The fundamental flaw of the scientific method

[Arete]

I've seen religious writings that use such language. I'm becoming ever more convinced of dogmatic thinking.

 

Did you read any of the article to put the quote in context? It critiques the usage of a popular analytical method based on a high type I error rate. The criticism of a methodological approach for providing false positive results seems dogmatic to you? Or is it simply that the article states the method in question "fails" rather than a nicer, more flowery term that leads you to conclude that it is "dogmatic"?

[WHR]

Btw, I will note that this thread is in the philosophy section. I started it here for obvious reasons philosophy is not really a point-counterpoint kind of arena of thought...though debate is certainly part of the process. Philosophy allows for differing world views and can be rigid or fluid, depending on the philosophy or philosopher.

I am not religious. I am not a theist. I am not a deist. I'm not spiritual. I'm also not antitheist or atheist. I'm not a secular humanist. I am not liberal or conservative or libertarian. I'm not socialist or capitalist. I do not need a label or a predescribed formula of thought. I do not discount that any one of these various ideologies or cherry picked bits and pieces can guide one on a perfectly happy and productive path. I will call my world view don't-give-a-rats-butt-eist. It might fall under agnostic but I think even agnostic denotes a wannabe atheist or a wannabe theist who is taking the safe way out...

I do love a spirited debate. I don't care for one where insults or condescension play a roll. I have found that science related websites tend to operate in that sphere. Religious zealot websites do as well. That is why I reject both as cultish. I do not outright reject religion as a whole nor science as a whole, just the cultish principles. It is justified to recognize that religion carried mankind through tens of thousands of years of existence and science has done well with the last few hundred. Science is not supposed to be a dogma and have any relationship to religion but imfortunaty that is an impossible burden on science. As science acts to continually convince people of the flaws of religion (which are many) it must take up the burden that the void of religion bestows upon it. This includes moralities and ethics, law, philosophy, the list is endless. Most scientist do not wish to accept this burden, most are not qualified to be authorities on such matters. Yet we call on scientists to help convict murderers or acquit them. We call on science to make judgments on sexual feelings and help guide the legal expression of them. We call on science to be the referee on ever increasing issues of right and wrong. This used to be the domain of religion. This is the void that casting it out creates. Science is not an adequate tool for that purpose AT ALL. One can argue that neither is religion. Therefore, I rely on self for all of it. Everything from figuring out how the universe started (it started when my dads sperm combined with my mothers egg by the way) to figuring out if smoking dope is really bad. Those are all at my liberty to judge, without an adequate void filler that I can universally accept.

 

This is why I really do not care about any judgements about ideas I may devise. Nor do I care if someone wants to insult me for not accepting the conventional wisdom. I acknowledge that science has come up with a lot of answers to a lot of questions. But I also recognize that it is incapable of answering many...and if it is incapable of answering JUST ONE question, if that question is of great enough importance, then it is inadequate.

 

Did you read any of the article to put the quote in context? It critiques the usage of a popular analytical method based on a high type I error rate. The criticism of a methodological approach for providing false positive results seems dogmatic to you? Or is it simply that the article states the method in question "fails" rather than a nicer, more flowery term that leads you to conclude that it is "dogmatic"?

 

I skimmed it but I was replying to the point not the article. That words like "fails" and "flawed" are also used in religious writings and are not arguments that make it OK.

 

Of course, philosophical writings can also use those words. The crux of this thread is that scientific method is flawed or is in the process of failing or will falter. I am guilty. But I'm also capable of self reflection and self criticism.

[Arete]

I skimmed it but I was replying to the point not the article. That words like "fails" and "flawed" are also used in religious writings and are not arguments that make it OK.

 

Of course, philosophical writings can also use those words. The crux of this thread is that scientific method is flawed or is in the process of failing or will falter. I am guilty. But I'm also capable of self reflection and self criticism.

 

Really?

