Are you an atheist?

[Frothingslosh]

Ahhh, Libre my friend, we may have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Alc]

Well, the most common refutations of findings in peer reviews always seem to be variants of 'your controls/techniques/measurements suck'.

As demonstrated by the post immediately following my last one

 

[Libre]

Well, the most common refutations of findings in peer reviews always seem to be variants of 'your controls/techniques/measurements suck'.

Inadequate controls, misidentification of relevant variables, measurement error, statistical anomalies, sampling error - these are all important sources of experimental error and incorrect conclusions.
These are at the heart of research and experimentation. They're not simply insignificant factors that can safely be discounted.

 

[Frothingslosh]

I wasn't saying they were. I was simply pointing out they're the default go-to. To be honest, the Mike example was a terrible one because you specifically took a case with no controls and which cannot possibly be tested to verifiable certainty and then suggested testing for said certainty. Basically, you were sandbagging.

 

[Libre]

Maybe Mike was a bad example. The purpose was to show that a completely bounded domain and a simple question still had big problems if you want to show proof.
If Mike was a bad example, so were the ramp and balls.
You contend that you can prove that a ball never entered the left bucket because at the start, both buckets were empty, and now there are 12 balls in the right bucket. That proves that none of them were EVER in the left bucket? I shouldn't even have to look in the left bucket with that criteria. 12 at the start and now 12 in the right bucket -but that's a leap of logic + faith. I've seen doves fly out of magician's hats. Houdini produced an elephant on stage from a cloud of smoke. There are intentional deceptions as well as unintended ones. But still you can be fooled.

The very nature of a negative proposition prevents it from being provable. This is not to say that one cannot INFER facts from negative results. Only that they can't be proved.
I call as an example Bertrand Russell's teapot in orbit around the sun (except we can't see it). Prove it doesn't exist! All you can prove is that you can't detect it. There are infinite things going on we can't detect.

Maybe we have different standards of PROOF.
On the flip side, POSITIVE statements also have great difficulty in being proved. This is why experimental results are not often announced as being definitive unless the experiment can be replicated, ideally many times. In fact results are stated within a certain level of statistical confidence. They are always subject to refutation.
Would you say that the Higgs Boson has been PROVED? Or simply satisfactorily demonstrated?
You remember last year when they announced in Switzerland (?) that they found a particle faster than light? And it was even duplicated, and re-affirmed. Scientific world was in an uproar. King Albert was nearly dethroned.
That was until they said - oh.....sorry. We were wrong. Never mind. Albert was right all along. Didn't we always say so?

 

[Frothingslosh]

With the bucket thing, I phrased it poorly. You could either add a video camera showing the balls' behavior, or you can change it to what I meant, that no ball ENDED UP in the left bucket because you can conclusively prove they all ended up in the right bucket.

Honestly, you're stretching this one, man.

You are also blowing my other comment WAY out of proportion. The fact is that the initial responses to experiments that challenge existing theories are almost always arguments that measurements, controls, or methodology are wrong, in large part because they are the easiest thing to check. I never said that the challenges are wrong, or that those issues are never the real culprit, and I would VERY much appreciate it if you stopped acting like I did.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Libre, your objection to my point about constrained domains was faulty.

If you constrain the domain, then your base statement changes from "X exists" to "X exists in the constrained domain" and I contend that the latter question can be disproved by an exhaustive search of the domain. I was pointing out that because the domain associated with the "God exists" statement CANNOT be constrained, the ability to disprove existence by examination simply isn't possible.

As to the other complaint, the inability to reduce to a contradiction, again the issue becomes the inability to constrain the parameters, not the domain. Same result, you cannot disprove God's existence via a logical contradiction because the descriptions used to describe God are either vague or rapidly mutable. Can't shoot down a fast-moving target with a slow-tracking gun, I guess.

I have personal experience in the issues of accurate measurement, divergent interpretation, and such. I published a paper a long time ago that contradicted a paper from the 1920s regarding the state of dissolved vanadium in strongly acidic aqueous media. The problem was one of using an imprecise measuring tool in the 1920s and having better (and very different) tools 50 years later. So I understand how science changes its opinion on something as time passes.

As to the Higgs Boson? Hasn't been proved to exist - but HAS been proved (by demonstration) to possibly exist. There WERE those who denied it could ever be found. But now, if we can find whatever it was that was found and looks like a Higgs, we start to play the next game: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and lands as awkwardly as a duck ... it AIN'T a duck-billed platypus. So let's find out what it IS.

 

[Alc]

I published a paper a long time ago that contradicted a paper from the 1920s regarding the state of dissolved vanadium in strongly acidic aqueous media.

Haven't we all?

 

[Libre]

With the bucket thing, I phrased it poorly. You could either add a video camera showing the balls' behavior, or you can change it to what I meant, that no ball ENDED UP in the left bucket because you can conclusively prove they all ended up in the right bucket.

