"John Edser"  wrote in message
news:br7nst$1ndj$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
>
>
> PF:-
> I am sure to be restating, in one way or another, your options - precisely
> because they really are *so* generally applicable.
>
> JE:-
> Precisely. TH cannot understand (and he is in good
> company because most Profs and PhD's cannot understand!)
> that a general explanation that is "so good" that no
> observation can be proposed that can refute
> it, is NOT a good thing it is just TERMINAL to that
> idea being a valid proposition of _science_.
>
> People refuse to read Popper so they wrongly suppose
> that their general dictates are just that, _dictates_,
> and not testable theories. Do we have to fall
> all the way back to the middle ages and start
> burning witches at the stake all over again
> just to rediscover that any general verifiable
> but non refutable view is NOT a proposition
> of SCIENCE?
>

Just a note to assure people that I am not another (you, John, being *the*
one) unrelenting relisher of refutability. ;-)

When it comes to the crunch I don't know what you mean by "refutability" in
context of existing organisms (genophenotypes) being the ways they/we are as
a result of opportunity type evolutionary pressures producing patterns for
pruning by adversity type selection pressures.

In fact I am by now fairly sure that no-one else understands what you mean,
either.

Take something as verifiable but not realistically refutable (because it is
approximately reflects reality) as my "EPT" formulation of how
especially we
human animals came to function and behave the ways we do; EPT being
essentially in rational alignment with relevant and scientifically (by
Science#) established: principles, theories, interpretations and concepts
whilst throwing a slither of new explanatory light on a previously largely
missed reasons, causes, and details of why and how we are the ways we are.

Why would you insist that rationally (mathematical or not) and conceptually
framed regular observations (reliable pattern recognitions) needs to be made
refutable?!

Best wishes,

Peter

--
# Science meant and seen holistically; as an historical process of involving
all kinds of human learning - only partly consisting of methodical checking
using controled variables - and gathering of an increasingly precise and
increasingly broad and richly cross-correlated knowledge about and insight
into What Is going on.
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 12/11/03 8:31:32 PM