[Osx-nutters] Denial

[David Cake]

At 7:51 PM +0100 15/8/07, Stefano Mori wrote:
>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.

	I use it to show that you idea that scientific predictions 
about the future are 'special' and different to simply explaining how 
the world works is contradictory. All science has predictive power.

>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.

	Really?
	It seems to me that the model of the sunrise that says 'it 
comes up every day, just like it did before' is much less trustworthy 
than the one that includes celestial mechanics. The one that includes 
celestial mechanics works at the poles. And catches the occasional 
eclipse. Once you go to the poles, it immediately becomes more 
trustworthy than theories that don't predict this details.

	The point is, having a more complex model doesn't make it 
more trustworthy by itself - good old William of Occam - but having a 
more complex model *that explains more observed facts* IS 
intrinsically more trustworthy.
	Regards
		David