Having dropped a snide remark about "label thinking", it would be unseemly
for me to quibble about the precise one now applied to scientific methodology.
Provided it means testing against reality rather than pure untested deductions,
then I am happy. If I stand corrected, so be it, it does not affect the thrust
of my argument. But I do hope Keith's source is not an anti-evolutionist
"scientist" from a US mid-western college. And scientists are regularly running
tests of Einstein's work in space experiments etc.
Anyone who isn't sure what we are talking about could get an excellent
indication from either of two sources: a. The US Biological Science Curriculum
Studies "blue version", "Molecules to Man", about 1970, or b. the Sherlock Holmes
stories. The first undoubtedly contained it in the first chapter of the book as
a reaction to "put downs" from physical sicentists about our "imprecise
sciences"; someone else may care to guess at Conan Doyle's motivation.
And Keith does not have to look forward to empirical tests, because Vic
Bridger's excellent contributions contain many examples where predictioins based
on the Douglas analysis have proved correct. But I will mention again the
stagflation problem if he wishes one scrap.
Finally, may I bring up the totally invented story of the motorist who went to
an economist mechanic when his car stalled. Mechanic DEDUCED from the symptoms
that the fault was certainly electrical and replaced the whole ignition system.
And the car still didn't go. So, several hundred dollars poorer, the motorist
went down the street to the Socred mechanic, who thought "Looks like an
electrical fault, but I'll check". Checking a spark plug, which had a beautiful
blue spark SUGGESTED (didn't prove) that his first hypothesis was wrong. So he
took the alternative one, that the fuel system was faulty, and behold, no fuel
was reaching the motor. So his next hypothesis was a line blockage, but being
truly (INDUCTIVE, or ..) he dipped the tank, to find it was empty, and had to
ditch that one too. Being knowledgeable, he
asked the motorist if he could have been misled by a fuel gauge permanently
showing "full"? To leave out the next hypothesis and cut the story a bit
shorter, he soldered up the broken lead from the tank unit to it and charged the
motorist about ten dollars before he went off happily. (It really was an
electrical fault, but not the one DEDUCED by the first operator.)
Before someone tells me modern cars have computers and different methodology,
I'll agree. But from the point of view of a typical do-it-yourself Kiwi working
on the wonderful old Chrysler Valiants formerly produced in Australasia, it is
dead accurate.
For the first situation in it, perhaps one could substitute the "trickle down"
theory associated with the modern monetarist approach to economics?
John R.
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