Does Science consist of facts?

[SkepticLance]

To lucaspa.

 

Most of what you said in your last posting has merit. I think that a lot of what you disagreed with is the result of poor communication (probably my fault) rather than a real disagreement between us. Let me try to address this.

 

You said :

 

And no, science is NOT "a process" or "the method". You've got 2 problems:

1. There is no "THE method" of science. Different disciplines within science use different methods.

2. What is usually considered "the method" of science -- the hypothetico-deductive method -- is used by lots of disciplines that you would never admit to science.

 

As I said in an earlier post, the scientific method is too complex to permit simple definition. Since I then proceeded to try for a simple definition, I am at fault. This does not make me wrong, just oversimplistic.

 

The scientific method is, in fact, the result of 400 years (since Francis Bacon)of trying all sorts of different kinds of techniques. The methods that work well are retained, while others are dumped. A simple definition cannot, for example, define the double blind controlled randomised clinical trial that is the gold standard for medical research. Yet that trial is a kind of predictive test, as described in my simplistic definition.

 

Repeat : my definition is oversimplistic (it has to be) but still in broad terms, correct.

 

You also said :

 

You have made the mistake of switching from the discipline to the people. Now you are talking about "scientists". So, since I have been a working research scientist for 30 years, please tell me what method I have been using?

 

If you have not been using the scientific method, you are in the wrong profession. (just kidding).

 

However, I rather suspect that the methods you use do fit within the overall definition. It is kind of impossible for a trained and experienced scientist not to use the scientific method.

 

Sorry, but this is wrong. This is not the method that scientists usually use.

 

This statement is a bit unclear. I am not sure what part of my definition you are saying is wrong. From context it seems you are criticising my statement that scientists collect data before forming a hypothesis? I am sure there are times when that appears to be the case. However, whether we intend to or not, we all collect data through our senses all our waking hours. When we form a hypothesis, it is the result of that data. Ideas do not come out of a vacuum, unless it is in the form of fiction.

 

Let's look at the hypothesis: "onside kicks are usually fumbled" Can you seriously contend that football coaches have not properly tested that hypothesis?

 

There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding here. I said that the scientific method was used by scientists, and not by certain others such as astrologers. However, the scientific method, in part at least, is so damned sensible that people in all walks of life use it, including football coaches. It is the disciplined use of the scientific method, and the rejection of unreliable alternative methods that characterise science. However, a football coach, and others, can approach their field using scientific methods. If so, they are acting as scientists.

 

1. You contradicted this when you talked about testing the hypothesis: "The prediction is tested by novel experiment or observation," What are those "observations"? Aren't they facts?

2. The National Academy of Science has defined "fact" as "repeated observation". What you are saying here is that "facts" are supported hypotheses/theories. However, aren't all the falsified hypotheses also products of science?

 

You are now getting into a semantic argument over the meaning of the word 'fact'. I would rather not go there, as there are a thousand possible definitions. We would be arguing this time next year!

 

BTW, the peasant's hypothesis can avoid falsification by simply adding an ad hoc hypothesis that the rainbow is too far away to reach.

 

Yes, and other predictions can be made that are testable. The method remains valid. In fact, in the real scientific world, often many, many predictive tests are carried out. The more important the hypothesis, the more tests are liable to be done to try to falsify it.

 

Of course, for rank and file workers in science, mostly they never develop a hypothesis of that level of importance. I know I never have. Thus, the number of predictive tests are often small in number.

 

It is that last one that really means science cannot study "everything". Thus your definition of science -- "Thus, science is the study of everything using the scientific method." -- is wrong.

 

OK. In this you are correct. However, science can study anything that is measurable. We can slightly modify the definition accordingly.

[pioneer]

Science is partially fact, partially logical deduction, partially theory and partially empiricism. The speed of light is a fact. Light traveling for one year will travel one light-year is a logical mathematical deduction. The big bang is a theory or reasonable explanation of the observed data. While eating chips will make you fat is an empirical correlation since it is not 100% reliable, since some people can eat chips and stay thin.

 

Although there are four distinctions, confusion can and does occur when one of the four is marketed as one of the others. Empirical correlations are never 100%, but are often treated as facts, so even people who can eat chips and stay thin, are tricked into believing they will gain weight, so everyone can pretend the correlation is a fact. The earth has an iron core is a theory that is treated like a fact, even though there is no hard data to support this. It is based on logical deductions using other theories which still add up to another theory.

