Seb_Maya

What does it take to either accept or refute an argument/theory, what kind of proof is necessary?

Bluenose

That appears to be a very generalized question.
Do you have a particular example ?
Are we thinking about the logic involved, or something that came up in discussion?

Maybe more Popper??? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Zadok001

Well, as far as logic is a concerned, a 'proved' argument is simply a series of accepted premises and a conclusion which follows directly from them. i.e.,

1. If A occurs, then B occurs.
2. A occurs
Conclusion: B occurs

A disproved argument either has an innaccurate premise or has a conclusion which does not follow from the premises. Such as:

Innaccurate premise:
1. If pigs are pink, then cows are blue.
2. Pigs are pink
Conclusion: Cows are blue.

Improper conclusion:
1. 1+1=2.
2. 3-2=1.
Conclusion: God doesn't exist.

That's the basics. Past that, go take a logic course.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

For me to fully accept a theory or claim (I believe that 'belief' can occur across a range, and does not need to be 'either/or') requires a preponderance of independently verifiable, non-contradictory evidence (facts), and an almost complete (although utterly complete is best) lack of evidence to the contrary.

Keith.

tronvillain

I favour Bayes' Theorem, which makes it a matter of evidence and probability:

P(h/e)=P(h)P(e/h)/[P(h)P(e/h)+P(~h)P(e/~h)]

You accept a theory when P(h/e) approaches one and reject a theory when it approaches zero, or when its probability is significantly lower than that of an alternative hypothesis. Of course, the hard part (or the really easy part depending on how you look at it) is getting your prior probability.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

I am, basically, an empiricist.

As far as I'm concerned, we should accept a theory whilever objective observation or evidence supports it. But our acceptance should be conditional. We should be skeptical, even about a logically valid theory, if it is used in a way that evidence and observation does not support. And we should be willing to set aside (permanently or temporarily) a theory that doesn't work with the specific phenomenon we are interested in.

A theory (logical or not) is not synonymous with reality itself. It is never anything more than a symbolic representation of an observation. The observation and the theory might be reliable enough to be useful, in its limited context, but we should never treat it as though it were the very thing that it describes.

For example, I recently got into an argument here about determinism. I am particularly skeptical about the idea that deterministic atomic theories imply that the future is set in concrete and nothing can change it. Personally, I feel that such atomic theories are just ways for predicting the positions of a few atoms in isolation. The fact that you can draw a logical inference from atomic theory to universal determinism is neither here nor there. Not only is the proposition untestable, it also goes against my personal experience that, in at least some limited way, I am able to make choices about how I will act.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the idea that determinism makes the future unchangeable is just an example of how a theory fails when it is applied in inappropriate ways. If people believe it, it is because they confuse a theory with the reality it is supposed to describe, and fail to understand that no single theory explains every possible thing about the material universe.

[ November 24, 2002: Message edited by: Kim o' the Concrete Jungle ]</p>

Starboy

If it involves accepting a scientific theory then understand that no matter how well verified acceptance is always tentative. A repeatable experiment or observation that conflicts with the theory is all it takes to refute it.

The thing to understand about science is that it is not out to prove anything. The program of science is to use natural explanations to explain natural phenomena. The requirement of science is that all scientific explanations can be tested by experiment on nature. As such it is an exploration of reality.

Do not be confused into thinking that a scientific explanation is the “truth” of nature. All explanations use constructs or metaphors to describe and predict nature. To claim that such explanations are the “truth” of nature would be like claiming that a map of a city is the “truth” of the city.

So as for scientific matters, the term proof doesn’t really apply. It is something philosophers and mathematicians do.

Starboy

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Hello Starboy,

It seems as though great minds think alike.

Starboy

Hey, Kim o' the Concrete Jungle, you beat me to it!

Vorkosigan

<strong>So as for scientific matters, the term proof doesn’t really apply. It is something philosophers and mathematicians do.
Starboy</strong>[/QUOTE]

I don't agree. "Proof" can be obtained where propositions can be falsified with empirical discovery. For example, if you claimed that no mammals lived in South America, the discovery of one would falsify this belief. Similarly, if you argue that the world is 6,000 years old, numerous dating systems falsify this belief. Where specific claims are made, proof by refutation is possible.

Vork