If you stop speculation, you stop the future (split from what would you change about SFN)

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

 

Today, 06:25 PM

SFN needs more science and less speculation

 

My Goodness me !

 

If you stop speculation ,.... You stop the future.....Things not yet even imagined ! ...

 

.If you do that we will go into a spiral of decline !

 

Mike

Edited November 5, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

(Split because this deserves its own discussion)

 

Speculation here has a very specific definition, and I would venture a guess that if we shut down the Speculations part of the forum the effect on the future would be immeasurably small.

[Sensei]

Typical speculation here on forum is from members that don't even know from memory what is Planck const, what is speed of light, what is mass of electron, what is mass of proton, never heard about Rydberg const, nor Compton frequency/wavelength..

They basically don't even have basics of basics.

 

It *does* matter who is speculating..

Edited November 5, 2014 by Sensei

[studiot]

I believe the word was reduce not stop.

[Phi for All]

Typical speculation here on forum is from members that don't even know from memory what is Planck const, what is speed of light, what is mass of electron, what is mass of proton, never heard about Rydberg const, nor Compton frequency/wavelength..

They basically don't even have basics of basics.

 

And we'd like to have a reputation for a decent amount of rigor when it comes to reviewing ideas. We're not a journal, but we'd like to follow proper methods that have some assurance of helping people strengthen their idea, or realize it was wrong.

 

That being said, I agree that the vast majority of speculators here don't know the basics of science at all, and come here because they think they have something groundbreaking, hoping someone here will become enthused and supply the math that proves them right. They don't know what they don't know, and think they understand everything because they understand some things.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

A look at a Dictionary definition of ' Speculation ' carries with it 'Risk '.

 

As with Speculating on the stock exchange. " speculate to accumulate. ". Good Speculation Pays off. Bad speculation makes a loss. If we closed the speculative element on the Stock exchanges , our current economic system would collapse world wide, and industry ' to boot' .

 

If we remain too calculating in the speculation process, we stand to loose out on risky ideas that sound risky and may in fact be Right. Contrarily , Ideas that sound right, but are in fact Wrong.

 

However the history of our growth in today's understanding of the universe is littered with educated guesses that sometimes are right ,with great gain, and others Wrong and thus wrong understanding for a while .

 

If we were to 'launder ideas' too heavily before they are expressed. I am suggesting we might kill off an idea , before it has a chance to being made reasonably public. Aired, debated, and yes given credibility , or given the doubts by other thinkers in science.

 

As long as it ( included in a location that is clearly titled SPECULATIONS ) and is stated as Speculative not well proven fact, surely that is a reasonable way to behave .Often at the time the speculation is originated, it is most likely that thorough investigation, or rigorous mathematical proof , at this stage is unlikely to have occurred YET.

 

Mike

Edited November 5, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Sensei]

However the history of our growth in today's understanding of the universe is littered with educated guesses that sometimes are right ,with great gain, and others Wrong and thus wrong understanding for a while .

 

Sounds like you have no idea how science theories are created...

 

We have experimental data obtained in experiments.

 

Somebody is seating on them, day and night, analyzing data and is creating function f(x)=....

where x is used somewhere in equation.

 

f.e. place ruler vertical, attach camera on tripod, start recording, place object at top of ruler, release object, then load recorded movie to animation editing software, and read where object was at different times.

You will receive function telling position of object depending on time variable [math]f(t)=\frac{1}{2}*9.81*t^2[/math]

Then you can release your idea to public to review..

 

[studiot]

 

Sounds like you have no idea how science theories are created...

 

We have experimental data obtained in experiments.

 

Somebody is seating on them, day and night, analyzing data and is creating function f(x)=....

where x is used somewhere in equation.

 

Unfortunately all too many of them do not understand statistics properly and end up producing garbage theories.

 

I particularly like the story of Abraham Wald and the Ministry of Defence.

 

http://www.ionica.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Wald-Vliegtuigen-Bayes.pdf

[sunshaker]

 

Sounds like you have no idea how science theories are created...

 

We have experimental data obtained in experiments.

 

Somebody is seating on them, day and night, analyzing data and is creating function f(x)=....

where x is used somewhere in equation.