 

Even facts can be proven to be false. For example, up to 1930 there were eight planets. This was treated like a fact. Then Pluto came along and that fact changed into a new fact. Now that fact is changing. Some facts need to come with a disclaiming until steady state is reached.

 

If there is a hierarchy of science fact is number one. Logical deductions, which include math are number two. Theory is number three since a good theory can open the mind to new ways of looking at things even if it eventually becomes obsolete. While empirical correlation is fourth since it is only partially reliable and often has very limited extended functionality compared to theory. The tendancy is to try to push lower order to higher order for fun and profit.

 

All and all science is a process leading to better understanding of nature. It is not perfect but tries to move toward number one and two.

[lucaspa]

You said :

 

And no, science is NOT "a process" or "the method". You've got 2 problems:

1. There is no "THE method" of science. Different disciplines within science use different methods.

2. What is usually considered "the method" of science -- the hypothetico-deductive method -- is used by lots of disciplines that you would never admit to science.

 

As I said in an earlier post, the scientific method is too complex to permit simple definition. Since I then proceeded to try for a simple definition, I am at fault. This does not make me wrong, just oversimplistic.

 

The scientific method is, in fact, the result of 400 years (since Francis Bacon)of trying all sorts of different kinds of techniques. The methods that work well are retained, while others are dumped. A simple definition cannot, for example, define the double blind controlled randomised clinical trial that is the gold standard for medical research. Yet that trial is a kind of predictive test, as described in my simplistic definition.

 

Again, since you say "the methods that work", you have multiple methods, so you can't say "The scientific method". Different disciplines use different methods. And no, your attempt to define science in terms of method is not correct. It's been tried before. And failed for the reasons I gave you.

 

I refer you to the essay "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem" by Larry Laudan. You can find it in But Is It Science? The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Contorversy. Michael Ruse, ed., pp 347-349, 1988.

 

This statement is a bit unclear. I am not sure what part of my definition you are saying is wrong. From context it seems you are criticising my statement that scientists collect data before forming a hypothesis? I am sure there are times when that appears to be the case. However, whether we intend to or not, we all collect data through our senses all our waking hours. When we form a hypothesis, it is the result of that data. Ideas do not come out of a vacuum, unless it is in the form of fiction.

 

Sorry, but you are wrong. Hypotheses do often come out of a vacuum. Hypothesis generation is an imaginative process. Even when "data" is involved, the function is to serve as inspiration, much like a day in the country inspired Beethoven's 6th Symphony. It's not like Beethoven spent the day in the country hearing music and then put it together into a symphony. A classic example is Darwin reading Malthus' and being inspired to think of natural selection. Malthus wasn't writing about plants or animals, but economics and noting that human population could expand faster then agriculture. Darwin had a flash that said any animal could breed faster than its food supply, and then leaped to the inspiration that this would apply to any resource. Darwin then made another imaginative leap to variation and a final leap to changing the traits of a population over generations! NOTHING in Malthus would even suggest this, nor did any other data Darwin had by itself.

 

There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding here. I said that the scientific method was used by scientists, and not by certain others such as astrologers. However, the scientific method, in part at least, is so damned sensible that people in all walks of life use it, including football coaches.

 

What you said was that the scientific method could be used to define sscience. By definition , a definition includes everything that is being defined, and excludes everything that does not fit the definition. Now you acknowledge that other disciplines use "the" scientific method. That means they must be included in science. Which is why trying to define science based on method fails.

 

It is the disciplined use of the scientific method, and the rejection of unreliable alternative methods that characterise science. However, a football coach, and others, can approach their field using scientific methods. If so, they are acting as scientists.

 

Again, you are confusing people and ideas. If football coaches "act like scientists", then they are doing science! So that means football must be a discipline of science, like chemistry or biology! But we don't do that, do we?

 

You seemed to skip the example from religion. No need to wonder why! You are never going to admit that clergy "are acting like scientists", are you? And yet, they are.

 

End result: you can't use "the scientific method" to define science.

 

 

1. You contradicted this when you talked about testing the hypothesis: "The prediction is tested by novel experiment or observation," What are those "observations"? Aren't they facts?