Honestly, you're stretching this one, man.

You are also blowing my other comment WAY out of proportion. The fact is that the initial responses to experiments that challenge existing theories are almost always arguments that measurements, controls, or methodology are wrong, in large part because they are the easiest thing to check. I never said that the challenges are wrong, or that those issues are never the real culprit, and I would VERY much appreciate it if you stopped acting like I did.

So I'm the one stretching this one?
Here, on the 380th (and counting) page of this thread.
I'm not blowing any comments out of proportion. I don't get why you say I am. You said the most common challenge to a peer reviewed finding is a questioning of experimental technique - but my comment you hastened to add that indeed those factors CAN alter the data and lead one to a false conclusion. So I guess I don't understand the point or the relevance of your comment - or how I am acting in a way to misrepresent you.

If you want to say that proving all the balls are on the right is exactly the same thing as proving none of the balls are on the left, I would agree that they are logical equivalents. Yet, I would rather a direct proof rather than one by inference.

Videos can be faked as well.

All I'm really getting at is the difficulty in proving ANYTHING beyond ANY doubt.

 

[Libre]

Libre, your objection to my point about constrained domains was faulty.

If you constrain the domain, then your base statement changes from "X exists" to "X exists in the constrained domain" and I contend that the latter question can be disproved by an exhaustive search of the domain. I was pointing out that because the domain associated with the "God exists" statement CANNOT be constrained, the ability to disprove existence by examination simply isn't possible.

As to the other complaint, the inability to reduce to a contradiction, again the issue becomes the inability to constrain the parameters, not the domain. Same result, you cannot disprove God's existence via a logical contradiction because the descriptions used to describe God are either vague or rapidly mutable. Can't shoot down a fast-moving target with a slow-tracking gun, I guess.

I have personal experience in the issues of accurate measurement, divergent interpretation, and such. I published a paper a long time ago that contradicted a paper from the 1920s regarding the state of dissolved vanadium in strongly acidic aqueous media. The problem was one of using an imprecise measuring tool in the 1920s and having better (and very different) tools 50 years later. So I understand how science changes its opinion on something as time passes.

As to the Higgs Boson? Hasn't been proved to exist - but HAS been proved (by demonstration) to possibly exist. There WERE those who denied it could ever be found. But now, if we can find whatever it was that was found and looks like a Higgs, we start to play the next game: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and lands as awkwardly as a duck ... it AIN'T a duck-billed platypus. So let's find out what it IS.

What's an "exhaustive search" then? Searching implies there is a seeker who is looking for something. Maybe that seeker has bias that the thing will never be found. I don't even get this conversation anymore. It's perfectly clear to me that negatives are unprovable, they can only be inferred. In an artificial system of your own construction (your "constrained domain") yes, it's possible to say, in my own universe that I've created there is nobody named Mike. I've looked for a Mike exhaustively, and not found a single one. If I continued to search I am certain it would not yield anything new because of how exhaustive my search has been.
Ergo, no Mike exists and that's my proof.
Nonsense.
And bear in mind, Mike is a trivial example - the real objects of our search - to add anything new to scientific knowledge - would be far more difficult to describe, to identify, and would be far more elusive.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Libre, if you get picky enough, there's not a single thing in existence that can be proven beyond all theoretical possibility of error, even if you have to go so far as to start including situations where the universe spontaneously rewrite the rules of reality in order to falsify readings.

There is a point where you have to stop going 'what if' and instead PROVE that the measurements were wrong. In the case of my rolling balls, the answer to 'the tapes might have been faked' is 'prove it'. Theoreticals do not disprove anything.

 

[Frothingslosh]

To expand on that, 'videos can possibly be altered' isn't even a successful defense in a court of law, and that's a FAR lower standard than is accepted in scientific circles. Even in court, you need to PROVE that the video was faked instead of dismissing it because a possibility exists.

Refusing to accept a proof of a negative on the basis that it's conceivably possible I faked my documentation is no part of science, and it certainly doesn't disprove the ability to prove a negative under tightly constrained situations. Your argument that it is categorically impossible to prove a negative must be accompanied by PROOF. Doc and I have both provided perfectly acceptable situations wherein a negative can be proven, and your argument each time has relied on 'might haves' or 'could haves'. The ball 'might have' bounced out of the bucket too deep for it to bounce out of and into the other one, or I 'might have' lied and faked the video, or I 'might have' done this, that, or the other thing.

The point in my thought experiment was quite simple: I can prove there are no balls in bucket A by showing all the balls are in bucket B. These aren't photons or Schroedinger's Ball; they've been observed and CANNOT be in both buckets at once. Bringing up vague possibilities that they may have bounced when I explicitly said they didn't, or that I may have lied is avoiding the point: if every ball is in bucket B, then none of them can POSSIBLY be in bucket A, thus proving the negative assertion that no balls are in bucket A.

