onus is her to demonstrate them. <br /><br />It is one of the ways you can differentiate science from woo.M. Tullyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06056410184615941086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-51697654267055033232009-04-23T09:05:00.000+00:002009-04-23T09:05:00.000+00:00Paul,
Ah kinda, but not quite.
See http://en.wi...Paul,<br /><br />Ah kinda, but not quite. <br /><br />See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis<br /><br />Tully, <br /><br />The most that would show for the straight-cuffed Newtonian is that you hadn't accounted for all the forces. In other words, the assumption that the force you measured was all the force there was would be out the window, not the law.<br /><br />Re: Einstein: I've commented on that earlier - a) I have not suggested all laws, or all of Newton's laws, are unfalsifiable. b) What the person who sees the 2nd law as unfalsifiable can say about Einstein is simply that he opted out of it. It wasn't falsified, so much as abandoned.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-36569350549599996752009-04-23T06:50:00.000+00:002009-04-23T06:50:00.000+00:00Paul,
Though I would agree with most of what you ...Paul,<br /><br />Though I would agree with most of what you wrote... if in all observed cases in the recent past x holds true except in this area recently discovered(only adjust what you need to, because you have a great deal of data backing the theory overall), I don't agree with it categorically.<br /><br />If convincing evidence of human civilizations and other mass mammalian occupations of earth during the pre-Cambrian period were to come to light, I think you have to dump (at least on earth) natural selection.<br /><br />Of course you will forgive me for not anxiously anticipating such evidence on the horizon.<br /><br />I guess my point is that based on the evidence to date, I think you should be slow about totally overturning well established theories (Quine), but if an extraordinary claimant ever produced extraordinary evidence, you have to go where the data lead (Sagan/Stenger).M. Tullyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06056410184615941086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-36498782257681570842009-04-23T06:23:00.000+00:002009-04-23T06:23:00.000+00:00Kosh 3,
Newton's second law mathematically is, F=...Kosh 3,<br /><br />Newton's second law mathematically is, F=ma. Now let's rearrange it. a=F/m. I measure the force (F)placed on object (o) with mass (m) and measure the acceleration of o. I (and others independently) place the same force F on other objects (pqrst) all with mass m, and the measured accelerations of the objects all differ outside of the the error bars of experiment. In fact, there is absolutely no statistical correlation between F and a. Newton's second law is falsified.<br /><br />Let me point this out, in science there is no "right by definition." It must correspond to the data (which by the way, only makes a hypothesis possible, it's not probable until testable predictions can be made with it).<br /><br />Yes, Newton's Law's are (check out Einstein's 1905 and 1915 papers) falsifiable.M. Tullyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06056410184615941086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-10363320048993191122009-04-22T12:38:00.000+00:002009-04-22T12:38:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3
I concede that a theory (like evolution ...Hi Kosh3<br /><br />I concede that a theory (like evolution for example) can generate a number of hypotheses that are tested independently. So it's the individual hypotheses that are falsifiable rather than the theory itself. A lecturer in philosophy pointed this out to me many years ago, specifically in reference to evolution. He was saying that while the theory itself may not be falsifiable, the hypotheses it generates are, or should be.<br /><br />You say: '...a failed test of a theory does not entail the falsehood of the theory in question.' By that I assume you mean a failed test of a hypothesis generated by the theory doesn't necessarily falsify the whole theory. You may be right (it would depend on how core the hypothesis was) but it would shake it up, and probably lead to amendments. But that's part of the scientific method, as it was taught to me anyway. So if that's what you mean I think we can agree. <br /><br />One way to define science is as a dialectic between theory and experiment (or observation). The theory is assessed depending on the evidence, so a variety of tests may result in the theory being modified rather than completely eliminated.<br /><br />And you are right about Newton's 2nd law, or Dalton's ratios - if we found an exception, we wouldn't dismiss the law based on all our previous experience, we would look at that particular exception and ask why?<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-33879966580730742392009-04-22T10:14:00.000+00:002009-04-22T10:14:00.000+00:00Short summary of the thesis: a test of a theory do...Short summary of the thesis: a test of a theory doesn't just involve that theory, but a host of auxiliary hypotheses and assumptions which only collectively, together, yield observable predictions. A failure at that end of things tells you nothing about the falsity of some particular part of what was used to generate the observable consequences, but only about all the things when they are together. <br /><br />In other words, a failed test of a theory does not entail the falsehood of the theory in question.<br /><br />Relating this back (again, I know; I apologise in advance) to Newton/Dalton - one would always blame something other than the 2nd law (or law of fixed ratios) if one ran into trouble, simply in virtue of the kind of role that law had within the theoretical structure of Newtonian theory.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-46716267988873037522009-04-22T09:07:00.000+00:002009-04-22T09:07:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3
