Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a post-modern cult

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Mike_P
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Post by Mike_P »

[/quote]

GIT's most grievous fault was to state that scientists are essentially corrupt, will usually have abusive sexual relations with students, and motivated by angst at the possibility that theories held might change so that they resist such change. He has a very very low opinion on them - so low I find it quite insulting and certainly unlike those I know.[/quote]

Alas Tom you seem to be fixating on a statement that GIT did not make. Humans are at their core "human"; which is to say fallible, frail, and at times corrupt (especially if something violates a cherished point of view). To somehow imply that humans who make their money doing research are no longer affected by the same desires and frailties that have plagued mankind for thousands of years is quite hard for me to believe.

Given the number of years I have been involved with education, as a student, as a father, and as a professor I can understand GIT's position that favors are given to those who provide favors. Now I will admit that at the institution where I taught, if a student/professor relationship was discovered, the student would have been expelled and the prof would have been burned at the stake in the central quad. That being said, I can also say that many a student received a break on their exams than because of their personality rather than on their academic qualities.

GIT is simply saying that "scientists" can not claim to be immune to being human.
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Diogenes
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Re: Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a post-modern cult

Post by Diogenes »

tomclarke wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
How do you see this as anti-science?
(1) he thinks scientists are corrupt. It is not true where I work.

I didn't get that vibe from his comment. My reading was that it was more along the lines of being biased and intolerant of ideas which diverge from their preconceived notions, and a willingness to use whatever power or authority they possess as a group or singularly to reward and punish those with whom they agree and disagree with respectively.

I would not equate it to corruption, though I think there is some of that out there too. ( The AGW crowd to be specific)


tomclarke wrote: (2) he thinks scientists feel angst when fundamental theories are challenged. this is a misunderstanding. Scientiststs live to change theories, or make new ones. Nothing more exciting than a challenge to a solidly held theory. It is also given high rating by journals which value novelty explicitly.
I think this is true of many scientist, I do not believe it to be true of all. They will all of course claim to be open minded, but often in practice they are not. Again, history is replete with such examples. I wonder what johanfprins has to say on this point? :)


tomclarke wrote:
His view of scientists is wrong and very derogatory.
I don't think this is his view of all, I think this is his view of many. I'm sure he thinks there are reasonable and fair scientists out there, but I have to agree there are some institutional problems, some of them associated with how science is funded nowadays.
tomclarke wrote: Scientists challenge the prevailing theories all the time. It is how science progresses. There is, at any time, a wide variety of theories in the literature. Over time those that pan out remain, those that do not fall. And new theories are generated. Sometimes (not often) solidly held theories get overturned. More often, theories that are less strongly held get overturned.
Not always. Max Plank famously put it, “Science progresses funeral by funeral,” because often the old generation has to retire and die before new ideas really take hold.

Sometimes Ideas take hold among people and it is difficult to shake their faith in them.

Here's Freeman Dyson.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf0 ... index.html
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Torulf2
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Post by Torulf2 »

This is ridicules. In postmodern practise it means "everything is relative, then you are wrong". But the postmodernists is only one extreme point at the scale. Its same garbage as the other end, "facts is facts, then I'm right".

There are no reason for go to the extremes in this. Popper believed in an accumulated growth of knowledge in science but also that scientific theories are temporal. For this he is a hated relativist among those how believe in absolute knowledge as objectivists and Marxists. And a hated positivist for the postmodernists in the other side.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

AcesHigh wrote:
do you really think there is a probability Diogenes was NOT saying that? :lol:

Rather disappointing. A Joke is not funny when you have to explain it. I keep making the mistake of assuming others have some common knowledge, all to discover I overestimated their repertoire.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

GIT's most grievous fault was to state that scientists are essentially corrupt, will usually have abusive sexual relations with students, and motivated by angst at the possibility that theories held might change so that they resist such change. He has a very very low opinion on them - so low I find it quite insulting and certainly unlike those I know.