 

I'd strongly advise anyone who was adverse to saying "My experiment failed." a lot to steer well clear of science...

[swansont]

you know that replying to a thread that's premise is that the scientific method is flawed with such a statement isn't how it is likely to endear someone.

 

There isn't a device sensitive enough to measure how little I care. Endearment is not the objective. I disagree with you, and if endearment is required to show you that you're mistaken, then it marks failure at many levels.

 

So when I toss out the whole status quo ideas about cosmology as rubbish with no merit, what am I exercising? Oh I can already predict someone's answer..."ignorance"...ding ding we have an answer.

 

Phooey. I'm exercising the brain that I was entrusted with.

 

Great. Exercise away! The scientific method is there to see whether you're right or not.

 

You know, ever since the beginning of mankind, the entire human species, every individual, has looked up in amazement at the splendor of the night sky. Our earliest ancestors would draw and carve depictions on caves of what they saw and their feeble explanations (no more feeble than ours but feeble nonetheless)...they did not have a meritocracy of blue ribbon wearing judges vandalizing the cave art and "correcting it" with the status quo. That came much later with Christianity (which wasn't a democracy but rather a meritocracy based on if it wasn't in the bible it didn't have merit).

 

No, religion is not a meritocracy, but that's a whole thread by itself.

 

So ultimately, the meritocracy is where human weakness takes over. Not hunt for truth but hunt for merit based on contemporary wisdom. That's it!!!! Makes it no different than the inquisition. If you are blind to that reality I feel for you.

 

You will always interpret data with the best models you have available to you — there's really now way around that — but the meritocracy is simply "what is the best, most self-consistent model for what we observe". If you have a new model, you need to make sure that the data are consistent with it and that is can predict outcomes of tests. That's to remove human weakness from the equation.

 

Anyway I would have prefered the caveman days before it was decided that something had to seek an approval system before one could speak it. And before purveyors of wisdom decided that they had a monopoly on man's greatest aspiration.

 

That's not an accurate portrayal. You don't need permission to speak. What you do need is evidence to back up assertions. That's a different beast altogether.

[WHR]

Really?

 

I'd strongly advise anyone who was adverse to saying "My experiment failed." a lot to steer well clear of science...

 

Lol, too late. Im a chemist. But I don't do experiments. I test known variables.

 

Nobody said anything was on principle wrong with saying something is a failure, an experiment or a new cell phone design. Failure is the gateway to success. But when discussing lofty topics like "is there a God or not. Does the universe have a beginning or not. Is it infinite in dimension or finite...Such and such is occurring beyond the observable universe but we cant see it"..Etc etc...and when someone dares pipe up and point out the absurdity in our ability to ascertain such things. That doesn't warrant failure as a term. It certainly doesn't warrant failure if the "judge" is biased toward the initial assertions. Or if he dismisses them before the discussion has a chance to begin.

 

Someone claimed that I obviously have no knowledge of how the big bang works or how cosmological expansion works. I contend that nobody has any knowledge of how it works. I contend that what we say today about how it works will be in conflict with what we will be saying in 30 years. I contend this is not all that different than going out and buying a blue ray disc player. They are already doomed to obsolescence very soon as people are moving to streaming and direct downloading to large hard drives instead of disc collections. So why buy a blue ray player? Why buy into a texhnogy that already has an end built in? Why buy into theories that are flawed (yes I use the word) on their very principles. Theories about expansion that require fudge factors and speculations about what's happening beyond our reach. Theories that declare the furthest light that we can see, the further light that there is. I can't blindly accept these ideas, and if I do, I must ask other questions. But when I do, I'm accused of ignorance. Not being ignorant, in effect, requires memorization of the latest theory. It requires reading the latest article that is mainstream, accepting it, then commiting that new info to memory as support for the old info. But wait, somebody comes along and makes a contradictory observation. I see a bunch of people holding their breath til they are blue, waiting for the Oracles of truth to cast their judgement. That's what I see with modern physics.

