Memeverse started a thread on FDR about the null hypothesis. I was reading the the discussion and I didn't understand. I was thinking 'My minor was in philosophy of science but I've never heard of the null hypothesis being used in the way they are using it'. So I looked it up on Wikipedia which only further confirmed my doubts.

What I think they are talking about is Popper's falsification criterion and then they ask the question 'If statements have to be in principle falsifiable to be science then what about this statement itself? is it too falsifiable and if it's not, then what does that say about its status?'

the answer most often given is that the statement indeed is not a scientific statement, but the fact that it isn't scientific doesn't mean it is not knowledge (Popper was not a logical positivist in that sense, he allowed for non-scientific knowledge). (somebody on LM actually rightly corrected me on this couple of months ago)

Anyway, Popper got it all wrong anyway. Read Kuhn!

Also interesting that here too they seem to see as the only alternative to positivism relativism. With straw men and false dichotomies like that who needs, ehm, don't actually know how to finish that sentence.

actually, that's not quite fair to Popper either since Popper well realized that scientists need not abandon their theories when confronted with a prediction that didnt pan out. They could instead blame the experiment, the equipment, disturbing causes and what not, But Popper did want to specify rules about how to behave in such situations, what a rational method would be.

Popper btw also was down with theory-ladenness of observation. So he got that and in a sense also got the whole Duhem-Quine thing. But he still wanted to impose an external rationality (through philosophy of science) onto science

On a side note, why was Popper a statist? I mean, not that I'd expect they guy to be a libertarian, but I think that, for instance, to defend no positive course of action would be much more consistent with a scientific mind.

FDR has been misusing the term "null hypothesis" for years now. The first time I encountered it was when Tuttle tried to argue against determinism by mistakenly invoking it--just as you noted--instead of invoking the idea of falsification.

I pointed this out, in passing, and tried to answer his question as he actually intended it. Nonetheless, they continued to refer to "null hypothesis" in exactly the same manner.

Man, I was reading that thread you (Stewart) posted, and came across this gem, re determinism:

GregG wrote:

The predictive ability of this theory should be absolute, just as physics is for a rock, or a beam of laser light, or a basketball. If the theory cannot predict human behavior with regular consistency, then it is either incomplete, or wrong.

Sigh... like as if Fluid Mechanics should be able to predict the speed, temperature and pressure of air in any given spot of a hurricane, or else it is incomplete/wrong.

he as in me, or GregG? Because, he didn't use any slash

On a side note, why was Popper a statist? I mean, not that I'd expect they guy to be a libertarian, but I think that, for instance, to defend no positive course of action would be much more consistent with a scientific mind.
If you've read Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemy", especially the first book, you can see that he is highly averse to the centralized, authoritarian State which (he thinks) ultimately rests in an attempt to 'freeze' society into the basic tribal heirarchism of anthropology and early civilization. His 'open' society is conceived of as the opposite of that.

Popper did favor the market, and saw his quasi-utilitarian 'social engineering' as a way to avoid the sweeping regulations, social reorganizations and socialism which had such devastating repercussions upon human society and the economy. In accord with his view of 'open societies' he certainly understood the value of competition in business, as well as the important role that private property played. Unfortunately he knew jack-all about economics, and more or less adopted the social democratic politics of his era.

The second book of "The Open Society and Its Enemies" is nowhere as good as his first one. He suggests the interesting (though possibly inaccurate) that Plato was primarily a propagandist for an authoritarian racialist rule by aristocracy.

how the hell do you know all this?


(I'm gonna post this phrase now every time I think it)

so he's like Michael Polanyi: all for the free society and one of the best and most original (and deep) defenders of it. Also excellent in some economic areas (spontaneous order, failure of Soviet economy), but hopelessly confused about others (Keynesianism)