No, I didn't say anything like this. I used the illustration of our clay feet to point out that we're all human and you don't much seem to note this is so.

The original point was and is, that scientists suffer this normal reaction to being told their foundational beliefs are wrong. Kuhn documents this time and again in his little book on scientific revolutions. If you pretend that such things never occur, then we can't much have a discussion about them, Tom. History is replete with examples of how those responsible for a new scientific paradigm were persecuted, and we see the same thing from religious communities. The simple fact of the matter is that when people have their foundational beliefs challenged, they experience a strong emotional reaction.

Lets take the issue of BlackLight Power as an example. If Hydrino theory is correct, the Bohr model of the atom is incorrect, as is much of modern quantum mechanics. The responses to this theory are telling. Physicists are generally angry about hydrino theory and ostracize Mills without having read his enormous works. They don't look at the evidence. They don't examine the claims in detail. They have the strongest objections save those of the engineers who likewise accept the current scientific paradigm.

Now compare these folks against the chemists. Chemists don't care about the Bohr model. They don't care about QM. Chemists don't have a dog in that hunt. If the physics is wrong, they'd just shrug their shoulders and be happy to look at the new physics. Chemists review Mills' presentations each year and have for decades. They have no problem with this.

Why the difference? Well, because if Mills is right, years and years of what the physicists have learned, taught and believed will turn out to be wrong. They have a severe stake in the game. This is why they're so emotional about BLP.

And just saying, I have no opinion about Mills theory. I think it is likely wrong in places but I continue to maintain that we cannot know where it is wrong until the physicists decide to examine it carefully and for 25 years they have not. The outcome that we have, the situation that arrises from this issue, is precisely the same whether Mills is correct or not. He would have the very same reactions he has were he right or wrong. This is the subject of much of Kohn's book, that revolutions n scientific understanding are always accompanied by this emotional reaction, and he doesn't just make the claim, Tom. He documents it many dozens of time in the little book.

I'm not being anti-science or anti-scientist to note that we're all human, and that we do have this recurring evidence from history that the scientists are not less human than the rest.

On the other issues, let me just say that I did not invent the distinction between fact and truth. It is as old as theories of truth--they are a part of logic and date back at least to Aristotle and very likely to the presocratics. It is the failure to have this distinction in mind that leads to scientism--or the belief that the scientific method is universally applicable to all knowledge when this is plainly not the case. Science does not tell us that 1+1=2. Reason alone tells us that 1+1=2. This is not a matter of fact, but of truth. We can argue which theory of truth explains what truth is. I would argue for the same definition that I think you would argue for--correspondence theory. But even if we held different views how how truth works, we would still need to agree that truth and fact are two different things.

Which one of the Indiana Jones movies was it that begins with him noting that archaeology was the search for fact, and that if it's truth one is after, so and so's philosophy class down the hall is the place to be? This is entirely correct. Note though that in each of the Indie films, he ends up making a breakthrough concerning the truth--such as the power behind the Arc. This is typical Spielberg at its best.
Last edited by GIThruster on Wed Aug 29, 2012 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Betruger
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Re: Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a post-modern cult

Post by Betruger »

tomclarke wrote:[...]
It is rather like saying that because Nixon was a crook all politicians are corrupt. Except the incidence of corruptness in politicians is likely much higher than in scientists for obvious reasons.
And other very germane distinction: you can practice & progress science on your own (more or less) whereas politics in our time is necessarily social, collectivist, populist.

Whereas science is pragmatic in means and ends, politics are neck deep in nebulous realm of passion and biases and game theory, and arguably aims for crowd control solutions rather than illuminating truths.

[opinionated rant]
For my part GIT and Diogenes both fail the smell test right off the bat because in writing at least they do not show much/any passion for pleasurable life. Self-centered masochism all over the place. Very particular type of it that's typical of western middle age and older males.
Polar opposite being e.g. MSimon. No surprise GIT goes feral when MSimon gets on his case.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Torulf2 wrote:This is ridicules. In postmodern practise it means "everything is relative, then you are wrong". But the postmodernists is only one extreme point at the scale. Its same garbage as the other end, "facts is facts, then I'm right".

