Untestability...

[kotoreru]

I wonder if anyone would agree with this statement:

"If something in nature is untestable, and 'Science' cannot therefore be applied, is it worth considering with scientific method?"

[please dont bring God into this anywhere]

I put this in the Ecology section purely because this area of Biology is where this sort of thing seems to crop up most often (from my perspective).

Example? The ecological reasons behind Phytoplankton bloom periodicity, sinking rate, buoyancy...etc.

[david23]

The mentality for something like this is usually if you cannot test it, then it serves no scientific interest, and therefore should not be bothered with. Pretty normal phenomenone

[kotoreru]

But, if I may play Devil's advocate, surely one day there will be a way to test it? Isn't it just arrogance that breeds philosophies like this?

[david23]

no no it's not a philosophy you misunderstand, it's a mentality. You cant sit around and wait for topics/ideas to become testable in the future and then test them. With this mentality, you are required to move onto other topics of research, so you are not wasting time and money in the process.

[kotoreru]

That's fair enough. Anyone else have any thoughts on the subject?

[i_r_e_d]

i believe that if someone has the will to do something then they can do it... Just like the creator of the ford. He said that he wanted to make the first V-8 and all of his engineers said that it wasn't possible. So they wanted to quit but Ford told them that they either worked on the problem and that problem alone until they find a , which eventually they did. So now the Ford company is one of the best selling V8's in the US.

[robertkernodle]

.

If something in nature is untestable, and "science" cannot therefore be applied, then is it worth considering with scientific method?

Well,... there's no way in proverbial hell that any technology or methodology now or in the forseeable future could test string theory,... yet how many researchers have been working on it? How much budget money has been devoted to it? Why is it still one of the most popular areas for promising young physicists to go into?

Clearly somebody thinks it is worth it.

Are there equivalents in ecology? I don't know. UNLESS... we consider the claims of string theory as the fundamental basis of all developments in ecology (i.e., micro-level sub-sub-atomic processes orchestrating predictable macroscopic behavior).

RK