How does 'The System' illustrate the features of Science discussed in 'The Truth is Out There' (Inductive reasoning, falsification, Occam's Razor, Par

The System is a Channel 4 special in which D. Brown shared his "100 percent guaranteed" method for winning on the horses which illustrates the features of Science discussed in the article "The Truth is Out There"

At the beginning of the show Brown introduces us to "The System" claiming that there is a way to predict which horse wins in a horse race. He tries not only to convince the audience but also Khadisha, who he randomly selected and anonymously emailed because she had no history in gambilng. He sent her correct predictions of five races in a row, before encouraging her to place as much money as she could on the sixth race. That is when "The System" illustrates Inductive reasoning. Inductive Reasoning is one of the features of science and a kind of reasoning that makes a prediction based on past experience and assumes that that prediction could be applied to all cases. It is logically flawed and impossible to deliver absolute truth. Khadisha's confidence is based solely on inductive reasoning. Because "The System" predicted the horse winner correctly 4 times in a row, she believes that "The System" will be correct the fifth time.

There has been nothing to falsify her confidence. At this stage, she has not experienced falsification. Falsification is a scientific feature and involves proving something wrong. It is the opposite of verifying statements. We may never be able to prove absolute truth through falsification but we may disprove something. Therefore the statement is known as "accepted truth" until it is proven false. It is important in science as it develops hypothesis and therefore increases scientific knowledge.

Later Brown reveals that "The System" does not exist and proves it by falsification. He mentions that the audience saw "The System" only from one perspective, Khadisha's perspective. After Brown had placed a bet of £4,000 of Khadisha's money on a horse in the final race, he explained that "The System" did not really exist, which is an example of Occam's Razor. This states that simple explanations are the best-or that the Universe elsewhere obeys the same laws of physics. Simply, "The System" does not exist.

He had started by contacting a large number of people and split them into six groups, giving each group a different horse. As each race had taken place 5⁄6 of the people had lost and were dropped from the system. Brown had a different person backing each horse in each race, and one individual, Khadisha, won five times in a row. This was similar to the coin flipping earlier: rather than having a predictive technique, Brown had tossed a coin repeatedly until ten heads had come up in a row, taking over nine hours to produce the required film. He explained this to the audience and to Khadisha and falsified her belief that "The System" exists which she based solely on Inductive reasoning. This also proves that Inductive reasoning is logically flawed.

Paradigm shift, a scientific feature, was also illustrated in "The System". Paradigm shift is the term used by Kuhn who suggested that science does not develop by the orderly accumulation of facts and theories, but by dramatic revolutions. The worlds before and after a paradigm shift are utterly different. "The System" illustrated this when Brown convinced experts that "The System" is possible. He claimed that it was only highly improbable, not impossible. When the experts were convinced, the worlds before and after became different which is the result of Paradigm shift.