 

f.e. place ruler vertical, attach camera on tripod, start recording, place object at top of ruler, release object, then load recorded movie to animation editing software, and read where object was at different times.

You will receive function telling position of object depending on time variable [math]f(t)=\frac{1}{2}*9.81*t^2[/math]

Then you can release your idea to public to review..

 

YAWWN!

 

Speculation allows the mind to have fun, to run free, sometimes something comes out of the wildest ideas, It what makes us human.

It is also where the egg heads can have there coffee break.

 

Also there is only 2 speculation posts in the last 37 new content posts. Now I know how native americans must

of felt, has their lands where slowly taken away from them.

Edited November 6, 2014 by sunshaker

[elfmotat]

Speculation allows the mind to have fun, to run free, sometimes something comes out of the wildest ideas, It what makes us human.

 

That's all well and good, as long as you don't try to call it "science."

[sunshaker]

 

That's all well and good, as long as you don't try to call it "science."

I don't see why not, Nearly everything is science, even baking a cake. Most speculation on here has "science", Just not always math and equations.

Nothing is yet proven, science is just varying degrees of speculation.

[elfmotat]

Nearly everything is science

 

That's just so wrong that I don't even know where to begin.

[sunshaker]

 

That's just so wrong that I don't even know where to begin.

Perhaps 380,000 years after the "big bang" seems a good enough place to start.

 

Scientists are always looking for the "TOE", For that theory to work everything can be definable by science, which means "everything is science". So everything has a place, even our beloved speculation.

 

There is some wild speculation, but I tend to be able to mostly see where they/me are coming from, I think speculators see a far greater universe/beautifuller, than those who stick to the "rigors of pure unadaulterated science",

 

not that math/equations are not also beautiful, but a true artist uses all that is available.

[elfmotat]

Scientists are always looking for the "TOE", For that theory to work everything can be definable by science, which means "everything is science".

 

That's just the weirdest train of logic I've ever seen. It doesn't even come close to making sense.

[sunshaker]

 

That's just the weirdest train of logic I've ever seen. It doesn't even come close to making sense.

I believe everything is connected, in ways we can not yet even imagine, everything has a reason and a purpose that adds to the whole,

if you take away something how ever mad you may think it is, then you can never have a complete picture,

 

Take the guessing game when you have to guess the amount of beans in a jar, it as been proven the more people you get to guess the average will be nearly always spot on.

 

http://www.diplomacy.edu/resources/books/reviews/wisdom-crowds-why-many-are-smarter-few

 

 

Why are experts not that smart? Because experts tend to be and think alike, and thus do not reflect maximum diversity of opinions; they tend to be internally inconsistent and poor at calibrating their position – in short, they are overconfident. In a group they tend to decide by authority (group-think),

[Endy0816]

If we were to continue the jellybean analogy then there are trillions of jellybeans and people are only guessing in the 100's. There are things theoretically possible that remain improbable.

 

Occasionally you see diamonds in the rough there, but it is always more developed analysis(provided by other posters) that causes it to amount to anything at all. For providing an avenue from which insights might be gleaned I almost feel a random generator could do as well if not better, as it would lack preconceived notions.

 

Realistically there are other areas online open for discussion. This probably is though one of the few that speculators can approach those they are seeking to interact with.

 

I do have to say I don't like the predictable path most discussions there tend to take. Recent thread left a bad taste in my mouth after a couple of attempts to get OP to succinctly describe some of the honestly interesting points in his hypothesis led nowhere but to a predicted thread lock. Makes me shy away from participating there if the result is a virtually foregone conclusion.

 

This slide from the SFN presentation is relevant as well:

 

http://philipp-burckhardt.com/files/Presentations/ScienceforumsPresentation/ScienceforumsPresentation.html#/11

[ajb]

The point is speculation is not the same as just making sh*t up. This seems to be lost on many of our members.

 

 

Speculations should be built on understanding the current way of thinking, the problems with such thinking and should be an attempt to expand what we know by solving these problems. Of course, usually in solving these problems other problem become apparent, but this is the nature of science. It is far from being over in the sense we understand everything.

