What is Science?
What is science? I do not mean just the dictionary definition, though perhaps we need to start with something commonly accepted like that in order to understand more fully what science is.
(This came up in the discussion of "Ego Depletion." My comments here were too long and involved for that. So, I offer this as a new topic.)
A few years ago, before going under the knife at a university research and teaching hospital, I signed an agreement that I understood that medicine is an art, not a science, and that outcomes are not predictable. Maybe that is why the German word for medical doctor is "der Arzt." But medical practice certainly depends on science, does it not? And they do have medical research, which we hope is practiced as a science, rather than an art like ballet or ceramics.
(Granted that art has a lot of science in it: chemistry of pigments, physics of firing, anatomy, botany... it is all there if you care to know. Does "the science of painting" make sense?)
In this discussion, blarman, WilliamShipley, and lucky differentiated engineering from science. We commonly accept the generalization that scientists discover basic laws; and engineers apply those to the creation of new products; and technicians maintain those creations. That is how things are today. History provides a different model.
The steam engine came before thermodynamics. The telegraph and telephone antedated Maxwell's Equations. Luther Burbank died 20 years before DNA was announced. Similarly, William Smith, who predicted and found the presence of coal by the fossil record of England, died 20 years before The Origin of Species (-- http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20....
Inventions are largely the improvements of technicians, not the direct applications of theories to new practices.
Computer science may not yet be a science, but the summary work we are doing now will be generalized into new theoretical models.
In William Gibson's "Bridge Trilogy" set in the immediate future, some of the viewpoint characters are artists in a beach house, majoring in Media Science at UC Berkeley. It is not a science yet...
But, what, then is a science?
I look at the practice. If a pursuit consciously chooses the scientific method, then it is a science.
We all know the basic Scientific Method:
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics...
Norman Edmund (1916-2012), founder of Edmund Scientific - and who has not been a customer? - taught a 14-step process.
http://www.scientificmethod.com/index...
Steps or Stages of the Scientific Method
1. Curious Observation
2. Is There a Problem?
3. Goals & Planning
4. Search, Explore, & Gather the Evidence
5. Generate Creative & Logical Alternative Solutions
6. Evaluate the Evidence
7. Make the Educated Guess (Hypothesis)
8. Challenge the Hypothesis
9. Reach a Conclusion
10. Suspend Judgment
11.Take Action
Supporting Ingredients
12. Creative, Non-Logical, Logical & Technical Methods
13. Procedural Principals & Theories
14. Attributes & Thinking Skills
http://www.scientificmethod.com/index...
The way I learned it - five steps, seven, or more - publishing your findings is always the last step. That can mean just recording this in your notebook, if the results are intermediary. But in any case, you must finalize the process by making it possible for others to replicate the work.
That was perhaps the essential truth that separated chemistry from alchemy in Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661). Boyle argued for open disclosure of means and methods. That openness - your own open mind open to the minds of others - may be the sine qua non of science. It also speaks to the tension of science in the context of national security. That is nothing new. Projective geometry was held as a French military secret. Can anything secret be a science?
(This came up in the discussion of "Ego Depletion." My comments here were too long and involved for that. So, I offer this as a new topic.)
A few years ago, before going under the knife at a university research and teaching hospital, I signed an agreement that I understood that medicine is an art, not a science, and that outcomes are not predictable. Maybe that is why the German word for medical doctor is "der Arzt." But medical practice certainly depends on science, does it not? And they do have medical research, which we hope is practiced as a science, rather than an art like ballet or ceramics.
(Granted that art has a lot of science in it: chemistry of pigments, physics of firing, anatomy, botany... it is all there if you care to know. Does "the science of painting" make sense?)
In this discussion, blarman, WilliamShipley, and lucky differentiated engineering from science. We commonly accept the generalization that scientists discover basic laws; and engineers apply those to the creation of new products; and technicians maintain those creations. That is how things are today. History provides a different model.
The steam engine came before thermodynamics. The telegraph and telephone antedated Maxwell's Equations. Luther Burbank died 20 years before DNA was announced. Similarly, William Smith, who predicted and found the presence of coal by the fossil record of England, died 20 years before The Origin of Species (-- http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20....
Inventions are largely the improvements of technicians, not the direct applications of theories to new practices.
Computer science may not yet be a science, but the summary work we are doing now will be generalized into new theoretical models.
In William Gibson's "Bridge Trilogy" set in the immediate future, some of the viewpoint characters are artists in a beach house, majoring in Media Science at UC Berkeley. It is not a science yet...
But, what, then is a science?
I look at the practice. If a pursuit consciously chooses the scientific method, then it is a science.
We all know the basic Scientific Method:
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics...
Norman Edmund (1916-2012), founder of Edmund Scientific - and who has not been a customer? - taught a 14-step process.
http://www.scientificmethod.com/index...