2. The National Academy of Science has defined "fact" as "repeated observation". What you are saying here is that "facts" are supported hypotheses/theories. However, aren't all the falsified hypotheses also products of science?

 

You are now getting into a semantic argument over the meaning of the word 'fact'. I would rather not go there, as there are a thousand possible definitions. We would be arguing this time next year!

 

IOW, yes, you do have an internal contradiction but want us to ignore it.

 

What you also seemed to skip is that the product of science is not facts as in observations, but hypotheses/theories that are either 1) falsified or 2) supported.

 

It's just that you are considering strongly supported hypotheses/theories to be "fact", as Whewell pointed out.

 

BTW, the peasant's hypothesis can avoid falsification by simply adding an ad hoc hypothesis that the rainbow is too far away to reach.

 

Yes, and other predictions can be made that are testable. The method remains valid.

 

I'm not trying to discredit the hypothetico-deductive method, but to show you that it is more complicated than you outlined. There are ways that you can try to get around what is called "naive" falsification. Ad hoc hypotheses are one method. In order to correctly incorporate ad hoc hypotheses (and have the method remain valid), is to demand that ad hoc hypotheses be tested independently of the hyothesis they are designed to save.

 

The Lorentz contraction was an ad hoc hypothesis to try to save the aether. However, it had no other testable effect than to save the aether and was, therefore, an invalid ad hoc hypothesis. OTOH, Neptune was an ad hoc hypothesis to save Newtonian gravity from falsification because the orbit of Uranus did not adhere to Newtonian gravity. So another planet beyond Uranus was hypothesized. However, the existence of this planet (Neptune) could be tested by the theory of optics (telescopes) that was independent of Newton's theories.

 

Another way to avoid naive falsification in the hypothetico-deductive method is to discard an underlying hypothesis. Pierre Duhem showed that we don't test hypotheses singly, but only in huge bundles. If the predictions don't work, you can always say that one of the bundle (which you assumed were all true) is, in fact, false. We can discuss this in more detail if you want but, the short version is that the experimental controls keep this from happening.

 

The more important the hypothesis, the more tests are liable to be done to try to falsify it.

 

I think you are making a mistake to try to rate hypotheses in "importance". Rather, I think what you are trying to say is that the broader the hypothesis, the more deductions (and thus tests) it will have.

 

It is that last one that really means science cannot study "everything". Thus your definition of science -- "Thus, science is the study of everything using the scientific method." -- is wrong.

 

OK. In this you are correct. However, science can study anything that is measurable. We can slightly modify the definition accordingly.

 

It's not "measurable", but intersubjectivity. After all, you can measure the heights of the fairies in your garden, but if you are the only one who can see and experience them, then those measurements still aren't part of science.

 

The classic example is Fleischmann and Pon's cold fusion. They measured the energy output in their experiment quite precisely. It's just that no one else could get the same measurements under approximately the same condition!

 

Science is partially fact, partially logical deduction, partially theory and partially empiricism. The speed of light is a fact. Light traveling for one year will travel one light-year is a logical mathematical deduction.

 

I understand what you are saying, but you need a better example for a logical deduction. Light travelling for one year will travel one light-year is more akin to tautology.

 

Although there are four distinctions, confusion can and does occur when one of the four is marketed as one of the others.

 

Let's see if I've hearing you correctly. You are setting out 4 "parts" of science:

1. Fact

2. Logical deduction

3. Theory

4. Empiricism

 

So you must put "empirical correlations" under #4:

Empirical correlations are never 100%, but are often treated as facts,

 

Then you seem to also construct a hierarchy of "certainty" within science, corresponding to the order you have given from highest certainty to lowest.

 

Pioneer, you aren't going to find a philosopher of science (or scientist) that agrees with your hierarchy. I'll give you some of the reasons:

 

1. You construct a non-objective hierarchy of "fact". You say

The earth has an iron core is a theory that is treated like a fact, even though there is no hard data to support this.

Define "hard data". Why do you consider some data "hard" and other data not? See the problem? You don't have a way to objectively say when some data is "hard".

 

2. Most data is indirect, and you have hit upon the idea (stated by Whewell, see my post above) that very strongly supported theories are considered as fact. Let's take the theory (and it IS a theory) "the earth is round". How does that affect your hierarchy of certainty.