Also, please note that in order to prove that it is categorically impossible to prove a negative under any circumstances, you will need to prove a negative.

 

[Libre]

I will agree that in a thought experiment where there are only 2 possible outcomes and they are mutually exclusive, and you prove one of the outcomes, you have automatically disproved the other outcome.
We know balls run down ramps, and that they don't dematerialize from one bucket and reappear in another one.

If there is a jar of gumballs, there are either an even or an odd number of gumballs. Prove that there are an even number and at the same time you are proving that there is NOT an odd number. So as long as we're not in the real world, so long as we're dealing with thought experiments, where the initial conditions and outcome are to be taken at face value and can't be questioned, then you can prove negatives or positives or anything you set out to prove.

In your example, you can prove your balls went to the right (no personal comment intended) so they could not have gone to the left - but it is better to demonstrate the existence of something than the non-existence. I'm not re-writing the rules of the universe. In a court of law (you brought it up) it is not up to the defendant to prove he did NOT commit a crime - as we all know. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove he DID commit the crime for the reasons I've been advancing.

 

[Frothingslosh]

However, once the evidence has been presented, the defense has to prove that there is a REASONABLE doubt, not that there is a once in a millenium one-chance-in-thirty-trillion possibility that that evidence was incorrect. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' is not the same as 'beyond even the slightest possibility of error'.

At least, not unless the defendant is named Orenthal.

And my thought experiment was precisely that simple: I roll twelve balls into one of two buckets. I can prove that none are in one bucket by showing that they are all in another. Negative assertion proved. Hell, if I were in NYC or you in Flint, I'd do it in person right in front of you and challenge you to prove me wrong.

 

[Libre]

However, once the evidence has been presented, the defense has to prove that there is a REASONABLE doubt, not that there is a once in a millenium one-chance-in-thirty-trillion possibility that that evidence was incorrect. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' is not the same as 'beyond even the slightest possibility of error'.

Right - just as 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is not the same thing as 'beyond any doubt' which is the definition of proof.

.
At least, not unless the defendant is named Orenthal.

Exactly.
Prosecution never proved their case.
I guess you would accept their argument "Who else COULD have done it?" as proof that OJ did do it.
Proof means something different to me than you, I gather.
It means that any other explanation, no matter how improbable, has been shown to be not merely improbable but impossible.
Otherwise we just have an idea we know what's going on but there is no proof.

And my thought experiment was precisely that simple: I roll twelve balls into one of two buckets. I can prove that none are in one bucket by showing that they are all in another. Negative assertion proved. Hell, if I were in NYC or you in Flint, I'd do it in person right in front of you and challenge you to prove me wrong.

You proved a negative only by proving (or disproving) a mutually exclusive positive. They are much the same thing. In that case a negative can be proved. Its like the odd or even gumballs. If one is NOT the case than the other MUST be the case. This is just a logical exercise - it has nothing to do with real experimental design. We've strayed a long way from the path of inquiry and enlightenment. We can argue about this until all the angels do NOT fit on the head of a pin.

Merry Christmas.

 

[Frothingslosh]

If you use 'error must be utterly impossible' as your bar for the legal system, it's time to disband it, because there is ALWAYS the possibility for error.

They found her blood all over his clothes and vehicle. It was straight-up DNA tested and confirmed as hers. The defense forced the expert into saying that the DNA test was accurate to within 1 in six BILLION, and convinced the jurors that that was an unacceptably large margin of error. Note: the population of Earth at that time was six billion, and he was pointing out that the DNA literally MUST have been hers.

Hell, proof beyond all possible doubt means all the defense has to do is say 'He might be lying', and there goes the case, every single time, regardless of any other evidence.

It is simply an unusable threshold.

 

[Libre]

I agree with you there - proof for the legal system is a far cry from proof for a mathematician or a scientist.

 

[Rabbie]

However, once the evidence has been presented, the defense has to prove that there is a REASONABLE doubt, not that there is a once in a millenium one-chance-in-thirty-trillion possibility that that evidence was incorrect. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' is not the same as 'beyond even the slightest possibility of error'.

The burden of proof is (or should be) on the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt beyond all REASONABLE doubt. This is certainly the case in both England and Scotland (they have slightly different systems). The defence do not have to prove anything - they just have to expose any flaws in the prosecution case

 

[Frothingslosh]

Which is precisely what I just said.

 

[Rabbie]

Which is precisely what I just said.

You actually said it was for the defence to prove there is reasonable doubt when in fact the onus of proof is on the prosecution. That was the point I was making. Finding flaws in the prosecution's case is not the same as proving the evidence is incorrect. You only need to show that there is reasonable doubt.