The key is being able to answer the question: " Is there a test even in
principle, that could show that the theory is false?". It often involves
making the claim more precise. But even your second example: The brain waves
of students practicing TM show increased coherence, might be unfalsifiable
depending on how you define "coherence". And remember coherence is a
mathematical model being applied to the raw data. It is very easy to massage
the numbers to show some type of "coherence". For it to be falsifiable it must
be possible for someone to go through the test and for them to say "our theory
is not valid, coherence does not increase."
But that isn't how the movement uses science for marketing. Movement
scientists would just continue to manipulate the data using different formulas
until something they could call coherence could be found. In TM research, it
is never a possible outcome that TM ever does anything bad to a person, or that
positive benefits are not "proven". If the experiment doesn't show what they
already believe, the frame around the experiment is shifted until it shows
something positive.
Framing a test in a way that is falsifiable requires a detachment from the
outcome. You have to really care enough about the truth to plug up all the
loopholes that compromise falsifiability. We have many cognitive biases toward
winging it when it comes to our beliefs. Few people really want to go through
the hard work it would take to really test something.
So yes you need precision in formulating the hypothesis, but that is not
enough. You have to understand how each variable affects the test. Our big
pharma testing system has the exact same problems movement research has. They
are always ready to turn capillary dilators into boner pills. They are not
setting up the research with big bucks to find out that the pill does more harm
than good.
Lots of New Age "medical" practices operate this way. The results are so vague
that there is no way for you to conclude that it just didn't work. Every
result has an explanation, but the system itself is never tested rigorously.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Sharalyn" <homeonthefarm@...> wrote:
>
> Maybe it's the concept of testability that I was not getting. Does
> falsifiability mean then that one condenses a theory into a more concise
> form, to take it from a generalized (and therefore unprovable) form to a form
> which can be tested, such as "Meditation produces good results" (too
> generalized to be testable) to "The brain waves of students practicing TM
> show increased coherence?" because the latter is testable.
>
> The first is too general to be testable and therefore not falifiable, while
> the second is testable, and therefore is. Do I get it now?
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@>
> wrote:
> >
> > -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Sharalyn" <homeonthefarm@> wrote:
> > >
> > > My undergraduate degree is in philosophy but I can't seem to grasp the
> > > concept of FALSIFIABILITY, and why it is important. Can anyone explain it
> > > to me in some way different than, say, what Wikipedia has to say about
> > > it? (I've already read Wikipedia and came out as confused as ever on this
> > > topic.)
> >
> > I'll gladly give it a shot. It is dear to my heart.
> >
> > If you have a claim that does not include any conditions under which it can
> > be proven false, it falls outside the class of claims that can be tested as
> > true or false. Science is only interested in those claims that can be
> > tested as being true because it is interested in advancing human knowledge
> > with a higher probability of accuracy to the way the world actually works.
> > It has limits in application in the whole range of human knowledge, and
> > ignoring those limits has been criticized.
> >
> > Let's look at some examples from TM:
> >
> > Claim:
> >
> > TM improves your life
> >
> > Evidence: If you feel better from TM that is TM working.
> > If you feel worse from TM, that is also TM working through the principle of
> > unstressing. If your life starts falling apart after doing TM, then this
> > is your accelerated Karma at work and something good is still happening.
> >
> > So this claim of the movement has been formulated so that there is no
> > experience that could refute it. No matter what happens, TM is improving
> > your life. It is not a class of claims that science finds interesting, but
> > religions are full of them.
> >
> > Claim:
> > God is always looking out for you in loving grace.
> >
> >
> > If your life is wonderful, that is the big guy looking out for you.
> > If you life is full of the suffering of Job, it is God testing your faith,
> > or just making you stronger, or just acting in mysterious ways that still
> > do not refute the claim that he is looking out for you. Everything happens
> > for a reason in this view, and that reason is always good from God.
> >
> > Now let's look at some more specific claims that can be falsified:
> >
> > TM improves scores on creativity and intelligence tests. It lowers blood
> > pressure.
> >
> > These claims can be true or false and we find this out through testing.
> > There is a condition where the tests might reveal that TM does not
> > accomplish these specific things. The only way out of this clarity would
> > be by having inadequate or poorly designed tests that do not actually test
> > what is being claimed.
> >
> > Most marketed panaceas make claims in a form that is non falsifiable. By
> > saying that TM improves any area of life we are saying that we can cherry
> > pick any result that improve and ignore the ones that do not.
> >
> > Finally, not all beliefs we have about the world can be put in a
> > falsifiable way. So it never reaches the rigor of testing and that is how
> > we wing it through life. The area that matters to me personally is when a
> > claim is deliberately put in a non falsifiable form when it could easily be
> > put in a falsifiable form. I consider most of the claims of TM to actually
> > be slippery versions of falsifiable claims, and often are presented as if
> > they meet the rigor of being falsifiable without ever doing so. The
> > Maharishi effect silliness would be a good example of this.
> >
> > Does that help?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> >
>
