Falsification Part 2

Philosophy and Science

BRENT SILBY Unlimited (UPT)

Show Roman history book! Book tells us that Julius Caesar existed. Do you believe it? Why? How do you know it is true? [discuss]

What if there were no other Roman history books--this is the only one. Would you still believe that Caesar existed?

What if the book specifically said that all information it contains is true?

What about this quote from the Bible:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh (Luke 6:20-21)

Is it true? Do you believe it? Why / why not?

Is there a difference between the types of statements you find in Roman history book and the Bible?

What about something more specific in the Bible:

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food." Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered. "Bring them here to me," he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Is it true? Do you believe it? Why / why not?

The Roman history book contains a bibliography. You can check information from other sources.

But wait! The Bible contains stories written by different people. The story about feeding 5000 people appears in 4 separate books in the Bible. Is this the same as checking a bibliography?
No! Because these sources cannot be checked for accuracy. The passages were written over 100 years after the events depicted. And, they all learned their story from the same place. That source cannot be verified.

In the case of Roman history, all sources lead back to evidence that can be checked: Social/political documents from the time Statues of Julius Caesar His image appears on ancient money Information about him appears across Europe in many countries

Julius Caesar was the first to have his image printed on a coin

The same is not true of bible stories. These cannot be traced to documents written at the time, and information cannot be found in other sources.

The only evidence the bible offers for its truth is its own existence It would be like me saying that I know Julius Caesar exists because it is written in this book, and I know its contents are true because the book exists.

Why religion is not science Christian Religion requires belief that the bible is true. Ideas contained in the bible are believed through faith.

Science is the opposite. Nothing is believed through faith. Scientific ideas are under constant scrutiny and attempts at falsification.

This is how science evolves. If it was not subject to scrutiny, no-one would question theories, and knowledge would not progress.

Science is not a religion Some religious people claim that science is just another religion. Others say that religious theories, such as creationism, are scientific. Are they right? What do you think?

Science, unlike religion, is based on asking questions and scrutinizing evidence and hypotheses. When challenged on this, many creationists accuse scientists of having faith in their theories, or faith that science can explain all the mysteries of the universe.

Science is not a religion

To have faith in something, one must accept that thing to be true with no evidence; but this is not the way science works.
It would not be rational for a scientist to simply believe by faith that science is always right. This is because there are so many instances in which scientific theories have been shown to be wrong. Science is in a constant state of evolution. Accepted theories of the past have been refined and changed giving us a more precise world-view. A science that does not change and can not be questioned would not actually be science.

Science is not a religion On the other hand, the prophecies and claims of the bible can never be considered scientific because they require people's acceptance with no question.

There is no room for development of the bible's claims in light of new evidence. If someone questions the accuracy of a prediction in the bible, the answer is usually something like: "... we have misunderstood..." or "... the dates are inaccurate..." or "... God may have changed his mind..."

Science is not a religion Imagine how difficult it would be to understand the world if science worked that way. Suppose that someone challenged Newton's law of gravity by pointing to the anomalous orbit of Mercury and scientists responded by saying: the law of gravity doesn't ALWAYS work ... we don't know why it doesn't always work, but it could be that we are misunderstanding God's intentions. What's important is that we have faith in Newton's theory and continue to accept it." If this answer was accepted, Einstein's theory of gravity would never have had a chance despite the fact that it does predict the strange orbit of Mercury.

Falsification Good science proceeds by attempting to refute hypotheses rather than confirming them.

Focusing solely on confirming hypotheses can lead to bad theories. This is the problem with astrology. It takes one instance of success for people to believe in astrology. People ignore the hundreds of failures.

To say that science seeks to refute hypotheses is to say that they are testable. This is to say that there must be some way (in principle) of falsifying hypotheses.

Falsification Scientific theories need to be falsifiable in principle. Why? Because if it is not possible to falsify a theory, then it does not tell us anything useful. What does this mean? Science tells us about how the world happens to be. There are many ways the world might have turned out, but it happens to be this way. If a theory is falsifiable, then it tells us that the world could have been different. And if the theory is then falsified, then we will have learned that the world is one way and not the other.

Falsification There needs to be the possibility of falsification so that we know that out of all possible ways the world could be, it is actually this way. Examples of assertions that are falsifiable: 1. It never rains on Wednesdays
Falsify by making lots of observations on Wednesdays. If it rains on one Wednesday, the theory is falsified.

2. All substances expand when heated

As it turns out, heating ice until it melts can falsify this assertion.

3. All objects fall towards the Earth when released within Earth's gravitational field.
This is falsifiable in principle. If a brick flew up when released, then the theory would be falsified and science would work to make our understanding more complete.

Falsification Now, consider these assertions: 1. The mark of the beast refers to a cashless society
Not scientific. Cant be falsified. It is a definitional term so doesnt tell us anything about how the world is compared to how it might have been. Largely uninteresting type of assertion.

2. Jesus was the son of God

Similar to 1. Cant be falsified. It is a definitional term similar to a bachelor is an unmarried man. It does not tell us anything interesting about the world. No test could ever falsify this. Even testing DNA, Christians could just say that God wanted him to appear human.

3. God created the Earth and all life, complete with fossil record and cosmic background radiation in 6 days, 6000 years ago
Unfalsifiable because any evidence that could falsify it is already accounted for in the story.

Falsification
The Earth arose approximately 9 billion years after the big bang due to the accumulation of stellar matter left over from the formation of our sun. During the next billion years, the carbon, methane, nitrogen, oxygen, water, and hydrogen in the Earth's primitive atmosphere were exposed to intense electrical discharges produced by severe lightening storms. The atmosphere was also exposed to high energy level ultraviolet radiation produced by the young sun. The effect of this exposure broke the atmosphere's composite molecules apart and caused them to rearrange which gave rise to hydrocarbons and amino acids -- the building blocks of life. Over time, electrical discharges in the atmosphere caused the formation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which bridges the gap between non-living chemicals and living chemical structures. ATP is thought to provide the energy needed for amino acids to assemble into complex structures such as proteins. From this point a journey of 3.5 billion years of evolution by natural selection gave rise to the complex forms of life we see today -- including the human species.

The interesting thing is that Creationists deny that their story is subject to the principle of falsification. They state quite firmly that the bible is the literal truth and should not be questioned.

Falsification The Big Bang and Evolution theories are falsifiable. Therefore they are good scientific theories.

One way in which they could be falsified would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old and that life on Earth had an extraterrestrial origin. The panspermia theories that were popular during the 19th century suggest that primitive life may have originated in space and traveled here on meteorites and comets. This idea has become popular again with the suggestion that a meteorite's remains contain fossilized bacterial type structures.

Scientific theories must be falsifiable in principle.

Religious ideas are not falsifiable, and cannot be considered scientific. Their ideas must be accepted on faith. As soon as people try to adjust their religious views in response to new evidence, they have admitted falsifiability of their religion.

But then they are not practicing religion anymore.

Powerpoint by BRENT SILBY Produced at UPT Christchurch, New Zealand www.unlimited.school.nz

Based on article: Silby, Brent.(2001) Correcting the Creationist, www.def-logic.com/articles/correcting_the_creationist.html