WEBVTT - Beyond this Vale of Testing: Post-Empirical Science 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stop 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.520 works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to Blow 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:16.759 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.000 McCormick and Robert I want to put you in a scenario. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.840 All right, let's do it. Okay, So just recently I 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.080 was at a family gathering, a wedding and old family event. 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.600 And when you go to a you know, family reunion 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:29.280 type event, you meet a lot of people you haven't 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:30.800 seen in a long time. You get to catch up 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.440 on what they're doing. So imagine you are at a 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.720 family reunion type event and you're talking to a distant 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.720 cousin of yours who's going to night school to get 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.040 her graduate degree. And you're like, oh, cool, yeah, I 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.400 do I do a science show. What what are you 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.000 studying at your your school? And she can give you 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.360 a couple of answers. Let's contemplate the first one. The 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.920 first answer is, oh, I study radio astronomy. So we 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.440 look at distant objects in the sky by measuring the 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.880 radio frequency energy they admit. And you're like, cool, so 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.080 how does that work? And she says, well, so we 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.000 aim radio telescope arrays at far away stars and galaxies, 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.000 and we collect the data and feeded into computers, and 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.640 that allows us to draw conclusions about the physical properties 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.640 of those objects. Sounds legit. Okay, here's another answer she 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.160 could give. She says, Oh, yeah, I study psychic astro sociology, 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.760 So we study distant civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.520 by tuning into the psychic energies that they beam to 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.120 our planet through their Numa transmitters. The number of red 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.600 flags already, yeah, So you don't even really have to 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.680 be a scientist or even very scientifically literate to tell 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.399 that one of these answers refers to real science and 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.399 the other one does not. But the question you should 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.960 ask yourself is what is the criterion you have used. 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:54.440 You've intuitively used some kind of rule to rule in 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:58.559 one of those answers as real science and rule out 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.320 the other one as fake side and pseudoscience. It sounds 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.840 like garbage. So you know the difference when you see it, 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.960 But what is the principle that actually makes the difference right? 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.000 And and this question becomes ever more important when you 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.280 when you move away from the obvious examples and you 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.880 get into that h that stretch of gray area that 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:24.240 that that borders the dividing line. Um. Now, in terms 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.119 of pseudoscience, I do want to throw in real quick 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.400 that the oldest known use of the word pseudoscience dates 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:34.320 back from when the historian James Petite Andrew referred to 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:40.720 alchemy as quote a fantastical pseudoscience. And certainly, un you 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.680 can make that the case for that with alchemy. Well 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.480 maybe if you have a closed mine, I'm gonna get 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.280 some gold eventually. I mean, in some ways alchemy was 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.800 kind of a protoscience, but the the actual scientific properties 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:55.760 in alchemy, and this is kind of a topic for 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.320 another day, um are kind of lost amid all the 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:05.400 the cult concerns. But in the philosophy of science, exactly 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.560 this problem, this problem of what rule do you use 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.959 to tell the difference between science and pseudoscience has a name. 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.520 It's a named problem, right, Yeah, the demarcation problem. Yeah, 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.040 drawing the boundary, setting the border between one side and 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.000 the other, between truth and falsehood, between good and bad, 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.320 between sin and virtue. I mean it and it sounds 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.160 pretty simple, but it's a it's a very important concern 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.240 for the philosophy of science. For a couple of different reasons. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.160 From a purely theoretical point of view, uh, it's important 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.960 philosophers talking to each other about what things mean and 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.080 the depth of their meaning. But also from a very 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.160 practical point and it's because obviously, science is humanity's most 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.800 reliable font of knowledge. It's the tower we've built that 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.560 we use to ascend to new heights. Uh, technologically speaking, 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:01.600 cosmologically speaking, it's our it's our best method for advancing solutions, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:07.200 and something we're constantly touting in advertising, healthcare, criminal justice, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:12.760 environmental policy, entertainment, politics, and everything in between. So science 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:17.000 is applied to science, isn't just uh, intellectual endeavor taking 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.200 place in a vacuum. Once we have a scientific conclusion, 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.480 we very often take that conclusion out and do something 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:25.520 with it. Yeah, it's not just in the monastery on 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.000 the hill. It's down in the marketplace, it's in the household. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:33.000 It's it's factoring in your decisions. I mean, like we're 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.839 saying earlier, it's one thing to to hear someone's diet 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:40.039 tribe about some very fringe e topic and and instantly judge, oh, well, 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.640 that's that's complete malarchy. That's studioscience. But where it gets 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.080 gets weirder is when you're picking up a product at 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.159 the at the supermarket, you know, or you're you're you're 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.239 the vitamin supplement exactly hand, and then you start trying 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.040 to figure out, Wait, this is speaking the language of science. 