"True" Science vs Science - can you comment?

[Checkmite]

It certainly can tell you what something is about. The philosophy of science, and indeed philosophy as a whole, is not susceptible to a precise definition. One conveys what it means by referring to the type of questions it deals with.

Political Conservativism and Political Liberalism are distinct philosophies; yet were you to define them by the questions they deal with (How large and involved should government be? What rights to individuals have? etc) they would sound exactly the same.

 

[TLN]

Political Conservativism and Political Liberalism are distinct philosophies; yet were you to define them by the questions they deal with (How large and involved should government be? What rights to individuals have? etc) they would sound exactly the same.

Exactly.

Ian, there's no "philosophy" of science that I'm aware of. If you want to articulate something feel free, but you've so far used a lot of words to say nothing.

What is the "philosophy" of science and what does that mean?

 

[T'ai Chi]

The philosophy of science? And what would that be?

(here is a random sampling from the internet)

Take some classes:

http://www.indiana.edu/~hpscdept/
http://hps.elte.hu/
http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/hps/
http://www.drury.edu/ess/philsci/philsciov.html
http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/lps/home/
http://www.pitt.edu/~hpsdept/
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/ph31.htm

Go to some philosophy of science centers:

http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr/
http://www.mcps.umn.edu/
http://logica.rug.ac.be/centrum/

Read some journals:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/PHILSCI/
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/02698595.html
http://www3.oup.co.uk/phisci/

Join some associations:

http://www.usyd.edu.au/hps/aahpsss/
http://www.phil.vt.edu/ISHPSSB/
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/PSA/Default.htm
http://scistud.umkc.edu/hopos/
http://www.psych.yorku.ca/orgs/cshps/

 

[Donn]

Phew! I awake to find a sword fight about the philosophy of science.
Could a CT who drops hints at his psychic powers be clever enough to have stimulated such confusion?

I mean that if he can tie you people up in semantic knots, then I haven't a prayer and I better just stop debating him totally!

 

[Donn]

'Science' is NO better than a dogmatic
religion, along with all it's vices

I have read a Dawkins article about this one, trying to remember the URL...

The funny thing is that after a while I forget the points in the article and blatant statements like this one stump me for an answer that has an equally powerful analogy.

I wonder how his "True" Science compares to a religion - I reckon it will be all mystical and "don't upset the vibrations.": kinda religious really.

 

[epepke]

I hope you enjoy this, it's typical of the stuff I am getting and I feel a little, well, spooked by it and I want to satisfy myself that my inner suspicion is that this is total bunk - only it's so slick and this chap is so very practised.

Sorry, but it just seems like word salad to me. Perhaps you could describe what it is that makes you judge it as slick.

 

[Donn]

epepke -
"Word Salad", I love that!

I find his stuff slick because I am not practiced in this skeptic<->woo^2 business. I am a newbie you see.

This is why I am posting, to get some help in tearing down the irrationality and preparing a reply that is appropriate and fitting, without being inane and dismissive.

 

[Donn]

I have started a reply to the CT, I will post my sections of it here for further assistance and input:
-----------------------

[Interestingly enough, Evidence is subjective for most people... and quite so, the 'weight of evidence' will vary from person-to-person and society-to-society; a concept that is NOT too foreign in the practise of Law in all civilized cultures around our planet].

-----------------------
D> Law is not science. In a courtroom reasonable doubt is the order of the day and this is painted with all kinds of emotive and emotional arguments. Many times the forensic and other evidence is too complex for ordinary people (the juries) to understand. It's small wonder that Law and Science are poles apart.

The whole point of the scientific method is to remove human perception (cultural, political, emotional etc) from the equation. To view the mysteries of the physical world with dispassionate eyes and gain a measure of reason. You could fix a computer bug in an app written in C++, Python, Javascript or assembly because you know the basic rules and thus the language is a mere hurdle not another interpretation.

If gravity stopped working because you visited another country, then we would have to scrap that as a theory and start again.

Science has been doing this re-writing process for hundreds of years and that is the whole point - it represents our "best-bet" on thousands of theories and the more that fall into place, the better they all strengthen each-other.

It's like a vast jigsaw puzzle and the picture that forms is a stunning human achievement - a picture of real reality without distortions of opinion or personal gain.
Each piece only slots in when all the surrounding pieces are 'just-so' and the more pieces the more sure the design.
I do not think we have sight of the overall picture yet, but we certainly have a lot of the borders done and some islands in the middle - atolls of pieces that hold together through mutual compatibility.
Science keeps building, it also tears down. Sometimes is rebuilds what it tore down before, othertimes a new atoll replaces the old - so it continues.

It also means that no single person can lay claim to the skills, education, talent and experience in all fields of science. That's like knowing the intricate design on every puzzle piece.

I say this to indicate that humility and patience is required; to jump ahead and claim to know things 'greater' than science is to claim to know all of science.
-----------------------

 

[Interesting Ian]

Political Conservativism and Political Liberalism are distinct philosophies; yet were you to define them by the questions they deal with (How large and involved should government be? What rights to individuals have? etc) they would sound exactly the same.

