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Bias in science (split from Evolution of religiosity)


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2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Mind  and the living which involves most if not all science disciplines.

Then I think that you are talking about materialism’s close cousin, physicalism, which is matter-energy.

I used your definition.

What’s your definition of physicalism?

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

It is still matter, energy and the laws of nature that rule the world.

Yup. Until a good reason surfaces to think otherwise.

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7 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

Physicalism= space, time, energy and matter.

I think it’s more. “space, time, energy and matter” isn’t an “-ism”

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2 minutes ago, swansont said:

I think it’s more. “space, time, energy and matter” isn’t an “-ism”

The doctrine of thinking that all there is in the universe is space, time, matter and energy is called physicalism.

 

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In philosophy, physicalism is the view that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical,[1] or that everything supervenes on the physical.[2] It is opposed to idealism, according to which the world arises from mind. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance" view of the nature of reality, unlike "two-substance" (mind–body dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) views.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism

There’s “mind” again

Note that science doesn’t study the nature of reality, it studies behavior

You can’t study something objectively if it’s not physical, so yes, science limits itself to physicalism.

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Starting tomorrow, I will be away for the next ten days and will be responding.sporadically.

5 minutes ago, swansont said:

In philosophy, physicalism is the view that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical,[1] or that everything supervenes on the physical.[2] It is opposed to idealism, according to which the world arises from mind. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance" view of the nature of reality, unlike "two-substance" (mind–body dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) views.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism

1 There’s “mind” again

2 Note that science doesn’t study the nature of reality, it studies behavior

3 You can’t study something objectively if it’s not physical, so yes, science limits itself to physicalism.

1- yes, there is mind again and that is why it is important to know if it is through or from brain, as it will drastically change the picture that we have of our world

2- Even your definition mentions “a "one substance" view of the nature of reality,” I think that science studies more than behavior

3- So, who does the subjective to understand the nature of reality, which is the ultimate goal of humanity.

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10 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

1- My position is to use other methods along with the one already in use and my reasoning behind this is to capture the part of reality that is not currently being captured by the standardized methods.

2- Is physics science? Then see below

3- Its' not who does it, but if it is done right?

4- Is physics open to address bias? see below

5- Then I will respond

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bias in Research

Research bias results from any deviation from the truth, causing distorted results and wrong conclusions. Bias can occur at any phase of your research, including during data collectiondata analysis, interpretation, or publication. Research bias can occur in both qualitative and quantitative research.

Understanding research bias is important for several reasons.

  1. Bias exists in all research, across research designs, and is difficult to eliminate.
  2. Bias can occur at any stage of the research process.
  3. Bias impacts the validity and reliability of your findings, leading to misinterpretation of data.

It is almost impossible to conduct a study without some degree of research bias. It’s crucial for you to be aware of the potential types of bias, so you can minimize them.

https://www.scribbr.com/category/research-bias/

"It’s crucial for you to be aware of the potential types of bias, so you can minimize them."

And you were asked to name these specific biases. You can't minimize them of you can't identify them.

All you're doing is repeating "bias exists" and nobody is disagreeing with that. But it's not illuminating.

10 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Bias in Physics

I'm sure what you posted answers some question, such as ""name some people who have written that bias exists in physics"(though naming the same author multiple times doesn't really add to this)

But it's not what I have asked for. I want to know some experiments that were compromised by bias, and if/how this was fixed. If we're blind to our own biases, just repeating that bias exists doesn't help at all.

 

 

10 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Yes, philosophical bias has some responsibility in scientists steering clear of what you call fringe science and that I call phenomena part of reality that must be studied in order to have a fuller picture of reality. If I understand your question correctly, yes, this avoidance could be feasibly challenged. Are you aware that most "ghosts" apparitions are in houses with either a stream under the house of electrical towers close by; why is this?

Please establish that this is true. I rather doubt that 19th century ghosts had electrical towers close by, and a stream running under a house seems like a poor construction decision.

