Falsifiability and Messy Science - Sixty Symbols
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- čas přidán 1. 05. 2018
- A chat with Professor Phil Moriarty on The Scientific Method, inspired by a Sean Carroll paper.
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Sean Carroll on Sixty Symbols: bit.ly/seancarrollvideos
Sean Carroll's paper: bit.ly/falsifiability_paper
Social Physics by Alex Pentland
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Sean Carroll on Sixty Symbols: bit.ly/seancarrollvideos
Sean Carroll's paper: bit.ly/falsifiability_paper
More Phil Moriarty videos: bit.ly/Prof_Moriarty
Scientific method is only about falsifiability of theories, but it doesn't cover the development of those theories... a theory, with associated hypotheses, HAS to be developed independently BEFORE the scientific method of testing those hypotheses can come into play... and this is where the "messiness" comes in, because a theory can be produced by an AI, or by magical thinking, or a random word generator, it doesn't matter... what matters is the ability to perform tests on it. So, it's not that science is messy, it's that the process of exploration and discovery are messy... science is the bit that comes later, that lets us get rid of ideas that don't match the observations gained during exploration/discovery. IOW, we are using "science" as an umbrella term that is applying to far more stuff than what the "scientific method" applies to.
Hope I explained that in a helpful way!
Sixty Symbols, hi I have some great experiments. They are awesome :). Waves and clouds all figured out...and so much more. Wanna talk?
Sixty Symbols
Sounds to me that these people haven't heard of sharing. You need to verify that people are replicating your work if another team makes a mistake or if they discover one of your mistakes then you can both now update the tests to verify the accuracy of the results.
Why is this s••• so f••••• hard for theoretical scientists to figure out? Aren't you guys supposed to be smart??? But getting other teams on board... That costs money. It's called the "Internet" - a tool created for research purposes at a university for the US Government...
*DID YOU FORGET THAT?*
It sounds like you did.
Thanks 😊 again !!!!
You think science is messy now? In 1771, what astronomy had was even Messier.
gottem
love it!! :)
💜
Some people are obviously born without the shame gene.
Yes, yes, take your upvote.
I think we need to distinguish clearly between the messy creative process of coming up with scientific theories, a process which depends a lot on social factors and chance, versus the more structured and systematic process of testing them, which doesn't. The latter is what we normally mean by 'the scientific method'. The discovery of graphene is no exception. No one would have believed that graphene existed without a systematic followup to that messy cellotape business.
I think you're right on the money
You are right. I would just, like expected, would point out the misuse of the word theory, instead of hypotheses.
@CCC Scientists and philosophers from Einstein to Popper used the word 'theory' as I have. You're using a hypercorrected definition of the word.
You forgot capital T, capital S, capital M lol
Couldn't have said it better
"I go play" is so true. I was a research scientist in biochemistry and molecular biology and in all honesty I did it to play around. It was very satisfying for some years.
This is fascinating to me as a Bio/Psych student. In Psychology (sciency UK connotations), even at the research level, *everything* that is done has to be checked and pre-defined and verified because so much of it *can't* be, such that (as far as I can tell) the entire field is trying to deconstruct and reconstruct itself while still providing useful information. It's a medicine-supporting field so it can't just take a year out to work out what it knows, so it has to make sure everything new is as ethically polished and scientifically certain as possible (because, it often isn't).
Biology is... well, Biology is obviously too huge and too mobile in every direction to make any broad statements as a relatively young student, but it really fascinates me that so many fields get to "go play" while, to others, the concept is alien. The idea of going off-script is *hilariously* unethical in Psych, for example, and I'd imagine that more testing-based biology has a similar attitude. I got into science because I love that dream of experimental exploration; I've always viewed rigorous testing as a key component of that, though certainly not to the extent of the throw-out-the-science attitude that massive pharmaceutical industry has to adopt.
Did you notice this dichotomy when you worked in the field?
I'm a neuroscientist and the passion that this professor shows for his field inspires me to do better at mine. Thank you.
One of the most enjoyable science dialogue I've seen in a while. Thanks! It's refreshing to see something as candid as this.
I love how he had a primus t shirt
I was so happy, when I saw that!
wait who did?
@@cucumber_999 13:32
Pork sodaaa!!!
