#beginningofinfinity

Inductivism   The misconception that scientific theories are obtained by generalizing or extrapolating repeated experiences, and that the more often a theory is confirmed by observation the more likely it becomes.” “Explanation   Statement about what is there, what it does, and how and why.” “Theory-laden   There is no such thing as ‘raw’ experience. All our experience of the world comes through layers of conscious and unconscious interpretation.” “Creativity   The capacity to create new explanations.” “Empiricism   The misconception that we ‘derive’ all our knowledge from sensory experience.

So denying that the original explanation describes the true cause of seasons in the places about which you have no evidence has forced you to deny that it describes the true cause even on your home island.

“Conjectures are the products of creative imagination. But the problem with imagination is that it can create fiction much more easily than truth.”

The best explanations are the ones that are most constrained by existing knowledge – including other good explanations as well as other knowledge of the phenomena to be explained. That is why testable explanations that have passed stringent tests become extremely good explanations, which is in turn why the maxim of testability promotes the growth of knowledge in science.

“That is a good explanation – hard to vary, because all its details play a functional role.”

“Just as conflicting predictions are the occasion for experiment and observation, so conflicting ideas in a broader sense are the occasion for all rational thought and inquiry.”

Rejecting authority in regard to knowledge was not just a matter of abstract analysis. It was a necessary condition for progress, because, before the Enlightenment, it was generally believed that everything important that was knowable had already been discovered, and was enshrined in authoritative sources such as ancient writings and traditional assumptions.

“Conan Doyle came much closer to the truth when, during ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, he had Holmes remark that ‘circumstantial evidence’ (evidence about unwitnessed events) is ‘a very tricky thing . . . It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different . . . There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.