[UA] Re: [UA]

[Nick Wedig]

>    For some reason, people seem to be getting things backward.  I *believe*
>that the sun will come up tomorrow because it's come up every day in
>recorded history, and presumably every day that there was an earth, and
>because the way the solar system is set up, something huge would have to
>happen for it to not come up.

Science works like a logical syllogism.  It takes two statements and makes a third.  The first is the general, "The future will resemble the past."  The second, specific statement is your evidence for a particular case, eg "the sun has always risen in the past".  Finally, you get a result, ie "the sun will continue rising in the future, unless something changes".  

Now, it's impossible to have the conclusion of the syllogism be one of the premises (you can do it, but it's circular and therefore an invalid argument).  So you cannot have a scientific evidence to support the claim "the future will resemble the past".  You can either accept it as an axiom (ie, on faith) or you can believe it possibly wrong, and therefore doubt the entire scientific framework (as I do, though I tend to think the chances small but non-zero).  

>    Reiterating: it's possible to prove a scientific theory wrong.  All that
>needs to happen is for something to defy explanation by that theory.  It's
>impossible to prove faith wrong.

I'm not questioning sciences ability to modify the conclusion when the second premise is changed.  That works well and good.  The part I'm questioning is the first premise, which can't be proven scientifically.  

Mr. Teapot
empirical anti-empiricist

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