[swansont]

I do love a spirited debate. I don't care for one where insults or condescension play a roll. I have found that science related websites tend to operate in that sphere. Religious zealot websites do as well. That is why I reject both as cultish. I do not outright reject religion as a whole nor science as a whole, just the cultish principles. It is justified to recognize that religion carried mankind through tens of thousands of years of existence and science has done well with the last few hundred. Science is not supposed to be a dogma and have any relationship to religion but imfortunaty that is an impossible burden on science. As science acts to continually convince people of the flaws of religion (which are many) it must take up the burden that the void of religion bestows upon it. This includes moralities and ethics, law, philosophy, the list is endless. Most scientist do not wish to accept this burden, most are not qualified to be authorities on such matters. Yet we call on scientists to help convict murderers or acquit them. We call on science to make judgments on sexual feelings and help guide the legal expression of them. We call on science to be the referee on ever increasing issues of right and wrong. This used to be the domain of religion. This is the void that casting it out creates. Science is not an adequate tool for that purpose AT ALL. One can argue that neither is religion. Therefore, I rely on self for all of it. Everything from figuring out how the universe started (it started when my dads sperm combined with my mothers egg by the way) to figuring out if smoking dope is really bad. Those are all at my liberty to judge, without an adequate void filler that I can universally accept.

 

Science does few, if any, of those things. Perhaps people misuse science to that end, but that's not the same thing. Science is agnostic. It does not attempt to convince anyone of the flaws of religion save for when religion attempts (mistakenly) to explain scientific principles.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Someone claimed that I obviously have no knowledge of how the big bang works or how cosmological expansion works. I contend that nobody has any knowledge of how it works. I contend that what we say today about how it works will be in conflict with what we will be saying in 30 years. I contend this is not all that different than going out and buying a blue ray disc player. They are already doomed to obsolescence very soon as people are moving to streaming and direct downloading to large hard drives instead of disc collections. So why buy a blue ray player? Why buy into a texhnogy that already has an end built in? Why buy into theories that are flawed (yes I use the word) on their very principles. Theories about expansion that require fudge factors and speculations about what's happening beyond our reach. Theories that declare the furthest light that we can see, the further light that there is. I can't blindly accept these ideas, and if I do, I must ask other questions.

You're not alone. Nobody buys into these theories unconditionally. Any scientist recognizes that they are limited by the evidence at hand, and that they need more data to test their hypotheses. This is why you still see astronomers trying to detect dark matter and measure the expansion of the universe.

 

Science knows it doesn't know everything. Otherwise, it'd stop.

 

(quote shamelessly stolen from Dara O'Briain)

[John Cuthber]

I just had a look at the original post in this thread. It says

" However, if the wit of this child was of extraordinary nature, with a gift for analytical reasoning, he might indeed discover the relationship with fuel that fire has. He might require loose applications of the scientific method to conclude experiment with various fuel sources and draw some factual conclusions based on his experimentation. But he would not be aware of a rule book. With a certain amount of experience, he might rightly conclude that "wood burns", but he might also INTUITIVELY know that dry leaves will burn too without testing it out. This conclusion might be based on the obvious connection that wood has with leaves. In other words, he may not find it remarkable that the leaves burn when he actually burns some. He already knew that they would burn based on intuition so it wasn't a surprise. He didn't use scientific method, he used simple reason. "

 

It seems to me that, based on an observation- wood burns- the child has created a question - do wood-like things burn then formed a hypothesis - if wood-like things burn then leaves will also burn.

They subsequently test that hypothesis and find it to be true which leads to a more general and useful hypothesis- "things that are like wood burn".

That is the scientific method.

Just because the kid doesn't have it written down in a book for them doesn't stop them using it.

So, it seems that the idea that the scientific method is limited doesn't add up.

