Re: Examples of Major Disjoints between PopperDeutsch and Science

On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 7:19 PM, Brett Hall <[email protected]> wrote:

> **
> ...On 31/08/2013, at 2:52, "hibbsa" <hibbsa-/[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >
> > I know it's good philosophy, the best explanation literally true and so
> > on, but I do have a lot of resistance to including MWI
> >
> (So just, for example, replace "MWI" above with the phrase "the external
> world, beyond my own mind" and see how the rest of what you have typed
> reads).
>

And so?  Is that a criticism, or are you just pointing out that you can
often replace an actual topic with something else and still have it come
out readable?


>
> ...
> > this might work for some threads of science, and perhaps to an extent
> > for all. But something neither Popper nor Deutsch explain, nor even
> > address, is the question of why, if they are correct, the most
> > productive, most revolutionary, most far reaching scientific threads,
> > are all at the other end of the spectrum. They are profoundly
> > mathematical, profoundly terse and profoundly predictive. I am speaking
> > of the theories that knocked on into technological and industrial
> > revolutions. The most influential, far reaching, world changing shit in
> > the box,.
> >
> But that's simply not true. Whilst some scientific theories are, for
> example, "profoundly mathematical" many of the "far reaching, world
> changing" are not. Consider evolution by natural selection, consider plate
> tectonics, or theories explaining human nutrition, etc, etc.
>

Evolution is all about math.  Number of offspring, mutation rates, survival
rates, etc.  Without math it would be empty theorizing.  You might be
confusing how it was discovered with how it's used. I think this one's on
hibbsa's side.  (I used to do some a-life stuff, so I know something about
it.)  Plate tectonics is a meta-theory of physics (it's geography), but
without rates of motion, measurement and geometry (this bulge fits into
that hole) it would not have happened.  Nutrition, maybe.  I'm less
experienced in that so you could be right.

-- 
Gary


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