Science...What Is It...Good For

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ckrucks
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Science...What Is It...Good For

Post by ckrucks »

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I have been following the recent raging debate in the theory forum and would love to read thoughts on:

How this community describes/explains "science"?

What are we doing when we do science?

What is good/bad science?

What is the differeance between science, religion and philosophy?

Why do many scientists tout their profession as this grand virtuous pursuit (much like religion) but individually turn out to be some of the most vicious, harping, back-stabbing , Machiavellian SOBs you will ever meet? Scratch that. Let's keep it from getting too dramitic.

For my part I am a BFR supporter and enthuisast but agree with Rick Nebel when in May he posted,
"There also seems to be some expectation that the results are going to come out either ?Woo-Hoo!? or ?This thing stinks?. It would surprise me if we get either of those answers. It will probably be more nuanced than that. Among other things, we are going to have time domain information. That wasn?t available on the WB-6. There will probably be some surprises in there. In plasma physics, theory very seldom predicts things accurately ahead of time. It?s usually an explanation that comes after an observation. Elms in tokamaks are an example of this. Right now we don?t know these answers (so please don?t read more into this statement than is here)."
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Last edited by ckrucks on Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

scareduck
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Re: Science...What Is It...Good For

Post by scareduck »

ckrucks wrote:Long time lurker, first time poster.

I have been following the recent raging debate in the theory forum and would love to read thoughts on:

How this community describes/explains "science"?

What are we doing when we do science?
Science attempts to explain the natural world by generating testable and falsifiable hypotheses. From Wikipedia's "scientific method" page:
1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.
2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.
3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?
4. Test : Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent.
What is good/bad science?
Good science stands up to scrutiny; bad science doesn't (which is why we have peer-reviewed journals). There are many different kinds of bad science, including misrepresentation, cherry-picking data, etc.
What is the differeance between science, religion and philosophy?
Science tries to seek verifiable truth in the natural world. Religion declares its first principles and attempts to shoehorn the natural world onto them (e.g., creationism/"intelligent design", the young earth, variable "c", etc.).

Helius
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Understanding the political dynamic.

Post by Helius »

Scareduck's point of testable hypothesis is spot on.

For the indepth view, the check out the pivotal 1962 essay by Thomas S. Kuhn " The structure of Scientific Revolutions"; It is the best description I've seen of science and all the dynamic that surrounds scientific theory and change. It's a great read. If you get one, get one with an index.

ckrucks
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Location: Minneapolis, MN

Post by ckrucks »

Thanks for the resource reference Helius! I think I found it on-line.

@scareduck Thinking on this post jarred some memories of philosophy course work I had way back when.

As I see it anything that engages and makes one think harder is a good thing...so thank you.

If the mission of science is to attempt to explain the natural world it seems to me there are significant examples where all science is able to do (or will ever be able to do) is describe.
e.g. the science of really small things.
In the odd quantum reality it is my understanding that it is difficult (if not impossible) to make predictions and the only useful avenue left is to describe environments and assign probabilities.

You could make the case that 'explanation vs. description' is just needless nit-picking. However I feel fleshing out that distinction is necessary when answering the question, "What is science?" Which is an important question.

I also recall one fun ol' argument that went basically like this.
Science is in the "truth finding racket.
Science often uses tools and makes measurements to find or reveal truth.
Science tells us if you measure something you change it.
So is science really finding the "T"ruth or just some reflection of it?
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Last edited by ckrucks on Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

David_Jay
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Post by David_Jay »

ckrucks:

Let me take a shot at the Science/Religion question.

Science has at it's root an assumption of naturalism. It's methodology is to explain everything by natural processes.

Science therefore rules itself out of an exploration of the supernatural a-priori. That is the realm of Religion. If there is a spiritual dimension, it will be found (and explored) outside of science.

I think Philosophy tries to encompass all of the above, although a naturalistic bias has significantly impacted the field since Hume.
not tall, not raving (yet...)

StevePoling
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Post by StevePoling »

David_Jay wrote:ckrucks:

Let me take a shot at the Science/Religion question.

Science has at it's root an assumption of naturalism. It's methodology is to explain everything by natural processes.

Science therefore rules itself out of an exploration of the supernatural a-priori. That is the realm of Religion. If there is a spiritual dimension, it will be found (and explored) outside of science.

I think Philosophy tries to encompass all of the above, although a naturalistic bias has significantly impacted the field since Hume.
Apologies for wandering OT. I minored in Physics AND Philosophy.

Religion generally talks about a deity (or deities). My working definition of religion is "what people do about deity." Conversely, science seeks falsifiable propositions about the rules governing observed phenomena. One looks at human responses, the other looks at nature.

The naturalistic assumption is not strictly necessary. I think we all agree that we cannot do science if deity is messing up our experiments while we're not looking. BUT if one's religion predicates a reasonable deity, such as the religion of Isaac Newton, et al. science is an inquiry into what was deity thinking when he set up this world. A reasonable deity won't toy with such experiments. I believe the religion of that generation of scientists regarded deity as a law-giver and sought to discover natural law through scientific inquiry.

Mike Holmes
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Post by Mike Holmes »

Very simply, to me, science explains how things work, through observation. Religion attempts to explain why they do, which simply cannot be observed. The nice part about this division is that religion and science cannot conflict, if you have this perspective.

The Catholic Church learned this lesson the hard way through such events as the "Gallileo Affair."