Edited August 7, 2012 by John Cuthber

[WHR]

You're not alone. Nobody buys into these theories unconditionally. Any scientist recognizes that they are limited by the evidence at hand, and that they need more data to test their hypotheses. This is why you still see astronomers trying to detect dark matter and measure the expansion of the universe.

 

Science knows it doesn't know everything. Otherwise, it'd stop.

 

(quote shamelessly stolen from Dara O'Briain)

 

Cap'n I would concede that probably most scientist at the highest levels of achievement who have managed their way to "the top", at least in the field of physics where most wouldn't deny that a little imagination and thought experiment are part of the process, are probably a lot more humble than the average joe physics professor at Smallville University somewhere in a Midwestern town (fictitious). Perhaps this is because the over achievers are in the spotlight and have already proven themselves, so they don't have to take everything so seriously. I would have to say that I've met many a graduate student in one of the more controversial or contested fields (evolutionary biology, psychology, theoretical physics) at taverns and bars with a little spirits in them, and they often will provoke debates about religion and God the more they drink. It as if an internal conflict arises with the inhibition lowered, but it becomes unleashed as an indictment. Perhaps the flaw of scientific method isn't in the method but in the average person who uses it. Humans with serious flaws, internal conflicts. I know the reply is that peer review siphons out the

Bias. I don't believe that. If a significant percentage of the

Peers also share the affliction. My ex wife is a psychology professor. I knew her as a graduate student and knew many of her friends and professors. I witnessed several professors engaging in intercourse with students at parties and using drugs. I was younger and less inclined to shock back then. Point being, a common thread that I often found was that the majority of these students and professors seemed to have internal conflict resolution issues. This seemed to be what drew them to psychology. And these are the people who counsel people out in the "real world" and are paid handsomely to do so. Of course they don't have to disclose to their patient that they partied with professors and smoked dope and complained about sibling rivalry issues that led to low self esteem when under the influence (as an example). They just frame their degree and license on the wall and do what they were trained to do. Is it plausible that the average psychologist doesn't have a degree of bias in his methods? Is it plausible that after seeing certain things

From others over the years, that they do not strengthen their biases? Perhaps some lose them!! But I think that would be the exception rather than rule.

I believe that most fields of science related to understanding personal beliefs and biases (how we came to be, the universe, our minds and how we think) suffer from this. In the other two sciences of biology and physics, I tend to see more atheism, or worse, antitheism. I often wonder what came first? The rejection of religion to pursue science, or the pursuit of science that convinces one to reject religion. I think that both can work together toward shaping us. But I think we determine our faith or lack of at an early age and work toward confirming this as we mature.

I feel more liberated by rejecting both, or rather not favoring either and being critical of both. I think I have a more unbiased perspective. IMHO

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That's not the fundamental flaw of the scientific method; that's the fundamental flaw of humans.

[tar]

WHR,

 

I will challenge you, on general principle, concerning your assertion that you are on no one's team, but your own. If there is ANYTHING you strive to maintain, and someone else is enabling your efforts, you are by default teamates of sorts, whether wittingly or not. Take for instance if you write a check, and pay a bill with it. Already you have subscribed to the banking system, and the post office, and trusted uncountable many persons to follow commonly held rules, and perform agreed up actions, honestly and without fail. The whole of them are on your team, in transferring what is yours to what is the biller's. You would not expect anyone handling your check to eat it, because they were hungry, and had no responsibilities to anyone, but themselves. Would you? No. Because you are on the same team, in regards to honoring the value the check represents, and handling it appropriately. The forger is not on this team.

 

And on your general theme, that the universe began when your Mom's egg was fertilized, I will also challenge your assertion. Your Mom's egg contained half the instructions that would form you, your dad's sperm the other half. Your dad's sperm came into being earlier that day, or week, your Mom was born with "your" egg in one of her ovaries. So half of you is as old as your Mom. A quarter of you as old as your Grandma, an eigth as old as Greatgrandma....