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.000 It's not hitting those crazy keywords that my cousin knows 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.160 throwing out at this imagined wedding. What am I to do? 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.680 Mega vitea fan burns fat fast. Should I trust this? 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.760 I mean? Yeah? So it has real implications in the 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.520 real world that it impacts your wallet, and it impacts 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.120 the budgets of countries that fund scientific research. You don't 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.760 want the government funding research in something that is complete bunk. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.560 So getting to this question of demarcation, like how do 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.000 you tell the difference? What rule do you use? One 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:33.320 one common dictionary definition of pseudoscience is something like quote 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.480 a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.440 based on the scientific method. Well that's not very helpful, 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.039 is it right, because that that just it's circular. It 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.200 invokes the concept of science to say what's not science? 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.719 So it's not helpful for solving the demarcation problem because 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.560 it just says pseudoscience is that which appears to be 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.800 science but is not those who are entering the tower 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.719 of science and not doing science there, or something to 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.200 that effect, because yeah, because the uh, the the scientific 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.560 method is still present, at least it's invoked, right, So 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.039 it becomes difficult to decipher. Yeah, So to really solve 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.480 the problem, you'd want to come up with some descriptive 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:20.200 rule that exclusively describes science. It's like a descriptive statement 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:25.320 that describes everything that is science and rules out everything 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.120 that is not science. But it's hard to come up 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.919 with a rule like that, isn't it. Yeah. I mean again, 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.600 especially as you you become closer and closer to the 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:39.360 boundary line. You know, it's um because it we'll discuss here. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.080 It's it's kind of like imagine the border between two 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.440 states and you have you have a couple, you have 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.720 a couple of towns, right, and ones just immediately on 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:50.800 one side of the state line, the others on the other. 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.960 And if you're applying of it's a very strict understanding 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.799 of boundary lines here, then this one is definitely in Arkansas, 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.359 and this one's definitely in Tennessee. But then if you 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.760 start saying, well, actually, there's a little room, uh to 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:07.520 to go on either side. Then it just then you're confounded, 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:08.960 All right, is this one in Tennessee or is this 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:10.720 one in Arkansas? How about this one? Are they both 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.200 in both states? Or is it just how I feel 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.960 when I visit that town? Right? So, a lot of 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.280 the solutions to the demarcation problem try to draw some 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.320 clear line. Okay, here we have an exclusive rule that 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.720 makes the distinction. So I know a lot of scientists 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.360 and some philosophers of science would probably want to make 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.720 a distinction based on empiricism as as the first criteria here. Right. So, 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.720 empiricism is the idea that it involves observations. You know, 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.720 it's what you see or what you can measure externally. 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.960 That science can't be just an internal logical exercise that 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.480 has no contact with something you see happening in the 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.400 real world. Yeah, there has to. It has it's evidence based. Right. Then. 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.240 Of course you've also got the you know, the scientific 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.040 method that you learned in elementary school. Some people would 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.000 look at that and say, okay, you know, that's basically 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.600 how science works. You ask a question, you make an 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.480 educated guess, that's your hypothesis. You do some kind of 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.600 empirical test on observable reality to see if your guess 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.680 is correct. Then you analyze the results and draw conclusions, 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.480 and you know, that's a good simplified version for kids 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.760 to learn. Yeah, I mean, how do you walk into 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.240 a dark room and find out what the what what 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.600 the room contains and accurately judge it without you know, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.240 hitting your head on something. But there's a problem with 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.000 that if we're trying to describe science as it happens 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.160 in the real world of professional discoveries, because it doesn't. 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.199 That method doesn't very closely describe the process by which 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.040 we came up with all kinds of important and correct 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.080 scientific theories in history, Like lots of theories in physics, 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.280 for example, we're just conceived simply as abstract thought experiments, 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.240 and they went for a long time without empirical testing. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.360 Now we've empirically tested them and we know. But they 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.120 just started in Einstein's head. There are a number of 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.240 scientific concept that were conceived or certainly that the the 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.920 people behind them attributed their conception to dreams, you know. 