Islam and The Left: Candace Owens Speaks With Imam Mohamad Tawhidi

The following video is something that all who seek a greater understanding of Islam,and the left would do well to hear. After the Christchurch terror attacks Candace Owens, an outspoken black American and critic of the left, was blamed. She was told- she has "blood on her hands". Listen to Tawhidi's explanation for this.

Falsifiability and its Relation to Science and Metaphysics

Falsifiability, is a parameter discussed in the philosophy of science, which helps to decide whether a certain line of thought is worthy of adopting as a subject of exploration under the purview of science, whether it’s justifiable as an explanation. Scientists are at odds with each other over the necessity (or not) for falsifiability criteria by which to measure whether any particular field of research is “scientific”. Knowing full well, that if a statement can be passed off as “science” then it has some serious weight in the public sphere as a means of persuasion.




The antagonists hold that if an argument cannot be tested or falsified, then there is no way of knowing if it’s true, and is thereby useless for advancing knowledge. Whereas protagonists, on the other hand, say it is useful for solving issues even though it may prove untestable, unfalsifiable.

According to the Science Council:

"Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence."

The Council goes on to describe the Scientific Method:

Objective Observation

Evidence

Experiment

Induction

Repetition

Critical Analysis

Verification/Testing

These are characteristics that have been found to be common to advances in scientific knowledge. (What is the difference between hard and soft science)

However not all scientists concur with the necessity of those characteristics. For instance those who favour the “multiverse” hypothesis would want to argue that their ideas have merit because they give explanatory power to an otherwise impenetrable question. So they would argue that falsifiability isn’t strictly necessary in science. Because, while the Multiverse idea is certainly possible, it is currently unfalsifiable. There is no evidence to support it, and up to this point it appears beyond human ability to falsify it, it is unverifiable. Nevertheless, some favour the use of it as a theory because it helps to use it in order to offer an explanation for an otherwise (supposedly) impossible question- which I will go into a little later. Some, resist the Multiverse explanation on the basis of its inability to be falsified: Scientists George Ellis and Joe Silk warned against what they saw as a troubling new trend in theoretical physics: the acceptance by some in the field that a theory, if it is elegant and explanatory enough, does not need to be tested experimentally. They argued instead that to be scientific, a theory must be falsifiable—an idea based on centuries of tradition.” Tradition, it may be added, that has seen the advent of the scientific revolution, the enlightenment and advances in knowledge the likes of which are unprecedented in human history.

Other scientists, who feel their domain of “soft sciences” are being undermined by favouritism towards the hard sciences are increasing their efforts in lifting the credibility of such things as psychology into the field of hard science. And it has to be admitted that current research is increasingly empirical in its approach. Psychology, as with other social sciences, is seen as increasingly scientific as disciplines. Bear in mind that every research dollar is keenly sought, and avidly fought over, and the hard sciences are favoured with more research dollars. So there would be a direct correlation between research dollars and empirical verification.

But how credible is a scientific hypothesis that might not be testable? And why should an untestable “ scientific” hypothesis be any more credible and gain a greater following than an unfalsifiable religious hypothesis?

‘The idea of the multiverse — or the theoretical possibility of infinite parallel universes--straddles a strange world between science fiction and a plausible hypothesis. Though scientists have no direct evidence for the multiverse's existence, some theoretical models suggest the multiverse could solve some key riddles in physics, such as why the parameters of our universe, including the strength of the the electromagnetic force between particles and the value of the cosmological constant, have values that are exactly in the small range required for life to exist. Perhaps, some scientists posit in one version of the multiverse theory, there are billions of other universes out there with all different possible values of these parameters—ours just happens to be the one with the right values for life.’

When one asks the question: What motivates a scientist to create a hypothesis such as the multiverse? It is always wise to see what prior philosophical or metaphysical commitments are in evidence. A scientist is a human before she becomes a scientist, and despite the best efforts at objectivity, we all carry some baggage into the field we are called to. Thus a cosmologist with a prior commitment to atheism, or a strictly materialist view of reality- will not let a “God” foot in the door of her science. So that when confronted with incontrovertible evidence of some monkeying with the laws of physics, a naturalistic explanation must be found even if it is untestable, unfalsifiable. That possibility cannot be ignored. The reality is that cosmologists of many stripes recognize that the fine tuning of the Universe is (for the materialist) a problem of intransigent proportions. The universe has certain characteristics, without which life would not be possible. Those characteristics could in some cases have been extraordinarily different than what they in fact are, yet in combination, which is a compounding problem, they offer otherwise inexplicable conditions for life. For the materialist, the positing of the multiverse hypothesis answers the problem of our finely tuned Universe. Among a myriad of Universes it was only a matter of chance that one would occur that has what it takes to be conducive for life to spontaneously erupt. But without a shred of evidence to support what is simply no better than conjecture, they will argue for this as a reality.


Conversely, the same class of people, those who might come under the rubric of atheists or materialists, will at the same time argue tooth and nail that Theism is unfalsifiable and therefore inadmissible.

Why the double standards?