So the pattern, that is your body/brain/heart group, hardly began at the moment you suggest. So what do you mean, by suggesting the universe began at the moment of fertilization? My only guess is that you are speaking about the model of the universe, that exists in your body/brain/heart, AS the universe. This is apparently where we can settle the matter of your OP. You are asserting that if something works in your model, you have discovered something about the universe. This is a false assertion, and is exactly what the scientific method is good at avoiding. If you discover something through introspection and logic and inspection of your model of the universe, you have had an insight, or developed a hypothesis, or made a guess, based on everything you have ever been informed of, but until you test it against reality, you do not know if it is something that is really the case, that will work for real, or if it is something that will only work in your model. That is, the universe you have internalized, the one that began at your conception (no pun intended) is just a model, that is analogous to, but not actually, the actual universe that is being modeled.

 

Your OP thesis is defeated by your own admission.

 

You have it backward. You don't discover the universe by manipulating the model. You discover the universe by testing your model against it. As scientific method describes.

 

Regards, TAR2

[WHR]

I do appreciate when someone goes at length to try to convince me of something.

But I have more faith in my own worldview. Took 40 years to get here.

 

Conception was tongue in cheek.

 

Of course I have to pay my taxes, utility bills, hold down a career to feed my family. All conformities. I didn't actually say I was a nonconformist. Those are all practical things that my survival depends on. I just reject ideaologies. They are all hidden methods to enslave you. Not in the literal sense. Maybe tame you is a better word. Fill that void that we all have.

[immortal]

I do appreciate when someone goes at length to try to convince me of something.

But I have more faith in my own worldview. Took 40 years to get here.

 

Conception was tongue in cheek.

 

Of course I have to pay my taxes, utility bills, hold down a career to feed my family. All conformities. I didn't actually say I was a nonconformist. Those are all practical things that my survival depends on. I just reject ideaologies. They are all hidden methods to enslave you. Not in the literal sense. Maybe tame you is a better word. Fill that void that we all have.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort#Forteana_and_mainstream_science

 

http://journal.borderlands.com/1997/charles-hoy-fort-bibliomancer-extraordinaire/

[iNow]

I do appreciate when someone goes at length to try to convince me of something.

But I have more faith in my own worldview.

Yes, and that's terribly enjoyable for everyone else. You're clearly just trolling by your own admission.

[Phi for All]

http://en.wikipedia....nstream_science

 

http://journal.borde...extraordinaire/

!

Moderator Note

Not an official proclamation at this point, and I'm not really singling you out personally for this immortal (so please don't respond to this here, please), but I ask you ALL to note that this posting style, putting in some links with absolutely no personal input, is inimical to the purposes of a discussion forum. You wouldn't just hand someone a newspaper article without another word in the middle of a conversation, and it's not really appropriate here either.

 

In the future, I think we're going to start requiring that everyone say at least SOMETHING to limit the amount of link reading we're asking people to do.

[tar]

Immortal,

 

Fort seems to be expressing a similar distain of the scientific method, as WHR.

 

Did you post his links for a purpose? Do you agree or disagree with him?

 

Would be nice, as Phi for All suggests to at least let us know if you were presenting the links as examples of idiocy or brilliance.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

By the way, Wiki warned the readers of one of the links, about the possible slant factor inherent in the article.

 

As they would an article on John Doe, written by his mother.

[immortal]

Immortal,

 

Fort seems to be expressing a similar distain of the scientific method, as WHR.

 

Did you post his links for a purpose? Do you agree or disagree with him?

 

Would be nice, as Phi for All suggests to at least let us know if you were presenting the links as examples of idiocy or brilliance.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

By the way, Wiki warned the readers of one of the links, about the possible slant factor inherent in the article.

 

As they would an article on John Doe, written by his mother.