Mike

93143
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Post by 93143 »

Mike Holmes wrote:Very simply, to me, science explains how things work, through observation. Religion attempts to explain why they do, which simply cannot be observed. The nice part about this division is that religion and science cannot conflict, if you have this perspective.
Pretty much. However, some religions predict secondary effects which may (or may not) be observed, making them to some degree testable, though not always amenable to the scientific method...
The Catholic Church learned this lesson the hard way through such events as the "Gallileo Affair."
Now that was a mess. Galileo himself takes some of the blame for overstating his case and for not knowing when to shut up, as do the inquisitors who really should have known better (it's certain types of fundamentalist Protestants who have all the trouble with literal interpretations of Genesis and all that). The rest goes to the scholastic and scientific community of the day, without whose conspiracy the trial would likely never have happened. Yeah, it was a hard lesson. But it did apparently get learned the first time; I've never heard of any other such incident...

Regarding science, I consider it to be essentially observing/fiddling with nature to figure out how it works, or how it may have worked in the past. Bias in experiment or interpretation is obviously something to avoid if you're going to actually learn anything. Inadequate instrumentation on a Polywell is bias, because someone who wants it to work is going to interpret the results as favourably as possible.

Reproducible experiments are sometimes possible (quantum physics, astrodynamics if you consider telescopic observations experiments), sometimes not (evolutionary biology). Nevertheless, there has to be something concrete that can, in principle, be either reproduced or at least observed/verified by others in the field. Reproducible is best, and branches of science that can do this advance much faster than ones that can't.

scareduck
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Post by scareduck »

ckrucks wrote:In the odd quantum reality it is my understanding that it is difficult (if not impossible) to make predictions and the only useful avenue left is to describe environments and assign probabilities.
But that in itself is a prediction.

ckrucks
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Post by ckrucks »

Mike Holmes Posted: Very simply, to me, science explains how things work, through observation.
To me, I can only say, science works. We do what we are doing because of it.
93143 Posted: Regarding science, I consider it to be essentially observing/fiddling with nature to figure out how it works, or how it may have worked in the past. Bias in experiment or interpretation is obviously something to avoid if you're going to actually learn anything.
Yes! I'm right there with you.
But to what end, "figure out how it works..."? Is science...we just want to know? Or is it...we want to do something?
I figure a little of A a little of B.
scareduck Posted: Good science stands up to scrutiny; bad science doesn't (which is why we have peer-reviewed journals). There are many different kinds of bad science, including misrepresentation, cherry-picking data, etc.
Well sure. But what if your peers have no idea what you are talking about? Jury duty? Who decides if person A is a peer or not? What is the mechanism for (a) determining that no one else has a clue?and (b) this is how we are going to settle it (peer selection)? I think Dr. B was positioning for this argument. OTOH how does the system protect from peer stacking and bias?
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drmike
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Post by drmike »

I should be building hardware, but this is way too much fun. I see the connection between science and religion as the difference between living philosophy and dead philosophy. The former changes, the latter doesn't. Both come from spirituality - the asking of "why?"

Most religions turn into power hungry monsters. But some science institutions do the same thing, and it comes from human nature. But then one can get back to asking why that is, and you can get off and running again with either new religion, new science, or both.

At the practical level of survival, you can't spend all day asking why. And that is where institutions get their power - they create an easy way to survive so long as the practical people don't ask why any more. Religion and science are just different institutions, some change and some don't.

The ones that change allow "why" to be asked and tend to survive over the long run.
There's no right answer either, which makes it all the more interesting (for me anyway).

ckrucks
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Post by ckrucks »

scareduck Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:53 pm Post subject:

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

ckrucks wrote:
In the odd quantum reality it is my understanding that it is difficult (if not impossible) to make predictions and the only useful avenue left is to describe environments and assign probabilities.

But that in itself is a prediction.
Sure but tell that to the guy that bets on a 50/50 coin toss and looses 100 out of 110 (bad example). Yes it is a prediction. So science has predictions that will tell us an eclipse will happen 1000 years from now on a Tuesday at 11:03 and predictions that tell us there is a chance of rain tomorrow. So again the question is, ?What is science?? What kinds of predictions does it make?
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ckrucks
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Post by ckrucks »

Cripes!(I do live in Minnesota) My posts come off as really confrontational. I picture the voice of a whiney cousin reading what I wrote. Not my intent at all. These are just questions I like to ask. I am happy there is a group willing to think about them and reply.
Also I feel I need something to think about to kill time before peer review results come out. That and the science process discussion is already going on obliquely in the theory forum.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

What kinds of predictions does it make?
Lots of different kinds. Some definite. Some probabalistic.

Genetics is well known for making probabalistic predictions. That does not make it not science.

BTW on your coin toss example: science (math actually) would tell you that it might be worthwhile looking into a defect in the coin.

Not to mention transistors which are proabalistic devices. Yet the probabilities seem well enough defined that we can run our civilization on them.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

ckrucks
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Post by ckrucks »

MSimon Posted:
Not to mention transistors which are proabalistic devices. Yet the probabilities seem well enough defined that we can run our civilization on them.
MSimon that?s just it, science works. That?s what I love about it and life is better because of it. On the other hand, (using my best Homer Simpson voice)?ahhh science. Like alcohol it is the cause of?and solution to?all of our problems.
But is it a process? Is it a goal? Is it a set of rules? Is it a set of outcomes? Is it just a word we use to describe a process/goal/rule/outcome, like religion or philosophy? Both of which on the whole make life better (arguably).
Can one completely decouple science from its western history? Something like?Religion (and a gray area) Philosophy (and a gray area) Natural-Philosophy (and a gray area) and finally Science?of course with engineering mixed throughout.
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