Falsifiability...as a principle of science...and developing tests for my ideas:)...to prove them wrong:):)...

I was having a conversation, today, on what distinguishes the theory of evolution from theories like intelligent design...

And I got a great idea for the next steps in testing my ideas:)...

The conversation was about what makes science, science...

And a bunch of folks posted on the idea of falsifiability...

Which basically means...that scientific ideas can be demonstrated...and falsified...we can demonstrate scientific ideas are right...and demonstrate that they are wrong...

Empirical standards assume that when we say demonstrate...we mean that we can make clear inferences and interpretations of facts using our senses...sight...sound...taste...smell...touch...

Political science works similarly...though setting up experiments by the most rigorous scientific standards is difficult...because developing clean separation of conditions is terribly difficult in the social world...

Political and social scientists (psychologists especially) aspire...with experiments that seek volunteers to expose themselves to separate conditions that produce as clean a difference between data as possible...

But, generally...those experiments are still subject to fairly heated debates about interpretation of data...

And in political science, especially...debates that are often predicated on policy biases that are really difficult to parse out...

An excellent example of this difficulty in policy debates is the scholarly debate on vouchers...

Paul Peterson, of Harvard University, William Howell, and whole host of others represent a camp of folks who believe in vouchers...and who conduct experiments to try to test their validity...

And Paul Witte, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and others are folks who have done analysis of that same data, generally, and come to different conclusions...

And though the same folks have worked with similar data...they have often come at that data with different assumptions about a whole host of complex phenomena -- another very serious complexity with policy questions...there is just so much complexity to social and political phenomena...that even serious policy thinkers and scholars have very serious differences and strong feelings about them:):)...although...as I'm learning...a similar problem exists -- including the strong feelings -- in other scientific circles like biology, physics, and chemistry...

Both of these groups of researchers have had particular interest in a set of data that has been collected from the experiment with publicly-funded private school vouchers engaged by the city of Milwaukee...

And both of them have come to very different conclusions, as you can imagine, based on their different policy positions...and the subsequent assumptions about the data that they've come at the data with:):)...

Paul and his associates have tried to separate out the data...they've looked at results from students with similar backgrounds who have stayed in public schools (one of the very interesting critiques of this analysis of data is that comparisons are made of those who are stable in public schools versus those who choose to use vouchers...rather than those who engage in public school choice versus those who use vouchers)...and those who have taken advantage of the private school vouchers to attend schools both in other public schools (I believe, if I'm remembering the data set, correctly...if not...it would be an interesting way to analyze the data)...and in private schools outside the public school district...

But the trick, here, is that the advocates for various perspectives -- those favoring private school vouchers...and those favoring public schools -- each developed experiments and analyzing data in a way that supported their various perspectives...even as I thought there was much validity (meaning, truth...not just validity for their feelings:):):)...in each perspective...

I tend to think that public schools offer the best educational opportunities...

But I also think that freedom -- which shows up differently and incomplete in different schooling situations...and in schooling situations versus other situations, altogether -- is critical to the best learning...

So I'm going to go about my testing, differently...

I've developed my ideas, enough, I think, at this point...here...and on a couple of different forums I've been on -- Blonde Sagacity...but more...the EZBoard International Debate forum I've debated on -- to develop a much better idea, in my own head, at least, of what the implications of least possible necessary aggression, involves:):)...enough to write a book, at least, if not several, at this point:):)...

But the testing is really the tricky part:):)...

And I feel separate enough from the ideas, at this point (and confident in them, as well, I must admit)...

That I'm going to approach the question of falsifiability with the higher scientific standard...

Meaning...I'm going to develop tests to prove my ideas wrong...

And like any true debater:):):)...

I'm going to develop tests that are as rigorous in trying to prove my ideas wrong...as I was in developing them to constructively solve serious policy problems that I and others encounter...

And I'll start with what I think are the weakest areas or seemingly weakest areas in my ideas...

Some of the areas where I'm concerned by either statistics or by arguments in my ideas include advocacy for gun rights (the statistics of gun-related murders in the United States are way disproportionately high...though the U.S. has a lot of gun control laws that date back to near the beginning of the 20th Century, at least...and I don't have a very good explanation for those gun-related murders, at this point, by my lights)...

Another area is why people, intuitively, believe that harsher punishments are more effective for serious and violent crimes...even when the psychological data seems to point in the opposite direction...

Another area is places where pressure and intimidation and punishment seem to work...and help buttress the idea that they work for many people...but where, as behavioral and other psychologists, I think, rightly argue, that they work temporarily -- and I would add with longer term consequences that are often not accounted for -- and do not lead to internalization of principles and understandings that accomplish those goals more sustainably and substantially...

Meaning...why education and understanding and constructive engagement and thought and reality checks are far more effective, long term, and without those longer term consequences, than punishment is either the short term...and certainly in the long term...

As I've said before...aggression is sometimes necessary...

But the problem is in the rationalization of its use when it is not or is less useful...as means of gaining control...that is elusive...

Some of the military and law enforcement applications are ones I want to explore...since so many folks in these fields might be more likely to object to them, I assume...though I'm learning an awful lot about the diversity of ideas in these fields...but these are fields that more regularly use force to deal with difficult issues they encounter...