Those damn blue collar tweekers are runnin this here lab
One of the most mind bending classes I took in my Surveying major was Error Analysis, and coming to grips with the idea that we can't actually measure anything "very well", and the noble pursuit is to work to understand, identify, and quantify the errors in our measurements.
I think his conclusion at the end could have been more clear. In fact in general this seems like a fun conversation but not necessarily a well structured or thought out video. I'd say falsifiability doesn't necessarily happen on a large scale, but it should on the scale of individual experiments, especially when you're "poking and prodding" as he said. You poke and prod until something interesting happens, you come up with a theory about what is causing it to happen, and then you do everything you can to prove that it actually isn't happening at all and it's just random chance or you messed something up. So maybe we could just add the poking and prodding bit to the beginning of the scientific method. This is worth noting because most science doesn't start with a theory, and even the theories we have all come from previous experiments.
100% this. It’s obvious, idk know why it wasn’t concluded like this in the video. There is no contradiction here. And yea, social consensus is always messy. At the same time it allows climate scientists to influence global policy w/o everybody having to recheck the data or even recollect the data.
An it is even in line with Popper: He said that scientists should be really creative when coming up with new hypotheses. The falsification doesn't happen in the beginning of the scientific process. And of course there is always subjectiveness in science! It seems a bit like a straw-man argument to me, to be totally honest.
I mean, isn't "poking and prodding" just making observations? I was taught that making an observation is the first part of science, the hypothesis is second. There is little reason you can't have more than 1 hypothesis, too.
The reality is that deep down, science can be a bit "hand wavy" at times. As much as we would like it not to be. I think thats what Professor Moriarty was trying to dance around. You don't honestly want to come out and say that because as he said, there are many shades of gray. My saying is always "There are infinite shades of gray."
Perhaps the lack of structure in this video is a comment on the lack of structure in the way science is actually done????!?
We need more informative and long videos like these! Especially the one discussing a paper.
i really enjoyed this.
too often people say that philosophy and science don't mix but the two extreme ends of the continuum are the only things that don't mix.
a wonderful, enlightening and charming video
Disable audio, and imagine him saying "Miss Stevenson, my dog ate my homework" at 0:32
The follow up questions are brilliant , it put the abstract conversation into perspective
This might just be my favourite video you've ever done.
Such a great video! I think this applies to anything in life, and underlines what might be the source of all misunderstandings in the world - people have different perceptions of the world.
Truly great video. I am going to show this in my social psychology class. I wish he had time to discuss Tnomas Kuhn as well.
I'm so glad that this video has been made!!! It's spot on. Falsifiability is very seldom the motivation behind actively doing science. Now, what gets in the textbooks in experimental sciences has survived experimental scrutiny. But the fact that it has not (yet) been falsified is always noted after the fact.
Laypersons interested in the sciences must realise that there are at least three levels where scientific ideas live. First, there are the textbooks. These tend to represent the consensus at the time when they were written. Then there's the recent literature (recently published papers) - that's the material that is either confirming what's in the textbooks or is on the waiting list for getting into the textbooks. Finally there's the realm of active research. There, anything goes. Active researchers can do anything they find interesting or expedient. It doesn't have to be with a particular hypothesis in mind or with the intention of falsifying a theory.
There are restrictions of course. Usually researchers will do either what they have outlined in a research proposal that has been approved, or follow the instructions of the principal investigator, or work along the general direction that the research group they belong to. But the intention of falsifying a hypothesis is optional - and usually absent.
It's about time to leave popperism behind and admit that research is more flexible and a great deal freer and messier.
Nah. Popperism got them there, as opposed to the ideas of irrefutable positivism.
-ility is the key part of the word. Methodological Falsificationism attempts to say more about the pseudo-science ultimately.
For those making certain pseudoscientific theories they aren't even hypotheses because they believe certainty and falsification isn't optional- its not an option.
I'd question whether those constructions these researchers do will solve any major problems of scientific theory though.
I don't think Popper claimed falsification to be easy or that other forms of creating more conjectural process was irrelevant. In the hypothesis that's fine!
Observations require falsifiability criteria- they aren't inductions but use theory to determine how data/phenomena gets created into a premise we call "observation".
Observations rely on testable theories, for example to make the instruments required which ultimately cause the major changes in science don't they? Increased perspective, data, accuracy.