 

3. Also consider another observation of Whewell's: every fact involves theory. So two of your hierarchy are inextricably entangled.

 

4. Logical (and mathematical) deductions are really hypotheses/theories. IOW, the way we do science is to test whether those deductions are, in fact, observed. Most deductions are not observed: that's how you falsify hypotheses/theories.

 

All and all science is a process leading to better understanding of nature.

 

I would say -- and do say to the graduate students when I'm teaching philosophy of science -- that science is the study of the physical universe. As I noted to SkepticLance, it is not "a process" because different disciplines within science use different processes. What's worse, disciplines outside of science often use the same processes. However, you did limit science to studying "nature".

 

What seems to annoy you is that hypotheses, particularly in the medical field, are often misstated or not stated with the appropriate precision. You mention

While eating chips will make you fat is an empirical correlation since it is not 100% reliable, since some people can eat chips and stay thin.

In medicine, the hypothesis is stated as: X% of people, on average, who eat greater than Z amount of calories per day will gain weight. Saying "people who eat chips will get fat" is not the proper way of stating the hypothesis.

[Norman Albers]

I'd say science is the body of reproducible perceptions to which we seek analytic understandings. Thus the eternal dance of physics and mathematics.

[SkepticLance]

To lucaspa.

 

I find this discussion a bit frustrating. I do not seem to be able to communicate certain meanings. From what you write, I do not think your view and mine are very different, and I suspect that if I could make my meaning clearer, we would agree.

 

Let me try again.

 

You said :

 

you have multiple methods, so you can't say "The scientific method". Different disciplines use different methods. And no, your attempt to define science in terms of method is not correct. It's been tried before. And failed for the reasons I gave you.

 

As I told you, my definition was simplistic, and as such can always be criticised since it is not all embracing. No simple definition of the scientific method can be all embracing, since the scientific method is the sum total of everything that scientists have learned about the best investigative methods, over 400 years.

 

You also said :

 

Hypotheses do often come out of a vacuum

 

This is an illusion. Ideas do not come from a vacuum. We always have made some observations, or carried out some testing beforehand, even if we do not realise what that is. In my rainbow example, our hypothetical medieval peasant gathers data by observing rainbows before making his hypothesis.

 

Your Darwin and Malthus example actually demonstrates my point. Darwin had made observations and carried out studies before his hypothesis.

 

You said :

 

If football coaches "act like scientists", then they are doing science! So that means football must be a discipline of science, like chemistry or biology! But we don't do that, do we?

 

Actually, I said football coaches "act as scientists" which has a totally different meaning. Yes, football studies can be science. True science in the full meaning of the word. So can religious studies, if the scientific method is used. Where religion and science are incompatible is where religion accepts things as being true without testing. In science, testing is vital. Ideas, such as religious ideas, are just hypotheses that are not accepted as being valid until passing the predictive test, with the intent of falsifying wrong ideas. In religious studies, it avoids being science because hypotheses are not tested with the intent of falsification of wrong ideas.

 

yes, you do have an internal contradiction but want us to ignore it.

 

It is not my contradiction. In this thread there have been a number of different ideas of what constitute facts. I cannot see an easy way of reconciling people's different definitions, and did not want to get bogged down in such a pointless discussion.

 

I'm not trying to discredit the hypothetico-deductive method, but to show you that it is more complicated than you outlined.

 

We have no disagreement here. As I said before, I am aware that my definition was a simplification.

[Norman Albers]

 

 

Hypotheses do often come out of a vacuum

 

This is an illusion. Ideas do not come from a vacuum. We always have made some observations, or carried out some testing beforehand, even if we do not realise what that is. In my rainbow example, our hypothetical medieval peasant gathers data by observing rainbows before making his hypothesis.

This part I cannot agree with. There have been several shocking passages in my six years of actively pursuing my thesis, where the mathematics I had labored over finally said something major to me. It's like falling through the floor into Tutankamen's tomb. Something falls away and what's left is a new kernel. You dust yourself off and look around...Yes, I have concentrated a lot of work to get here. Is there anything "new under the sun"?

[SkepticLance]

Norman

 

Maths of all things does not come from a vacuum.

It is built up from earlier building blocks. Sure, the understanding may seem suddenly to jump up and hit you, but it all comes from previous work.

