I am basically unhappy with any forumation which does not explain why a scientific explanation is better then an non-scientific one. On the other hand I think you approach it on the basis of accepting a scientific answer and seeing this problem resolved in how scietists come to such answers.
In otherwords where you see connection I see disconnection.
I am asking what makes science superior? It is not asked because I believe it is not superior, but rather because I want to know why it is superior, what is its relation as explanation to truth (reality)?
>From this point of view the errors of science and provisionality, are not considered (they are assumed but are are not criticial - the point being to understand the special characteristics of science which also embraces scientific error and views which may be only provisional).
As I said at the begining I believe this is solvable on the basis of understanding science as a series of ontologies defined by subject matters which are in turn loosely part of a wider ontology which has a specific view of how subject and object can be combined.
My problem is that this is no more than a theoretical sketch I an unsure how far I can personally develop.
The reason I drew such extreme examples of what I thought was wrong in your stated view was not that for an instance I believed that you held such errors, but rather they were implicit in the formulation you used. The fact that in order to dismiss them you introduced a different level of argument - which points to your good sense as a person but also the problem of how sustainable the general point of view you have raised is.
Using provisionality helps, but what is happening is that you have introduced another level of mystery - it makes sense but dances around the relationship of science to truth (reality). A sensible lay person introduces quite a bit of provisionality into their view of the current status of any science, an expert no-doubt has a much finer understanding on what just is or is not provisional in any given science.
Hence I have very little to say about super-string theory (besides what is it?), the extent of my provisionality is thus very large in theoretical physics, but not so larege in some other sciences (which is the position of most interested lay people).
Provisionality is handy but does not I think resolve the basic question.
To return for a moment to my original example (in science it is much easier to go back in time to assess the problems). In the late 19th century and early twentith, biological opinion on human races was racist (human races obviously exist) - scientists had "proved" or appear to have proved that some races were smarter and others less so. In this scientific opinion was firm, the dissident voices were available within science but the wieght of proof was clearly on the side of racism.
There was no sense of provisionality in this, if anything provisionality extended over some anti-racist views but the racist "science" was clearly not provisional either within the scientific community or society as a whole.
We know this now to be all rubbish. Now the point is what separated this rubbish from real science even in 1890 or 1920? The fact that most people were fooled (Engels for instance assumed a difference between races but thought this socially derived even though he saw this as effecting the brain size of the races - the scientific findings of that time having established this non-existence difference in brain size), is not the point, but rather how they were fooled, or fooled themselves, is.
Stephen Jay Gould in "The Mis-Measurement of Man" gives an excellent account how social bias crept into scientific procedures and conclusions on just this topic. Justin from what you have previously said this disputes nothing, but again our questions are different.
Your question which assumes scientific explanation as a given, has no problems with these gross errors in science, you can go back and say despite scientific consensus this whole field was in fact provisional and proved by its latter refutation to be so and so dismiss it quite properly from the halls of science.
My question is at the time of acceptence, before any disproof was available, before it was understood to even be under challenge what was its relationship to truth (reality) and science?
Now this is funny question to pose because I am not saying anyone was in the position to ask it at the time for no one would have believed that the firmest biological proof was in effect faked (it is unreasonsable to expect simple compartive measurements to be influenced by bias - the fact that this is what happened only shows just how much trust is invested in scientists and this trust is very rarely abused consciously).
But what was wrong with the theory in its heyday, what relationship did it have that distinguished this erroneous approach from theories which were well founded but overcome by others, or simply refined and redifined. There is a big difference between real error and basically correct formulations which need revision - it strikes at the difference between science and non-science (even when the former has all the appearances of science).
Necessarily this is an abstract way of approaching it, I am not putting forward a concept which is all that useful in assessing science by either scientists or lay people. But just because it cannot be usefully used in such a direct manner does not mean that abstract theory is not useful - and in my case I argue that seeing sciences as ontologies resting on a greater ontology which assumes a particular unity between object and subject makes understanding such errors within their historical context understandable without reference to their latter refutation (which would be anchronistic).
Hence racsit biology failed in the definition of its subject matter and systematically tainted all the experiements that flowed from it (and for the most part entirely unconsciously). The error becomes embodied in the very concept of what science is (it is not an explanation imported into the concept but lies there within it - ie it is ontologically true).
Likewise when a subject matter is correctly conceived, despite all the human errors in experimentation and conceptualisation, provisionality becomes just a handy but not crucial concept, and scientifically correct explanation can be seen as part of developing whole which reflects reality to the extent of its subject matter and to the level of its internal development.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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--- Message Received --- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 17:48:51 +0000 Subject: Re: Science, Science & Marxism
Greg says, if I read him aright, that to accept the idea that science is what scientists do, no more no less, is to collapse into relativism, leave no space for the idea that science might be wrong, and treat scientists has high priests who cannot be questioned. None of these propositions hold water.
To say that we go relativistic about what's true merely because we accept what current (but predictably changing) science says is true is to confuse truth with provisional acceptance. We believe what current science says because what it is to have adeqaute raesonm to accept an empirical proposition is for it to be scientifically supported. If our best sciencxe says there are races, then it is rational to believe that and irrational to reject it. But that doesn't mean that if science changes, and in the future teaches that there no races, that there used to be but aren't any afterwards. To put it another way, at each point we accept what science says as true, but we also accept that it might be wrong, and so we keep investigating.
For the same reason, there is a lot of space for criticism of scientific theories. In fact, the social practice view makes sense of this, because the practice of science is pretty much the propunding, testing, and criticism of scientific theories.
The idea that we accept what science says about its subject matter as true does not make scientists into priests whose views cannot be questioned. Their competence is limited to their subject matters. If a physicist starts pronouncing on politics, he's just a citizen. On their subject matters, they are the experpts. Do you really think that you have anything useful to say about whether superstring theory correctly describes the fundamental nature of matter? And if so, one what basis?
Greg says (lots of snips):
>
>Scott and Justin, please reread both your emails below.
>
>
the point of view is essentially relativist . . . .
>Please also consider if you were using this same definition in the 1930's
>or earlier you would have to conclude that racial differences were a proven
>fact and that races formed a hierachy to biological perfection. . . .
>
we soon have the contradiction that when consensus says one thing but
discovery may well say another - we would be in the position of having to go
with consensus, either as lay people or as scientists
. . .
the general theme that science is what scientists do and they then really do
become the high priests in very much the same way as the
>
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