Love videos with Prof.Moriarty, more please!!
As always great video, Brady and Prof. Moriarty!
This should be the start of a whole new series on the philosophy of science, with a new cast of characters. I read Popper's books as an undergraduate, and a stack of literature on this debate since then. We even had a seminar course on the topic in grad school. The question here is not the playing and exploration in the lab or out in the field, but rather the structure of the thought process. Are you thinking in terms of a tautology, or is it possible to unroll the question or observation into a form that could even be false or even measurable at all? In one case, Popper declared evolution a pseudo science because the survival of the fittest reduces to the survival of the survivors, an untestable tautology. A research group took up the challenge and defined the measurable and testable approach of inclusive fitness. This becomes the relative number of descends or relatives, not the strength of an individual. Popper recanted after that was published.
Much more could be, and should be, said about this topic. This goes far beyond physics into all other forms of science and logic.
On natural selection: is it now still tautological as an explanation? Survival is survival.
The updates to it we actually use aren't though- current theory is not "darwins natural selection" but a modern evolutionary theory with various actual predictive processes identified.
Love Moriarty's passion. Skepticism is a key component of truth, or at least the journey to it.
Yes, "unsa Koal" (our Karl [Popper]) was very strict in his thoughts.
Greetings from Vienna!
Excellent video. Great thought-provoking push back by Brady.
Thank you so much for saying these things, professor.
You really should do a more in depth video about this topic in order to avoid confusion! Love it!
Agreed this needs a follow up
Because Isn't this why we rely on different labs, different universities to do the research and try to find the weaknesses. And then combine those studies and form meta-analysis?
I really like this topic. It delves deep into what science actually is.
I like your statement on 'at some point the evidence becomes inescapable conclusion' I'd argue that at this point the nuances in the science become more important (though not to say that the entire paradigm can't be upended) science is more likely to advance by saying 'under certain conditions these understood mechanisms don't behave quite as expected'. Those seem the best way to advance these ideas.
Yay! Moriarty's videos are my favorite!
I love that this helps elaborate the epistemology of science.
I love how Professor Moriarty respects and enjoys Brady's input.
i feel like Brady's line of questioning is inb4ing all the comments
I think the point to be made here is that "The Scientific Method" is one of many subsets in which an opinion/hypothesis/idea can be rationalised and expressed.
Proving or falsifying that opinion/hypothesis/idea, whether or not a purely objective method is used, relies on humanistic and personal judgement, which I would argue is a product of social and exogenic factors for the individual(s) who are undertaking the work. What follows on from the "The Scientific Method", already having been "contaminated" , is a series of socially dominated outlets where the information is recieved and processed by the majority (public or scientist) who ultimately form the consensus. The pathway of objective and scientific rationale is one of only many pathways which the information (hypothesis/idea/opinion and the provability/falsability of such) is carried across. This effect of "opionated dilution" is responsibile for both how the information is percieved, and how science is undertaken.
Whoa! Was thinking about how questionable the idea of falsifiability is myself for a long time! Glad that real scientists do not take it for granted.
I totally agree with Prof. Moriarty.
One important aspect that should also be mentioned is that different scientific groups who support different hypothesis constantly try to prove each other wrong.
Greetings, a neuroscientist
PS: I'm also mostly playing at work. My favorite toy: Matlab.
Try R. Its free and doesnt take 5 mins to load the workspace. You can also deploy the backend to a cluster.
Great topic and great explanation Phil!
Such a wonderful video. I love professor Moriarty
Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" seems incredibly relevant here. Moriarty seems to be painting a picture that is very inline with Kuhn's key points (or at least my reading of it). I recommend the book to those who are curious. It isn't an easy read, but it explores a rich, subtle story of scientific truth and epistemology.
A change of pace and an EXCELLENT video. You can do more abstract things I feel and it would still be pretty great. It all depends on the topic you choose......and here you chose a wonderful one. I hope to see more videos like this one.
I really enjoy Prof Phil’s presentations. I’m just a bit concerned that a lot of people who don’t follow the nuances and detail of what he says will make mischief out of it.
The Prof specifically said that he's not going to talk about the paper. He was using the paper to jump off on the subject of The Scientific Method.
To complain that the video isn't about the paper when it wasn't intended to be is a bit odd.
