It's a statistical analysis thing
It's not really up for debate.
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 16:58, 1 reply)

Tell
Karl Popper that.

Statistics, and/or tools of statistical analysis should not be questioned or debated.
(dchurch bah, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 19:21, closed)

Ok, I've looked up his views.
And I've tried to write something sensible, but that's not easy when you're pissed. Suffice for now to say that I see where he's coming from but don't agree with his basic position. I'll try to add more tomorrow when I'm sober.


Edit:

It depends on how you view natural laws. I would say that the correct way is that all laws of nature are derived entirely by observation, and that anything that appears to break the laws of nature as we understand them in fact does not - it merely provides a situation in which we must modify our definition of the laws.

Popper claims that a single counterexample is sufficient to prove a law false, but by the definition above that just doesn't make sense; rather it will modify a law that cannot, under any circumstances, be said to be false. As a proponent of the falsification principle, Popper would probably then argue that if a law cannot be proven to be false it has no meaning, but would fall into the trap that the falsification priciple itself is not falsifiable. Traditionally philosophers have got around this problem by claiming that the principle itself is the only exception to which I say: Bullshit.
( MatJ LOOK, Sat 24 Sep 2011, 0:13, closed)

As a more coherent and less philosophical argument:
Not all disagreements are created equal. Someone who admits having failed a maths GCSE (which when I did it did not contain ANY statistics - it may have done before 2005) questioning an absolutely fundamental principle of modern science is not quite the same as a nobel laureate questioning the priciples of homeopathy, for example.
( MatJ LOOK, Mon 26 Sep 2011, 1:34, closed)

Technically
and 'E' is a pass mark. Your post sounds somewhat like an ad hominem attack, if I may say so, which weakens any argument you may put forward.
(dchurch bah, Mon 26 Sep 2011, 19:36, closed)

It's not ad hominem if it's relevant to the issue
If I'd claimed you were too short to talk about maths, that would be ad hominem. Stating that the issue involved is one you come to realise and understand more easily if you've studied maths to a fairly high level, then pointing out that you have not, is an entirely relevant point (in the same way that I could not advise you on how to change the flow of a computer program).

I'm not claiming that you don't have a right to talk about mathematics in general (that WOULD be ad hominem) but that this is a very specific point therein.

Although it strikes me that this entire argument is somewhat pointless...
( MatJ LOOK, Tue 27 Sep 2011, 16:16, closed)