Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Susan Sontag once commented that science was the practice of disproving theories. You see a set of facts, and you propose a theory that explains the relationship between those facts and posits a cause. Accepted theories are those which have stood up to repeated attempts to prove them false.
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Dennis
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Actually, I follow C.P. Snow's falsifacation concept. Take all the fact you know on a particular item. Make a theory that covers all the facts. Then try to find facts that disprove the theory. When you do, make a new theory covering the old fact and the new facts. Repeat the cycle.
You never find the absolute truth this way. You just narrow the range of answers the truth is in. But you don't allow yourself to fall in the logical trap of treating a false premise as a true premise that you can't/don't question...
(Modern physics is probably in that kind of trap today. They have set certain things as constants, beyond question. If they are less than completely correct, then they're going down a blind alley, with no way out, because the guild doesn't allow the constants to be questioned....and then wonder why there hasn't been a new Einenstein in over a 100 years.)