Greetings! I have an unprompted physics question for Prof. M. Thinking about latent heat of fusion -- say I'm boiling some water with a heat source. My native understanding is: at first the water temperature rises as heat goes into kinetic energy of molecules. Then temperature levels off as heat goes into *something else* instead. Then the *something else* is satifsied and the water boils. In the leveling off regime, can we measure how far along the *something else* is? Or turned around, if I give you a sample of water at the leveled-off temperature, can you tell me whether the water is just about to boil, or if it still needs to satisfy the *something else*?
I respect his point of view. But when viewed by people with little to no scientific education, this video could be massively misinterpreted. It would be truly sad if this video was ever used by anti-vaxers or climate change deniers.
If their proposed modifications lead to the land of real world impracticality, they are getting nowhere.
If you look at the history of science and you don't even have to go too far back in time to see that evidence isn't everything. The prevailing consensus has a lot to do what passes and what doesn't.
My thoughts exactly. I can just imagine some eve angelical christian or flat earther misinterpreting this and using it as an argument.
Everything valuable is vulnerable.
There's a distinction to be made between scientific dissent from the mainstream and scientific incompetence. Promoters of antivax and climate denial always present themselves as the former, and people are taken in by it.
It's a fascinating topic to discuss, but I'd rather see people helped towards making that distinction for themselves than see the line blurred further
remembering my study of the philosophy of science (here goes) imre lakatos 1976(?) i think made an excellent advance on both popper and kuhn essentially making the point that no theorem is definitive, all are subject to adjustment and improvement and the test of one over the other is whether they explain the evidence better or, failing that difference , the number of subsequent research programmes they produce (leading to further discoveries). ironically (?) in a way popper sort of set the paradigm which has been tweaked and improved upon by others...
on reflection i think this is largely a a debate based upon thomas khun the structure of scientific revolutions vs popper. i love this stuff all great reading.
I really appreciate the honesty and humility of this video. I've always been skeptical when someone tries to use "consensus" as an argument. Historically, consensuses have existed until they were over-turned, and not without much stubborn reluctance to do so. Socially, it's safe to defend the consensus and risky to challenge it. The main reason for that is because it's easy for challenges to be wrong, but one should note that that's not that the same thing as saying the consensus is right. One ought to be suspicious of a scientist who does not welcome the critical eye.
Scientists who have this level of humility will engender much more trust.
I am sort of glad this is out there.
In summary, experimental physics is just capturing a bunch of data. Then everyone tries to make sense of it, often in the way people usually do with things.
Hey, Phil: do you know about the Principle (Law) of Explosion in Logic?
I REALLY appreciate Dr. Moriarty's honesty.
Loved this video! Such a great discussion.
The scientific method should be taught with understanding that it can be distorted by social and cultural context.. and that bias needs to be actively checked
There's a (philosophical + 'mechanical/mechanistic') difference between 'exploratory science' and 'hypothesis testing'; in the latter paradigm/framework, the confirmatory or falsifiability of a hypothesis being tested is very much required; in the former, not so much.
Another way to look at this would be frequentist vs non-frequentist (Bayesian, subjective etc) statistics/probability, because this is the tool which scientists use to 'prove' or 'disprove' (or test) their hypothesis -- in either framework! One might use either probability/probabilistic/statistical approach in the 'hypothesis testing' framework, but usually in the 'exploratory' framework, usually a non-frequentist approach works best/better...
Thanks Dr. Haran, very interesting topic... thank you for your efforts
I really like this video, and the direction he was getting to. When the Fab Four paper was submitted, and they were told it needs to be more scientific so no Beatles references.... As though science can only be described in one way.
It's refreshing to hear about what science is and what it is not from an actual scientist.
The public perception is always a joke.
Lots of people criticizing things that they aren't familiar with at all. Not sure why.
Cool video guys! I always learn something from you!
One of the best videos of tais channel! You must be able to throw away your truth at any time.
I'm teaching science to middle school and high school and getting through the scientific method is so much harder than when I was a kid. Very tempting to just teach it to them incorrectly ...
Got to love Professor Moriarty :D
WOW. thaks alot, ive been trying to argue and explain this to my relatives/firends for the last couple of years. Some of them got the message, ofcourse, but you do so much better than i did! Still, its difficult though
Fantastic discussion I have thought about this a lot.
