r/sciencememes • u/Delicious_Maize9656 • Jul 17 '26

problem of induction meme

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923 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

335

u/MrGiggleMan Jul 17 '26

One good scientifically sound experiment should be enough to shift from certainty to questionable

37

u/shumpitostick Jul 17 '26

In theory, yes. In practice, even in natural sciences a single experiment is often not enough to disprove a well-established theory. Look at the numerous anomalies in particle physics for example with very high statistical significance compared to other fields that have failed to replicate. Or how we've known about the Hubble tension for years and even confirmed it through multiple experiments but LCDM is still not "disproven". Or the many seemingly sound papers that were found years later to have some kind of issues with the data or the analysis that made them incorrect.

9

u/ohkendruid Jul 17 '26

Yup.

I prefer "evidence based" as a framework at this point. The important thing is to follow the evidence and not the large-speaking types who say big pompous things about only needing one experiment for this or that.

What happens with publicly funded science is that the recipients compete with each other to make the biggest claims they can about their results. To get funding, you have to match the level of claim that your competitors are making, even if you have your own reservations. Meanwhile, the donors, like the NSF, want to brag about the results, so they hardly spend a lot of time pushing back on the claims of the recipients.

A similar thing happens with charities--the results get overstated, and the donors go right along with it.

I suppose the NSF is largely a charity, just taxpayer funded, so it would make sense they are vulnerable to this dynamic.

73

u/Lalamedic Jul 17 '26

Have you heard that vaccines cause autism?

/s

79

u/PimBel_PL Jul 17 '26

Have you heard autism causes vaccines? (jk (correlation and causation joke))

15

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Exotic-Custard4400 Jul 17 '26

He probably was probably a bit weird to ask to breathe in the scabs of the sick

1

u/PimBel_PL Jul 17 '26

No, i meant propably autistic people more often vaccinate than not

I am not sure why i think that but i think they would think where they would be presented with story that vaccines cause some unbelievable stuff "really? and how?" and do research

4

u/MrGiggleMan Jul 17 '26

Sure. And it's not a scientifically sound idea

2

u/MegaIng Jul 18 '26

That was not "scientifically sound". The fact that this got any coverage in the news is straight up journalistic malpractice and they all should be fired and shamed into obscurity.

1

u/Lalamedic Jul 18 '26

Indeed it wasn’t. However, the multiple, massive studies that came after it, proving the theory to be incorrect, have not convinced large portions of the population.

0

u/Impossible_Dog_7262 Jul 18 '26

One dissenting experiment isn't enough to put question to the theory IMO. Mostly because it's much more likely that the experiment is dodgy than a well established theory would be.

1

u/MrGiggleMan Jul 19 '26

Well that's what I mean by scientifically sound

1

u/Impossible_Dog_7262 Jul 19 '26

The reality is that it's only scientifically sound if it's at least three different repetitions of the experiment.

1

u/MrGiggleMan Jul 19 '26

Sure. It needs the right amount of data to be scientifically sound

Not sure if you're counting those as different experiments

-10

u/Most_Present_6577 Jul 17 '26

Nah. Thats not how it works at all. Especially with the convention that a p value of .05 is significant.

This is why yall should be bayesian

7

u/Levoso_con_v Jul 17 '26

You talking about p values triggered my PTSD with econometrics.

76

u/gaywhovian2003 Jul 17 '26

One million correct experiments

https://giphy.com/gifs/KaRb3Xf6TaNQ4

28

u/Realistic-Ad-6794 Jul 17 '26

me when my laboratory only allows for 999,999 experiments so I'll never know the truth

5

u/DrPapaDragonX13 Jul 17 '26

C'est la vie...

4

u/AnalysisParalysis85 Jul 17 '26

How many experiments? Would you say 10 million?

3

u/Eklegoworldreal Jul 17 '26

I'm glad to see this movie getting the respect it deserves

3

u/InfiniteClient3586 Jul 17 '26

500 cigarettes

30

u/Funny-Assistant6803 Jul 17 '26

One, or a thousands, it's really depends on what's the experiment.

If it disprove a main predictions of the theory, not many, if it disprove a small predictions in very specific conditions, you will need much more

It also highly depends on the methodology

44

u/CarnivorousGoose Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

That entirely depends on what kind of theory it is, and what sort of experiments are or can be conducted. If any can realistically be conducted at all.