 

As such scientists and mathematicians make speculations all the time. Far more often than not these speculations, sometimes they are informal and other times more formal, get 'shot down' on scrutiny. Either an individual scientist will find the error in this own thinking or by talking with other experts the errors become apparent. In my department this happens all day every day.

 

I won't give specific details, but myself and a collaborator thought that the results of one very recent preprint would generalise to the situation we are interested in. We 'speculated' that we could simply push their theorems and proofs through to our situation. I had 'working definitions' of the objects needed. It took a little while to really understand why the situation was not so easy, this is good we have some original work to do! The point is we speculated, tried to make it work and found the error in our naive thinking. This is progress...

 

I am sure that all scientists here will have similar stories of what just did not work.

[swansont]

A look at a Dictionary definition of ' Speculation ' carries with it 'Risk '.

 

 

But that's not the definition we are using. This is not a site focused on financial matters.

 

From my computer's dictionary, the definition that applies is the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence

 

We offer a part of the forum such that people have a pathway to go from "without firm evidence" and move toward something that is better scientifically established. The problem is that the bulk of the participants invariably resist moving in that direction, or they don't start close enough (i.e. no evidence at all, or way too many holes in the conjecture), or worse, the existing evidence flat-out contradicts their claim(s).

 

If we were to 'launder ideas' too heavily before they are expressed. I am suggesting we might kill off an idea , before it has a chance to being made reasonably public. Aired, debated, and yes given credibility , or given the doubts by other thinkers in science.

 

 

Credibility comes with comparisons with nature and seeing that the conjecture agrees. The burdon for that is on the person forming the conjecture.

I don't see why not, Nearly everything is science, even baking a cake. Most speculation on here has "science", Just not always math and equations.

Nothing is yet proven, science is just varying degrees of speculation.

 

Nearly everything can be viewed through the lens of science, but blindly following a recipe to bake a cake is not science. There are lots of things that are not science.

 

Scientists are always looking for the "TOE", For that theory to work everything can be definable by science, which means "everything is science".

 

 

 

Bollocks. The vast majority of scientists are working on other questions, and even the few who are spending time on a TOE, do not spend all of their time on it. And a TOE is not what you are implying it is.

[studiot]

 

From my computer's dictionary, the definition that applies is the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence

 

Yes I would agree with that definition.

 

The point is that having formed the conjecture you should seek firm evidence as ajb reported he did.

 

Another application of the scientific method is in detective style work.

 

Here you have a definite outcome effect or event and you are seeking an explanation.

 

I have conducted quite a few failure investigations where you work through questions like

 

Was it fatigue?

Was it overload?

Was it chemical?

Was it an outside agent?

and many more.

 

In conducting such an investigation you start with not one but several speculations and systematically eliminate them.

 

So speculations, per se, are not bad. It is what you do with them that counts.

Edited November 6, 2014 by studiot

[Strange]

I don't see why not, Nearly everything is science, even baking a cake.

 

Wrong. Science is a very specific and well-defined way of gathering information, creating models and testing them.

Baking a cake is no more science than it is a piece of music.

 

Most speculation on here has "science",

 

Almost no speculation on this forum is scientific. Very little of it even contains any science. A small number include a bit of misunderstood pop-science.

 

Just not always math and equations.

 

Then it isn't science. Thanks for confirming that.

 

Nothing is yet proven, science is just varying degrees of speculation.

 

Nothing is ever proven (in science). But that doesn't make it speculation; it makes it a system of well-tested, quantitative, productive and hence useful models.

Scientists are always looking for the "TOE"

 

No they aren't.

 

For that theory to work everything can be definable by science, which means "everything is science".

 

1. "Theory of Everything" (which is rarely used by scientists) has a quite limited meaning and is certainly not intended to include "everything".

 

2. Even if it did explain "everything" that would no make "everything" science; it would just mean that "everything" was the subject of science. For example, water is not science, even though its chemical and physical properties are explained by science.

 

So everything has a place, even our beloved speculation.

 

I hope you see now why that is nonsensical.

 

There is some wild speculation, but I tend to be able to mostly see where they/me are coming from, I think speculators see a far greater universe/beautifuller, than those who stick to the "rigors of pure unadaulterated science",

 

Then I cannot understand what you are doing on a science forum. If you prefer made-up nonsense to science, why not hang out on an art or SF forum.

