Re: [asa] Untestable -- Is it Science?

Well, but even miraculous divine intervention is testable "in principle,"
because theoretically you could ask God directly about it and He could tell
you yea or nay. That seems as likely as truly being able to test what the
pachycephalasaurus did with its domed head in its original environment.

It seems that the sign is partly accurate, but overstated. We can test
some theories about T-Rex teeth and pteradactyl wings and even pachy domes
by rigging up the fossils a certain way, constructing computer models, etc.
For example, there have been tests about whether T-Rex used its teeth for
scavenging or hunting based on the resilience of fossil teeth in pneumatic
T-Rex jaw simulators. If someone theorized that pachy's used their skull
caps in head-butting contests over mates (like mountain sheep), they
probably could build some models and see if they make a resonant sound,
crack apart, etc. I guess you can eliminate some theories this way, but if
there is no possibility of resurrecting the creature itself and observing it
in its natural environment, it seems impossible to construct any sort of
meaningful test that would provide any significant degree of certainty about
actual behavior. Remember Jurassic Park -- they had to insert amphibian
genes to complete the code, and they couldn't completely rebuild the
original ecosphere, so the cloned animals weren't reliable representations
of the original -- or so the chaos theory character kept saying. :-)

Obviously this connects to debates about ID and such, but I do find it
interesting that "testable" is (a) a rather elastic term; and (b) not a
sure guarantee of epistemic reliability.

On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 2:24 PM, Stephen Matheson <smatheso@calvin.edu>
wrote:

> I think Louise makes a very important point here, and I think the sign is
> misleading. While hypotheses regarding the behavior of dinosaurs are --
> currently -- not "testable" in the sense that they can't be directly
> subjected to experimental analysis, they are, in fact, testable in
> principle. For one thing, certain aspects of the physiology of extinct
> species have been recently "resurrected" and studied, and it could be that
> somday we'll see more specific tests of various hypotheses regarding the
> behavior and physiology of extinct organisms. And the *idea* itself is
> testable, meaning that it can be evaluated in light of additional data, or
> in light of simulations/models based on that data.
>
> But more importantly, the word "testable" encompasses divergent senses of
> testability. Some hypotheses are not testable *practically*, due to all
> sorts of technical/practical issues that may or may not be surmountable.
> This is the sense in which dinosaur physiology hypotheses are not testable.
> But some hypotheses are not testable for more fundamental reasons. The
> most obvious example here is any Last Thursday hypothesis, in which an agent
> performs supernatural interventions and then covers his/her tracks. For
> example, the old-earth creationism of Reasons To Believe involves a
> repeated-miracles scenario for the history of life that is untestable in a
> far more profound way than is the most fanciful speculation on the use of
> dinosaur skulls.
>
> I would even say that the invocation of miraculous intervention in the past
> is inherently untestable, because it cannot be distinguished, even in
> principle, from competing explanations. (It follows, I think, that the same
> applies to philosohical naturalism here.) What *can* be "tested," I think,
> is the proposal that natural history exhibits the kind of explanatory gaps
> that would require supernatural explanation. The explanation (that a
> superintelligence intervened) is not "testable", but the proposal (that
> there are gaps of some kind) is, I think, clearly testable. This is one
> reason why I think it is a poor strategy to assert, without careful
> explication, that ID is "not science."
>
> Steve Matheson
>
> >>> "Freeman, Louise Margaret" <lfreeman@mbc.edu> 06/07/08 11:00 AM >>>
> It seems to me that the sign is conflating "direct observation" with
> "testing." By this standard,
> we cannot "be sure" that T. rex used its teeth for eating meat or
> pteradactyls used their wings
> for flying. But I know few scientists who would be uncomfortable with those
> conclusions or
> deny that the support for them was unscientific.
>
> The unusual bone structure of those dinosaurs may be a somewhat harder
> puzzle to solve, but
> it doesn't mean that scientists should speculate and test their hypotheses
> by whatever tools are
> available (modeling, comparative anatomy, etc.)
>
> __
> Louise M. Freeman, PhD
> Psychology Dept
> Mary Baldwin College
> Staunton, VA 24401
> 540-887-7326
> FAX 540-887-7121
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> To: Jack <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
> Cc: "ASA List" <asa@lists.calvin.edu>
> Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2008 09:08:12 -0400
> Subject: Re: [asa] Untestable -- Is it Science?
>
> > But this signage says simply: "untestable." So something can be
> > "untestable" and yet be a "scientific" theory because, as Dave S. said,
> > they
> > are applying what is know to what is observed, even though the
> > resulting
> > theory cannot be tested by any kind of observation?
> >
> > (I don't doubt, BTW, that theories about how dinosaurs behaved can be
> > called
> > "scientific." It just interests me that "testable" isn't really the
> > gold
> > standard here.)
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 8:06 AM, Jack <drsyme@cablespeed.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Of course. It depends on the theory, not all of them are testable.
> > But
> > > if a theory of animal behavior predicts certain findings, and those
> > findings
> > > are able to be preserved in the fossil record then the theory can be
> > tested.
> > >
> > > BTW I heard of a camp at that museum for kids, where you get to spend
> > and
> > > evening and then sleep over one night inside the museum, have you
> > heard
> > > about that?
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > *From:* David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> > > *To:* ASA List <asa@lists.calvin.edu>
> > > *Sent:* Friday, June 06, 2008 10:21 PM
> > > *Subject:* [asa] Untestable -- Is it Science?
> > >
> > > I spent a lovely afternoon today with my ten year old son at the
> > Museum of
> > > Natural History in New York. This display of a pachycephalasaurus --
> > an
> > > alien-looking, dome headed dinosaur -- caught my eye. If you can't
> > see the
> > > attached photos, the signage says: "we cannot be sure how
> > > pachycephalasaurus used their skull caps, becuase theories about the
> > > behaviors of extinct animals cannot be tested." So are theories
> > about
> > > extinct animal behaviors "science"?
> > >
> > > --
> > > David W. Opderbeck
> > > Associate Professor of Law
> > > Seton Hall University Law School
> > > Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > David W. Opderbeck
> > Associate Professor of Law
> > Seton Hall University Law School
> > Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
>
>
>
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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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