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Craig, trying to divorce the philosophy of science from the "mechanics" of it is like trying to separate the milk from the tea after you've poured it into it. One affects the other. Unless you want to change about half a dozen laws of physics, you can't separate them....easily, at least.
Whoever said it was an easy coexistence, between the philosophical and the empirical aspects of science. No marriage is perfect and neither is this one. That's why you have to work at it in order to make progress in both areas.
I have no problems with what you have written there, except with your stance of where UFO's/aliens should be considered within science and the results of a negative return of a study where that study is based on only one example and then trying to extrapolate that out into a meaningful test for other situations (being in relation to your Mars life confusion post). UFO's/aliens are more than just a philosophical exercise in polite company. There is a phenomenon happening around us and if we hold true to the ideals of science we have an obligation to not just sit on our backsides and pontificate about the merits of the possibilities and probabilities. That phenomenon must be studied and put to the test through the scientific method. Not dismissed and ridiculed on the basis of scientific hubris, arrogance, ignorance and sheer bloody mindedness.
So far as the negative result is concerned, you're trying to extrapolate the results of that test on the basis of only one example. It's meaningless, both statistically and practically. Anyone who understood statistics would realise this. You can't even say how it will impact on your base philosophy, either. All it can be used for is a generalisation with which to formulate a very broad, but not very far reaching hypothesis which will be rather limited in scope. Any theory you based upon the results of this study would be standing on almost thin air. In reality, it wouldn't even really be worth it's own salt. It would still be nothing more than pure speculation based on the flimsiest of results.
Last edited by renormalised; 16-09-2011 at 09:55 AM.
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