To be consistent, I believe the propossition “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” must also be applied.

Interesting points by using the opposites. The statements were not meant to be boolean, thus can be proven by the negation of the opposite) but the point is taken. I’m pretty sure we are saying almost the same thing. But we choose to use different words.

My comment was more directed at the first comment stating expressing the thought that induction is equal to deduction in the scientific method. That it surely is not, because it precedes it, but the method itself is *entirely* deduction. And that is what Burleson got right. Not that it mattered here in Oracle, as you pointed out the misdirection.

Anyway, i just bought Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals (last night). Its completely unrelated to the discussion here, other than that i’m willing to pay to see what you have to write. :)

I think you’ve followed the misdirection that I pointed out in commit #10; and you’ve made the same mistake as Prodlife – as pointed out by Stew Ashton in comment #2.

The first part of my comment is: “you’re supposed to design a theory to match the facts” which you object to because it limits the theory. But the negation of my comment would be “you’re allowed to design a theory that doesn’t match the facts”..

Requiring a theory to match the facts doesn’t limit the theory to match nothing but the currently known facts. Once a theory matches all the known facts it allows you to make predictions (of new facts) that may be tested.

The second part of my comment is: “you can’t select the facts to match the theory” which, when negated, would be “you can ignore the facts that don’t match the theory”.

I don’t think you could possibly state that my comment was wrong. The fact that Burleson wishes to contradict the comment is surprising – the fact that he introduces an irrelevant and distracting claim about the scientific method is not.

Only deductive is scientific. Why? Because science is the study of empirical evidence. Deduction is a form of study, induction is not.

Jonathan’s comment “you’re supposed to design a theory to match the facts, not select the facts to match the theory.” is incorrect. Theory should not be designed to match the facts, as it limits the theory to that which is observed. Don Burleson is correct in that “I think it’s the other way around, Jonathan, the scientific method requires that you start with a hypothesis.” Exactly. Start with a hypothesis (induction) and use the scientific method to test it. In Jungian terminology (as explained by van der Hoop) the creativity and induction is intuition (N), factual study is Thinking (T).

Jonathan touched on this in another comment in that thread “the importance of constructuing experiments to test a hypothesis, and given other people the chance to see how careful you have to be to design the test properly”. And he really said it by finishing his comment with “You’re supposed to start with observations (facts), then construct a theory, then make predictions based on the theory, then test the theory to see if the predictions are correct.”

IOW, hypotheses have no limits. Jonathan advocates the scientific method by using use the practical idea of having facts to limit the hypothesis before testing it. In a sense, Jonathan does do what he quoted from Burleson, but it is directed. Greg Rahn was more to the point with “Isolated and controlled experiments are very meaningful if constructed correctly”…”taking a complex problem and simplifying it so that it can be understood, and then confirming that the observations made in isolation are also pertinent in the original situation.” Exactly.

The problem here is that Burelson said “Oracle officially recommends hypothesis testing with real-world workloads, not contrived artificial test cases.” and he wanted to use that to come up with some general theory, and does not provide any backup.

I think Jonathan used the wrong statements. In the exchange itself, Burleson is correct. However, the way they applied them shows quite clearly the practicality of Jonathan approach, and the absurdity of Burleson’s.

I see that Stew Ashton has addressed your first point. It looks as if you were misdirected by Burleson’s attempt to hide the real issue behind an irrelevant observation about the scientific method. You might note, in passing, that his claim that “the theory must precede the facts” happens to be one that you have argued against.

Dave,
I don’t think it’s fair to be critical in normal conversation about the precise use of the terms ‘theory’ and ‘hypothesis. To most people they mean the same thing, except one of them is easier to spell.

Of course, the proponents of ID who deliberately try to associate the scientific use of the word “theory” with the colloquial use of the word should be viewed as liars and charlatans.

Sean,
It would be helpful if you supplied some evidence in support of your comments – but I assume you may have had the following in mind: http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/review_01.html
where a statspack report can’t make up it’s mind whether it’s a 10g AWR report or a 9i statspack report.

Chris,
This was the really disappointing thing about sp009′s contribution to the thread. I thought we were moving towards a point where he would be able to show some ‘real world’ results, and we would be able to say: “yes, you’re getting a benefit, and it’s because …” giving other people the opportunity to look for cases where they might get the same benefit.

If you can’t show me the data then build a test case to demonstrate it, if you can’t build a test case you haven’t understood what happened or your lying to me. the scientific method is robust because you have to publish your data and others can question it and re run your experiments this leads to a process that looks illogical and haphazard from the outside but produces logical and consistant results.

The difficulty here arises (as I see it), however, where, say, a Statspack output has been doctored to fit a predefined and predicted pattern; though unfortunately for the good doctorer, 10g Statspack output has been interpolated with the 9i Statspack output (on a 9i database), thereby sort of invalidating the whole exercise, and driving a coach and horses through any credibility that this individual might have hitherto secured/retained.

That rather sums up neatly the issue here I’d say: one (Jonathan) is properly fastidious about the evidence, supported by analysis, and the other is obsessed with the appearance of almost supernatural predictive powers, and will go to no little lengths to buttress those a priori claims with extremely dubious a posteriori evidence.

* (Which is also what advocates of “Intelligent Design” do when they say things like, “Evolution is only a theory.” )

1. Trying to establish a very ropey correlation by making a line fit the data points on a graph for an experiment that is strewn with inconsistancies.

2. The spats that Joe Celko used to have with Chris Date ?, anyone remember those ?.