 

10 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

why could science not investigate this and get to the bottom of it? You can inquire into disembodied minds by untangling the part that is brain from the part that is mind. Some neuroscientists are doing this already (gave also names that were doing this in the past, but were ignored: Lashley, Persinger, Pietsch). Difficulties yes, but not obstacles. We built the Hadron collider for goodness’ sake to get at the core of matter-physics. Not true on observation, for example IANDS has thousands of reported NDE's ready for investigation.

Can you systematically investigate NDEs? I don't think an ethics panel will let you potentially kill people to do such research.

16 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

 1- yes, there is mind again and that is why it is important to know if it is through or from brain, as it will drastically change the picture that we have of our world

You've been asked this before, and have not answered: how does this affect physics, chemistry, geology and most of biology?

16 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

2- Even your definition mentions “a "one substance" view of the nature of reality,” I think that science studies more than behavior

"my" definition is that of philosophy (the nature of reality), which is clearly identified in the passage. Not science.

16 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

 

3- So, who does the subjective to understand the nature of reality, which is the ultimate goal of humanity.

It's not clear that this is the ultimate goal, but other philosophical approaches are  mentioned. IOW, it's an issue for philosophy, not science. Science wants objective empirical data, and that won't be forthcoming from subjective views.

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11 hours ago, swansont said:

"It’s crucial for you to be aware of the potential types of bias, so you can minimize them."

And you were asked to name these specific biases. You can't minimize them of you can't identify them.

All you're doing is repeating "bias exists" and nobody is disagreeing with that. But it's not illuminating

I have established that there is bias in science in general, that bias is being mitigated, but net entirely.

there is one type of bias that is of particular interest to me and that is the worldview bias tainting science, so I do not need to identify and mitigate other biases. I would like then to focus our discussion on this matter. The issue though here is that there is much less data on this topic

More to come

11 hours ago, swansont said:

 

Please establish that this is true. I rather doubt that 19th century ghosts had electrical towers close by, and a stream running under a house seems like a poor construction decision.

It will be difficult to find the information again, but I will try. The point was to show that there are things to scientifically study even for obscure subjective topics such as ghosts

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12 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

I have established that there is bias in science in general, that bias is being mitigated, but net entirely.

And nobody has disagreed

12 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

there is one type of bias that is of particular interest to me and that is the worldview bias tainting science, so I do not need to identify and mitigate other biases. I would like then to focus our discussion on this matter. The issue though here is that there is much less data on this topic

More to come

worldview bias is a bias of philosophy, and seems to affect only one area of science. You have not established anything to the contrary.

I think this would be an example of sampling bias, and extrapolating from such a sample is an error.

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11 hours ago, swansont said:

Can you systematically investigate NDEs? I don't think an ethics panel will let you potentially kill people to do such research.

You've been asked this before, and have not answered: how does this affect physics, chemistry, geology and most of biology?

"my" definition is that of philosophy (the nature of reality), which is clearly identified in the passage. Not science.

It's not clear that this is the ultimate goal, but other philosophical approaches are  mentioned. IOW, it's an issue for philosophy, not science. Science wants objective empirical data, and that won't be forthcoming from subjective views.

1- You can indirectly investigate NDE’s by asking those, through a questionnaire, to describe their experiences and then analyse the data, for example.

2- i think that I have answered this, but again our concept of the living comes essentially from biology, so changing its paradigm to a non-mechanistic point of view will impact biology and have a trickle down effect on other science disciplines. What would science become if it was determined that mind works through brain and that life cannot be created solely out of matter?

3-you are correct in your statement, so I should maybe be looking at philosophy for answers 

4- at least for mankind, it is the case that we want to understand the nature of reality and science is at the service of mankind and not the other way around

 

 

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17 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

My argument is that science is biased towards a materialist view of the world, which is not necessary to conduct science and even hampers the full investigation of reality.

I know, like I said "what you lack is a reasonable argument"; like I also said, at the start of our dialogue "it's people/politicos who hamper proper investigation, not the process of science" (I paraphrase); wake me when you finally think of a good argument, til then it's night night for me. 

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Something circular about all this.  Saying sciences are philosophically biased towards a physicalist worldview is like saying lawyers are biased towards a legalistic worldview.   Yawn.

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10 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Something circular about all this.  Saying sciences are philosophically biased towards a physicalist worldview is like saying lawyers are biased towards a legalistic worldview.   Yawn.

Indeed, language without ambiguity just goes on for ever...

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1 minute ago, iNow said:

The ironic thing is there's more bias coming from the OP about science than we're likely to find within science itself. 

Isn't that the truth. It reminds me of the "skeptic" stance, "I question everything, so I'm always right". It's self-perpetuated bias.

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8 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I know, like I said "what you lack is a reasonable argument"; like I also said, at the start of our dialogue "it's people/politicos who hamper proper investigation, not the process of science" (I paraphrase); wake me when you finally think of a good argument, til then it's night night for me. 

The process is not immune to the people making use of the process. Actually, I made a mistake calling it an argument as it was my opening statement that I will now try to argument with evidence. However, a preliminary review of articles and documentation on the said statement showed limited information available. Notwithstanding, I will attempt to demonstrate that indeed science has been biased by this worldview. I admit that this will be a tall feat to accomplish. 

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7 hours ago, TheVat said:

Something circular about all this.  Saying sciences are philosophically biased towards a physicalist worldview is like saying lawyers are biased towards a legalistic worldview.   Yawn.

Why not just follow the scientific process with objectivity in mind and not bring preconceived ideas into play. I may be naive, but why bring philosophy into science experimentation.  A lawyer should be encouraged to be biased towards a legalistic worldview. The scientist should go where evidence goes, not where he thinks it should go.

7 hours ago, iNow said:

The ironic thing is there's more bias coming from the OP about science than we're likely to find within science itself. 

I admit being biased; can you?

7 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Isn't that the truth. It reminds me of the "skeptic" stance, "I question everything, so I'm always right". It's self-perpetuated bias.

I question everything, but I am rarely right would be a better description of myself

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1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

Why not just follow the scientific process with objectivity in mind and not bring preconceived ideas into play. I may be naive, but why bring philosophy into science experimentation.  A lawyer should be encouraged to be biased towards a legalistic worldview. The scientist should go where evidence goes, not where he thinks it should go.

I think it would be helpful if you presented a consistent position.

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1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

Please substantiate? 

You say “I may be naive, but why bring philosophy into science experimentation” but you’ve been complaining about that very thing. You weren’t previously advocating for no philosophy, you were advocating for a different philosophy.

Science was branched off from philosophy (it was natural philosophy) so you can’t separate science from its philosophical basis. What you can do is resist further overlap/intrusion where it’s not appropriate or pertinent.

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14 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

The process is not immune to the people making use of the process.

Actually it is!!!

People try to cheat the process everyday, if the process wasn't adequately vaccinated, we'd be knee deep in start up companies trying to harvest energy from perpetual motion machinery... 😉 

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11 hours ago, swansont said:

You say “I may be naive, but why bring philosophy into science experimentation” but you’ve been complaining about that very thing. You weren’t previously advocating for no philosophy, you were advocating for a different philosophy.

Science was branched off from philosophy (it was natural philosophy) so you can’t separate science from its philosophical basis. What you can do is resist further overlap/intrusion where it’s not appropriate or pertinent.

I stand to be corrected and yes what one can do is resist further overlap / intrusion where its not appropriate or pertinent - well said

8 hours ago, iNow said:

Of course, but I’m not the one making assertions here. 

Agree, assertions that I will try and substantiate.

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Actually it is!!!

People try to cheat the process everyday, if the process wasn't adequately vaccinated, we'd be knee deep in start up companies trying to harvest energy from perpetual motion machinery... 😉 

I got vaccinated for covid and still caught it twice; possibly a lesser form, but who knows, like bias.

😊

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40 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

I got vaccinated for covid and still caught it twice; possibly a lesser form, but who knows, like bias.

😊

Well that's a point well missed. 🙄

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