Re: Darwin's five laws

[Chris Handley <CHandley@GANDALF.OTAGO.AC.NZ>]

Hi all

>In a message to soc.culture.scientists, on testing the Sapir-Whorf
>hypothesis, Benjamin J. Tilly referred to "Darwin's theory of evolution".
>Lojbab passed the message on to the Lojban list.
>
     <...>

>     _Hypothesis_ implies insufficiency of presently attainable evidence
>and, therefore, a tentative explanation; _theory_ implies a much
>greater range of evidence and greater likelihood of truth; _law_
>implies a statement of order and relation in nature that has been found
>to be invariable under the same conditions.  The terms are not rigidly
>applied, however...
>
As you claim, the natural order of progression is that somenone makes some
observations, and forms a hypothesis as to their relationships and causes.
>From this hypothesis she makes some predictions, devises some experiments
and tests those predictions. If the predictions stand up and the experiments
are repeatible and reproducible, then the relationships will become a
theory. If a convincing mathematical expression for this relationship *can
be deduced from first principles* in such a way that it can be demonstrated
not to be false (i.e it has much the same status as a theorem) then it
becomes a law.

Note that all the evidence in the world is not sufficient to turn a theory
into a law -- merely observing the sunrise every morning for 10^6 years is
not sufficient -- you have to demonstrate that the rotation of the earth
inexorably leads to the rising of the sun (and all the other associated
phenomena). Thus no amount of evidence can verify a theory (although it
strengthens it considerably) but one counter example can falsify it. The
absence of such evidence is not sufficient unless one can show that such a
counter example can never arise.

For more strictly defined examples, consider the progress of the 4-colour
map hypothesis, Fermat's last 'theorem', Riemann's hypothesis or Goldbach's
conjecture.


======================================================================
Chris Handley                                     chandley@otago.ac.nz
Dept of Computer Science                       Ph     (+64) 3-479-8499
University of Otago                           Fax     (+64) 3-479-8577
Dunedin, NZ
______________________________________________________________________
              There are three types of Computer Scientist:
                those who can count and those who can't.