 

I just informed to WHR that any discussion on a topic like "The fundamental flaw of the scientific method" is incomplete without mentioning the name Charles Fort, no one mentioned about him so I did. I think Fort's expressions have been misunderstood. Everyone agrees that what we call as exact sciences should be done based on the scientific method and there is no flaw in it because it removes subjective biases and gives an objective account of reality and no one has any doubts about it.

 

It is on the criteria of falsification that we decide whether a theory is scientific or metaphysical and with the way science is done nowadays I don't think anyone would take anyone seriously if they just made statements like "The Sun will rise tommorrow" even though this statement is scientific but instead if they come up with a precise mathematical theory which makes exact predictions and makes quantifiable statements like "The theory predicts that the Sun will rise again at half past six" then one can devise experiments to test such a theory and such a theory will be useful for practical purposes.

 

Apart from this exact sciences there are different types of science for example evolutionary biology is a type-2 science and there are many different types of sciences like such which fall under philosophy.

 

In his collection Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Harper & Row, 1963), Popper writes, "Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices. The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific tradition in having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories; but it also passes on a critical attitude towards them. The theories are passed on, not as dogmas, but rather with the challenge to discuss them and improve upon them."

 

This is what Fort means when he says "Let everything be reported" and I find less and less philosophical disciplines being converted into exact sciences and so what Fort is saying is that scientists should develop other talents too and should simultaneously be fathers of new science and defenders of accepted science. Ultimately it is empiricism which decides what's accepted and what's not and humans do have the capacity to differentiate between those two. I find no problem in dealing with emerging sciences as long as I know what's spooky and what's accepted. So there is nothing wrong to be open for new speculations and it is this part which Fort had problem with and said that the scientific community is very stubborn for they arrive at a consensus without investigating all phenomena.

 

From others over the years, that they do not strengthen their biases? Perhaps some lose them!! But I think that would be the exception rather than rule.

I believe that most fields of science related to understanding personal beliefs and biases (how we came to be, the universe, our minds and how we think) suffer from this. In the other two sciences of biology and physics, I tend to see more atheism, or worse, antitheism. I often wonder what came first? The rejection of religion to pursue science, or the pursuit of science that convinces one to reject religion. I think that both can work together toward shaping us. But I think we determine our faith or lack of at an early age and work toward confirming this as we mature.

I feel more liberated by rejecting both, or rather not favoring either and being critical of both. I think I have a more unbiased perspective. IMHO

 

I have seen Kenneth Miller visiting a church and praying to God and at the same time going to a court to maintain the accepted consensus on evolutionary biology. You don't have to be an atheist to be a biologist or a physicist.

[tar]

Immortal,

 

Well thankyou for the context of your linkage.

 

You and I have attended and posted on enough threads for me to "guess" at your intent. And as you already know, I alternately back you up and oppose you, depending on whether you are going toward what I am trying to express/discover about our consciousness/existence or whether you are veering from what I judge to be reasonable and supportable.

 

Operating on the deep agreements we have, I can understand your support of WHR's call to "not be constrained" by scientific method. For the simple logical reason that no matter how much one downplays subjective experience, and promotes objective reality, two facts remain. The subjective experience has to occur in and of objective reality. And objective reality has to be subjectively judged to be the case, inorder to be aware of it. Therefore to allow ONLY objective reality to be the case, you ignore the one most important component in the judgement equation. The judge.

 

But this is already obvious and true, to both atheist and theist. What differs is the determinations of where this judgement originates and where is it going. How much of it is yours, and how much of it is yours alone. How much of it is information and how much of it is form itself.

 

I would back you up, suggesting that we MUST contain some of the form itself, and therefore can realistically claim personal knowledge of it and inspect reality, as a partial owner, and unremovable participant...but I would fall away from your take, once you tell me what jewels god wears. Because these are images ONLY subjectively produced, and do not actually exist.

