Steve Shaw

Let me press you further, as you appear to have adopted a quasi-religious fervour about this particular remark, almost as if it had emanated from the quill of a gospel writer.

No Steve, it comes from debate about the philosophy of science and the scientific method throughout the twentieth century. It is the result of agreement between scientists and forms a cornerstone of the scientific method. None of this comes from me. It is part of first year undergraduate science teaching.

What science does the remark refer to? The process of science (not provisional - it definitely occurs)? The history of science? Textbooks, journals, articles? Peer review? Scientists? Evidence? The findings of science? You think, perhaps, that every finding of science in history is, er, provisional? Why's that, then? Because you suspect that what I see as red is exactly the same as what you see as blue? That there must always be an alternative explanation on the table for everything, no matter how improbable (now there's religion for you!)? Are you talking about the nuts and bolts of everyday science, technology and medicine as they affect all our lives, as practised in laboratories by technicians who just want to get home for their tea?

Without going into detail, Yes. In particular with respect to Textbooks, journals, articles? Peer review? If your work doesn't allow the possibility of experiments that could, potentially, falsify it, it won't get published in the scientific literature. No argument.

You set this statement against mine as though the two are sharply at odds with each other, yet you, as an alleged scientific thinker, appear to have forgotten that an equivocal statement can't actually be the opposite of anything.

Uncertainty is the opposite of certainty.

Can't you go off and join a cricket team or something?

I was that little school swot who was very good at science but terrible at sport. I'll stick to what I know.

From your following post -

Note "not necessarily." Know what that means? That they might be, but might not be. But they might be.

Er, yes. That's the point I'm trying to make. MIGHT BE isn't TRUE.

Note the bit about falsifiability. It does not say that good science is always falsifiable. It qualifies the claim by referring merely to cheating and witness

Oh dear. I try not to come down to your level of childish abuse but sometimes you are a bit of a muppet.

More precisely, the essential characteristics of science are:
...
(5) Its is falsifiable.

Simple statement. (Ruse and other science witnesses). is not a qualification, it is a reference to the court testimony of Dr Michael Ruse who was one of the science witnesses at the trial. His testimony is here - http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/pf_trans/mva_tt_p_ruse.html

Here is an extract -

Q: [...]In connection with the attributes of science and this issue of testability, does the concept of falsifiability mean anything to you?

A: Yes. The concept of falsifiability is something which has been talked about a great deal by scientists and others recently. It's an idea which has been made very popular by the Austrian-English philosophist, Karl Popper. Basically, the idea of falsifiability is that there must be, as it were, if something is a genuine scientific theory, then there must, at least, conceivably be some evidence which could count against it. Now, that doesn't mean to say that there's actually going to be evidence. I mean, one's got to distinguish, say, between something being falsifiable and something being actually falsified.

But what Popper argues is that if something is a genuine science, then at least in the fault experiment, you ought to be able to think of something which would show that it's wrong.

For example, Popper is deliberately distinguishing science from, say, something like religion. Popper is not running down religion. He's just saying it's not science. For example, you take, say, a religious statement like God is love, there's nothing in the empirical world which would count against this in a believer. I mean, whatever you see-- You see, for example, a terrible accident or something like this, and you say, "Well, God is love. It's free will," or, for example, the San Francisco earthquake, you say, "Well, God is love; God is working his purpose out. We don't understand, but nothing is going to make me give this up."

Now, with science, you've got to be prepared to give up.

This is the line that TIA has been taking (rather futilely) with Pete by trying to get him to come up with grounds under which creationism could be falsified to qualify as science.

If you think Ruse was wrong, you are saying the creationists should have won back in 1982.

Unfortunately..... this opens up a whole new bag of worms/area of interest. Try putting "michael ruse evolution" into Google.