There are no reason for go to the extremes in this. Popper believed in an accumulated growth of knowledge in science but also that scientific theories are temporal. For this he is a hated relativist among those how believe in absolute knowledge as objectivists and Marxists. And a hated positivist for the postmodernists in the other side.
I agree he is not as extreme, or anti-science, as the others.

However the notion that "scientific theories are temporal" is a very pernicious one.

It is of course always in principle true that a new better theory may come along to displace an old one, better because it explains more stuff, or does so more accurately, or is simpler.

This has happened: Galileo -> Newton -> Einstein

But Popper denies the possibility that two such theories could be compared and one found objectively better than another, except in certain specific cases.

Yet that is what allows scientific knowledge to progress. And any scientist knows in their heart that it is true: we will never (likely) finish the process of finding better more complete scientific theories but each step along the way gives us better theories. the "goodness" of many modern theories in physics is quite exceptional.

It is not a good argument to identify two extremes and say - well the real case must lie somewhere inbetween unless you have clear evidence that this is the case.

As for "those who believe in absolute knowledge". My position would be that, in principle, and to a large extent in practice, scientific knowledge (theories) can be objectively rated to determine which is the best fit to available observations. Thus some theories will be clearly better than others, and always remain so.

In fact it is also in principle possible to have a theory so good that it can be proved a better will never be found for a given set of observations. That is a rather convoluted argument, but it is real and I will outline it if anyone wants.

None of that means science is ever absolutely correct: we can always make more observations and maybe discover something new. Nor does it mean that for existing observations we will know our current theory is the best. Normally there is room for a better theory to come along. Nor does it mean that this comparison of theories is practically easy. So in many cases where two theories are not obviously different in goodness the complexity of comparing them may defeat us. But we can be pretty sure that with additional observations in the end one or other (or maybe some new theory) will dominate.

Best wishes, Tom

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

Tom, in my experience, the trouble with those who don't accept Kuhn is not that Kuhn taught there is no progress toward objective facts, but that such progress is not steady. He did not argue that there are no absolutes to be found, but rather that science is not much involved in slow and steady evolution.

The standard model is certainly an exception to Kuhn's thesis, but in general it holds that scientific advancement occurs not in slow and steady evolution, but in revolutions in scientific paradigms. You're here posting that there was a steady progression from Newton to Einstein, whereas Kuhn would say that rather that Einstein's paradigm replaced the Newtonian in a revolution of scientific understanding. That was his point, and to characterize the nature of such paradigm shifts.
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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

GIThruster wrote:
GIT's most grievous fault was to state that scientists are essentially corrupt, will usually have abusive sexual relations with students, and motivated by angst at the possibility that theories held might change so that they resist such change. He has a very very low opinion on them - so low I find it quite insulting and certainly unlike those I know.

No, I didn't say anything like this. I used the illustration of our clay feet to point out that we're all human and you don't much seem to note this is so.
If you go back to the previous thread I have many times stated this. But the human frailties that sometimes emerge do not mean that collective endeavours fall to the lowest common denominator. You imply this of science, and talked of scientsists being frail in the context of it proving that science is likely incapable of change. You also did appear to imply that events like abusive relationships between teacher and pupil happened universally, whereas they are exceptional where I work.

If you are merely expressing a rather dismal reaction to glass half full we probably have no logical argument, though I would have a very different emphasis.
The original point was and is, that scientists suffer this normal reaction to being told their foundational beliefs are wrong. Kuhn documents this time and again in his little book on scientific revolutions.
People will have all possible reactions, and it is possible historically to find examples of all. Unwillingness to give up preconceived ideas is of course a possible reaction.

