Fwd: Big Bang?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

>> I have reservations about the notion of a "falsifiable hypothesis", 
>> which seems to me like rhetorical sleight of hand. (What is the 
>> "truth" or "fact" status or quotient of an "hypothesis"? Are there 
>> degrees? Probability coeefficients? Is an "hypothesis" ever actually 
>> falsifiable? -- mostly it seems it's succeeded by a similarly 
>> well-funded "scientific" derivation. Are there precedent unresolved 
>> and constant variables (or slothrops even) which logically prevent 
>> the hypothesis from ever being disproven?-- if so, it isn't, 
>> technically-speaking, "falsifiable". Is it, in linguistic terms also, 
>> a closed system which defines and perpetuates itself?)
>
> I don't see why you have a problem with the concept of falsifiablity. 
> 'Is an "hypothesis" ever actually falsifiable?' Of course it is. A 
> scientific hypothesis is not just an abstract sentence, which you can 
> defend at all times and costs through rhetoric and whatnots. It is 
> based on data and observations. If the data prove false, the 
> hypothesis falls apart. If new data come along, refuting the 
> hypothesis and making its predictions null, the hypothesis is 
> discarded. Why are you taking something as straightforward as this and 
> trying to make it look obscure and convoluted?

I don't have a problem with the concept of falsifiability at all. Why 
invent another straw man? It's the semantic category of "falsifiable 
hypothesis" I questioned.

Does "Science", or your version of it, acknowledge that there is a 
qualitative difference between, e.g., the "Big Bang" theory, and, e.g., 
the theory of gravitational attraction? My observation is that there is 
a big difference, but I don't see that the rhetorical construct 
"falsifiable hypothesis" delineates or caters for that difference in 
any way.

best