Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

icarus · Post by **icarus** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:04 am

but the simple act of gathering is not.

Data gathering by experimentalists is not science?

Are you serious? It is the bedrock of reality that science is founded upon. Be gone with you charlatan.

happyjack27 · Post by **happyjack27** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:21 pm

data gathering is part of the scientific method, yes. but i believe what he's saying is that you can come to entirely different conclusions from the same data depending on how you interpret it / what you do with it. science really differentiates itself from other modes of inquiry by how one _processes_ the gathered data.

for instance, does one accept or reject conclusions that aren't falsifiable? does one demand data from a control to compare against? does one bother to calculate the statistical confidence intervals? does one look for other explanations for the observations? does one further test explanations before accepting them (tentatively or otherwise) (this is moot if one allows unfalsifiable explanations) etc. the answers to these questions is what differentiates science from non-science. not whether or not data is gathered. _every_ method of inquiry gathers _some_ data in _some_ form.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:49 pm

Skipjack wrote: Because
1. Natural History is a science too

In this case I have been telling you that observation is not science, it is science, akin to "its not physics, it is experiment physics", so why the upset?

Skipjack wrote: 3. Observation of a phenomenon is part of science.

CAN BE part of science. Some guy looking at the clouds is just looking. Some guy taking pictures of clouds is an artist or perhaps a journalist. Some guy taking many pictures of many clouds with records of same because he thinks they are interesting is a natural historian. Some guy setting up a camera to capture the lenticular cloud he has hypothesized should appear on the northwest quadrant of that particular mountain sometime during the hours of 1400 and 1600 because that is when the meteorologists say the conditions will be right to form the cloud according to his new theory is a scientist.

Think of it this way. If you are going on a "voyage of discovery" you are being a natural historian. If you are "proving a point" (in a way that can potentially prove you wrong), you are being a scientist.

Skipjack wrote: Astronomy is mostly about observation. Heck it is called a fracking observatory for a fracking reason.
I am sure you would offend most of the astronomers out there if you told them that they were not scientists!

And if they are not seeking observations to falsify/support a hypothesis, the ARE NOT acting a scientists, they are natural historians. Why the upset? Darwin was a natural historian for the early part of his working life. How is that upsetting?

Skipjack wrote:
Geez, really, sometimes I have to wonder where people learn this sort of BS!

I KNOW where people get your common mistaken impression. It is akin to a janitor or garbage man (both honorable professions) calling themselves "sanitation engineers". "Scientist" SOUNDS classier than "Natural Historian" so most folks doing NH like to claim they are scientists. Such is life.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:55 pm

icarus wrote:
but the simple act of gathering is not.
Data gathering by experimentalists is not science?

Is it that you CAN'T read or just that in my case you WONT?

Data gathering by "experimentalists", i.e. folks conducting an "experiment" i.e. folks attempting to support/falsify a hypothesis, ARE scientists and I have said that from the beginning. Folks collecting data for interest's sake are "natural historians".

Natural Historians, like mathematicians, are indispensible to science but a breed apart.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:43 pm

Natural Historians, like mathematicians, are indispensible to science but a breed apart.

Wow, now math is not part of science either. I see where that goes.
Maybe it is a language thing, but natural history is considered a science here, as are astronomers that work at observatories. What about behavioral sciences? Eibl Eibesfeldt got the nobel price for his study of some tribe on Borneo (Eipo, I believe). That was mostly observation. So he is not a scientist?
Or, let me put it even in a different way. Maybe one should specify observation and data gathering with the intent of using it to form hypothesis and theories on it at a later date (or have someone else do that), is IMHO very much science.
And that is not necessarily the same as a casual observer just watching some random event, without the intention of ever recording it or following up on it in any way.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:50 pm

A good scientist will often use statistics. That does not make statistics "science" It is mathematics.
A good scientist will often wash out beakers. Does that make glassware washing "science"? No, it might be termed "lab-economics" as dish washing is termed "home-economics".
A good scientist will often use many tools, that does not make the tools "science". General recording of what nature does is one of those tools. That tool is "natural history".

As with statistics and lab-econ, NatHistory is something that a scientist will do. That doesn't make them science.

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:16 pm

If your definition of science is manipulating things and then recording and analyzing the resultant data, while merely observing natural events without personal manipulation is mearliy history observers then the vast majority of time Geologists, Astronomers, and many others are not Scientists.

I prefer a definition that includes the collection of data (observation)whether he manipulates situations or not, then reducing the data to understandable and predictive forms. This may be challenged in specifics, and adding even more constraints only increases contested viewpoints.
The above may not always be appropriate either.
Tycho Brahe was an excellent observational Astronomer (Scientist?). Kepler took his observations and used them to help form his laws of planetary motion. If Kepler was not also the observer, does that mean he was not a Scientist?

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classe ... /tycho.htm

Was Einstein a Scientist? His tools were pencil and paper and working with observations and analysis that preceeded him. When he proposed experiments to test his ideas, but left it to others to do them, does this disqualify him as a Scientist?

Dan Tibbets

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:13 pm

D Tibbets wrote: Tycho Brahe was an excellent observational Astronomer (Scientist?). Kepler took his observations and used them to help form his laws of planetary motion. If Kepler was not also the observer, does that mean he was not a Scientist?

Let us suppose that the ONLY think TB did was observe and record the state of the stars. That is the documenting of nature. That is natural history. IF in fact TB never detected patterns and thorized and hypothesized, then he was never a scientist. I SAID IF dang it, don't jump all over me with instances where he was a scientist and therefor "prove" that I am wrong. Keep up folks.

Suppose Kepler never looked at the night sky at all. But he reads all the observations that TB ever made and detects patterns and theorizes and hypothesizes and thinks something along the line of "well if my theory is right, then TB should have observed that on every 16th day there should be an observation of X in such a location. He then goes back to TBs natural history and looks and says... well, the observation was there ALMOST every 16th day. Why not all...... Kepler would be doing science.

It really is very simple.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:30 pm

I cant believe, we are seriously having this discussion...

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 1:10 am

Skipjack wrote:I cant believe, we are seriously having this discussion...

What else is there to do?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:58 pm

What else is there to do?

Hehehe, got a point there

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:08 pm

latest results up on the FoFu site:

FoFu confirms predicted I^5 scaling law & sets new record

read all about it - http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.c ... &Itemid=90

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:14 am

I'll be honest, I was "hoping" for them to prove that the scaling would hold as they increased energy input, but I wasn't thinking that they could prove it so smoothly and quickly. Their results are really going beyond my expectations.

If they keep on like this they could really prove pB11 fusion in a short time frame after all.
I am (once more) deeply impressed.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:49 am

Joseph Chikva · Post by **Joseph Chikva** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:41 am

rcain wrote:latest results up on the FoFu site:

FoFu confirms predicted I^5 scaling law & sets new record

read all about it - http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.c ... &Itemid=90

Neutron output proportional to I^5 is really good.
Even I^2 would not be bad. I^5 is great!
So, they solved plasma contamination problem?
I see also they are changing insulator material ("engineering issue") or that was made from ceramic from the beginning?

Improvements to FF-1’s ceramic “hat” insulator and related alignment capabilities are now ongoing, with firing expected to resume within a week.