[ExI] ​Popper and unscientific theories

[Anders]

It is worth noticing that Popper was (and is) big in philosophy of 
science, but is hardly the last word of what makes a good scientific 
theory or practice. Falsifiability comes in various shades, actual 
science is pretty far from a 
hypothesis-experiment-confirmation/falsification loop, and things like 
simulations require other ways of thinking about the issue.

The age of the universe is AFAIK *not* a prediction of the big bang 
theory: the theory just predicts a finite age. The age is something you 
calculate by fitting observation data to a model of the expansion, 
typically a FRW metric with a model of the mass/energy state - quite a 
lot of extra data and theory. Big bang theory essentially just states 
that the universe was smaller and hotter in the past, and that this can 
be extrapolated to an initial bang state. The rest requires a spacetime 
theory and a theory for the matter content.

It is worth noticing that the Ehlers–Geren–Sachs theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehlers%E2%80%93Geren%E2%80%93Sachs_theorem
makes an isotropic and homogeneous FRW spacetime pretty unavoidable 
given observations, and would indeed falsify the spacetime if we found 
large deviations in the background radiation.

If you have a FRW spacetime Occam's razor supports that the manifold is 
open or complete: while one can imagine a finite patch unraveling at its 
edges, it is a theory that contains extra data (where are those edges?) 
that does not explain anything we can see (since the edges have to be 
beyond our horizon). Popper would also argue it is unfalsifiable. In 
fact, it is somewhat hard to see even where the edge would come from 
unless the original singularity had a *really* peculiar topology.



On 2016-06-09 21:08, John Clark wrote:
> ​The philosopher Karl ​
> Popper
> ​said​
>  a theory is unscientific if it makes a prediction that can't
> ​be ​
> falsified
> ​regardless of how good experimenters become,​
> ​
>  but what
> ​if​
>  a theory that makes lots of predictions that could have been proven 
> false but
> ​weren't and ​
> instead were
> ​ confirmed​
> ,
> ​but​
> ​the same theory ​
> also makes some predictions that can't be falsified?
> ​Should we just pretend those predictions don't exist? ​
> The Big Bang Theory makes a lot of predictions that have been 
> confirmed and one of them is that the universe is 13.8 billion years old
> ​,
> and so regardless of where we point out telescopes
> ​it predicts ​
> we
> ​can​
>  never see anything more distant than 13.8 billion years. And
> ​indeed​
>  our telescopes
> ​have never ​
> see
> ​n anything more distant than 13.8 billion years. T
> here are only 2 conclusion
> ​s​
>  that can be​
>  draw
> ​n​
> from
> ​that ​
> observation:
>
> 1) There
> ​are​
>  lots of stars more distant than 13.8 billion
> ​light ​
> years but we'll never be able to see
> ​them​
> ​because light hasn't had enough time to reach us and due to the 
> accelerating universe there will never be enough time to reach us.
>
> ​
> 2)
> ​Nothing exists that is more distant than 13.8 billion light years and ​t
> he Earth is at the center of the Universe.
>
> Despite what Popper might say I think #1 is the more scientific 
> conclusion. In a similar way Everett's Many Worlds Theory does such a 
> good job explaining how the 2 slit experiment
> ​works​
> ​
> I don't think it's unscientific to conclude other worlds might exist.
>
> ​ John K Clark​
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University

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