Plummeting insect numbers threaten collapse of nature

[Joe Horn]

(02-23-2019 09:34 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  

(02-23-2019 04:36 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  If even ONE of his predictions turned out false, his entire "theory" should be discarded.

That's setting a pretty weird standard. Convenient if you want to discredit a body of work whose conclusions you don't like, but not scientific at all. Einstein was wrong about quantum theory, therefore all his work should be discarded? Some people who are raising the alarm about humans messing up the planet are crackpots, therefore every single alarming claim should be ignored?

Just to be clear, I do not support throwing out the baby with the bath water. I was referring to something more specific, namely the scientific method's very important step of testing hypotheses. If somebody raises an alarm, yes of course it should be taken seriously. It should be studied so seriously that testable hypotheses are generated from the reliable data that is gathered. Then those hypotheses must be tested, and as Karl Popper said so well, the best way to test a hypothesis is by trying your very best to disprove it. An efficient way to disprove a hypothesis is to find ANY counterexample to ANY of its predictions. Even one wrong prediction means that *that* hypothesis is wrong. No, it does not mean that the *data* gathered earlier during the study was wrong, nor does it necessarily mean that the *alarm* was false... but it does mean that the hypothesis which generated *that specific prediction* must be discarded. That's all I was saying. And that's why I reject the hypotheses in Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" which motivated his predictions which failed to materialize.