I admit I'm not familiar with the Quine-...Hi Kosh3<br /><br />I admit I'm not familiar with the Quine-Duhem thesis.<br /><br />I'm unaware how a test can't be 'falsifiable' without not being a test. In other words, a test is not a test if it can't be failed, almost by definition. But I'm certainly interested if someone has come up with an alternative argument.<br /><br />I'm sorry if I repeated myself unnecessarily. I thought you were still disputing it - if not, I apologise.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-10156783183685858372009-04-22T08:33:00.000+00:002009-04-22T08:33:00.000+00:00Response (short)
*A theory's being testable is no...Response (short)<br /><br />*A theory's being testable is not quite the same to its being falsifiable (for reasons related to the Quine-Duhem thesis). <br /><br />"I'm sorry to have to tell you that Newton's 2nd law is falsifiable, which started this entire discussion. In other words, it's testable."<br /><br />So you keep saying!Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-80043004367632707322009-04-22T07:34:00.000+00:002009-04-22T07:34:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3,
I find your response to Popper a touch ...Hi Kosh3,<br /><br />I find your response to Popper a touch reactionary. Let’s leave Popper out of it altogether; it changes nothing.<br /><br />Fundamental premise: scientific theories need to be testable to be scientific. <br /><br />If you disagree with this then you have a completely different idea of ‘scientific’ to me.<br /><br />A corollary to this premise is that for a theory to be testable it needs to be falsifiable. In other words, the test has to be able to prove the theory (or a related hypothesis) right or wrong (that’s what falsifiable means). If you do the experiment it may actually fail. If that’s not the case, then it’s not testable (by definition I would suggest).<br /><br />This is called the ‘scientific method’. So falsifiability is an inherent aspect of the scientific method, irrespective of Popper. Do you ‘advise anyone [not] to accept’ the scientific method? Because if you reject falsifiability, you reject the scientific method. You can’t have one without the other. In other words, experiments should be designed, as far as possible, to give yes and no answers to a hypothesis. If they don’t, you refine your experiment or your hypothesis. At the very least, the experiment should be set up so that failure is a distinct possibility (that’s falsifiability in a nutshell).<br /><br />If you can’t distinguish science from philosophy then you have serious problems (as a philosopher) in my view. Scientists can, and often do, agree on scientific evidence but disagree philosophically. Example: Hawking and Penrose have both worked in cosmology, and no doubt agree on many aspects, but Hawking is an ‘unashamed reductionist’ (his words) and Penrose is a self-confessed ‘Platonist’ which makes them philosophically miles apart. The same was true for Albert Einstein and Kurt Godel, yet they were the best of friends (Godel was a Platonist, Einstein wasn’t).<br /><br />You are right: scientists don’t drop a theory at the first sign of conflicting evidence, but it is the nature of science that the evidence eventually wins out. This may mean a modification to an existing theory or a new theory altogether, or the evidence itself may have been wrong (incorrectly measured or interpreted). It doesn’t matter: the scientific method still triumphs, and to triumph, theories must be falsifiable. This is the reason that science is the most successful endeavour in the history of humankind.<br /><br />Your point about pseudo-science and the 6,000 years argument is that everyone (in the scientific community) knows it’s contrary to all scientific evidence. So you could define pseudo-science as something that contradicts known scientific evidence or something that can’t be tested – I would accept both criteria. It doesn’t change the fact that the scientific method (as argued above) requires falsifiability to be workable and successful.<br /><br />Everyone knows that if you propose a theory that can’t be tested it’s just an ad-hoc hypothesis, a conjecture and speculative. To use Penrose’s nomenclature: it’s ‘Tentative’.<br /><br />The best known example is string theory, despite all the work that had been done on it, to which I would recommend Peter Woit’s erudite book, <EM>Not Even Wrong</EM>. I would describe string theory as a mathematical model or models, hoping for scientific evidence to turn it into a real theory. It probably comes closest to an ‘exception’ that you allude to in your last paragraph.<br /><br />I'm sorry to have to tell you that Newton's 2nd law is falsifiable, which started this entire discussion. In other words, it's testable.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-29811880825006572322009-04-22T03:35:00.000+00:002009-04-22T03:35:00.000+00:00Hi Paul,
I don't accept Popper's criterion (and I...Hi Paul,<br /><br />I don't accept Popper's criterion (and I would advise anyone to accept it!). Philosophers of science have largely given up on the idea that there is something that demarcates science from non-science or pseudo-science. <br /><br />Problems with it:<br /><br />-Scientists simply don't, as a matter of historical fact, abandon their theories at the first moment of apparent falsification. <br />-Scientist's ought not to abandon their theories in such moments.<br />-There is much that is "pseudo-scientific" that is falsifiable. E.g. the unamended claim that the world was created 6000 years ago is falsifiable. <br /><br />And if you allow for Newt's 2nd law, etc, then:<br /><br />-There are some theories, or at least components of theories, that are scientific and yet unfalsifiable.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-21450255835717487862009-04-21T12:33:00.000+00:002009-04-21T12:33:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3
Just to address what I consider to be th...Hi Kosh3<br /><br />Just to address what I consider to be the biggest difference in our stated positions: the significance of falsifiability as a criterion for a scientific theory.<br /><br />It was Karl Popper's idea that falsification be a criterion for a scientific theory, mainly in response to Freud's pseudo theories on psychoanalysis.<br /><br />What Popper means is that a scientific theory has to be testable. If it can't be falsified by a test (experiment) then it's worthless as a theory. To be more technically correct, the theory needs to generate hypotheses that can be tested, therefore falsified. If you find a counter example, you have falsified that hypothesis. This is what differentiates a scientific theory from pure speculation or conjecture.<br /><br />For example, evolutionary theory can generate a hypothesis that all natural earthbound life forms contain DNA. So by testing the hypothesis, you indirectly test the theory. But the hypothesis, and by consequence the theory, needs to be falsifiable for it to be testable. In other words, if the theory or hypothesis is always true no matter what the test is then it's not a scientific theory. <br /><br />So if the theory is that God created all living things then there is no test for that. The theory is always true no matter what the result of any test. I hope this clarifies why falsifiability is a central pillar to scientific endeavour.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-55221712231491382902009-04-21T09:57:00.000+00:002009-04-21T09:57:00.000+00:00The points of disagreement seem to be:
I agree th...The points of disagreement seem to be:<br /><br />I agree that:<br />-as science progresses, new facts and phenomena are revealed<br />-that abandoned theories are not rendered meaningless by being abandoned (I'm not sure what that would involve, though)<br /><br />What I would deny is that:<br />-falsifiability can serve as a demarcation criterion<br />-that all elements of all scientific theories are falsifiable<br />-that historically great theories like Newton's are not falsified, but preserved as special cases of more up to date theories. <br /><br />On the latter point, I just note that the falsification of an old theory does not require completely abandoning every part of what was once accepted. How often is that ever done? If this is what is meant by falsification, I agree that Newtonian theory was not falsified (but along with Ptolemaic theory, phlogiston theory, the demon-theory of disease, etc etc).Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-741408578999391292009-04-21T09:03:00.000+00:002009-04-21T09:03:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3,
I’m not sure how much we are at cross p...Hi Kosh3,<br /><br />I’m not sure how much we are at cross purposes. If the 2 ‘putative examples’ you gave are Newton’s Second Law and Dalton’s discovery regarding chemical ratios, then I believe they are both falsifiable (they wouldn't be scientific theories if they weren't). The only scientific theory I’m definitely aware of that is not falsifiable is string theory, because we don’t have the technology to test it, but I’m sure that will change in the future.<br /><br />In the past, theories that weren’t falsifiable have fallen by the wayside, as they should, so I do see it as an important aspect of science, and it’s one of the factors that differentiates science from philosophy. In other words, I would argue that if a theory is not falsifiable then it’s not a scientific theory, but an ad-hoc conjecture at best. Roger Penrose discusses this in a hierarchical manner in <EM>The Emperor’s New Mind</EM>, by dividing theories into 3 categories: 'Tentative', 'Useful' and 'Superb'. For example Ptolemy’s theory was ‘Useful’ but Newton’s theory was ‘Superb’, even after it was superseded by Einstein’s theory (according to Penrose).<br /><br />It’s true that, historically, theories in the past have been proven wrong, the most notable probably being the Ptolemaic model of the solar system. I’ve always seen science as a dialectic between theory and experiment which means it will continue to evolve. But the way it evolves, in its most recent manifestation, is that answers to existing mysteries reveal new mysteries that we didn’t even know existed. But this doesn’t mean that what we knew before has become irrelevant or necessarily untrue (Newton’s theory being the prime example). Because what we are finding is that new discoveries tend to happen at different levels, or at different scales, of reality. In fact, I think this is the most significant revelation in the last century, in almost all fields of scientific enquiry.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-44949657930905106862009-04-21T05:01:00.000+00:002009-04-21T05:01:00.000+00:00Hi Paul
Remember, all I have claimed is that some...Hi Paul<br /><br />Remember, all I have claimed is that some laws of scenic are not falsifiable (and have cited, but just two, putative examples). This is logically identical to saying that not *every* law of science is falsifiable, which is a modest claim. I have not claimed that all laws are conventional, or unfalsifiable. <br /><br />I believe that laws of nature can, and often do, reflect real regularities of nature. They need not though, and history shows us many times over that what was once thought to be a regularity or an entity in the world can be some time later no longer recognised as such.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-13114094299087026432009-04-21T02:24:00.000+00:002009-04-21T02:24:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3
This is a philosophical debate that coul...Hi Kosh3<br /><br />This is a philosophical debate that could go on forever. I think we fundamentally disagree. You say: ‘Consider Newtonian theory: nobody regards it as literally true, in the sense that it describes the inner reality of the universe.’ Well, to the extent that Newon’s theory describes universal laws, like the inverse square law of gravity or the first or third law, which, as far as I know, have never been falsified, I think they are true.<br /><br />The point is that all scientific theories are tested all the time: it simply never stops so we can never say that any of them are absolutely true without qualification (which means they are all falsifiable). Having said that, many of them are possibly more ‘true’ than all the other uses of this much abused term, including the theory of evolution (being both true and falsifiable).<br /><br />If you have doubts about this I would recommend Paul Davies’ <EM>The Mind of God</EM> (not a book about God at all) or Roger Penrose’s <EM>The Emperor’s New Mind</EM>, who specifically discusses ‘truth’ in science in great depth. Neither of these philosopher/scientists, I believe, would agree with you that the laws of physics are ‘conventions’. <br /><br />They both provide cogent arguments that mathematical laws ‘discovered’ by humans reflect a deep reality in the universe. On this point I would agree with them, and therefore, not with you. As it happens I recently reviewed a book by Mario Livio, which supports this same philosophical premise: <A HREF="http://journeymanphilosopher.blogspot.com/2009/03/unreasonable-effectiveness-of.html" REL="nofollow">The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics</A>Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-37993228129829259492009-04-20T12:49:00.000+00:002009-04-20T12:49:00.000+00:00I'm late to this party, but I'll pipe in to say th...I'm late to this party, but I'll pipe in to say that I really wish ID proponents would actually give the Intelligent Design hypothesis the patina of "science". <br /><br />I want an "ID scientist" to make testable predictions, conduct tests, and to subject his/her findings to peer review. Heck, I'd be happy with a <B>single testable prediction</B>.<br /><br />It's notable (but not surprising) that no one takes scientific ID seriously, especially those who evangelize it.<br /><br />What I'd really like to know is why these people think lying for Jesus is acceptable to the deity they claim to worship...Whatevermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14458601080799278850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-82230157445137603052009-04-20T11:36:00.000+00:002009-04-20T11:36:00.000+00:00Hi Paul,
I certainly wouldn't say *all* scientifi...Hi Paul,<br /><br />I certainly wouldn't say *all* scientific laws are held true by convention. The two cited though do seem to have that function though, definitional as they are. <br /><br />"So there are many things, thus far discovered, that have limits, but that doesn’t make them false..."<br /><br />It depends on what you mean. Consider Newtonian theory: nobody regards it as literally true, in the sense that it describes the inner reality of the universe. It lives up to observation though within the appropriate range, to a level of accuracy that satisfies us. It is often said to be a special case of relativistic theory, and one can find much talk about that; I am not convinced. As Kuhn pointed out, we can treat phlogiston theory as true under the right limiting conditions. But if we can do that, surely we have stretched things too far: what half-way seriously considered historical theory cannot be then kept as true as a limiting condition of a more up-to-date theory? <br /><br />"I would suggest that Dalton's discovery is not convention either - it's a result of chemical reactions involve atoms, not fractions thereof."<br /><br />That is what it aims to describe, yes. The point is though: if you ever found a reaction occurring that did not involve whole-number ratios, we would simply not regard it as chemical in nature. Perhaps nuclear, perhaps something else.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-26642986625291860492009-04-20T11:09:00.000+00:002009-04-20T11:09:00.000+00:00I would suggest that Dalton's discovery is not con...I would suggest that Dalton's discovery is not convention either - it's a result of chemical reactions involve atoms, not fractions thereof.<br /><br />It's been a long time since I've done any chemistry, but that's how I remember it.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-15396832972850933162009-04-20T11:02:00.000+00:002009-04-20T11:02:00.000+00:00Hi Kosh3.
