#24 - A theory cannot properly be regarded as empirical

[bnlawyer98]

why is it not A? You can't make a conceivable observation because no one was there to see it.

[Robert Carroll]

bn,

It's true that no one could observe the Big Bang, but does that mean that no conceivable observation could refute the Big Bang? Nothing in the stimulus says what the object of the observation has to be. In fact, scientifically, we think there are plenty of observations we can make in the present that are relevant to the Big Bang theory, although none of those observations has the Big Bang directly as its object.

Consider: I'm outside a baseball stadium and a ball falls from the sky, with a direction that indicates it probably came from someone hitting that ball very hard from home plate. In other words, I made an observation relevant to determining whether the batter hit a home run, even though I'm not in the stadium, so I couldn't see the batter. To make this even more relevant to the stimulus, it's conceivable that I could observe the ball leaving the stadium with a trajectory indicating it's likely to have been hit by the batter as a home run. Isn't it then fair to say that there's a conceivable observation I could make that would refute the claim that the pitcher struck the batter out? I don't have to be "present" in the stadium to conceivably make an observation that could refute a claim.

What answer choice (A) is making you think is that the conceivable observation has to be of the Big Bang. No observer could have been around then, so no one could observe it. But that's not the requirement of the stimulus - any observation made at any time, if conceivable and able to refute the Big Bang theory, would suffice. That's why answer choice (A) is incorrect. That no observer was around at the birth of the universe does nothing to show that no conceivable observation can refute the Big Bang. Maybe the Big Bang theory posit that, if the Big Bang happened, it would have aftereffects extending to the present day that should be observable. So the relevant observations could be from anywhere or any time.

Robert Carroll

[valentina07]

Hi lathlee,

A nested conditional diagram would look like this:

PRE (F Some COR)

PRE = properly regarded as empirical
F = false
COR = conceivable observation would refute

What it means is that IF a theory is properly regarded as empirical, THEN it MUST be the case that if that theory were false, there would be some conceivable observation that would refute it.

Answer choice C applies the contrapositive of that nested conditional, so we need to think about the contrapositive of the nested conditional.

In a broad sense, to get our sufficient condition of that contrapositive, we just need a negated form of what I've diagrammed in parentheses as the original necessary condition. But what is the negation of a conditional statement? It's the possibility that the sufficient condition of that conditional occurs WITHOUT the necessary condition. So, in this case, the sufficient condition of the contrapositive would be a theory that, even though false, has NO conceivable observation that could refute it.

If there were such a theory (even though false, NO conceivable observation could refute), THEN such a theory would NOT be properly regarded as empirical, or diagrammed out:

(False NO COR) NOT PRE

Answer choice C gives us such a theory. Even if psychoanalysis were false, NO conceivable observation could refute it. Thus, the necessary condition of the contrapositive applies to psychoanalysis as well: it is NOT properly regarded as empirical.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

To clarify wouldn't the contrapositive be: (NO COR -> NOT F) -> NOT PRE ?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi valentina,

Conditionals nested within other conditionals are very confusing. My advice is to avoid diagramming them unless they are critical to solving the question.

In this question, for example,

James's explanation/diagram which incorporates the nested conditional into the necessary term greatly simplifies this question while still being detailed enough to solve the question.

viewtopic.php?f=1332&t=31652

To answer your question, we have to keep separate the contrapositive of the nested conditional and the contrapositive of the overall conditional.

The nested conditional was diagrammed:

(F -> Some COR)

The contrapositive of this conditional would be:

(NO COR -> NOT F)

This, like all contrapositives, is identical in meaning to the original diagram.

However, to take the contrapositive of the overall conditional, we don't need/use the contrapositive of the nested conditional, we use the negation of the conditional. Remember that the nested conditional is simply the necessary term in the overall conditional, so you need to negate the entire nested conditional just as you would negate any necessary term and then move it to the sufficient for the contrapositive.

Not (F -> Some COR)

In other words, it's the negation of the entire conditional statement.

It's basically saying:

It is not true that: (if a theory is false, then some conceivable observation would refute it)

Then you'd negate the sufficient condition of the overall conditional and place it on the necessary side, so the full contrapositive would be:

Not (F -> Some COR) -> not PRE

To be clear, the way that you'd show that a conditional statement is not true would be to show that the sufficient can occur without the necessary, which is what Answer C is getting at when it states that "no conceivable observation could show it to be false" (even if it is false).