Hi Jeff, Prediction and understanding are actually very different things and being good at one doesn't necessarily imply being good at the other. An example from the book _Foresight and Understanding_ by Stephen Toulmin: the Babylonians had no concept of the heliocentric solar system but they were quite good at predicting the movements of planets in the night sky. In fact, even after Newton, it took quite a while for astronomical tables based on a real understanding of the solar system to catch up to the accuracy of those made by the old method, which took no understanding at all. On the other hand, if a system exhibits chaotic behavior, long-term prediction is impossible -- but we can certainly understand the dynamics.
Best, Jane Shevtsov On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 6:24 AM, Jeff Houlahan <jeffh...@unb.ca> wrote: > Hi Chris and all, I actually think that it's a mistake to diminish the role > of p-values. My opinion on this (stongly influenced by the writings of Rob > Peters) is that there is only one way to demonstrate understanding and that > is through prediction. And predictions only demonstrate understanding if > you make better predictions than you would make strictly by chance. The > only way to tell if you've done better than chance is through p-values. So, > while there is a great deal more to science than p-values, the ultimate > tests of whether science has led to increased understanding are p-values. > Best. > > Jeff Houlahan > Dept of Biology > 100 Tucker Park Road > UNB Saint John > -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia co-founder, <www.worldbeyondborders.org> Check out my blog, <http://perceivingwholes.blogspot.com>Perceiving Wholes "In the long run, education intended to produce a molecular geneticist, a systems ecologist, or an immunologist is inferior, both for the individual and for society, than that intended to produce a broadly educated person who has also written a dissertation." --John Janovy, Jr., "On Becoming a Biologist"