Business and economic applications might occur in these fields that might be less open to them than some other fields -- like education and academia...though there is much more precedent for the idea that freedom and education -- in the form of free trade and schooling -- creates growth in the fields of business and economics than in the fields of military and law enforcement...criminology might have incorporated more psychology...but I haven't studied enough criminology, at this point, to know...that's a place to start, too, I think:):)...

And the legal field has advocates for freedom on different sides, as do the politicians and activists that often borrow from this field to make arguments...

Bill Clinton's leadership includes both advocacy of things like drug control and gun control...and constructive engagement in places like China and Vietnam that seem to have been succesful in opening those countries up, both to promote more freedom in these countries and cultures, generally...but also to provide reality checks that make citizens and leadership in these countries more aware of poorer and better policy choices...

And George Bush's leadership with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq offer excellent opportunities to test these ideas, as well...if conservatives who argue that America must look after her interests and the resentment of the world be damned and that means playing every hard power card we have necessary -- military, legal, political, and economic -- and that the casualties in Iraq are the necessary by-product of a more successful international policy than the one offered by the liberal leadership of Presidents like Bill Clinton (something that seems like a significant stretch to me, at this point, I must admit:):):)...then that scenario would pose a significant challenge to these ideas, I think:):)...

Liberal, Democratic, and citizen reaction to Hurricane Katrina, the blame games, the resignation of Michael Brown, and other unfolding events with that natural disaster might also offer an opportunity to look at the up-side of blame games, so to speak:):)...God knows a lot of liberals and Democrats engaged in them:):)...and an awful lot of folks -- conservatives included -- argued for them...so this might be a place to look at efforts that challenge a more constructive approach to difficult policy questions...or which frame constructive efforts differently...

And Tom Delay's indictments and issues with campaign finance regulation as well as larger issues with campaign finance regulation might offer some interesting tests of the issues -- good and bad -- with campaign finance regulation...

And I probably should, at some point, make increasingly clearer on this blog...as I have on other forums...the places where I think aggression is appropriate and most appropriate...where controlling and limiting freedom is more appropriate...in conjuction with efforts at constructive engagement...because the stakes are too high to leave freedom as an option...unrepentant and sociopathic murders and violent criminals...and even repentant murderers and violent criminals, for periods of time that assure more safety that they will not repeat their crimes...

And places where it is less useful...

Trying to impose democratic and freedom-loving values comes to mind, here:):)...

But here's the challenge for me...

I'm not interested in being right where I'm wrong...

It makes no sense...

Why would someone want to prove they are right when they are wrong?...

If you're wrong, you're wrong...

So...the challenge for me...

Is to develop as rigorous of tests as I can develop...

That attempt to prove my ideas wrong...

That try to falsify them...

I'm working on them...as well as using this as an opportunity to look at data that I want to analyze with fresh eyes...that look for alternative explanations...

And better yet...

With an eye to proving my ideas around least possible necessary aggression wrong:):):)...

Science is so fun, don't you think?:):):)...

That's why I love it:):):)...

It's the enterprise most open and rigorous...about proving itself wrong:):):)...

If anyone has any suggestions...as I'm sure a lot of people should...most people agree with me, in part...and then not, in part...so the parts where you don't agree with me...you can draw on those for ideas to prove these ideas wrong...

Please submit them:):)...

So here is everyone's chance:):):)...and an open invitation as long as I and everyone else is alive and kicking:):):)...

Any ideas that anyone has about how these ideas might be wrong...

I am way open to hearing them, right now...

Because I'm serious...

My focus, right now...

Is on proving my ideas wrong:):):)...

I think I might start with that John Stuart Mill essay I blogged about earlier...the one I said was the most comprehensive critique of these ideas, generally, that I have found, up to this point...it's published in a book called Applied Ethics, edited by Peter Singer, and published by the Oxford University Press in 1986...it's called Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment(1868)...in case you're interested:):):)...

Immigrants and native citizens...sorts out those who choose to live with laws and those who don't...to sort out matters of domestic force to deal with domestic issues within countries...and sorting out data for more and less democratic and more and less autocratic countries would be useful, too...

And consequences following constructive engagement and diplomatic resolutions of various international issues and those following the use of military power...and then to look at the consequences following conditions where I would assume, given these principles, where diplomatic or constructive engagement would be more effective...and conditions where militaristic or more forceful efforts would be more effective...terrorism presents particular challenges around collaborative efforts between military and law enforcement...but I imagine we can find data separating various consequences after various scenarios...

There are a lot of confounds in any data set we'd consult...meaning...there's a lot of different policies being used during similar or simultaneous time periods...

But the great thing about democracies...is that they offer a better laboratory for different approaches...

Meaning...that there are different democracies and different governments with different policies and different more dominant and less dominant ideologies during different time periods -- many of those democracies incorporate federalism...so different governments within federal arrangements that offer different policies to consider -- with different policies and different consequences from those different policies that we can analyze...

Also...if you feel more comfortable emailing me ideas for tests rather than posting them publicly on my blog (and I'll respect any requests for anonymity)...please feel free to do so...at...

benfrankln@yahoo.com

...or...

bfrankln@hotmail.com

...or...

You can also post suggestions on my Blogspot blog at http://benfrankln.blogspot.com...

Let the tests begin:):):)...

Love,
Ben