[extropy-chat] against ID

[gts]

Popper also wrote about the interesting concept of "verisimilitude".

verisimilitude \ver-uh-suh-MIL-uh-tood; -tyood\, noun:
1. The appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true.
2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.

He was criticized for attempting to quantify verisimilitude, and ended up  
calling it an "intuitive" idea.

Popper's definition of verisimilitude: "Theory A is closer to the truth  
than theory B if and only if (i) all the true consequences of B are true  
consequences of A, (ii) all the false consequences of A are consequences  
of B, and (iii) either and some true consequences of A are not  
consequences of B or some false consequences of B are not consequences of  
A."

In principle one of any two false theories should be closer to the truth  
than the other, but his critics  showed otherwise for Popper's definition.

His critic Tichý says [instead] that "A is closer to the truth than B  
because A makes one mistake but gets two things right, while B is wrong on  
all three counts. One mistake is better than three mistakes, so A has  
greater verisimilitude or truthlikeness. Now it is possible for one false  
theory to be closer to the truth than another."

(from http://philosophy.wisc.edu/forster/220/notes_10.html)

Given the fact that we do not and may never know the total absolute truth  
about everything, it's pretty important to know which lies we should teach  
in science class. :)

-gts