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James Endres Howell
4 comments
BigEatie

@james

Curious, do you think something like Occam's Razor belongs in that list of what makes a successful theory? I feel like you can always add the analogue of epicycles and have an equally good theory, no?

7 September at 1:06 | Open on fosstodon.org
James Endres Howell

@BigEatie Ye gods, I don't mean to imply that my presentation of the concept of "theory" is comprehensive or complete. Or even if there is any such thing. I know practically nothing about the philosophy of science at the current state of the art.

This is a discussion in a general education course for non-science majors. We can't do everything. But it makes for great questions (like yours!) in the hallway after each meeting....

7 September at 1:12 | Open on social.howellcloud.org
OddOpinions5

@james

Great blog post
iirc, George Orwell had an essay where he asked, how do you *know the earth is round and the best evidence he had (iirc circa 1940) was that boats and planes traveled thousands of miles and wound up at the correct spot, which implied that the navigation model was correct

7 September at 1:57 | Open on mas.to
James Endres Howell

@failedLyndonLaRouchite Wow! I'll have to find it! I didn't know there was such an essay. Surely it would be a fun reading assignment.

7 September at 2:03 | Open on social.howellcloud.org
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