 

Likewise, with WHR. He cannot manipulate information and images in his imagination, in his subjective model of the universe, see that something fits together, there, in his model, and assume that this means it MUST work for real. It MIGHT be true, but has to be put to test. If it cannot be put to the test, it MIGHT be wrong. And smart money would say it most probably IS wrong.

 

So please do continue to support the logical, forced reality of the wisdom and truth contained in the teachings of the masters, but be advised of the possibility, that they were and are just as prone to mistake their model of reality, for reality itself as the rest of us are. And scientific method is a darn good way to determine where one should judge the line, between fact and fiction, to be.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited August 10, 2012 by tar

[afungusamongus]

The scientific method main limitation is that it is fulled with people who either through their own hubris or just a lack of knowledge refuse to believe the validity of other fields of study. Philosophy and Theology are the fields who bear the brunt of this prejudice. Not to mention some of the opinions of scientist towards things like Geology, Psychology and Engineering.

 

This idea is purported in the popular conscience by such well known (although fictional) characters like Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory and Doctor Temperance Brennan from the popular show Bones. The Cooper character famously called engineers the "Oompa-Lumpas" of science. He even went so bold as tell the Engineer character that his job is not worth doing. His feelings towards Geologist is equally demeaning calling them "Gravel Monkeys" and telling us all that "Geology is not a real science"

 

Doctor Brennan on the other hand makes her disdain for Psychology equally clear. Telling us it is a soft science. These sentiments are echoed when a Japanese Anthropologist joins the her team for a episode.

 

You may say that this is often done for comedic effect but it would not surprise me if these views where not echoed in real life.

[imatfaal]

The scientific method main limitation is that it is fulled with people who either through their own hubris or just a lack of knowledge refuse to believe the validity of other fields of study. Philosophy and Theology are the fields who bear the brunt of this prejudice. Not to mention some of the opinions of scientist towards things like Geology, Psychology and Engineering.

 

This idea is purported in the popular conscience by such well known (although fictional) characters like Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory and Doctor Temperance Brennan from the popular show Bones. The Cooper character famously called engineers the "Oompa-Lumpas" of science. He even went so bold as tell the Engineer character that his job is not worth doing. His feelings towards Geologist is equally demeaning calling them "Gravel Monkeys" and telling us all that "Geology is not a real science"

 

Doctor Brennan on the other hand makes her disdain for Psychology equally clear. Telling us it is a soft science. These sentiments are echoed when a Japanese Anthropologist joins the her team for a episode.

 

You may say that this is often done for comedic effect but it would not surprise me if these views where not echoed in real life.

 

You choose to attack the scientific method with two examples from fiction!

 

The wonder of the scientific method is that when unsupported and non-referenced claims are made we are entitled to ask for observation proof that this is indeed the case. I wouldn't deny that some scientists can be a little blinkered, they are (despite reports) human - but to claim that science is full of people .... requires some proof. That proof is doubly necessary due to the fact that you are posting in a philosophy/religion forum in which many of the most constructive and thoughtful posts and threads were written by active scientists; this fact alone seems to refute your point.

 

From the anecdotes told by scientists I would hazard that research scientists have their preconceptions challenged and shattered more than any other academics - perhaps you should read some of the debates that followed the Opera/Gran Sasso FTL Neutrino announcement last year. That was (unfortunately ?) a damp squib - another example would be Einstein's Relativity and its effect on the physics community. Hubris is one of the last things you can accuse the science community of - its an easy lazy characterisation but one that doesn't stand up to any form of scrutiny. This forum and its members spend a considerable amount of time looking at new theories and testing them - whilst the vast majority are incorrect we all live in hope of the tiniest advance in the remotest part of science.

[swansont]

Fictional characters are often, by necessity, shallow stereotypes, i.e the behavior is exaggerated. Yes, some scientists display disdain for other people and fields of endeavor. They're human. You can find that behavior everywhere. To extrapolate fictional behavior back to reality, though, is a huge mistake. It also prompts the question, "Is that all you've got?"

