Question by Jamie J: Do you know how to spot an argument or theoretical position which ignores the principle of falsifyability?
Can you give me an example of a statment that ignores this principle?
My peer recently asserted that alcoholics anonymous “is the best treatment for alcohol abuse”.
I feel that the flipant statement is invalid as a fact because a) it is an opinionated statement sans any supportive evidence, and b) due to the nature of the statement, it is not falsifiable lest we establish a shared understanding of what the “best” is supposed to be (i,e. highest success rate, most used, most sought, etc.) inorder to be proven or refuted.
Is any argument that lacks a set of general truths to be considered in violation of the principle of falsifiability?
Best answer:
Answer by ??†?? ?F ??????
no, not quite there yet hon.
a non falsifiable argument would be somethinh we cant prove false.
we can prove this false.
we can merly look at all of the people wh attended different
alcaholic treatments and see what percentage of people slid back into alchahol.
if it turns out that %10 fall back with aa
versus
%30 with other treatments
then it means that it is the best available
if the numbers are oppiste then the statment is false.
you are mixing up general truths and propper definitions
now in this case one can only assume that this person means
that it is of a success rate
because of the very goal of AA.
to get people off drinking.
thus the best treatment is the one who most likely will succeed
and to guess at this we can and must look at success rates.
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