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To: mlo
Wikipedia (the encyclopedia that anyone can edit) is not an authoritative source.

Scientific laws are not breakable and the phenomena they describe when tested are utterly repeatable and reproducible. Electromagnetism is a phenomenon upon which the computer you are looking at works.

As for the issue you continue to raise that is not related to the subject of this thread, I will stand with Karl Popper. Scientific method is not something to be abused.
55 posted on 04/21/2014 8:51:51 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai
"Wikipedia (the encyclopedia that anyone can edit) is not an authoritative source."

This is not some controversial subject. The word "theory" does not mean what you think it means.

"Scientific laws are not breakable and the phenomena they describe when tested are utterly repeatable and reproducible. Electromagnetism is a phenomenon upon which the computer you are looking at works."

"As for the issue you continue to raise that is not related to the subject of this thread, I will stand with Karl Popper. Scientific method is not something to be abused."

It's ironic that you would bring up Popper right after saying, "Scientific laws are not breakable". Popper would tell you that you can never know for certain that a "law" is true. You can only know for certain when it's false.

"Scientific laws" are just more compact ways to express the conclusions of theory. We refer to the "law of gravity" and its related equation rather than cite Newton's entire theory. But like theories, there's no guarantee that "laws" are certain either. In fact the Newtonian "law of gravity" isn't quite correct and was refined by Einstein.

I'm afraid you aren't in a position to be lecturing on the scientific method.

58 posted on 04/21/2014 8:59:27 PM PDT by mlo
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To: Olog-hai; mlo

The description that mlo copied from Wikipedia is absolutely correct. Scientific theory pulls together countless observations into a coherent framework that both links together the observations and provides a basis to make testable hypotheses.

BTW, Wikipedia may be editable by anyone, but if someone tries to insert incorrect information, it will almost instantly be corrected. So many educated people use Wikipedia that it would be nearly impossible for factual inaccuracies to remain. Also, anything posted in Wikipedia must be referenced; if you suspect you have seen inaccurate information posted there, you can check the references for yourself and make a correction if you think it is necessary. I’ll warn you up-front, though: if you try to alter Wikipedia by removing scientific references and replacing them with nonsense references from Answers in Genesis, Discovery Institute, etc., you will have little success.

Evolution is a process that happens according to immutable physical laws. Every time I compare a sequence of, for instance, flu viruses isolated from two different patients, and I see that there is a 2% difference in the genetic material between the two different isolates, I am directly observing the process of evolution.

The theory of evolution (which is not the process) ties together all of the evolutionary observations (alteration of genetic material, the observed differences between fossils of different ages and currently living animals, etc.) into a framework that we use to make predictions that we can work from. Science simply cannot proceed without hypotheses. If there is a better explanation of the countless millions of observations that led to the theory of evolution, please let everyone know. Otherwise, the theory stands.

I must say, I am intrigued by the creationist (not Christian) fascination with Karl Popper. It is mind-boggling that anyone could possibly believe that a philosopher who never did a single scientific experiment in his life could know more about the scientific method than actual scientists who spend all day every day testing hypotheses. But, whatever.


62 posted on 04/22/2014 4:09:00 AM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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