I completely agree with the Professor!
So, even though you only mention one by name, this whole thing boils down to the old three way cage match of Philosophy of Science: Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend
...all the while tiptoeing around my personal favourite, the perpetually ignored Peirce.
The method of science is taught in schools, what's missing in the classroom is the philosophy of science that ties it all together
Once again an excellent, fascinating video with Prof Moriarty. Looking forward to the next!
Falsifiability is not about whether a) you carry out an experiment to disprove a hypothesis or b) progress in science is messy. It is about whether your hypothesis is immune to refutation. Simplified, psychoanalysis: if you get better, it is confirmed; if not, it is because you show resistance, which psychoanalysis predicts, and it again is confirmed. A bit like the arguments of climate change sceptics. The commentators are correct; the professor is not clear about what he wishes to express. This is the first video from Numberphile or Sixty Symbols below par
As a layman I have to trust the scientific consensus, I don't have the financial resources or intellectual know-how to conduct experiments in certain fields.
Yo Brady, you need to make some videos on the Epistemology, Skepticism and Philosophy of Science on PhilosophyFile!
I would say all science is not messy, but requires extreme specifics in definitions and must take in account of as many variables as possible. What's messy is testing each possible variable and discovering variables not yet known and what impact they may have on the results of an experiment.
Interesting how it relates to software development. Especially "test driven" methods where we should think of bugs and write tests before we even start coding. The reality is much messier, and I believe it is similar in most professions.
i loved this. i might have had a few mind explosions during this video! keep em coming!
I think that the messiness is due to our understanding/perception about probability - how our mind assign probabilities, in particular the prior probabilities to a particular theory. E.T. Jaynes explains this in more detail.
Playing (or poking and prodding) method actually makes our prior probabilities near to zero, thus that helps subconsciously to reach a better conclusion and probably converging ideas. But the hard thing is that since we are not ideal humans (and that is why Jaynes brought forward the notion of a "common sense"), we hardly find ourselves in total agreement.
Although falsifiability makes sense in testing a hypothesis after we have a threshold prior set using "playing" method, it definitely should not be used as starting out any vague idea since that would affect our prior probability and the further likelihood from remaining unbiased.
Dear Brady and staff of SS - thank you so much for your incredible contributions to us .. uhm.. less educated. I'd love to see a video on "research gone wrong", who blew themselves up? Or irradiated their village? What are the "worst case" stories in the academic community, that lead to guidelines and principles that govern research today?
This is the best video on youtube.
Thank you for this.
I see an interesting "split" in the idea of Science. Almost a two-phase sort of system, from what has been presented here. It would seem that "Discovery" and "Confirmation" are different bits of Science.
Discovery is that hypothesis-free, diving into the unknown and exploring. As was so well put, "poke and prod until you find something". Who knows what you'll find. Some things aren't worth replicating, but help build a greater understanding. They may not change the evidence before us, rather, change the way we look at it and interact with it. I think this is what most science done every day is, wandering down a path until something catches your eye. Maybe it is with stopping to examine further, maybe it is just kinda neat.
Could you do a video on engineering vs physics and the differences and similarities between them at uni and like what you could do with a engineering or physics degree
Against Method by Fayerband made this argument against popper a long time ago; it's nice it's being picked up and recognised by working scientists
Great stuff. To have written 'Solid Air' then become a scientist, this guy is a legend.
Great old school footage!
Popper's idea of falsifiability takes all of Professor Moriarty's objections into account. Falsifiability is a way to strengthen the veracity of a theory's claim to explain an observed phenomenon and more general the context the better. Popper does not claim that there is such a thing as an absolute theory, only that the process of falsifiability is a process to find the best available theory.
After reading Dr. Carroll's paper I am more skeptical of this video. Dr. Carroll's whole argument is an appeal to ignorance. From the paper "The best reason for classifying the multiverse as a straightforwardly scientific theory is that
we don’t have any choice." That is possibly the least scientific position, capital or lower case 's', one could make.
Robert Daniel Pickard .. how do you get from resistance to falsifiability to verifiability and if you do why is the scientific method not simply trying to verify a theory? These questions are never answered by popper
Wasn't there something like a paradox of relativism if I remember correctly? Which says that if you say that everything is subjective, then it must be subjective to state that everything is subjective. I then think sometimes that a lot of our analytical boundaries are related to the boundaries of language.