My point is that scientists, and science, by definition (I can give the institutional and individual reasons) will suffer this less than most. Further, there is no evidence that this inertia prevents science from moving towards better theories.
If you pretend that such things never occur, then we can't much have a discussion about them, Tom. History is replete with examples of how those responsible for a new scientific paradigm were persecuted, and we see the same thing from religious communities. The simple fact of the matter is that when people have their foundational beliefs challenged, they experience a strong emotional reaction.
Scientific freedoms in liberal democracies are not historical, so I don't deny scientists have been persecuted. I'm arguing your point that such persecution (as a general activity, rather than an exception) is a necessary part of the scientific process or institutions.

Your argument here is like saying that science is bust because scientsists tend to have heart attacks whenever they find anything new. Well no doubt this can happen, but it does not prevent all or even most discovery.

You need a much higher standard of proof than a few historical examples to make the case that science intrinsically persecutes scientists.

The next part of your argument is to say the same of theologians. I don't have an opinion there.

The final part of the argument is to say that because this same thing happens in these two different cases, it must have the same cause, and that cause must be foundational angst.

That is not logically necessary. Given the very different avowed attitudes of scientists and religious towards faith one might well argue that what is predominant in one case is not so in the other.
Lets take the issue of BlackLight Power as an example. If Hydrino theory is correct, the Bohr model of the atom is incorrect, as is much of modern quantum mechanics. The responses to this theory are telling. Physicists are generally angry about hydrino theory and ostracize Mills without having read his enormous works. They don't look at the evidence. They don't examine the claims in detail. They have the strongest objections save those of the engineers who likewise accept the current scientific paradigm.
Sorry. I have read the BLP claims in some detail and they are major rubbish - for lots of different reasons - as is the claimed evidence. There is an outside possibility that some weird nuclear reaction could be taking place at low temperatures: it requires a lot of implausible things all to come together, and I therefore suspect strongly such an effect does not exist. It would not be Hydrino theory. But it would be great if it did exist (there is my foundational angst for you). I look at the evidence around LENR avidly and so far find it always wanting. But I'll remain open to new evidence, and it would be so much fun if there were something new that I'm prepared to continue to look even though it is highly unlikely I'll find anything. The hydrino hypothesis has so many major internal inconsistencies it scores much much lower.
Now compare these folks against the chemists. Chemists don't care about the Bohr model. They don't care about QM. Chemists don't have a dog in that hunt. If the physics is wrong, they'd just shrug their shoulders and be happy to look at the new physics. Chemists review Mills' presentations each year and have for decades. They have no problem with this.

Why the difference? Well, because if Mills is right, years and years of what the physicists have learned, taught and believed will turn out to be wrong. They have a severe stake in the game. This is why they're so emotional about BLP.
Possibly the difference is that physicists can (objectively) evaluate the hydrino theory, note its implications, understand in detail the internal inconsistencies. Whereas chemists (and you) just accept it as something which is long, complex, and sounds rather intriguing.
And just saying, I have no opinion about Mills theory. I think it is likely wrong in places but I continue to maintain that we cannot know where it is wrong until the physicists decide to examine it carefully and for 25 years they have not.
That is untrue. Physicists have examined it, but it is so full of inconsistencies that you do not emerge from the examination with anything coherent to work with.
The outcome that we have, the situation that arrises from this issue, is precisely the same whether Mills is correct or not. He would have the very same reactions he has were he right or wrong.
You cannot know that. Were he right the theory would not have such obvious internal inconsistencies. OK, it might not be correct in all details, but it would have something substantial for exploratory types to play with. There are many such in physics you know.

You assume that his work is widely regarded as rubbish because scientists are unwilling to challenge foundational belief. But how do you know that? Perhaps (as any decent physicist would know) it is just internally inconsistent rubbish.
This is the subject of much of Kohn's book, that revolutions n scientific understanding are always accompanied by this emotional reaction, and he doesn't just make the claim, Tom. He documents it many dozens of time in the little book.
People are people. No doubt when things change there are emotions. Excitement, advocacy, anger, etc. of course. Major changes in theories are bound to have such effects, because there will be hot debate until one or other competing theory wins. That is a property of humans debating some topic.