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:12.800 So it's hard to fit the dream world into any 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.120 serious contemplation of scientific method, right. Yeah, So there are 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.720 plenty of examples you can go through through history of 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.040 scientific theories that we didn't have empirical confirmation of for 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.640 a long time, even after people had accepted them as 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.200 probably true. You know, one good example that it comes 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.199 up in the debate we're gonna be talking about today 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.959 is the question of atoms. For a long time, scientists 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.680 knew that matter was based on atoms, but there was 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.280 no test they could do to confirm the existence of atoms. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.679 Now there are, fortunately, but we didn't. We didn't have 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.640 those tests for a long time. Another problem with the 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.880 basic scientific method you learn an elementary school is that 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.640 if you just have some bad methodology, you can rule 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.319 in plenty of pseudoscience. Right Like, if you just use 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.840 the scientific method, but you use it poorly, you can 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:08.240 prove the existence of psychics, ghosts, aliens, whatever you want. Yeah, 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.520 I mean we see this time and time again. Right, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.760 There'll be one guy who is able to create a 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.200 zero gravity state in a lab, and then any and 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.160 everyone else tries to replicate it, and they don't get 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:23.560 the same results. And therefore either either what everybody's wrong, 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.160 and this one guy got it right once. No, it's 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.400 the reverse. Yeah, he used the method. He just did 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.960 a really bad job of using the method. Another way 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.160 that I think some people would address how to define 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.640 science and uh and solve the demarcation problem is I 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.920 think totally useless. And they define science in a kind 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.319 of post talk back engineered pragmatic sense, as in, they 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.960 define sciences the method of inquiry which produces correct and 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.959 useful results. This is obviously not a helpful solution to 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.720 demarcation problem. Now, if you're hearing all of this and thinking, yeah, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.760 but then again, I mean, scientists are just doing their 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.240 scientific work. Do they really need to worry about all 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.320 of this, Uh, this philosophical back and forth, Like, is 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.480 this just a lot of talk that doesn't really amount 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.280 to anything? I would argue, No, it is not. I 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:17.439 think these philosophical concepts are crucial to to doing good science. Yeah, 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.560 and uh, especially when you when you start facing the 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.800 realization that you can't just do the science right. Uh. 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.760 There's a there's a wonderful quote from Daniel Dennett from 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.880 his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which we've discussed this in 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:36.200 a previous episode, but he says, quote, scientists sometimes deceive 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.760 themselves into thinking that philosophical ideas are only at best 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:45.880 decorations or parasitic commentaries on the hard, objective triumphs of science, 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.320 and that they themselves are immune to the confusions that 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.680 philosophers devote their lives to dissolving. But there is no 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.120 such thing as philosophy free science. There is only science 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.920 whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. I 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.080 entirely agree with that quote. I think that's right on 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.520 the money. I mean, if you hear a scientist say, 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.000 I don't bother with philosophy. I'm not interested in philosophical 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.240 content concepts. I just do the science. It's kind of 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.520 like if you had a person running for president who says, look, 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.960 I'm not political, I'm just gonna govern. Would you trust 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.080 that person? I mean, the reality is what they are 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.240 going to be governed by some kind of philosophy, whether 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.760 they acknowledge it or not. And uh in the person 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.680 who claims not to have a philosophy or not to 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.880 have you know, any kind of ideology guiding them is 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.000 just advertising the fact that they haven't thought very deeply 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.280 about this. Yeah, they because I like the idea of 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:49.560 a non political uh individual just judging without and just 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.080 ruling without any kind of uh you know, weird hang 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.280 ups and constraints and agenda. But for that to really work, 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.800 you'd have to have like a superhuman you have to 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.400 have someone with like a self moving soul. Was someone 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.679 who could who could think and approach the task at 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.880 hand with just pure logic, unmoved by the undercurrents of opinion, bias, 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.120 trauma or longing. Uh. You know. Part of the the 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.319 the issue here is that science itself, with the scientific 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.320 method as its backbone, it's it's kind of a perfect engine, 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.080 right uh and and we are it's flawed operators. So 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.199 for perhaps you know what we need here, I would 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.959 look at like the done universe, we need like Mentat scientists, 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.560 um or we would need Dounyane scientists or bodhisattvas of 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.480 scientific inquiry. What do you mean, Duniane? What is that? Oh? 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.760 They're a there are people that are kind of like 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:42.240 Mentats and m are Scott Baker's Second Apocalypse saga. So 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.680 they've been able to just really through just generations and 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:51.720 generations of selective breeding and uh and and personal training, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.720 they've managed to enter the two to breed a people 0:13:55.920 --> 0:14:00.000 that are completely uh, in the now completely in control 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.160 all of their of their soul and their mind states. 