Second. Kuhn, Feyerabend, Laudan, Rorty, and others have demonstrated that there are no "rules" -- at most rough guidelines that vary with the prestige of the scientist, the university and the lab or journal, and with what the scientist can get away with because it works.
--- boddi satva <lbo.boddi at gmail.com> wrote:
> First, Science is definitely a practice independent
> of scientists.
> There are rules and procedures (about replicability,
> the reliability
> of different types of data, what is and is not
> adequate peer review)
> which scientists lay down as the principles of their
> discipline. These
> rules, one finds, consistently presume that
> scientists are prejudiced
> and seek to remove that prejudice from the
> scientific data and
> conclusions.
>
> That's really the difference here. Science ASSUMES
> its own prejudices
> and the practice of science is the practice of
> finding where
> prejudice, wishful thinking and ignorance may
> intrude on the
> description of Nature.
And science is loaded with with wishful thinking and ignorance? Top distinguish science `from prejudice when what i sat issue is whether science is loaded with prejudice is question-begging.
>
> Again, the central assumption of science is that
> Nature is as it is -
> without guile - and that we are eternally imperfect,
> blinkered and
> self-deluding observers of Nature.
Sez who? Practicing empirical experimental scientists are positivists to the core -- they want to know if there are observations that confirm their theories. I am a realist, but being a realist is not a requirement for being a scientist,
>
> This makes science completely different from and
> completely superior
Absurd. Religion in its Judeo-Christian forms assumed the mind-independence of a supernatural world.
> to the systems which preceded it - religion and
> philosophy.
And as far as I last say, religion and philosophy have survived the rise of science, and much of them have this objectivist view; moreover philosophy, post "new philosophy" or "natural philosophy" does not view itself as competitive with science by and large.
Science
> begins with the premise that the truth is something
> we will never see
> in its totality, whereas philosophy and religion
> start with the
> premise that there is a knowable truth.
This would be a big surprise to the Catholic Church and its mysteries or Kantian philosophy and its unknowable thing in itself or logical positivism and it rejection of the cognitive meaningfulness of propositions like that,
>
> People outside the sciences who try to poke holes in
> science cannot
> succeed only because attempting to poke holes is
> exactly what
> scientists are doing all the time. Poking holes is
> what it's all
> about.
This is a total nonsequiter. Just because scientists poke holes doesn'r mean others cvan't too. ANd who put philosophy -- modern scientific philosophy -- outside science?
>
> And that includes creationists.
>
> Andy F. points out that Evolution is not highly
> quantifiable (moreso
> now with DNA technology, but still....). And
> Creationists are right to
> point out that Evolution is, if not a weak theory,
> at least an
> incomplete one. There is essentially no question
> that the Biblical
> explaination for Creation is all nonsense, but the
> details of
> Evolution are pretty sketchy and they should not be
> passed off as
> complete when they arent. But there is plenty of
> quantifiable evidence
> in paleontology. Dinosaurs existed once, but no
> more. Dinosaur bones
> are associated with sediments of certain estimated
> ages. There is a
> rough but undeniable arithmetical logic in the
> progression of species
> although Evolution lacks precise equations. And
> quantifiability - if
> on the rough scale of hundreds of thousands of years
> - is extremely
> important to the theory of evolution.
>
> The theory started with qualitative data -
> descriptions of birds'
> beaks, etc. - because this was the best data
> available. Scientists
> are often criticized because of their conceit that
> the best data
> available and the truth are the same thing. But the
> fundamental
> assumption of science, remember, is that the "truth"
> is always
> unknowable and so every scientific description of
> Nature is flawed.
> Sure, that's not the part that scientists emphasize
> to outsiders, but
> you can hardly blame them for that.
>
> Scientists use the word "dogma" advisedly, knowing
> that it means "an
> accepted and consistent basis for analysis that is
> probably not true".
> "Theory", "hypothesis", "observation" - never "fact"
> or "truth" - the
> language of science shows the eternal skepticism
> built into the
> system.
The question again is how much change is necessary to
dislodge a scientificf dogma. It took relativitity
theory to patrtly dislopdge classical mechaniscs. What
would ity take to replace the idea that science is
about the studdy of fundamental quantities and replace
it with a qualitative conception like Aristotles? Go
though and read Kuhn and Feyerabend. THe naive
self-serving ideology of scientists you repeat here
would embarrass the logical politivists, who knew
better.
>
> But science is not some separate, magic theory. It
> is a default
> position. What else would a reasonable person do to
> determine how
> Nature works? What philosopher would she consult?
>
> People say "science can't tell us everything" -
> well, why not? And
> what can tell us these things with more accuracy?
> Simply test any
> system against nature and logic and you are doing
> science - the
> default position.
Could be a description of witchcract or alchemy
>
> Much else of what we do is to try to express our
> own, human ideas,
> emotions, and tendencies in the best way possible.
> Art, politics,
> philosophy - and this is all important because, as
> social animals, we
> have to find the truth of our own condition to
> promote the largest,
> most cooperative community. And there is no reason
> to think that this
> is less valuable than determining the nature of
> Nature.
>
> But you can't confuse the two things.
>
>
>
> boddi
>
>
> On 10/7/06, Andy F <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/7/06, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > _Of course_ science, which is just the practice
> of
> > > scientists, is loaded chock full with
> prejudices, that
> > > is, views held without reflection because they
> are
> > > indoctrinated into scientists in college, grad
> school,
> > > and professional life, views which are not
> considered
> > > open to rational debate because anyone
> professing the
> > > contrary is simply dismissed as a crank or a nut
> or an
> > > ignoramus. These prejudices range from very high
> level
> > > metaphysical and epistemological doctrines like:
> to
> > > matter scientifically our ideas must be
> quantifiable
> > > and have measurably observable results...
> >
> > Something Ravi wrote (which I forget) made me
> think a while about
> > quantifiability and how necessary it is to make
> testable statements
> > about the world. Evolution doesn't appear to
> hinge on it, and I
> > wonder if Darwin ever found it necessary, aside
> from considering the
> > passage of time. I don't recall much from Gould's
> popular writings
> > that depend on it. Certainly you can build
> quantifiable statements on
> > it, and devise quantifiable tests of it, but it
> doesn't appear central
> > to the argument.
> >
> > You can even say something about physics that is
> testable, verified,
> > profound and still something of a mystery, and
> unquantified: "Massive
> > objects move towards each other in the absence of
> barriers." You need
> > some notion of "more/less than", but that strikes
> me too primitive to
> > avoid in any kind of picture of the world, no
> matter how you get
> > there. Even protozoa deal with gradients. So I'm
> curious about
> > what's been said about that.
> >
> > --
> > Andy
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
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> >
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>
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