 

Like the old quote "standing on the shoulders of giants" the gain in knowledge in science and maths is like constructing a skyscraper. The foundations were laid long ago. We today are working on the 20th floor, laying down material to build it up, while deaming of the 50th floor view.

 

I repeat; ideas do not come from a vacuum, but from earlier study and observations.

[lucaspa]

This part I cannot agree with. There have been several shocking passages in my six years of actively pursuing my thesis, where the mathematics I had labored over finally said something major to me. It's like falling through the floor into Tutankamen's tomb. Something falls away and what's left is a new kernel. You dust yourself off and look around...Yes, I have concentrated a lot of work to get here. Is there anything "new under the sun"?

 

So, you are going to extrapolate your experiences to everyone?

 

Volume 13, #22 The Scientist November 8, 1999

http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/nov/halim1_p1_991108.html

 

Nobel Laureate Ready To Head Back to Lab

Author: Nadia S. Halim

Date: November 8, 1999

Courtesy of Rockefeller University

 

Nobel laureate Günter Blobel

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

" When Günter Blobel and David Sabatini first proposed the signal hypothesis in 1971, the whole thing was simply ignored. There was not a shred of evidence to support it."

 

They made this one up out of whole cloth. But it turned out to be correct.

 

"The most powerful form of science, then, consists of formulating hypotheses, sometimes by observation and sometimes by intuition, analogy, or other sources of insight that we do not fully understand; and deducing conclusions from these hypotheses that can be tested directly or indirectly by observation or experiment." Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1995 ed., pg 169. An eloquent statement of my argument above.

 

The key here is the testing. In order to be good at science, you have to be willing to discard the hypothesis if the evidence is against it.

[Norman Albers]

Nicely said, lucaspa. I don't walk in other peoples' shoes, and they don't walk in mine.

[lucaspa]

As I told you, my definition was simplistic, and as such can always be criticised since it is not all embracing. No simple definition of the scientific method can be all embracing, since the scientific method is the sum total of everything that scientists have learned about the best investigative methods, over 400 years.

 

But that doesn't distill to ONE method! You admit that. Which means you can't use "the scientific method" as a way to define science. What you have done, SkepticLance, is circular reasoning: "the scientific method is all the methods that scientists have used because the scientific method is what scientists use."

 

Hypotheses do often come out of a vacuum

 

This is an illusion. Ideas do not come from a vacuum. We always have made some observations, or carried out some testing beforehand, even if we do not realise what that is. In my rainbow example, our hypothetical medieval peasant gathers data by observing rainbows before making his hypothesis. Your Darwin and Malthus example actually demonstrates my point. Darwin had made observations and carried out studies before his hypothesis.[/

 

Not always. Often hypotheses are just made up. See above for the Nobel Prize winners. Darwin hadn't carried out observations on the subject at hand. Again you are using circular reasoning: we observe nature, therefore hypotheses are from anything we observe because hypotheses come from what we observe.

 

Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection did not come from anything Darwin had observed relating to natural selection. It was only AFTER he formulated the hypothesis that Darwin started making observations about population increase, variability, etc. The observations were made specifically in an attempt to test the hypothesis. The hypothesis was not the digest of observations.

 

You said :

 

If football coaches "act like scientists", then they are doing science! So that means football must be a discipline of science, like chemistry or biology! But we don't do that, do we?

 

Actually, I said football coaches "act as scientists" which has a totally different meaning. Yes, football studies can be science. True science in the full meaning of the word. So can religious studies, if the scientific method is used.

 

It's nice to see you backpeddle, but the fact remains that football and religion are NOT part of science. Never have been. Won't ever be. That's why methodology can't be used to demarcate science from non-science. There are just too many disciplines that use the hypothetico-deductive method that we don't consider to be "science". (BTW, what you are doing is just what you accused religion of doing: not testing with the intent to falsify wrong ideas.)

 

In religious studies, it avoids being science because hypotheses are not tested with the intent of falsification of wrong ideas.

 

I find this ironic because testing hypotheses with the intent of falsification is pure Popper. You accept this conclusion of Popper, but reject Popper's other conclusion that he made at the same time:

"I thought that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but that they were inventions -- conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be eliminated if they clashed with observations, with observations which were rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation." Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963 p 38.