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.559 So they're they're not governed by uh, you know, past concerns, 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.000 and when they encounter people that are not doniating, they 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.320 can just completely manipulate them because they sort of stand 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.520 outside of that path. Humans engineered to no longer have 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.840 preferences to only be computers sort of yeah, yeah, pretty much. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:21.400 And but that's the other thing. Maybe what we need 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.760 is an advanced hyper computer, some sort of you know, 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.760 super AI. They could do all of the science that 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.640 could that could be science without the human concerns. But 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:34.760 we don't have that right now. We just have the 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.440 humans with some help from the computers. Right. So today, 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.840 the main topic that we're going to be talking about 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:46.560 is the idea of empiricism and falsifiability in science. And 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.760 we're gonna get to what those what falsifiability means in 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.760 a second, but also about whether we have entered a 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.520 phase in science where there is room for a concept 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.320 to known as post empiricism. And if that sounds crazy 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.600 to you, we will explain what the arguments are in 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.640 just a bit. But we should bring it back to 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.680 the history of this demarcation problem. How do you separate 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.480 the science from the pseudoscience? And one of the most 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.480 common answers given by scientists today would be traceful back 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.200 to the twentieth century philosopher of science Carl Popper. So 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.280 who was Carl Popper? Now? Popper was an Austrian British 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.480 philosopher generally regarded as one of the twentieth centuries greatest 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.960 philosophers of science. And he identified demarcation as the chief 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.920 problem in the philosophy of science. Again, how to judge 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:37.520 science separated from from pseudoscience, separate the sin from the virtue. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.240 Here to draw a really firm line in the sand 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.400 that we can stick by and judge everything accordingly. And 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.560 he thought he came up with an answer to the problem, right, yeah, yeah, 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:49.600 he thought he came up with with a pretty solid answer. 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.800 And really I was reading about his life like he 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.720 stuck to his guns, like towards the end of his life, 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.640 you know, he had he had He had plenty of 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.000 critics who said, actually, just doesn't work, blah blah blah. 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.760 We'll get into the specifics in a second. But he 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.320 was devoted and he would he spent his time either 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.960 clarifying what he had said or shooting down his critics. So, yeah, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.440 he's he's specked with his guns on this. But what 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.720 was his answer? How can you tell the difference between 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:19.640 science and pseudoscience? What qualifies something as real science? Yeah? 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.680 What is what is the litmus test? Right? The answer 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.840 he gave is falsifiability. So what does that mean? So, 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.360 according to Popper, in order for a proposition right or 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:35.120 wrong to be scientific in nature, it has to be falsifiable, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:39.640 meaning you have to be able to describe empirical results, 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.400 test results in the real world that would show the 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.080 proposition to be false. And then in order to to 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.920 strengthen the theory, to build confidence in it, you have 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.200 to continually seek these exceptions to your rule. You have 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.520 to keep looking for ways to break your theory, and 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.480 you have to fail to attain them over and over. Yeah. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.320 And this means there has to be such thing as 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.240 a critical test for any given proposition proposition in order 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.760 for it to be scientific in nature. Right. Uh? And 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.199 so let's give some examples in in science, just throughout 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.800 a theory what the rule is, and then explain how 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.120 how could you falsify it? So here's one. Einstein's special 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.320 theory of relativity says the speed of light and a 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:23.399 vacuum is the same for all observers. Now, if you 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.439 could get people in spaceships moving at different speeds to 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.480 measure the speed of light and a vacuum and get 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.640 different results, than special relativity is wrong. It's falsified. The 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.919 theory is, in principle, falsifiable. Another one would be how 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.720 about common descent. Uh. Common descent says that all life 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.320 on Earth is related and it evolved from a single 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.840 organism known as the last Universal common ancestor or LUCA. 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.840 So if we looked at the genomes of plants and 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.639 animals and bacteria l the different kingdoms of life, and 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.479 we found that they had all completely different genes and 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.560 use different genetic tools to accomplish the same basic survival 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:06.360 tasks like say metabolism, metabolizing sugars or something, this would 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.239 probably falsify common descent. It would make it look like 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.480 the kingdoms of life had multiple different origins. But that's 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.879 not what we find. So there there is support for 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.000 common descent. And here's one example that's often was often 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:22.200 touted by Paper himself. So astronomers of the nineteenth century 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:27.560 looked to the the the orbit of Uranus. Okay, something 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.440 seemed a bit off here, so two separate astronomers they 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.600 pointed out that the orbit of Uranis could be explained 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.760 via Newtonian physics as being caused by a seventh and 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.960 previously unknown planet, which of course turns out to be Neptune. 