Eg havi hug at deila eitt av mínum yndis sitatum við tykkum. - TopicsExpress



          

Eg havi hug at deila eitt av mínum yndis sitatum við tykkum. Tað snýr seg um vísind og falsifikatiónskravið fyri hypotesur: A fire breathing dragon lives in my garage. Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely youd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity! Show me you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle - but no dragon. Wheres the dragon? you ask. Shes right here, I reply, waving vaguely. I neglected to mention that shes an invisible dragon. You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragons footprints. Good idea, I say but this dragon floats in the air. Then youll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire. Good idea, but the invisible fire is heatless. Youll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. Good idea, except shes an incorporeal dragon and the paint wont stick. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it wont work. Now, whats the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there is no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless. - Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark, chapter ten, The Dragon in my garage.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 14:33:01 +0000

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