[Osx-nutters] Denial

[Stefano Mori]

On 2007-Aug-15, at 18:13, Chris Gehlker wrote:

>> Some Q factor
>> *may* stop the sun from rising tomorrow, but we have one point eight
>> million empirical verifications of the forecast having worked
>> already. That's a reason we trust that the forecast will work again
>> tomorrow.
>
> Just adding observations without building a model and formulating a
> testable hypothesis adds nothing to our understanding. The  sun will
> *not* come up  tomorrow in any solar system save this one and not
> even on most planets in this one. It won't come up tomorrow at the
> south pole.  Because I have a model, I know many interesting things
> about the sun. It takes many  fewer than eight million observations
> to verify my model.

I mention the millions just to illustrate the huge leap people make  
when they accuse me of not trusting science to make predictions and  
therefore that I must believe that the sun won't come up tomorrow.

Anyway, having a hypothesis about mechanisms is of course very  
valuable. But the thing is, having a complex model doesn't  
necessarily mean that your predictions are more trustworthy.

Stefano