[sunshaker]

 

 

 

Then it isn't science. Thanks for confirming that.

 

 

Everyone sometimes daydreams like a scientist. Ramped up and disciplined, fantasies are the fountainhead of all creative thinking. Newton dreamed, Darwin dreamed, you dream. The images evoked are at first vague. They may shift in form and fade in and out. They grow a bit firmer when sketched as diagrams on pads of paper, and they take on life as real examples are sought and found.

Pioneers in science only rarely make discoveries by extracting ideas from pure mathematics. Most of the stereotypical photographs of scientists studying rows of equations on a blackboard are instructors explaining discoveries already made. Real progress comes in the field writing notes, at the office amid a litter of doodled paper. http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323611604578398943650327184

 

 

As Darwin also wrote "I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good & original observation".

 

 

Strange:

Then I cannot understand what you are doing on a science forum. If you prefer made-up nonsense to science, why not hang out on an art or SF forum.

Did I say anywhere that I prefer "mad-up nonsense to science"?

I love science, and am not knocking its place, but I also love the freedom of speculation,

I believe you cannot have one without the other, they would both suffer for the others loss.

 

Some people just do not have the capacity to speculate, where some do not have the capacity/education for math that is needed to give substance to their ideas/theory,

 

Would you prefer for those without "math" to sit at the back of the bus and keep quiet?

[swansont]

 

As Darwin also wrote "I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good & original observation".

 

I'm probably going to get tired of mentioning that we are using a different definition of speculation, so you can't just go grab a random comment by a famous scientist that contains the word and have it be meaningful. Please show that something — anything — we have in speculations is anywhere close to what Darwin was talking about. Alternately, show that Darwin was talking about ideas not backed up by evidence in a rigorous way as the endgame.

[elfmotat]

Please show that something — anything — we have in speculations is anywhere close to what Darwin was talking about.

 

That might be tough: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/86250-goodinteresting-speculations/

[Strange]

As Darwin also wrote "I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good & original observation".

Did I say anywhere that I prefer "mad-up nonsense to science"?

I love science, and am not knocking its place, but I also love the freedom of speculation,

I believe you cannot have one without the other, they would both suffer for the others loss.

 

This is a complete straw man. No one ever said that there is no place for speculation in science; in fact examples of speculative ideas have been given. What is under discussion is the ideas presented in the Speculations section of this forum. These are almost always unscientific (not based on any scientific knowledge and refusing to accept any contrary evidence, for example).

 

You said, or implied, that you think there is value in the made-up nonsense posted as "theories" there.

 

Some people just do not have the capacity to speculate

 

Such people would make very poor scientists or engineers. They are both very creative disciplines.

 

Would you prefer for those without "math" to sit at the back of the bus and keep quiet?

 

No. I would prefer them to understand that their idea is not science, to learn what science is, to learn some basic physics (or whatever) and refine (or abandon) their speculations based on that.

 

What is a waste of everyone's time is those who insist that ,"my random idea must be correct because I thought of it and it is 'logical'".

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

A suggested solution to this recurrent debate, by hard liners, as well as the current 'Log Jam '

 

A look at the interest people show in speculative ideas , can be seen in the number of viewings :

Some 80,000 viewings in Speculations . Some 80,000 in Politics .

These are some of the largest viewings across the whole of the Science Forum , Which must show audience interest.

 

The speculations forum could possibly be split into Three categories. ( not by subject type as this already exist is the main forum) .

It could be split into

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

a) . Rigorous , incremental development, SPECULATIVE DEVELOPMENT keeping the mathematicians and other rigorous scientists happy.

 

b) . Clever, as yet unproven ideas of a SPECULATIVE CHARACTER where those with useful ideas are given space to make contributions.

 

c) . Blue Sky AUDACIOUS SPECULATION ideas, so far out as to shock many of a conservative nature, which however could well possess (Tomorrows Science Answers.)

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

Thus not fragmenting into different subject type , But into SPECULATIVE DEGREE

 

mike

Edited November 6, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos