In Reply to: Theory and Practice posted by Tony Lauck on February 17, 2013 at 08:48:42:
on the same page, and, yes, I do agree I should have worded it better.
what I meant was a theory is simply that: a statement with no necessary means of proof. If there is no proof, there is no right or wrong to the theory.
I believe part of the issue is with the popular vernacular.
Einstein's theory of relativity, while it was once a theory, has moved far beyond and has been proven, and perhaps may be better stated as the laws of relativity. But the popular parlance keeps it just as the theory.
As far as theories are concerned, I really make no judgement, but some kind of proof is what I desire. If proof to the contrary is presented, fine with me. Early on, in astrophysics, my mental state was such that I prefered Hoyle's steady state theory, probably becasue of the sense of security it gave. The Hubble red shift and cosmic noise and such, rapidly changed my mind, though, as the evidence they revealed became public.
Those aspects (and others)could not be explained by the steady state theory, or, if it could, were too convoluted to really be practical.
It is when experimental evidence is presented as factual, when the actual basis for the experiment is at question and thus the results, that I get a bit upset. This is particularly true when there are other, much more simplistic explanations. It's even worse when the statistical analysis even based on the flawed supposition is very small. Couple that with no publication in any major scientific journal and you have a recipe for potential disaster.
Sheldrake himself has admitted that trying to present "proof" may be an impossibility, and yet he tries and fails, not surprisingly. As a biologist he gives anectdotal "evidence" or perhaps more accurately examples. There are other explanations and the most readily availble and more "scientific" ones are due to the quantum nature of the molecular bonding. Those are predictable and consistent.
Of course, YMMV
Stu
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Follow Ups
- I believe we are - unclestu 12:24:44 02/17/13 (0)