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.120 Astronomers uh subsequently discover Neptune, and it's exactly where these 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:51.280 two different astronomers predicted that it would be. So Papa 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.600 argued that in this Newton's theory was subjected to a 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:59.200 critical test and it passed. But critics would have a 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.119 different view of this. Critics such as uh Emmor Lactose 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.560 point out that if they'd been in error, if the 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.199 if the two scientists here had been wrong, if we 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:13.000 hadn't found Neptune exactly where it is, we wouldn't have 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.840 thrown out Newtonian physics right. We would have looked for 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.119 other possible culprits, any of the number of reasons that 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.080 those that their their their theory here could have been wrong. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.600 So it was hardly a test of Newtonian physics at all. 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:33.440 The falsification corroboration disjunction might very well, just be too simplistic. Yeah, 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.720 and that's true that there are plenty of criticisms of 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.440 the poparian Is that the word poparian the the falsification 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.040 criteria in the philosophy of science. But but this has 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.800 been one of the big ones that people have have 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:53.840 latched onto over the past century. Now to continue exploring falsification. 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.879 On the contrary, imagine what it's like to have a 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.560 proposition where you can't come up with any in principle 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:05.240 empirical test that would provide strong evidence against it. If 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.840 you have something like that, this is not a good thing. 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.720 So imagine a psychic medium claims to get information from 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.520 the spirit world. Okay, well, well, let's come up with 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.600 some tests for this. Let's say, let's test the information 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.760 that he's getting from the spirit world and find out 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:24.000 if it accurately reflects information about dead people that he 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.119 wouldn't have been able to know. He can always say, well, actually, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.560 wait a minute, my powers aren't going to work in 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:34.120 the presence of the negative energy created by skeptics. Uh so, well, well, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.520 maybe we can put some believers in place and blind 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.280 them to the test and see if you're getting accurate information. 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.080 The psychic could still say, well, wait a minute, there 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.520 are also malicious spirits who are responsible for feeding me 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:50.239 incorrect information. Uh so in in the end, there is 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.760 no evidence that could really count against his powers. Anything 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.679 that could count against it is explained away. Yeah, you 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.520 can see this with a lot of supernatural ideas, like 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:03.359 one of the big ones, of course, one that I 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:07.680 often think about is the hand of God. Uh. Analogy here, So, 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:13.199 if God exists outside of our universe, all right, if 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.560 he's outside of our universe, we can't really do anything 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.040 to disapprove or prove, right, because he's not a part 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.639 of the observable universe that we can test and we 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.560 can measure. Now, it's been argued that if the hand 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:28.040 of God then reaches into our universe to do things 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.840 you know, uh, you know, create life, turn a city, 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:35.919 to solve whatever, then that hand has to interact with 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:39.360 our universe. It has to interact with atoms and molecules, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.560 and therefore we would be able to measure a supernatural presence, 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.280 a presence from the outside reaching into our own by 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.320 the way it moved. Our molecules are atoms our world. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.920 Oh okay, so that makes it sound like the presence 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.840 of supernatural interaction should be in theory testable. But when 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.560 you bring that up people because because then you say, 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:01.680 when we've ever observed that, people will say, oh, well, 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.360 he doesn't have to he or she does not have 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.959 to move the molecules. And then but then you're just saying, oh, well, 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.000 then they don't have to obey any of the laws, 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.600 and so it's super untestable. Right, You're removing all possible 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.280 conditions that could falsify what you're claiming. Right, it kind 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.800 of becomes like an argument between kindergarteners about who just 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.359 blasted who with a laser gun on the playground, Like 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.680 they can both deny that they've been vaporized by a 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.840 laser gun based on, uh, you know, increasingly preposterous ideas 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:33.840 about how the laser gun worked and what kind of 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.280 imaginary armor they were wearing. Right, But of course, theories 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:42.520 that are unfalsifiable in nature don't necessarily just appeal to 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.280 the paranormals, psychics and you know, ghosts and aliens and 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:50.240 stuff like that. You could also have secular unfalsifiable theories. 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:53.600 How about this one, We are living inside a computer simulation? 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.520 Oh yeah, I love this one. Now, there might be 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.159 some ways that smart people could come up with to 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.880 test whether not this is true. You could say, well, 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:04.840 you know, on a computer simulation, we'd expect to find X. 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:07.919 If we don't find X, that's evidence against it. Maybe, 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:10.280