Well, you and I fundamentally disagree:...Hi Kosh3.<br /><br />Well, you and I fundamentally disagree: I don’t see the laws of physics as conventions, I see them as laws of nature. They are discovered, not invented. And just so there is no misunderstanding, the fact that Newton’s 2nd law requires some rethinking to allow for relativity doesn’t falsify it in my view; it just makes it contingent on certain conditions, and that’s pretty true for all the laws of physics thus far discovered. <br /><br />All laws of nature are contingent on future discoveries, because there may always remain something hitherto undiscovered that changes or modifies them, especially under extreme conditions. For example, even Einstein’s equations would appear to break down inside a black hole. So there are many things, thus far discovered, that have limits, but that doesn’t make them false. <br /><br />Regarding Newton’s laws and relativity, people tend to overlook the fact that Einstein’s equations reduce to Newton’s when certain parameters become negligible – in fact, it was this very attribute that gave Einstein’s theories their original credibility, when people were reluctant to accept them. <br /><br />Even Newton’s discovery concerning gravity being an inverse square law remains unchanged in Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. (Note: the inverse square law for gravity is not a convention.) The major difference is that Einstein realised that gravity is not a force as Newton postulated (you don’t experience any force in free fall) but the very curvature of space-time. And that’s not a convention either; it’s a fundamental manifestation of the natural world.<br /><br />I expound on this on my own blog if you’re really interested: <A HREF="http://journeymanphilosopher.blogspot.com/2008/03/laws-of-nature.html" REL="nofollow">The laws of nature</A>Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-82620893139347111592009-04-20T05:06:00.000+00:002009-04-20T05:06:00.000+00:00Hi Paul,
The problem arises in what one would say...Hi Paul,<br /><br />The problem arises in what one would say in finding what seemed to be an apparent exception to the 2nd law. The law is itself a law by convention, which is to say, it defines force in terms of mass and acceleration. If you ever found a case in which a given object did not accelerate in the right way, one would (if one is a straight-cuffed Newtonian) simply specify that some unknown force was acting upon the object (hence the conventional nature of the law). <br /><br />As I said it is not quite as simple as that, and as you rightly point out, the law saw modification in relativistic physics. But what can be said about that is simply that it was opted out of as a convention binding scientists.<br /><br />Another example of a law by convention would be Dalton's definition of chemical reactions as occurring in whole-numbered ratios. If you ever found an instance where this didn't seem to go ahead in this way, you would simply say it wasn't a chemical reaction.Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-43632156973778148242009-04-19T11:32:00.000+00:002009-04-19T11:32:00.000+00:00Actually, I think Newton's second law specifically...Actually, I think Newton's second law specifically says that the force is proportional to the change in momentum, not velocity, which means it probably still applies under relativistic conditions, only not the way Newton would have anticipated.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-39850041166341125332009-04-19T11:24:00.000+00:002009-04-19T11:24:00.000+00:00Kosh3
What do you mean Newton's second law of mot...Kosh3<br /><br />What do you mean Newton's second law of motion is not falsifiable? Of course it is.<br /><br />You only have to find one exception to it to prove it false, and that goes for all laws of physics.<br /><br />Newton's second law relates to a constant force being applied to a body resulting in a constant acceleration. Relativistically, however, this is not quite true because as you reach near light speeds the mass changes instead of the velocity. The true variant is energy, not acceleration or velocity, and once you allow for that it makes sense again. So a constant force will cause a constant change in energy, whether by velocity or by mass, which is what happens in particle accelerators. Richard Feynman gives the best explanation in his book, <EM>Six not-so-easy pieces</EM>.<br /><br />The Atheist Missionary is right when he says that ID is a 'science stopper'. So, whether the universe, nature and life in general, have a purpose, is a philosophical question not a scientific one. If more people appreciated this then the argument wouldn't exist. If you bring God into science you stop doing science because you are effectively saying that we can't explain this without God, which means we never will explain it. Therefore you are saying we have come to the end of science, which is bollocks.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-52863164382384376162009-04-19T06:12:00.000+00:002009-04-19T06:12:00.000+00:00"Actually, I can't. Care to rattle some off for me..."Actually, I can't. Care to rattle some off for me?"<br /><br />Newton's second law is not falsifiable, but is still considered a scientific law. <br /><br />(actually it is not quite that simple or straighforward, but unless someone wants me to go into it, I'm happy to leave it there).Kosh3https://www.blogger.com/profile/12311933575987511650noreply@blogger.com