A Type II error is one of the classic errors in hypothesis testing. In this case, the Type II error would be rejecting the framework when the framework is essentially true.
To us… All empirical evidence is complete to an omnipresent omniscience observer.
But you are then contradicting yourself… You claim the realm of reason inferior to empirical evidence, but then you can’t claim your assertions more creditable that an essential truth that self-justifies itself.
I asked you for historical examples, bsengstock20. Got any? I’m waiting.
If such an entity existed. Oh dear, there’s another ‘if’. Some many ifs.
Oh and btw, here’s what you should have written.
All empirical evidence is complete to an omnipresent and omniscient observer.
Here’s what you should have written to Mordant, bsengstock20.
…but then you can’t claim your assertions more creditable than an essential truth that self-justifies itself.
Than, not that. Ok?
Gravitational Waves (Einstein, 1916 → LIGO, 2015)
Theory proposed:
Einstein predicted gravitational waves in 1916.
Initial response:
For nearly 100 years, every experiment failed to detect them.
Type II error:
The waves were real, but detectors (resonant bars, early interferometers) were too insensitive.
The true signal existed far below noise floor → repeated false negatives.
Later verification:
LIGO detected gravitational waves in 2015 with 5σ significance.
Neutrino Oscillations (1940s–1990s → 1998/2001)
Theory proposed:
Neutrinos change flavor (oscillate), which implies nonzero mass.
Initial response:
Decades of experiments found no evidence of oscillation.
Type II error:
The oscillations were too small, baseline too short, or statistics too low to detect.
Many early experiments concluded “no oscillations”—a false negative.
Later verification:
Super-Kamiokande (1998) and SNO (2001) confirmed oscillations.
This won the 2015 Nobel Prize.
The Higgs Boson (1964 → 2012)
Theory proposed:
Higgs mechanism predicts the Higgs field and boson.
Initial response:
Multiple experiments (LEP, Tevatron) failed to detect a Higgs across a wide mass range.
Type II error:
The Higgs signal was too faint and required massive luminosity.
The true Higgs existed at ~125 GeV, but early experiments lacked energy or statistics.
Later verification:
ATLAS and CMS at the LHC detected the Higgs in 2012 (5σ).
That’s right.
I’m running out of steam… I probably just need a break.
Yes, you are running out of steam, bsengstock20.
Your score is one out of three.
Two of the examples you gave (Neutrinos and the Higgs boson) are not classical physics.
Here’s what I wrote…
Or better yet, please cite some historical examples of where classical physics has been changed in the way you assert.
Winston Churchill’s definition of a fanatic was someone who won’t change their mind and who will not change the subject.
Maybe not changing your mind and not changing the subject is what’s causing you to run out of steam?
Of course I can. Empirical evidence doesn’t need to be 100% ironclad to be more credible than someone asserting a “truth” is “essential”, particularly when it is said to be self-justified.
I put the “odds of gods” at about 0.001% and I can point to a host of reasons for that. You put those odds at, apparently 100% because of a technical / theoretical / specialist argument that you can’t evidence. You’re welcome to do that, but I know where my bets are placed.
Taking a break for an hour or two…
No, you can’t. A rational assertion that is 100% logically coherent and mathematically sound will always beat out empirical assertions that are 99.9999999999…..%
Well, actually mordant can.
It’s just that you don’t agree with his reasons.
We are all equals in this forum and none of us, bar the Moderators, have the right, authority or power to disallow another member to do something, choose something or think something.
So, saying 'No, you can’t’ is just hubris and overreach on your part bsengstock20.
How about a decade or two?
You’re just being irrational…
Ah, but you’re not a religious apologist, you know how they get.
A bit like religious fantasies really.
Test that ridiculous hubris, design a plane using only modal logic, with no empirical or objectively verifiable evidence at all, and then try and fly it.
Logical systems are only as good as their axioms: If the starting assumptions of a “perfectly logical” argument do not perfectly reflect reality, the conclusion may be logically sound but factually incorrect. Gravity (objective reality) will be fairly unforgiving…
Whether logical perfection inherently trumps empirical near-perfection depends entirely on one’s philosophical framework regarding what constitutes “knowledge” and “truth.”
Reading our friends stridently arrogant spiel, one might almost be fooled into thinking this view is the generally held consensus, and of course it is not, but is instead hotly debated, he is making a subjective claim, as he wants to cling to an archaic superstition, and knows there is no real objective evidence, all the while trying to pass it off as objective facts.
Exactly, he’s hardly the first apologist who has made an appeal to authority citing themselves as the authority, anyone remember Breezy? He’s still at it decades later, he was recently banned from another forum in the same vein he eventually went from this one.
Kurt godel’s ontological proof fails, because its axioms (premises) are highly questionable and lack a basis in observable reality, and our friend can grandstand all he wants as the sole authority on model logic, but that is a widely held view among philosophers and mathematicians.
Gödel’s proof hinges on an undefined notion of “positive properties.” and most criticisms cite this as a subjective construct with no objective universal consensus.
He can claim it is “tied to a modal truth” all he wants, but he’s going to have to explain in some cogent way, why so many mathematicians and philosophers don’t agree. Surely we would expect at least a broad consensus supporting the claims he is making, but the opposite is true.
It’s one thing to grandstand as some Billy no name in an internet forum, but since the rest of the world’s experts seem wholly unconvinced it just seems, as you say to be hubris and overreach by bsengstock20.
Apologists try this with science as well, they alone possess some esoteric understanding of physics, that proves the universe is created, and all the while the rest of the scientific world remains wholly unconvinced.
I see so there is a broad consensus then among all mathematicians and philosophers that Godel’s proof proves the existence of a god?
No, wait a minute the opposite is true, there is broad consensus his argument fails? Now just to be clear, all those countless experts are irrational, because you know better?
What I’m struggling with Godel’s theorem is this.
Science is, by definition, agnostic about the supernatural. It can only describe and help us understand the natural, material and physical world. So, if the theorem really does point to the existence of a god-like object and this object possesses god-like attributes like omniscience and omnipresence, then these attributes must be natural and physical and not supernatural.
But how can anything natural and physical be omnipresent and omniscient? Sure, you can assume that the universe itself qualifies as this god-like object in some way. But if you do that, what have you actually done?
You’ve take something theoretical, based an assumption upon what it points to and then claimed, through the use modal logic and metaphysics that this thing is real. More real than things we can actually observe, test, check and measure. I don’t buy it.
For me the real kicker is this.
Nobody actually lives using modal logic and metaphysics in their daily lives. Instead empirical science and the technology it gives us are where we all live. It doesn’t matter if X or Y is essentially true or necessarily true if the brakes fail on your car. Your life isn’t defined or shaped by metaphysical assumptions. No, your life is defined and shaped by the real world decisions you make every day. How do I do my work? Do I have enough money to afford this? Am I eating too much? Etc., etc.
THAT is what is real. Your life is testimony to that fact. So, to argue otherwise is to effectively argue against the way you live.
Unless you can demonstrate, with evidence, that your real life is shaped and defined by modal logic and metaphysics?
Thank you,
Walter.
Excellent question Walter….
I am looking forward to the answer
.
In that respect bsengstock is not different at all. Even minus the fundamentalist / inerrantist / literalist / Bibliolater schtick we most often encounter here, he still has convinced himself that he has unassailable insight into How Things Really Are, insight that we cannot, with our fatally flawed puny reasoning, possibly begin to understand. He even has the cojones to say that we are irrational and he doesn’t have to bother to refute anything we say.