[mattfenwick]

I do agree with you that science doesn't show causation, but I think your interpretation of science is incorrect:

> Therefore, all scientific analysis is unverifiable.

I disagree. It's verified by experiment. (Here I'm using "verify" to mean that contradictions have not (yet) been found by experimental observation).

> Knowledge of the world is completely unjustified.

I disagree. Again, it's justified by experiment. If that's not enough for you, too bad, because that's all we have.

> Our immense presumption of consistency in world phenomena when we really have no basis for asserting uniformity of nature.

I disagree. This is only asserted insofar as it's 1) useful, and 2) justified by observation.

I don't think you understand the significance of scientific results. They don't say "at a fundamental, irreducible level, this is how <some system> operates." Rather, they're saying something more along the lines of "as far as we can tell, this is a description of how <some system> operates, but it's entirely possible that we're wrong. However, we don't have any data that shows that we're wrong (yet), and because this description is useful for understanding <some system>, we're going to use it."

We don't need to know how a system works at a fundamental level, if understanding it at a less-detailed level is useful. I do agree with you that we can't determine "actual causality", but we don't need to, if we can instead find a bunch of really good correlations. The problem is that people find lots of crappy correlations, and/or can't tell the difference between good and crappy correlations.

[pleb]

I agree that we do not disagree.

Your post is simply applying a different definition to the terms I used.

Your reply is a case for righteousness.

I don't think you have considered the implications of the use of such words as "good". I agree with you that experimentation is futile in the absence of ethics.

Why are you presuming common application of the use of the word good and useful? For example, the science behind the atomic bomb and it's usage, was it useful? To whom was it useful, those devastated by the blast or those who set it off?

I urge you to reevaluate your basis for righteousness.

Don't you understand that morality requires certainty?

[mattfenwick]

At no point did I touch on morality or ethics. I do not know why you think that I did so.

> I agree with you that experimentation is futile in the absence of ethics.

I do not agree with that.

--------

Dictionary.reference.com:

> useful: being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or of good effect

> good: having admirable, pleasing, superior, or positive qualities; not negative, bad or mediocre

I urge you to reevaluate your understanding of the words "good" and "useful". Don't you understand that I'm not talking about morality?

[conanbatt]

Philosophically speaking you can never verify anything through experimentation: in a controlled experiment you will use instruments and tools you need to trust (how do you know the microscope isn't lying?) and if you go through the process of trying to see if anything is confirmed, for a long enough time you will end up with the axioms of any scientific field, which are never verified (just assumed true).

You can prove negatives though, so thats something :).

[mattfenwick]

> Philosophically speaking you can never verify anything through experimentation

This depends on what you mean by "verify". You seem to mean "prove that something is absolutely true".

That is not what I meant. I should have clarified that I meant something along the lines of "we've collected a bunch of data that don't contradict <something>".

I've edited my meaning into the post because I don't want my stupid equivocation to distract from more significant issues.

[JoeAltmaier]

Go further: reproducible experiment can tease out details to many decimal places of likelihood. Something can be known so thoroughly that we can make statements like "this is certain to behave as predicted millions or billions of times more often that not", which is pretty close to certain knowledge.

[mattfenwick]

I'm not sure that I agree. I think that once you get into the realm of "absolute truth" (which is what I'm interpreting your post as saying -- apologies if I'm mistaken), you've left science behind. IMHO, science cannot (and does not aim to) deliver certain knowledge. Instead, it produces useful approximations.

[pleb]

I agree with Matt,

There is no quantity of correlation that promotes one iota of certainty or probability.

The issue is Matt, many people like this gentlemen here actually believe that scientific experimentation offers explanations.

How many times have we heard, "there must be a rational explanation", when it fact never has a rational explanation ever been provided for any phenomenon.

We can't involve degrees, when the extreme principles infer that no such claims can be made. There is an unknown amount of probability given any proposition.

The only form of falsifiability we're capable of is in whether or not a person is conforming to the traditional use of language. If I say that 2 + 2 = 5, then I am wrong, since the rules for mathematical language are understood with certainty based on our tradition.

If I claimed that a plane IS powered by fairy dust and yet it is NOT powered by fairy dust, then I am technically wrong since I abused the use of language.