Returning to your example we do not require all scientists to be receptive to a new theory. Just one (and then after a better write-up another one, and so on). Once a minority of scientists have found some merit in the material, if valid, it will snowball and all the "young guns" looking for nobel prizes and fast promotion will jump onto the new area.

While the area is being explored there will be arguments between old and new theories, as there should be. These will in the end get resolved by new better experimental data. Generally it is possible to devise experiments that falsify the "loser". Although I should point out that both LENR theories and BLP Hydrino theory, to my knowledge, are unfalsifiable.
I'm not being anti-science or anti-scientist to note that we're all human, and that we do have this recurring evidence from history that the scientists are not less human than the rest.
No, that is fair. But it is unfair to asume from that that specific human frailties will always dominate in a particular situation.
On the other issues, let me just say that I did not invent the distinction between fact and truth. It is as old as theories of truth--they are a part of logic and date back at least to Aristotle and very likely to the presocratics.
I understand that. Aristotelian philosophy is however not part of my foundational belief set.... Indeed i don't think any philosophy is, I take what serves the purpose of illuminating what seems true (in a non-technical sense).
It is the failure to have this distinction in mind that leads to scientism--or the belief that the scientific method is universally applicable to all knowledge when this is plainly not the case. Science does not tell us that 1+1=2. Reason alone tells us that 1+1=2. This is not a matter of fact, but of truth.
OK - if you make that distinction I am of course cognizant of the big distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning. However there is quite a strong sense in which Baysian probability theory is a generalisation of deductive logic, and if you combine this with objective Bayesian epistomology you get a world in which both deductive truth and inductive truth (which has an objective degree of belief based on the totality of real world evidence) coexist and both have a high standard of objectivity.

I was above objecting to the other uses of truth, as you know.

We can argue which theory of truth explains what truth is. I would argue for the same definition that I think you would argue for--correspondence theory. But even if we held different views how how truth works, we would still need to agree that truth and fact are two different things.
Well I'm not that concerned about the words, as long as all is consistent and we have clear definitions. For your final statement to be meaningful we must have definitions of truth and fact. If you identify these two things with "provable deductive propositions" (truth) and "inductive statements paired with objective levels of belief" (fact) certainly they are different things.
Which one of the Indiana Jones movies was it that begins with him noting that archaeology was the search for fact, and that if it's truth one is after, so and so's philosophy class down the hall is the place to be? This is entirely correct. Note though that in each of the Indie films, he ends up making a breakthrough concerning the truth--such as the power behind the Arc. This is typical Spielberg at its best.
OK - for that analogy to work I think you need to redefine truth to mean something other than deductive truth (which has no dependence on fact as defined above). I think perhaps you are reluctant to do that in the context of this debate?

Perhaps you want a definition:
fact: observations about the world
truth: inductive statements (about fact) coupled with level of belief in statement.

That would fit with the Ford analogy and of course what scientists also do. The Ford case is rough because the various supernatural phenomena so discovered are not fitted into any generally applicable theory, and therefore the individual inductive statements about such phenomena are too specific to be very strong. But if we accept the idea that there are a whole load of extra magical laws out there to discover through experiment on ancient artifacts and reading of ancient scrolls it is pefectly acceptable...



Best wishes, Tom

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

GIThruster wrote:Tom, in my experience, the trouble with those who don't accept Kuhn is not that Kuhn taught there is no progress toward objective facts, but that such progress is not steady. He did not argue that there are no absolutes to be found, but rather that science is not much involved in slow and steady evolution.

The standard model is certainly an exception to Kuhn's thesis, but in general it holds that scientific advancement occurs not in slow and steady evolution, but in revolutions in scientific paradigms. You're here posting that there was a steady progression from Newton to Einstein, whereas Kuhn would say that rather that Einstein's paradigm replaced the Newtonian in a revolution of scientific understanding. That was his point, and to characterize the nature of such paradigm shifts.
Well of course both phenomena occur. There are sudden changes, and gradual changes. large change can be from gradual change over a long time or sudden change.

