#02 Calling spade a spade: Things that are not falsifiable are not science.

Jul 11, 2021

Along with the discussion on scientific topics, I would like to touch upon the philosophy of science. What makes an argument scientifically valid? There are many layers to it. I don't think we can give a sufficient condition that makes an argument scientific. But what we can do is derive the necessary condition. Out of many, falsifiability is the most useful and with this argument, you can distinguish many pseudoscientific arguments from science.

Non-liner dynamics, chaos theory and astrology

In my PhD days, I used to discuss, sometimes fight, with my colleagues about the scientific temper and lack of rationalism of our society. One time astrology has become the subject of conversation. I have seen many people who came up with some reasoning that the position of the stars can affect your past as they define different gravitational potential and all. These things will be broken down very easily by invoking the inverse square law of distance and how the movement of a bus can affect the potential more than the stars. However one of my colleagues tried to use many jargons of science for supporting astrology.

"Look you know non-linear dynamics and chaos theory. So if the initial position of anything is slightly different, be in a minute in gravitational potential due to the distance to a star, it will influence you a lot. "

These seemingly ridiculous arguments are hard to fight against. We cannot deny that some systems are too chaotic and highly susceptible to the initial conditions. But the strange generalization of this to explain that the star positions, while you are born, will decide your fate is beyond unscientific. He continues.

"Every particle in the universe evolves to form a state, so what if the old sages have solved the equation for the entire future evolution of the universe based on the initial conditions given by star position"?

I did not want to involve in a discussion which stupidifies the whole debate. Once you go into that rabbit hole you will be discussing something completely different as if it is the most relevant in this debate. But I replied.

"We are talking about a time where an eclipse is considered as a snake swallowing the sun. The argument that the people who lived in the caves have predicted the evolution of every particle in the universe, is beyond ridiculous. "

He became more adamant: "How can you say that with confidence? have you read their script? They might have done all the calculations in their mind and written it down after simplification for the public to understand. Scientifically you cannot say that it is impossible"

I did not waste my time in that debate as this was getting more and more absurd. However, later I thought, what could be the correct way that such questions can be answered? One of the easy methods is the falsifiability of an argument.

Falsifiability of an argument

Austrian thinker Karl Popper has argued that the inductive method of science, which is forming a theory based on evidence is insufficient. Any scientific theory, says popper, should restrict something from happening. The more it restricts, the better the theory is. This is the essence of falsifiability.

Let us take one classic example.

In the Himalayas, there lives a giant man called Yeti. Or somewhere in the forest, the monkey god hanuman still lives.

Is this a falsifiable theory? For testing it, you need to go to the woods and search for Yeti or Hanuman. However, if you could not find any, you cannot claim that the theory is wrong. One can argue that the Yeti of Hanuman might be somewhere else. This makes the argument not falsifiable and therefore not worthy of consideration.

The inductive and deductive logic.

Many people assume the logic of science to be inductive. The flow of the scientific understanding according to the inductive and deductive logic are given in the figure below.

To explain why the inductive method is flawed, Karl Popper explained a famous theory of white swans. Everyone, at least everyone in Europe, believed that all swans are white until the Dutch explorers found a black swan in Australia in 1636. According to Popper, no matter how many white swans were found, one cannot conclude the theory is right.

Among theologists, there is this saying " if you think right, you can find the evidence". According to them, everything in the world is full of evidence to their holy book. This is true for non-religious beliefs such as Marxism as well. Karl Popper explains this when he compared the theories of Marx, Freud and Adler.

"I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still "un-analyzed" and crying aloud for treatment."

So if someone tells you a theory that can be used to explain each and everything, that is probably a bad theory. The reason is that the theory does not make any testable predictions. Let me finish by giving the bullet points that Karl popper gives in his articles.

These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.
It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is
A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")
Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.") This is further debated in the community and Popper himself have changed his approach later.

This is not even wrong

The argument that the old sages have “solved” the evolution of all particles in the universe is not even wrong. This phrase is used to describe arguments that are not falsifiable.

I will come back to this topic later on when we talk about scientific methodology. Knowledge about scientific methodology is essential for boosting the scientific temper of society. Unfortunately, many people, even people who are practitioners of science as a career, seems to forgo the discrimination of science from pseudoscience. This is even dangerous when it comes to medical practices and all. We will come to this point later. Meanwhile, let me know your thoughts in the comment session.