Feynman describes the scientific method beautifully
If "uncertainty is built in to the fabric of experimental science", doens't that introduce uncertainty?
Or is it that uncertainty is real whether you acknowledge it or not?
And if you don't acknowledge it, how can it be real?
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” said Winston Churchill. I feel the same way about "The Scientific Method", as opposed to other ways of gathering knowledge.
This is basically saying that there is a philosophical limit to the scientific method. There is always a human limit and sometimes we are operating at this limit within this ignorance that may plague our theories for a long time. It is saying that as our scientific methods go further to principles like the multi-verse that seem some what untestable within the established framework of what actually classifies as having passed a test or failed one. Therefore , the focus is placed on the people reviewing papers instead of those writing them. However, this impacts how people will write papers over time, but highlight is placed on the reviewers.
Please make a video on superpositions and the Schrödinger equation
People need to learn how to say, "I don't know." rather than simply believing in things they don't understand or even worse, disparaging people who don't believe in that thing that you yourself don't understand. Just say you don't know. The ultimate scientific statement. It's where science starts. Just repeat after me: "I don't know."
I love how Professor Phil Moriarty occasionally wears rock band T shirts
Was that Martyn doing the voiceover in the file footage at the start of the video?
It's interesting how many of the seasoned and experienced scientists in the STEM field seem to develop quite the interest in what's often laughed at as soft science when they get older and turn into a hobby philosopher.
Interesting. So as with all cultural activities, in Science also practice comes first and the grammar later?
Where's the link to a Philosophy Department video on the Problem of Induction?
Yeah I remember doing Milikan's oil drop experiment at school and the take out was that you jiggle it around until you get the number you were looking for in the first place. Let's face it, GPS is rubbish unless you know where you're going!
'Bending over backward to prove yourself wrong' is translated to layman from "Finding new ways to disprove the null hypothesis".
Modus Tolens Logic.
It's been raining every day for most of the year. Last year was heat wave. The year before monster snow and ice winter. The climate is dramatically changing before our eyes.
There is an argument over whether climate change is real, but this misses the actual uncertainty over the level of warming, how problematic it is, and what to do about it.
Coming back to this video now and I cant help but think of this falsefiability to be akin to thr different tests for accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis in statistics. As it is much easier to reject some hypothesis than to prove one. (Havent reas the paoer btw)
I think it’s interesting that they use the term scotching right after mentioning scotch tape. It goes back to the origins of the name scotch tape. The guy who invented it didn’t put as much adhesive on it as people thought he should have, and they said he had been scotch with his adhesive.
I would be very interested to hear what CGP Grey has to say about this idea
The graphene example is wrong. When he talks about "we're not looking for how this doesn't work, we're looking for how it works", he's talking about the context of discovery. Falsification comes in in the context of justification. Still messy, but the graphene example is not a counter example to falsifyability.
I gave a lecture about this yesterday. Students looked at me with a WTF face. For them, science is science and science is truth. Black or white. I liked when Phil said that there are many shades of grey in between, and the "society pressure" or consensus clearly play a big role here.
The only thing that can be proved - or rather disproved - is the statement “X never happens”. For every result where X doesn’t happen, your hypothesis gets stronger, but it is never definitively proved. On the other hand, it only takes _one_ occurrence of X actually happening to disprove the hypothesis, though even then you have to make sure that the circumstances where X happened were actually the ones where you assumed X would never happen.
Great video!!!!
This is one mess of a video, I'd say.
Of course, science is about exploration, finding yet unknown phenomena. And of course if you present such results to different people, every one of them will come with a different interpretation. That's where the science method comes in, because then they should ask themselves if the interpretation is correct. Make a model of the phenomenon and try to prove that model wrong, and if you fail, present it to others to try to prove it wrong too.
Quite often, we hear in media "scientists don't have explanation for xyz". That's a great example I think. Because it does not mean they have no idea what it could be. More often than not, they have many ideas what it could be but they could not prove one right and others wrong. And that counts as 'no explanation' in science.
The science ends where proving or disproving ideas and models is replaced by personal preference, opinion, belief, and politics.
kasuha so basically, you just restated everything he said, so in a sense you have one mess of a comment