ike comments on How to provide a simple example to the requirement of falsifiability in the scientific method to a novice audience?

[ike]

Does the flying spaghetti monster work?

Or the example in http://​​lesswrong.com/​​lw/​​ip/​​fake_explanations/​​?

[Val]

This and Russel’s teapot are just unverifiable claims, and not a study of understanding how a system works which would fail because we committed an innocent mistake.

Besides, they have strong ideological undertones, so all they would manage to do is to cater for the ego of those who agree with their ideological implications, and make angry those who don’t. They won’t really convince anyone.

[ike]

You didn’t mention what kind of audience it was. For some it would be an appropriate example.

What about the second example?

[SanguineEmpiricist]

I’m not sure I see anything wrong with your example. I’m not even sure what he is asking and what audience requires something where the flying spaghetti monster won’t work. Maybe i’ve missed something big.

[johnlawrenceaspden]

I think the second one works. It’s unfalsifiable because it makes no predictions. If any heat-related thing can be explained by ‘convection’, then convection isn’t saying anything.

Even nastier is Feynman’s one about the baby-physics book which said ‘What makes it move?’ and the answer was always ‘Energy makes it move’.