 

Philosophy and Theology do not typically deal in the kind of evidence that science demands. If their practitioners make claims about the physical world, they should expect to those claims to be tested in a falsifiable manner, instead of being accepted without question.

[Arete]

Janitors and theme park managers get a bad wrap on scooby doo, but I'm pretty sure most of them aren't pretending to be ghosts.

 

Oh and psychology is a "soft" science. This is not meant to be a criticism as you seem to have taken it, but a description of the methodologies employed to test complex and often abstract hypotheses which do not lend themselves to experimentation, mathematical description and accurate modeling in many of the social sciences. http://bill.silvert.org/notions/ecology/hardsoft.htm

 

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Soft+Science

 

"A field of study in which accrual of objective and reproducible—‘hard’—data is difficult as the field examines societal phenomena and dynamics susceptible to subjective interpretation. Examples Anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology, social medicine"

[Ringer]

The scientific method main limitation is that it is fulled with people who either through their own hubris or just a lack of knowledge refuse to believe the validity of other fields of study. Philosophy and Theology are the fields who bear the brunt of this prejudice. Not to mention some of the opinions of scientist towards things like Geology, Psychology and Engineering.

 

This idea is purported in the popular conscience by such well known (although fictional) characters like Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory and Doctor Temperance Brennan from the popular show Bones. The Cooper character famously called engineers the "Oompa-Lumpas" of science. He even went so bold as tell the Engineer character that his job is not worth doing. His feelings towards Geologist is equally demeaning calling them "Gravel Monkeys" and telling us all that "Geology is not a real science"

 

Doctor Brennan on the other hand makes her disdain for Psychology equally clear. Telling us it is a soft science. These sentiments are echoed when a Japanese Anthropologist joins the her team for a episode.

 

You may say that this is often done for comedic effect but it would not surprise me if these views where not echoed in real life.

 

If I were to do the same thing with different characters of the same shows I could equally say that FBI agents think that all lab workers are basically socially inept geeks and call them demeaning names like 'squints'. I could also say that all blondes are dumb and sleep around. See how that way of characterizing science doesn't work, if you do it with anything else on the show you just look ignorant. That's not to say when you do it to science it doesn't look ignorant.

 

I've also always been annoyed that Bones calls Psychology a soft science. She's an anthropologist, a soft science.

[juanrga]

The scientific method main limitation is that it is fulled with people who either through their own hubris or just a lack of knowledge refuse to believe the validity of other fields of study. Philosophy and Theology are the fields who bear the brunt of this prejudice. Not to mention some of the opinions of scientist towards things like Geology, Psychology and Engineering.

 

This idea is purported in the popular conscience by such well known (although fictional) characters like Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory and Doctor Temperance Brennan from the popular show Bones. The Cooper character famously called engineers the "Oompa-Lumpas" of science. He even went so bold as tell the Engineer character that his job is not worth doing. His feelings towards Geologist is equally demeaning calling them "Gravel Monkeys" and telling us all that "Geology is not a real science"

 

Doctor Brennan on the other hand makes her disdain for Psychology equally clear. Telling us it is a soft science. These sentiments are echoed when a Japanese Anthropologist joins the her team for a episode.

 

You may say that this is often done for comedic effect but it would not surprise me if these views where not echoed in real life.

 

The scientific method, as a collection of systematic procedures and of consistency and reality tests, has nothing to do with the scientists personality and still less with scientists characterization in popular shows as Big Bang Theory (whose aim is not to inform people about what science really is).

 

The incorrect characterization of science by the general public is not anything new. In fact, there are entire scientific disciplines such as chemistry, whose public image is very, very far from the real chemistry made in laboratories by chemists and chemical engineers. I recommend the book The Public image of chemistry for an excellent analysis (including incorrect characterizations of scientists in films).

Edited August 23, 2012 by juanrga