If Kuhn was saying only that, I would have no quarrel with him. Somehow I suspect he is saying more. Specifically, that different paradigms are determined sociologically and there is no objective sense in which one paradigm can be determined as better than the other when such a shift occurs. I would as you realise object to that.

I would for example assert strongly that Einsten GR is better than Newtonian gravity - although for many calculations it is not needed and newtonian does fine. I would assert that the paradigm shift happenned when there was enough expoerimental evidence to show that objective betterness.

ScottL
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Post by ScottL »

Diogenes wrote:Not all of course, but there is a pretty strong vein of that sort of stuff amongst various Muslim groups around the world. You seem like you are not at all familiar with Muslim ideology and practices.


Seriously, this stuff is so prevalent in the Muslim community that I am surprised that you are even asking this question. For which accusation would you like to see evidence?
Since we're generalizing based on a small group vs the larger one, all Christians must be pedophiles or complacent in pedophilia due to the rather large scandal that rocked the institution of Christianity. I can provide ample evidence of this corrupt behavior, so...if you're a Christian you're a pedophile or ok with pedophilia, that is simply truth.


I actively work in software development where about 50% of my co-workers are muslim from about 700 in my department. I've been to their homes, met their families, observed their community and been invited into their live sin general, nothing of what you say has been true in my observation. I think you've confused Islamic extremism that thrives on dull witted individuals throughout the middle-east/central asia for Islam, which is a fairly peaceful religion. Extremism in any form, Islamic, Christian, Judaism, etc, is a bad thing.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

ScottL wrote:I think you've confused Islamic extremism that thrives on dull witted individuals throughout the middle-east/central asia for Islam, which is a fairly peaceful religion. Extremism in any form, Islamic, Christian, Judaism, etc, is a bad thing.
I agree with your post except to note that your friends who seem so normal, whom we might call "moderate Muslims" or some such, though they might be in the majority where you work, are not in the majority on the planet, and indeed; Islam does have built into it extreme violence and intolerance. All of the worst stuff in Islam comes straight out of their scripture. For instance, they are not permitted according to their scriptures, to have you as a friend, to have you in their homes or to share a meal with you. The Koran is nothing like any other religious text and there are reasons why it stands out as the most violent religion in history. It is continually characterized by such violence, misogyny, honor killings of one's own family, religious imperialism, and complete lack of tolerance of any sort toward any other belief systems. If your friends are good people, its only because they're not good Muslims.

If you don't believe this, pick up a Koran.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Torulf2
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Post by Torulf2 »

The Of course there are theories that objectively better fit existing observations that some other theories. But some time there may be two equal good or bad theories. If so its may be a sign of that there may be opportunity to make a better theory. In the case of "cold fusion", the main problem is what we think the existing observations is.

And there are also clear that the accumulation of knowledge is not linearly. There are "revolutions". But not in the original sense of Kuhn. There is not fair to equal the change from geocentric astronomy to heliocentric, with the change from classical physics to quantum physics. Its two different kind of revolutions.

The main flaw of Popper was not he was to relativistic or positivistic, it was he was to square empiricist. Controlled experiments is the most important part of the scientific process. Butt the early Popper exaggerate this to think that evolutionary biology and astronomy was not real science. He later changed his mind about this.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

tomclarke wrote: OK - if you make that distinction I am of course cognizant of the big distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning. . .
The distinction between fact and truth has nothing to do with inductive v deductive reasoning. Science requires reason and observation of the world around us. Facts are things about the world around us, so science is concerned with fact. However, we know both facts and truth. We know that 1+1=2, but this is required by reason alone. One doesn't need to have objects to examine to know this is true.

The scientistic fallacy occurs when someone assumes that science can get them any sort of knowledge, which is not true. Science only pertains to those things that can be physically observed.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

that scientists suffer this normal reaction to being told their foundational beliefs are wrong.
foundational beliefs are not part of science, they are part of religion and ideology.

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