 

So, why the selective use of Popper?

 

Not testing for falsification is also done within science. For instance, we consider Hartle-Hawking-Turok's No Boundary to be part of science. Yet it was specifically formulated to avoid falsification! It's another reason you can't use methodology as a solution to the Demarcation Problem. PLEASE! Read Laudan and others on the subject. Stop trying to invent the wheel. This idea of science as methodology has already been tested, and falsified.

 

In this thread there have been a number of different ideas of what constitute facts. I cannot see an easy way of reconciling people's different definitions, and did not want to get bogged down in such a pointless discussion.

 

It's not pointless. And it relates to your position. You maintained that "facts" were the product of science. I have pointed out that, because of the weird definition you have of "fact", that what you are actually saying is:

The product of science is not facts as in observations, but hypotheses/theories that are either 1) falsified or 2) supported.

 

For whatever reason, you won't agree with that.

 

"fact" can be different things, not just one of those proposed. Facts are observations. Facts are also well-supported hypotheses that are used as part of other hypotheses.

 

We have no disagreement here. As I said before, I am aware that my definition was a simplification.

 

And your idea that we can separate science from non-science based on methodology is also simplification. It is also falsified by observation.

 

There is no criteria to definitively separate science from non-science (= define science). All the criteria proposed have failed because they 1) exclude what we consider science and/or 2) admit into science what we consider not to be science.

 

The whole idea of demarcating science from non-science got center stage due to creationism. Creationists wanted creationism taught "as science" in public schools. Lawyers decided that the best counter strategy was to show that creationism was not science. Therefore they conned Michael Ruse into offering a set of criteria for science in the 1982 MacLean vs Arkansas trial:

 

"More precisely, the essential characteristics of science are:

(1) It is guided by natural law;

(2) It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;

(3) It is testable against the empirical world;

(4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and

(5) It is falsifiable. (Ruse and other science witnesses)."

 

Notice that "scientific method" is not mentioned anywhere here. Yet this is the legal definition of science we have.

 

Laudan and others have taken this to task. They did such a good job of refuting this that Ruse was left with, as his only defense, "the lawyers made me do it!" I'm not kidding.

 

A problem, of course, is that the creationists of the 18th and 19th centuries did use the scientific method. Exactly as you say it should be done. And they succeeded in falsifying creationism.

 

Which brings me to another question for you: what happens to falsified theories. You say science tests with the intent of falsification. So, what do you think happens to falsified hypotheses/theories? Are they part of science or do they somehow cease to be part of science?

 

Nicely said, lucaspa. I don't walk in other peoples' shoes, and they don't walk in mine.

 

Actually, I may have misunderstood you. Looking back, it seems as tho you are saying that your insights came in a blinding flash of imagination and were not obvious conclusions from the equations.

 

Many people tend to think that science and art have nothing in common. They think scientists simply go out and gather data and then the hypotheses are obvious conclusions from the hypothesis.

 

That's not so. Both science and art rely on imagination.

 

I repeat; ideas do not come from a vacuum, but from earlier study and observations.

 

Did Beethoven's 6th Symphony come from his earlier observations of a day in the country? Yes. But again I'll ask you: did Beethoven hear the music that day? Or did the observations inspire his imagination to write the music? Can imagination be inspired by data? Oh yes. But there is that gap between the previous data and the hypothesis. That "vacuum". Think of hypotheses as virtual particles, which also come from a vacuum.

[Norman Albers]

A few months before I wrote my study on photon localization, I realized I had succeeded in representing an inhomogeneous charge and current field. Quite excitedly I thought I had finally found the mechanism responsible for quantization. Then, strangely, I saw that there is nothing in my analysis which declares the magnitude of wave packets such as I describe. In terms of field densities, energy and angular momentum are proportional, but there is nothing, in the assumption of vacuum response allowing infinitesimal charge densities, which sets a total angular momentum of [math]\hbar[/math]. Thus I was led to voice a challenge to our quantum representation of the vacuum. If vacuum polarizability behaves as I have described, then I have shown the mechanism for the localization of E&M disturbances.

[SkepticLance]

To lucaspa

 

I am finding this thread a bit frustrating. I feel that you and I have a view of science that is pretty damn close, but we are just not communicating. Most of what you say, I agree with completely. However, I think you may be attacking my statements a bit harshly, in that you are dragging meaning out of them that I had not meant to put in there.

 

I agree that we cannot come up with a simple definition of science or the scientific method. Anyone who tries has to over simplify. Such a definition can, of course, be shot full of holes. I have admitted my defintiions are over simplifications, and you, accordingly, shoot them full of holes.

 

While it is not possible to come up with something that can be called THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, there are commonalities that run through science. You have even agreed with me on some of them. I admit that it is not possible to make a single, simple statement that applies in all situations. However, perhaps you can be a bit more constructive, and try to think of a few points of agreement.

[fattyjwoods]

science considts of facts expirements methods carrying out stuff and hands on stuff

[Norman Albers]

How did you decide what to look for. fattyj?

[pioneer]

One way to define science, is to contrast it to liberal arts. Science tries to be as objective as possible to phenomena, whereas liberal arts is more sensitive to the subjectivities behind various opinions. One exception could be history, which is considered a liberal art. History is composed of facts and dates. Based on these facts, historians attempt to fill in the blanks behind the motivations and affects of history. But being a liberal art, it is sensitive to subjective opinions, i.e., liberal art. In that respect evolutionary theory is closer to history than to objective science.

 

One place where history and science differs, is that history is OK with opposing subjective explanations of the facts, i.e., theories, as long as the data seems to add up using a particular subjective theory. It can rationally recognize the limits of the data and what can be proven. Science tries to narrow the explanations down to one to create a universal explanation. In that respect, evolutonary theory is more subjecitve than history, in that it is less objective to the subjectivity of its own opinion. In other words, evolutionary theory is liberal arts history, but real history has an extra layer of objectivity to the affects of its own subjectivity.

 

It is hard to define science, since aspects of science are liberal arts. In other words, aspects of science are given too much subjective liberty, without having the objectivity of liberal arts to see it is only subjective. Science may not fit a hard definition but be more like an onion. The core is the solid stuff that is universal and beyond doubt or question. As we get closer to the outer most layers it gets more subjective. This is where science has merged with the liberal arts and gotten even less objective because it cannot see that it has enterred the realm of subjectivity.

 

Let me give an example. Art is part of the liberal arts. An artist essentially plots their media, such as paint, on a flat 2-D plane to create drawings. Math can also be used as the pigments to plot drawings on the 2-D plane of cause and affect. Some math drawings have the clarity of a photograph and accurately define reality. These math drawings are near the core of the onion of science. Some math drawings are abstractions that touch people subjectively. Empirical drawings in math may be clear to the artist who drew them. But because the hard lines are fuzzy, the by-standers, looking at their art, may project their own subjectivities and alter the real intension of the artist. That is the marvel of liberal arts.

[barunpaudel]

According to me, facts are facts and science is a process to enumerate the facts. Facts are already there, whether science identifies or not. Science is only the process to investigate the facts. But, at least science should always focus on good things to occur in this world and not to concentrate to destroy the world. The process science goes through should always have postive impacts to this world and whole creatures.Therefore, it would be nice if science passes through the unknown facts that need to be identified so as to improves the quality of our living without affecting naturality.

To sum up, science is the process that results in identification, modification or improvement of so called facts for quality improvement of various aspects of the creatures living in this world.

[lucaspa]

I agree that we cannot come up with a simple definition of science or the scientific method. Anyone who tries has to over simplify. Such a definition can, of course, be shot full of holes. I have admitted my defintiions are over simplifications, and you, accordingly, shoot them full of holes. ... I admit that it is not possible to make a single, simple statement that applies in all situations.

 

Then I suggest you stop trying to make a "single simple statement that applies in all situations". I am being constructive by Popperian science: testing statements in an attempt to show them to be false. Apparently, I am too good at that and you resent it.

 

That is a psychological problem of Popperian science: the person making the statement has to be willing to graciously admit that there is contrary evidence and that the idea is wrong. When human egos come into the process, that is difficult for some people. So, if you are going to do science, you have to make a personal decision that you are not going to get upset, frustrated, or angry when people find contrary data and show the idea to be wrong.

 

I suggest you stop trying to find a definition of science or the scientific method. I suggest you find the essay "The Demise of the Demarcation Criteria" by Larry Laudan. Instead of trying to demarcate science from everything else, simply try to test statements as best you can in an attempt to show them false.

