Frosted Popper-Tarts (was Re: Underlying basis...)

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

Chris has addressed many of your points and questions already.  Something
I'd like to clarify, though...

At 07:59 AM 7/16/99 EDT, Philidor11 wrote:

><<Chris is refering to a basic aspect of the scientific method: one cannot
>prove an hypothesis, but we can falsify it.  (The classic example: how many
>white swans do you need to see to prove the statement "all swans are white"?
>In contrast, how many black swans do you have to see to falsify the
>statement "all swans are white"?)>>
>The difficulty is that no paleontological hypothesis can be tested.  In terms 
>of Mr. Holtz's analogy, all the available swans have been looked at before 
>the theory was ever produced.
>Because there are no ways of testing the hypothesis (prediction and 
>experiment in the 'classic' scientific method), the hypothesis can be either 
>true until disproven or in doubt until some way can be found of proving it.  
>I was carrying over from the 'classic' definition the attitude that no 
>hypothesis is true until you prove it, that it must be possible to falsify a 
>hypothesis immediately.

Yikes!!  This is, in fact, NOT the 'classic' way of doing Science (although
prior to Karl Popper's work this was the image both scientists and
non-scientists had of their work).

The problem of Science is extrapolating patterns from the observational
universe.  Given that omniscience and omnipresence are not abilities
possessed by mere mortals, we are thus necessarily limited to a sample of
the universe, not the whole.  Thus, scientific methodology is designed to
work with subsets (samples) of the whole.

As such, "proving" a statement where you cannot observe the whole (e.g., all
individuals of a species at all growth stages from the entirety of the span
of that species' duration on Earth) is impossible, and as such we are
operationally prevented from proof.  We can, however, disprove a statement.
Thus, the "take home" message of the swan experiment was *supposed* to be
"Aha, so all you need is *one* swan to disprove the statement, while you
would have to see every swan that ever was to prove it".

>The fact that disproving a hypothesis has to wait for currently unavailable 
>data,

Other way around: proving hypotheses will almost always have to wait for
eternally unavailable data, while disproving hypotheses might only require a
single verifiable observation.

Of course, operationally, congruence is another form of support for an
hypothesis.  Enough observations providing exactly the same result and you
would be obtuse not to accept the hypothesis as "true".  (E.g., I am not
worried that I will wake up tomorrow and find that gravity now works in
reverse...).  Indeed, one of the main reasons scientists in all disciplines
quantify their data (i.e., use math and statistics) is towards the goal of
finding the degree of support for a given hypothesis.

For a good, quick, web accessible account of scientific methodology (as well
as common logical fallacies), you can find Carl Sagan's essay "The Fine Art
of Baloney Detection" at:
http://www.sff.net/people/MBourne/Weirdnessbaloney.htp
(Or in his 1995 _The Demon-Haunted Word: Science as a Candle in the Dark_).

No dinosaurs in that particular essay, but the tools for the baloney
detection kit are useful for looking at dinosaur science, any other science,
and indeed much of the rest of the world.

Hope this helps.

                        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Vertebrate Paleontologist
Deptartment of Geology                  Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland                  College Park Scholars
College Park, MD  20742       
Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu        Phone:301-405-4084
Email:tholtz@geol.umd.edu               Fax:  301-314-9661