The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #147391   Message #3448549
Posted By: Steve Shaw
07-Dec-12 - 08:56 AM
Thread Name: BS: Alternative to Science??
Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
I don't know whether you have or not or whether you look up my links. Let's just say that there is very little evidence that you do. I have done a search through this thread and a previous one where Popper was first mentioned (not by me). Before yesterday you had never mentioned Popper in one of your postings

The only accurate thing here is that you say "you don't know." You think that, just because I don't rattle on and on about someone or something, I don't know anything about it. Old chap, it's bad enough round here without you and I going off on one about the philosophy of science (wake up at the back there!) There is "very little evidence" because I haven't given you any. I haven't given you any evidence of my degree, university or subject either. I suggest that if you want people to obediently click on your links (and how many of us have done that with unsupported links to find that yet another little chunk of life has ebbed away...) you précis the contents or at least give some relevant quotes from it.

As for this:
His falsifiability notion, much-vaunted by you ad nauseam, came in for so much criticism that he had to acknowledge his own reservations about it, especially with regard to evolution theory.
Funny that you've never mentioned this before, preferring to demonstrate the depth of your research and grasp of the subject with lines like "OK, Slimetrail, I see you're going back to twathood.". Could you give me a reference to him acknowledging his own reservations about falsifiability? I can't find anything that says that. He didn't have any problem with evolution but he did, initially, dismiss natural selection (which is not the same thing) as non-scientific by his criteria. It's a problem that is still discussed. "Survival of the fittest" is tautological because the only measure of fitness is survival. He listened to wiser counsel and changed his mind although I must admit that I find the reasons why a trifle vague.


Huh? All you've done is confirm what I said.

And finally, one of your routine misrepresentations in all its naked glory:

You getting all hoity-toity:

Now how on earth do you know what Popper would have thought? That is ludicrously pompous and arrogant.

But what I actually said:

Actually, had Popper still been around I think he'd be mortally embarrassed at the certainty of ideas you endow him with.

When I'm inclined towards something but am not sure, the non-existence of God for example, I say "I think". If I feel reasonably certain about something, the truth of the general thrust of evolution for example, I say "I know." You're not really worth taking seriously if you can't represent properly what I so clearly and simply say, are you?