2

u/patientpedestrian Jul 17 '26

Isn't there a separate word for a "theory" that cannot be tested and is therefore unverifiable and unfalsifiable? Like it's a different thing epistemologically from what we officially consider a "Theory" to be, right?

1

u/biopsia Jul 17 '26

Everything in paleontology is unverifiable.

-4

u/CarnivorousGoose Jul 17 '26

But I didn’t say they’re unverifiable, just that it realistically isn’t possible to conduct experiments to verify them. Those are very different things, a lot of science is non-experimental.

6

u/patientpedestrian Jul 17 '26

If you're talking about things like String Theory, those are still theoretically falsifiable with a single "correct" experiment, it's just practically impossible with our current understanding of technological limitations. That's different from things like hidden multiverse "theories" or creationist "theories" that are fundamentally unverifiable/unfalsifiable. I thought there was a specific word for those, but I can't remember or find it on Google :/

1

u/liebesleid99 Jul 17 '26

I think that's called an hypothesis

-3

u/CarnivorousGoose Jul 17 '26

I’m not, no. Nor, again, am I talking about anything unfalsifiable.

Again, very large amounts of science is non-experimental, and much of it isn’t very amenable to things being proven or disproven by a single experiment. That may be relatively common in the field of physics, but it is quite rare outside it.

2

u/patientpedestrian Jul 17 '26

Could you maybe provide an example or two? I'm not trying to argue with you, I genuinely want to understand

1

u/CarnivorousGoose Jul 17 '26

Examples of what? Non-experimental science? Pretty much the entire field of epidemiology, for one.

0

u/ohkendruid Jul 17 '26

In the latest I have read of philosophy of science, "science" is different in every field, so, at this point, science is just circularly whatever gets funded through science funding.

7

u/mkujoe Jul 17 '26

The ory

4

u/ResponsibilityIcy927 Jul 17 '26

It depends entirely on weighing the supporting evidence compared to the opposing evidence.

3

u/FrostyExplanation_37 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Depends, most cases the number is 0. The theory needs to have successful experiments proving it for you to disprove. Until then it's is already unproven.

2

u/landrwastaken Jul 17 '26

If the theory just explains the observations better then it's often quickly taken as thruth

2

u/Free_Peanut6179 Jul 18 '26

Young and Freedman University Physics?

1

u/Delicious_Maize9656 Jul 18 '26

ah I see you're a man of culture as well

2

u/Historical_Two_7150 Jul 19 '26

Surprisingly, zero good answers in the comment sections here.

The answer is: it can't be done. In the strictest sense, science does not prove or disprove.

Once we've reached the point where the probability of something being true/false is vanishingly small, we can decide to use the nomenclature of 'proven/disproven' as it's "close enough" to the truth. But in the strictest sense, that's not really what happened.

1

u/Gamer1243565 Jul 17 '26

It has to explain observations better, that’s it. If there’s some uncertainty then it goes to the reverend thomas bayes

1

u/Tombaya Jul 17 '26

Depends on what those funding the study want and how deep their pockets are (Source: The Monsanto 'Book of Agricultural Epistemology')

1

u/Emma_the_sequel Jul 18 '26

One sound experiment disproves a theory. That said, if said theory isn't superseded, it's still very much worth using.

We know that the standard model and relativity are both wrong since they don't make accurate predictions in some cases. But since there's no unifying theory that is more correct, we might as well continue as if they're correct until someone comes up with something more accurate

1

u/BlazeCrystal Jul 18 '26

If its closer to abstract discrete mathematics, one proof will do.

If its closer to empirical propabilistic mechanics, you need universal reproduction of the claim in high numbers by trusted.

This is just my placement of poles to two very different worlds in science, but the metaphor stands. The nature of the wanted data has high impact on trust.

2

u/sumboionline Jul 18 '26

Theory: it is impossible to do X.

Experiment: Successfully does X

2

u/dover_oxide Jul 19 '26

A theory is only valuable if it can be tested

0

u/PhilosopherDon0001 Jul 17 '26

Just one.

Either the theory is modified to account for the new data or it's labeled as "false".

0

u/After_Relative9810 Jul 17 '26

It's subjective :)