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The answer is a point of contention between realism and anti-realism. Truths that "do not have evidence" are termed verification-transcendent truths (coined by Dummett), and realists are committed to their existence. Anti-realists, on the other hand, hold that unverifiable in principle statements have no truth values. So if no trace of dinosaurs remains, ...
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Welcome to the demarcation problem of science. What is this thing called science? In lower levels of education, one is often given the impression that 'science', whatever that may be, exists as a monolithic entity. There is no sufficiency and necessity definition of what science is. It's better to say 'sciences' or 'scientific' when speculating as to this ...
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What is Science?
The Popperian view of science is that a claim is "scientific" if it can be falsified. Science cannot prove that a hypothesis is true, only that it is manifestly false. If economics can make falsifiable claims, then I think it is justified to say such claims are "scientific", at least on some level (the degree of repeatability is certainly ...
6
Mechanist (or mechanical) philosophy, in the original sense, meant the rejection of "substantial forms", i.e. forms with causal powers, such as souls, postulated by scholastics (who drew on some vague passages from Aristotle's De Anima). For a detailed discussion of substantial forms see How can the soul be a form in Aristotle's metaphysics? From the modern ...
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Interpreted narrowly, your question seems related to the problem of (data) fishing, where someone investigates hypothesis after hypothesis on the data until getting statistical significance on one (without correcting for the number of hypotheses considered), so that in all likelihood it was just a fluke. This is a well understood problem.
Interpreted more ...
3
Personally speaking, I would probably use nomological, since at least the word isn't a neologism (it's got a history, and is enough in the ballpark that people will understand what you mean). There isn't a particular word for what you're talking about. In the philosophy of science, people generally generally analyze theoretical structures in terms of the '...
3
One word answer, like metatheory? It might just be science. From Blackwell's Companion on the Philosophy of Science:
Some decades ago, Fred Suppe...remarked that "it is only a slight exaggeration to claim that a philosophy of science is little more than analysis of theories and their roles in the scientific enterprise" (p. 515)
If there's a single ...
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I fear, there is a misunderstanding about the meaning of "scientific". An experiment is one method in a lot different methods as a scientific approach. (And there are a lot experiments in economics like in game theory.) Even a repeatable experiment is no guaranteed proof, that a theory is true. There might be edge cases in an experimental setting, which ...
3
Wikipedia says
Natural science is concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. It can be divided into two main branches: life science (or biological science) and physical science.
Social science is concerned with society and the relationships among ...
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Economics is closely allied with political science, which is actually one part science and one part philosophy. Or, to be more precise, economics and political science can both be divided into science, philosophy and ideology, or propaganda.
Of course, you can always make a distinction between "economic science" and "economic theory," but if you took a ...
3
There are multiple approaches to emergence, and I consider this to be the most valid, also agrees with my personal research regarding systems and interaction: emergence is just a subjective appreciation granted by reason.
To start, systems (the formal approach to things and objects) are just mental concepts. A constellation does not exist, the sky has only ...
3
You wrote,
... I made the argument that economics is not science, because it cannot undertake repeatable experiments.
I'd like to take issue with the view that the ability to undertake repeatable experiments is either necessary or sufficient (or both?) for a discipline to qualify as a science.
First off, if your view were tenable, then astronomy could ...
3
You mention Peter Singer, who approaches the topic from a utilitarian rather than a right-based standpoint. Besides Animal Liberation (2nd ed., 1995), you might try:
P. Singer, The Animal Liberation Movement: its Philosophy, its Achievements and its Future. ISBN 10: 1909798622 / ISBN 13: 9781909798625
Published by Active Distribution, London, 2019.
P. ...
2
Wittgenstein is getting at the idea that any formal system rests on certain arbitrarily-chosen conventions, and by choosing different arbitrary conventions we can create different formal systems that represent exactly the same physical reality.
For instance, because of early history we habitually do plane geometry on a flat plane with orthogonal axes. Thus, ...
2
Clearly there is scope for different views on this but it is largely a matter of your choice of terminology. I prefer to consider that exactly one of the two statements "Intelligent life exists on other planets" and "Intelligent life does not exist on other planets" must be true, but we have no evidence to tell us which of the two statements is true. But if ...
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I would say they exist because of the definition of Knowledge as Justifiable True Belief.
Now obviously the answer is that it's subjective, because we're going to have to define a lot of terms. However, the claim that knowledge is "justifiable true belief" is popular enough to be a meaningful anchor in the discussion. In particular, I point out that "...
1
To me, the lack of being able to predict (at least on a national level) tells me that economics cannot be a science (at least at that level). It might suggest things about consumer behavior but it can't predict basic things that most people things that economists should know.
Ask an economist to predict ANYTHING that will happen 1 year out on a national ...
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Humanities is art not science, but based on science.
In humanities, which economics is the study of humans trading, there are many theories and no facts.
Experience, exposure, practise, and training allows you to choose the most useful theory to the specific circumstances. That is the art.
The goal is to integrate theory and self because as a human you ...
1
Welcome, Aleesha
If economics is a science, we have I think to concede that it is does nor have the explanatory scope or depth of (say) particle physics. But this sort of damaging comparison, though common, is not what is needed. Biology is also a science which lacks the explanatory scope or depth of particle physics yet its status as science is secure.
...
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Let's use a concrete example.
There exist supermassive black holes such that the tidal forces at the event
horizon aren't strong enough to tear you apart. Suppose we were to throw an enthusiastic
volunteer across the event horizon along with a red button. After 30 seconds (using
their inertial reference frame), they either push the button or they don't. By
...
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Evidence is an interpretation, connected points of view, or rather connected assumptions. Its definitive nature differs little from wittgenstein's very short statement about tautologies.
At best evidence is a form, in a platonic sense, where empirical truth is a matter of memory due to the flow of time.
You can prove that the dinosaurs existed, without ...
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