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Here's my two cents' worth: in the cases that I can think of, in the
natural and laboratory sciences,<br>
the scientist takes the laws and hypotheses being tested to predict a
distribution of results (distribution in the<br>
probabilistic sense), and s/he then compares the results---which are
more positive rather than negative,<br>
but aren't <i>just </i>positive---<br>
with the predicted distribution. From such a perspective, there isn't a
sharp distinction between looking for<br>
negative and positive evidence. I'm not a physicist, but we read about
theories in physics being <br>
tested in accelerators in which particles are driven to a very high
energy level, high enough to allow for<br>
hypothetical large-mass particles to arise spontaneously (e.g., the
Higgs boson). To the extent that the<br>
theory making the prediction is tight, then predictions are relatively
tight that we should see evidence of<br>
the particle arising soon after our particles have reached a certain
threshold energy. To the extent that<br>
the theory is a bit soft, we cannot conclude that the proposed particle
doesn't exist till we have gone <br>
up well past the energy level where we had expected to see the
particle. <br>
<br>
If one accepts the goal of a theory to be to predict distributions of
data, then there isn't a sharp distinction<br>
between positive and negative evidence. Loosely speaking, though, if we
drive the energy of the particles <br>
very, very high and see no evidence of the predicted particle, at some
point it's not unreasonable to say<br>
that we have negative evidence indicating that the particle just ain't
there. <br>
<br>
John Goldsmith <br>
<br>
<br>
Mike Maxwell a écrit :
<blockquote cite="mid:477CF211.6060705@umiacs.umd.edu" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Terry wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Mike misrepresents what Geoffrey says here by using ellipsis, not a very
scientific thing to do!
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
A comment from a top poster :-).
In most mailing lists, it's considered good etiquette to not post the
entire message you're replying to. And that's what I did.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Geoffrey's example was a stone. And Geoffrey is right. No one has ever seen
a stone move upward.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I could argue that point (stones may bounce when they hit something, and
the Moon is in essence a giant stone), but it misses the point. Newton
did not say his laws of motion applied only to stones; rather, they
applied to *any* object, which meant that there had to be another
explanation for apparent counter-examples like birds and leaves. (For
that matter, until Galileo, people didn't believe that light
objects--small stones, for example--fell as fast as heavy objects.)
All this is getting rather far from the language issue, except that (1)
the laws of Newtonian physics were not obvious to millions of people for
thousands of years, precisely because there were counter-examples; and
(2) language is far more complicated than Newtonian physics, yet every
child learns one. If you don't see a mystery there, then I'm mystified.
(The original post was about poverty of stimulus arguments, about which
of course there are book-length treatments.)
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">It is pointless to change the meaning of what people say if you want to make
progress. Otherwise what you are doing is simply rhetoric. And this, in
spite of what he may say to the contrary, is what Mike is doing here.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I'll disagree.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Terry
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
</blockquote>
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