 

I've just been reviewing an 18 hour CD course on the philosophy of science. In terms of "methods", we have:

1. The classical empiricist method.

2. Mill's methods.

3. Descarte's method.

4. the hypothetico-deductive method.

5. deduction

6. induction

 

All of them, at one time or another, have been said to be the "scientific method". All of them are used at one time or another.

 

Since you admit that there is no single statement, or even a few statements, that can adequately describe science and separate it from everything else, I constructively suggest we stop trying. I also suggest we all keep in mind the philosophical terms "necessary" and "sufficient".

 

"Necessary" = the entity must have it in order to be the entity

"Sufficient" = do not need anything else in order to be the entity.

"Entity" = what you are talking about: species, deity, science, hypothesis, elephant, whatever.

 

We cannot find conditions that are both necessary AND sufficient so that we can say what is science and separate it from what is not.

 

Does science contain facts? Yes.

Does science consist of entities in addition to facts? Yes. Science also consists of hypotheses and theories.

 

There, we're done.

 

According to me, facts are facts and science is a process to enumerate the facts. Facts are already there, whether science identifies or not. Science is only the process to investigate the facts.

 

Doesn't science also explain the facts by means of hypotheses and theories? Doesn't science also look for causes and effects that connect facts?

 

Barunpaudel, this is a problem with trying to define science as "a process to enumberate the facts". Science does far more than "enumerate". Linneaus "ennumerated" the species. But Darwin explained how those species came to be -- the Origin of Species. By your definition, we should throw Darwinian evolution out of science.

 

Einstein did not "enumerate" any facts when he came up with General Relativity. Instead, he predicted many facts that we should find if the theory was true: one of them being that light could bend in a strong gravitational field.

 

If science were nothing but "a process to enumerate the facts" it would be very boring and I would leave it for something more exciting -- such as watching paint dry.

 

But, at least science should always focus on good things to occur in this world and not to concentrate to destroy the world. The process science goes through should always have postive impacts to this world and whole creatures.Therefore, it would be nice if science passes through the unknown facts that need to be identified so as to improves the quality of our living without affecting naturality.

 

You are now imposing your ethical ideas on science. If science is "identification, modification, or improvement of so called facts" how can we know ahead of time whether that will result in "good things" for the world? When Marie Curie and others discovered radioactivity, how could they know that this could be used to build a fission bomb? Was the guy that discovered how to make light coherent (laser) supposed to know that lasers could become weapons? Or the guy that worked out the chemical formula of the compound in tear gas?

 

Science is not a system of ethics. Facts are not ethical. They are neither "good" nor "bad". Nor is it possible to forsee all the possible technological uses of "facts". By your scheme, when Baltimore identified the fact of reverse transcriptase, he should have known that the reverse transcriptase could be used to create new bioweapons. Or let's take a more extreme example: when Lavoisier discovered oxygen and then Priestly showed that oxygen was part of combustion, you would have them suppress those facts because someday someone would use those facts to make the fuel for intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads!

 

Your "for quality improvement of various aspects of the creatures living in this world" is not up to scientists. It is up to everyone. It is you and all the non-scientists who decide what facts we use and how we ought to use them. You are making scientists responsible for what you must be responsible for. Science tells you how the physical universe works. All of us decide what we ought to do with that knowledge.

[Norman Albers]

Lucaspa, I enjoy many of your viewpoints. I must add the caution to be aware of strong political forces in funding for science research. I co-authored a book while at Stanford, along with Stanton Glantz, M.D, and the actual man who busted Big Tobacco later (look up "Tilting at Tobacco). In 1972 about half of the large funding for science and technologies went through the Dept. of Defense, and the other half through Nat. Science Found. Professors told us it was "Santa Claus money"; I personally went to the Pentagon and was handed a two-inch thick stack of the military relevance of all 110 contracts at Stanford. Now we may say that many things researched and developed here had relevance beyond just military application. Do not miss the larger picture of what is here and what is not here.

[YT2095]

there is occasionally a discrepancy between what IS Science and what is Called "Science" where money and/or the Military are involved, yes!

 

I think Lucaspa and I are looking at the question from a Purist view (it was not stated to be otherwise).