From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Tue Jan 28 12:14:57 EST 1992
Article 2953 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Cargo Cult Science
Message-ID: <16814@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 21 Jan 92 15:54:12 GMT
References: <92Jan15.175909est.14446@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <1992Jan16.061242.21335@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Jan16.190930.14079nagle@netcom.COM>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 48

In article <1992Jan16.190930.14079nagle@netcom.COM> nagle@netcom.COM (John Nagle) writes:

>     The idea that a theory should be "refutable" refers to refutability by
>experiment.  To be useful, a theory must make predictions.  If the predicted
>phenomena don't occur, the theory is wrong.  That's what "refutability"
>is all about.

>      The physicists are presently facing a philosophical problem with 
>superstring theory.  Superstring theory describes events at so small
>a scale and so high an energy level that no one can conceive of any
>way to test them experimentally.  Some physicists question whether
>superstring theory is even physics for that reason.

One must be careful to distinguish between "I can't imagine how it could
possibly be done" (argument from failure of the imagination) and "I can
prove that it is impossible to do it" (impossible in principle). A lot
of conceited fellows seem to find it rather hard to imagine that it
might be possible in principle to do something beyond their ability to
imagine.

>      The problem with AI is not that refutability is impossible.
>It's that the state of the art is lousy.

There is another aspect to this. There are philosophers of science (and
scientists) who think that there is an important category of scientific
assertions which do not constitute refutable hypotheses, but are
assertions from which refutable hypotheses can be derived. It is easy to
overlook these in a mature science in a normal phase, since they are
often taken to be so obvious that they are taken to be logical truths
(often by a variety of the imagination-failure argument). They are very
important, however, and easily disputable, in sciences in revolutionary
or pre-paradigmatic phases. All-or-nothing refutationalists are apt to
cause a great deal of confusion and distraction at these times by
standing on the sidelines shouting for definitions, refutable
hypotheses, accusing the players of non-science, metaphysics, etc..

I blame the education system :-)

>      It's time to build a "slow mouse".  We have the compute power.
>We have a reasonable fraction of the techniques necessary.  NSF has
>some money available this year.  So let's get started.

A slow mouse? You really think that a slow beetle is too trivial to be
worth bothering with? I must be terribly out-of-date with my reading!
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


