> > 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.
To which Andie replies
> The first paragraph is a contradiction and false to
> boot. If science is different from the practice of
> scientists, how can it be the rules the scientists lay
> down to govern their professional behavior? It is not
> imposed on them from outside. (Unless you consider
> funding agencies liked the NSF,, staffed by
> scientists, to be "outside").
>
> 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.
>
By your logic law doesn't exist, either. Clearly the writings and practices of past scientists build up into a body of practice independent of the scientist. Your objection is a tautology. And, scientists do have to appeal to the outside world on occasion. Nota bene the arguments between evolutionary biologists and creationists.
Kuhn, et al, were liberal arts majors and I think Kuhn made far too much of this idea of paradigms.
Of course they exist - String theorists and Loop-Quantum Gravity (LQG) theorists believe that differing mathematical models may explain the Universe more clearly and will predict future results in cosmology more perfectly, but one school is not naive to the other. They deliberately test the places of distinction between the theory because that is how you make the theory more predictive.
Paradigms come from the fact that to do good science you should have an experimental hypothesis which tends to test a larger theory. The differences between theories are exactly what you want to test. You want to make the lines sharper so that the theory is more precisely predictive of more things. Naturally it is a social process in terms of resources, etc. but, for example, the mathematical fact is that String theorists posit eleven dimensions of space-time and LQG theorists accept the standard 3+1 - that's a clear, logical difference.
We exchange as follows
> >
> > 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.
Science is not loaded with prejudice, scientists are. Your initial tautology having failed, science and scientists are still separable.
> > 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,
No, I think that scientists themselves are often even religious people. But science itself demands a test which assumes realism. Nature is as it is and there is never any confirmation which reaches the level of truth.
Who says? Well, how about Neils Bohr? He went farther than I would dare, thusly: "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature."
Richard Feynman?: "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.''
Stephen Jay Gould?: "In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'"
Sir Arthur Eddington: "For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure."
> > This makes science completely different from and
> > completely superior
>
> Absurd. Religion in its Judeo-Christian forms assumed
> the mind-independence of a supernatural world.
Yeah, but it still talked about a supernatural world. Therefore it is inferior.
> > 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.
Well, I do view it as competitive with science and this conversation is a result of that competition. AND it is a competition philosophy is clearly losing, for good reason. And religion is just nonsense and everybody knows it.
> 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,
Most philosphies deal with the nature of truth and propose that from some ontology one can derive a framework for what is true (and often what is good). Science rejects the notion of truth. The Catholic Church has dogmas - real ones, not ones like Crick's (not Watson's) " central dogma" - and those dogmas are immovable. They are the basis for an ethics which goes straight back to ontology.
> > 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?
My point is that you can't poke holes in science by trying to poke holes in science. Poking holes is the whole point. People talk about science as if it is the propogation of facts, but more science equals more uncertainty, not less. Usable observations and hypotheses which become more usable over time- that is what science produces - not static ideas.
> >
> > 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.
What Aristotelian proposition would you have Science pursue, other than all the porpositions of Aristotle science has already proved to be wrong and nonsensical? Science began with Aristotle but Aristotle was a bad scientist. Science looks at qualitative data all the time, but always seeks mathematics to describe those qualities with precision, if often in terms of probability. Paloentology, biochemistry and medicine are filled with models and pictures so scientists can judge the shape, texture and color of things.
There is simply no way to offer qualitative data without a lack of precision. Is the mouse tumor more red or more pink? You can't be satisfied with "red" or "pink" so you have to measure the light in some way.
You can't replace the skepticism of science with notions of certainty and truth the such as the ones Aristotle was concerned with because it's simply ridiculous and contrary to the purpose of science. You can't change the paradigm of science from science to some sort of teleology or ontology the function of science is to continually ask questions about nature.
> > 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
Nonsense. What does witchcraft test? Nothing. Alchemy tests nothing. Both are based on faith in untested and largely nonsensical "ancient" writings. Both deny rather than enshrine skepticism.
Mixing goop together and writing down recipes for other goop is not testing propositions against Nature. You have to have a theory of Nature and some sort of data to compare other results to. And then you test the theories, rather than accept them as confirmation of nonsensical ramblings. So when Alchemists or Wiccans say "when you mix the green and brown goop and get yellow goop under a full moon, things will grow because of the fire element has been released", science quickly dispenses with that idiocy. You make some yellow goop and nothing happens. You test for evidence of fire and there is none. You do the experiment under different phases of the moon and show that it's meaningless to the claimed result.
Kuhn simply didn't prove what you seem to claim he did and it certainly doesn't mean that science is on a par with alchemy.
If you have a problem with science, propose how its methods could be improved.
I think you won't.
Boddi
> >
> > 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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