Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Laying Down the Law

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  • BenWilson,

    Oh, and I'd also add that 'established maths' is even less disagreeable than both gravity and evolution, which are theories that could be wrong.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • tussock,

    First: being greater than -4% doesn't override being greater than 0%, you're quite correct. They are not in contradiction.

    Second: please don't do that with the equivocation, it's rude. A scientific theory is an explanation correctly tying together all known facts about a part of reality, normally (though not always) making testable predictions about related things as yet unknown.

    By definition, evolution and gravity theories cannot be wrong, even though they are necessarily incomplete in terms of explaining the things they didn't seek to explain.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    By definition, evolution and gravity theories cannot be wrong

    I'm fairly confident that they're correct. But if they cannot be wrong by definition, then I suspect 'theory' is no longer an appropriate word.

    Ignoring the whole, I've written a definition which fulfills my requirement for something to be correct by their own definition.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Brent Jackson,

    Tussock wrote :

    By definition, evolution and gravity theories cannot be wrong, ...

    In order to be science they must be able to be wrong. If it is not falsifiable then it is not science. Hence, Ben's comment is true :

    'established maths' is even less disagreeable than both gravity and evolution, which are theories that could be wrong.

    I don't think equivocation enters into it. Scientific theories can be wrong.

    (Of course, long established, and hence, well-supported, scientific theories - like gravity and evolution - are only likely to be wrong in trivial ways ...)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 620 posts Report

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