Finally, There Are More Young Americans Who 'Believe' in Evolution Than Creationism

[Newest Reality]

30. I understand it that way.

Using the word provable was an error in the way you are putting it and I was referring to evidence in a common vernacular.

That doesn't mean I don't understand what scientific theory means, but thanks for pointing that out and telling me all about it.

What do you think of the problems with Popper's falsifiability criterion and the reasons for abandoning it? I am just wondering if you are aware of that and up-to-date on why that is so, since you are bringing a classical interpretation in which has been commonly accepted. As you may well know, some of the problems with falsifiabilty are insurmountable. Applying a theory typically requires that we simplify the problem by imagining that the system we’re interested in can be isolated, such that we can ignore interference from the rest of the Universe, at least on paper. Correct?

In his book Time Reborn, the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin calls this ‘doing physics in a box’, and it involves making one or more so-called auxiliary assumptions. Consequently, when predictions are falsified by the empirical evidence, it’s never clear why. It might be that the theory is false, but it could simply be that one of the auxiliary assumptions is invalid. The evidence can’t tell us which.

We know that Newton’s laws of motion are inferior to quantum mechanics in the microscopic realm of molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles, and they break down when stuff of any size moves at or close to the speed of light. We know that Newton’s law of gravitation is inferior to Einstein’s general theory of relativity. And yet Newton’s laws remain perfectly satisfactory when applied to ‘everyday’ objects and situations, and physicists and engineers will happily make use of them. Curiously, although we know they’re ‘not true’, under certain practical circumstances they’re not false either. They’re ‘good enough’.

There is a move towards empirical demarcation as one alternative to the problems with falsifiablity, (and you can look them up because I am not going to cite them all here.) You may be aware of them via the findings of John Adams and Urbain Le Verrier concerning Newton's laws of motion.

Popper himself was ready to accept the above:

the criterion of demarcation cannot be an absolutely sharp one but will itself have degrees. There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may be described as metaphysical.

Maybe you are familiar with the philosopher Larry Laudan. In 1983, he declared that the demarcation problem is actually intractable, and must therefore be a pseudo-problem. He argued that the real distinction is between knowledge that is reliable or unreliable, irrespective of its provenance, and claimed that terms such as ‘pseudoscience’ and ‘unscientific’ have no real meaning.

I am not sure where people hang around to get their information, put I prefer relevant, up-to-date views as opposed to the sensationalism of popular culture science that is so prevalent. Science has a dynamism to it even though some proponants of it are very conservative, but often people are talking about years ago when they argue their points and some ideas do persist and take time to infiltrate popular thinking. That may or may not matter when you are making a political or philosophical argument against something.