In science does empirical evidence prove the existence of something?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Pachomius, Oct 4, 2010.

  1. Pachomius Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    219
    Here is the background of the present thread:



    [The thread I started elsewhere.]

    Title of thread: Is there empirical evidence for dark matter and dark energy?



    Re: Empirical evidence, existence, fact, proposition ​
    • Yrreg writes:
      The title of this thread as given by me is:
      Is there empirical evidence for dark matter and dark energy?
      And the way I understand the title is conveyed in the following sentence also in my own words:
      Is there the existence of empirical evidence proving the existence of dark matter and dark energy?
    • Percy writes:
      Those two sentences do not convey the same meaning, and the 2nd sentence was not my understanding of the topic when I promoted it.
      Closing this down.

      Percy
      EvC Forum Director [and owner]

    ------------------


    Is there empirical evidence for dark matter and dark energy? - new.

    Is there empirical evidence for dark matter and dark energy? - old.

    Thinking outside the empirical evidence box.[/INDENT]
    [/list]


    Yrreg[/QUOTE]



    Pachomius
     
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    In answer to the question in the thread title: it probably depends what the "something" is.

    Can you give an example?

    Actually, let's take dark matter for a minute.

    Dark matter is currently a hypothesised substance that has been introduced to explain a set of separate observations of various measured quantities. The composition of "dark matter" is yet to be determined, though there are various proposals.

    So, the current state of play, as I see it, is that there is evidence suggesting that "dark matter" exists, but we don't know what form that "dark matter" takes yet. Also, we must bear in mind that the same evidence might be accounted for by a different model some time in the future, in which case the concept of "dark matter" will no longer be useful.

    Does the current evidence for dark matter prove that dark matter exists? It doesn't point to any particular form of dark matter (although it does rule out some prior proposals). But it does point to something in definite need of an explanation. At this point, maybe the best thing to say is that "dark matter" is a best-guess name filler for something we don't know much about yet.
     
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  5. Pachomius Registered Senior Member

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    Can you say with all honesty that you have empirical evidence for dark matter, or can scientists say with all honesty that they have empirical evidence for dark matter?

    Just like you and everyone else can say that we have empirical evidence that there is a nose in our face, because we see and touch our noses and breathe through our noses?



    What are then the kinds of empirical evidence in science?




    Pachomius
     
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  7. Big Chiller Registered Senior Member

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    We are all subject reality.
     
  8. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    3,576
    No.
    And he was quite clear that is not the case.
     
  9. No, James is trying to say that the evidence is theoretical evidence, not factual evidence. He's saying that we have evidence to prove the possibility of dark matter, but not enough to make it absolute.
     
  10. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    We have empirical evidence that there's apparently more matter in the universe than is visible. We call the stuff we can't see "dark matter".

    Well, in a slightly more abstract way, we can "see" the effects of dark matter. To make a better analogy, we can't directly perceive radio waves using our human senses, but we're fairly sure they exist due to other indirect ways of detecting them (such as using a radio receiver). The evidence for dark matter is similarly indirect, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

    Empirical evidence is any evidence obtained by experiment or observation, by definition. That's what "empirical" means.
     
  11. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    3,634
    Assuming the thread title accurately conveys the point of the thread (and this thread is not limited to dark matter and dark energy as the OP seems to read), then the answer is "No" with a caveat.

    You need to be precise about terms here. If by "prove the existence", you mean the empirical evidence for that thing "proves" its existence beyond all possible doubt, then the answer is clearly no. If, on the other hand, by "prove" you mean establish the existence with a high degree of certainty, then the answer may well be "yes". "Evidence" is a statement of fact that tends to make a given proposition more or less likely to be true, so it is tautologically true that when you have "evidence" for the existence of a thing, that thing's existence becomes more likely.

    Empirical evidence, however, can always be, in principle, falsified. Those are just statements of fact about how the world behaved in the past when we were watching it, and that can always be, potentially, a shoddy guide to the future. One reason is that we only infer that the past is a good guide to the future, because we assume the laws of science are stable. The other reason is that all "empirical evidence" relies on our senses and perception, and those can be fooled. You can misread data, you can be insane, or we could all have a fundamental bit of wiring is our brain that biases our interpretation of the data (in fact, we already know of several "cognitive biases" with which all humans must contend).

    Empirical evidence can establish existence well enough that it serves as a useful guide, but at the end of the day there will always be some (perhaps minuscule) room for questioning.
     
  12. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    5,502


    Mod Note:

    Thanks you Pandaemoni.

    And here I was about to move this thread to Physics.

    Pachomius,

    Please do try to be more clear in the future with respect to the scope of your threads.

    Herein, let's all pay due attention to Pandaemoni's note: the thread is about the relationship between empirical evidence and existence in general, and not about dark matter/energy in particular.




    Agreed on all points.

    That pretty much settles the question as far as I'm concerned.
     
  13. Pachomius Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    219
    Well, please don't move this thread to physics.

    Please keep it in the philosophy board.


    I bring in the nose in our face that it is proven to exist on empirical evidence.

    You don't need falsifiability to see that the nose in our face is a scientific fact.

    The thing is that people talk about dark matter or other matters in science as though they are as certain as the nose in our face.

    See, the nose in our face is within the touch of our fingers and we can see it with our eyes, but dark matter or any matters that are arrived at by the socalled scientific method or more properly scientific inference based on mathematics, you cannot see it with your eyes, touch it with your fingers, smell it with your nose, hear it with your ears, and taste it with your tongue.

    But you can use your mind to arrive at their existence on the basis of what I call intelligent thinking.

    My point is this, people who make a lot of empirical evidence give the impression that dark matter and other matters expatiated about by scientists are as factual as the nose in our face, but that is not the case.

    In regard to electric current which is used to bring about heat for cooking purposes, that is also more immediate to our senses than ever dark matter can be at the present state of scientific speculation.

    From the innermost depths of the atom to the farthest distances of the astronomical space, to the nose in our face, there are many a slip intervening, but there are intelligent reasons for our mind to come to the certainty that they are there, even though we don't know what category of things to assign them to, among the categories of things we do have already concepts and names for.

    But we can describe what their effects are and what effects would be absent if they are not around.


    So?

    So what is so derisive that ancient philosophers have already come to the existence of what today we might call dark creators and dark programmers making it possible for the stable existence and operation of the nose in our face?





    Pachomius
     
  14. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I am short on time, but it is possible that the nose on your face is not real. Imagine, as one hypothetical possibility that you are a brain in a jar in an alien lab, and they are stimulating your brain in a way that makes you think you are at your computer, reading this post, but that is really just their simulation. Were you in a simulation, your nose would not be real, and yet there is no way you could tell the difference between a simulation and reality, if the virtual you were detailed enough. (In fact there might be no "you" at all. You might be one character in an elaborate computer simulation of the world in the early 21st century...you and I many never have really existed in the true real world, we just think we do.

    Or, imagine that you are noseless, but that fact has driven you insane. You *think* you have a nose, you *think* you can feel it, but some people *think* they are Napoleon, or that insects are crawling underneath their skin, or that they can hear the voices of their CIA tormentors being transmitted into the computer chips the CIA implanted in their heads brains. In short, were you insane, you could not trust any of your senses to tell you that you have a nose. Even if your friends tell you that they can see your nose, you may be imagining those friends a la John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.

    Again, you may judge the chance of these things being minuscule, but there's no way to say that the chances are exactly 0%.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2010

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