No no no. I didn't say a philosophy. I said philosophy. What political philosophy is can best be conveyed by the types of questions raised. When talking about particular philosophies, then obviously we can give satisfactory definitions.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
Political Conservativism and Political Liberalism are distinct philosophies; yet were you to define them by the questions they deal with (How large and involved should government be? What rights to individuals have? etc) they would sound exactly the same.


TLN
Exactly.

{Sighs}

No, read my post above.

Ian, there's no "philosophy" of science that I'm aware of.

Then you are stunningly ignorant. I remind you though I was talking about philosophy of science not *a* philosophy of science.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Phew! I awake to find a sword fight about the philosophy of science.
Could a CT who drops hints at his psychic powers

Where does he do this precisely?

 

[Interesting Ian]

'Science' is NO better than a dogmatic
religion, along with all it's vices



I have read a Dawkins article about this one, trying to remember the URL...
[/B]

I wouldn't bother with Dawkins, he's an idiot.

I think your friend means that the way that scientists go about science it becomes effectively a dogmatic religion. This is of course very much of an overstatement. In practice they have certain presuppositions about how the world is. These presuppositions will govern the type of hypotheses they will entertain etc. It will also determine which hypotheses they would tend to reject out of hand, in addition to rejecting out of hand some reported phenomena which do not fit into their background assumptions.
But to say it is a dogmatic religion is to go too far. I would say they're definitely dogmatic about naturalism being correct though, and even arguably materialism. In addition they tend to be naturally conservative.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: "True" Science vs Science - can you comment?

Sorry, but it just seems like word salad to me. Perhaps you could describe what it is that makes you judge it as slick.

I agree, it really doesn't seem to say much specific. Hence my being bored when reading it! I'm baffled as to why anyone should feel "spooked" by it

 

[thaiboxerken]

I'd say there is a little "dogma" in science. The dogma would be it's reliance on evidence, testing and a pursuit of finding out what is true.

I wouldn't call that "dogma" bad, and science has proven to be the most reliable method of finding out new knowledges, truths, and technologies.

What other methods actually works to do these things?

 

[Donn]

Well, forgive me for trying to engage you in the very topic that you all gather here to debate about in the first place. Skepticism, pseudo-science, irrationality etc.

If I have the wrong forum, please let me know.

I have been upfront with you and said that I am a newbie and that I am looking for help and I want to see skepticism at work on something real and tangible to me. Instead I am getting facetious comments and a lot of noise from you.

I thank the few who have tried, but I despair of the spirit of my thread ever taking off.

 

[Correa Neto]

The bottomline is IMHO the following (and I guess many if not most of us have already seen it a couple of times)-

1) Person no.1 comes with a hipothesis (usually labelling it a theory). The person claims it "solves several problems or poorly-explained phenomena" and asks for opinions or comments.

2) Person no.2 starts to point the flaws and the evidence that contradicts the proposed hipothesis. Note that this is the very basis of science. Note also that it is widely used on a daily basis in several fields that are not commonly labelled as scientific or academic (example-> "hmmm, I guess we can make some money with this product... Lets do some research to see how the consumers would react").

3) Person no.1 finds himself or herself cornered after the exposure of basic mistakes in his/hers great idea. Person no.1 gets confused, "how come you don't see what I see? I can't be wrong!" and quite often angry.

4) Person no.1 starts to attack person Person no.2 and/or what is now labelled as "conventional science" or something like that. Person no.1 claims that the scientific stabilishment refuses to investigate new and bold ideas, is too conservative, closed-minded, etc. From this to a cover-up conspiracy theory sometimes its just a small step.

See? No need for sophisticated discussions on what is the philosophy of scence and similar. Its most likely a defense reaction. And don't think that this happens only with people that dont not have enough knoweledge on the field that he/she ventured. I have seen this happen among academics. More then once I saw geologist no.1 present his/hers pet hipothesis, that subsequently was submitted to deadly flak by the academic geological community. And geologist no.1 reacted quite like person no.1. Actually I have seen even worse episodes, some of which involved traffic of influence, that were not supposed to happen on the scientific and technical environments, but they do happen.

Remember, we are all humans and we all share the same flaws.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Don't let Ian discourage you. We enjoy it when a rational person joins the forum and discusses his views.

Ian is just an idiot and considers anyone that doesn't believe in the afterlife as being irrational.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Well, forgive me for trying to engage you in the very topic that you all gather here to debate about in the first place. Skepticism, pseudo-science, irrationality etc.

If I have the wrong forum, please let me know.

I have been upfront with you and said that I am a newbie and that I am looking for help and I want to see skepticism at work on something real and tangible to me. Instead I am getting facetious comments and a lot of noise from you.

I thank the few who have tried, but I despair of the spirit of my thread ever taking off.

Yes! That told TBK!

 

[Donn]

Well - I am glad to hear it. It's hard to know which members are obstructional and antsy.

I will not post any more of my reply to the CT until what I have posted has some chance of being looked at - I don't want to waste my time, or anyone else's.

Thanks for the word on Int Ian though.

 

[Interesting Ian]

See? No need for sophisticated discussions on what is the philosophy of scence and similar.

No need at all?