Steps or Stages of the Scientific Method
1. Curious Observation
2. Is There a Problem?
3. Goals & Planning
4. Search, Explore, & Gather the Evidence
5. Generate Creative & Logical Alternative Solutions
6. Evaluate the Evidence
7. Make the Educated Guess (Hypothesis)
8. Challenge the Hypothesis
9. Reach a Conclusion
10. Suspend Judgment
11.Take Action
Supporting Ingredients
12. Creative, Non-Logical, Logical & Technical Methods
13. Procedural Principals & Theories
14. Attributes & Thinking Skills
http://www.scientificmethod.com/index...
The way I learned it - five steps, seven, or more - publishing your findings is always the last step. That can mean just recording this in your notebook, if the results are intermediary. But in any case, you must finalize the process by making it possible for others to replicate the work.
That was perhaps the essential truth that separated chemistry from alchemy in Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661). Boyle argued for open disclosure of means and methods. That openness - your own open mind open to the minds of others - may be the sine qua non of science. It also speaks to the tension of science in the context of national security. That is nothing new. Projective geometry was held as a French military secret. Can anything secret be a science?
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To the Editor:
In “Research Scrutiny” (The Chronicle Trends Report, February 29), you present a dangerously misleading characterization of industry-sponsored research and zero evidence industry funding is more likely to increase research misconduct.
[…]
More importantly, you ignore an obvious truth: Nobody gains more from accurate, verifiable science than industry. The market is an unforgiving arbiter of both performance and value and companies will derive no benefit by fudging research in order to produce defective products for customers to purchase. Instead, you exploit America’s most popular binge: company bashing.
(Full letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education here: http://chronicle.com/blogs/letters/no...
Uncomfortable Science and the Embargoed WADA Doping Study
Back in 2011 WADA - the World Anti-Doping Agency - provided research funding to a group of researchers to conduct a study on the prevalence of doping in elite track and field. The researchers conducted their research and then prepared a paper for publication.
[…]
. . . more than one year after completion of the study, did it become clear to the authors that WADA could not act independently from IAAF [International Association of Athletic Federations -MM], because WADA had made an agreement with IAAF which was not disclosed to the research group. According to this agreement, WADA would need permission from IAAF in order for us to submit the paper . . .
Full article on Roger Pielke's blog here: http://leastthing.blogspot.com/2016/0...
Myself, I differentiate ethics from morality. (Having gone around on that with my Objectivist comrades has been fruitless.) Morality is for the individual. On his island, Robinson Crusoe needed morality the same as he needed language: for his survival. Ethics are social. On a crowded city bus, should you give your seat to a pregnant woman? Morality exists like the laws of chemistry. Ethics depend on the specific, contextual nature of the beings and the natures of their societies. However, ethics cannot contradict morality because morality is (however you want to think of it) "higher" or "more basic." Morality is the foundation for ethics. Morality supersedes ethics.
By "morality of volition" I mean the fact that the presence of volition necessitates morality.
I assume that you at least saw the movie version of Atlas Shrugged. Have you read the book?
Because your statement above was open and honest, I will not give it a Thumbs Down. It at least engenders discussion.
Does this mean that black holes were predicted by Newton? Probably not but his theory does allow for them.
And yet…
"If gravity be an inherent quality, pent up and quiet in matter, how can it produce action at a distance? If it be an incessant emanation from matter in all directions, why does not matter become exhausted of it? If it emanates only towards attracting bodies, how can it know in what direction to travel? Thus it may be seen that the admission of attraction as an inherent quality precludes all rational inquiry. Yet so far as man has studied and comprehended nature, her ways are in accordance with reason and with the equivalent relation of cause and effect." — Memoir on the Constitution of Matter and Laws of Motion, by J. L. Riddell, New Orleans Medical Journal, March, 1846, volume II, page 602.
So, Einstein said that matter warps the space-time continuum. But you deny that space-time is curved. Do you have a better explanation?
Popper regarded astrology and Freudian psychology as pseudo-sciences because no test could disprove them.
That is where your claim fails, that "Science is ever expanding knowledge … Science advances when more scope and precision become possible, adding to our knowledge through contextual principles." I assure you, having socialized with them on several occasions that modern astrologers consider themselves far advanced over the star-readers of old, and, of course, distance themselves from the daily horoscope. Conspiracy theorists from the mundane to the extra-terrestrial always find new and better evidence to expand their understanding. Just consider the Millennarians within the political right, including many self-identified "Objectivists" who insist that the end of the world is at hand. Every day's news brings ever more evidence of what they expect to believe, always expanding their knowledge, and widening their scope.
What they all lack is admissions of the existence of facts that could disprove their theories.
On the other hand, Newton's Laws of Motion are testable. Within whatever convenient range of measurement, if force were not equal to the product of mass and acceleration, we would find that out. That is what an experiment is: a test of falsifiability. In that, you are right, when you noted that Newton's mechanics was not "falsified". Not only does it provide a consistent explanation, tests to disprove it have failed. Freudian psychology and astrology have been falsified.
That attitude was a change, a cultural shift, attributable to the Greeks of archaic times transitioning into the Classical age. They no longer feared the gods.
I agree with you that in what is intended as a formal discussion here, personifying the universe as an entity that "plays fair" is a nice artistic device, but does not make a clear statement connecting metaphysics and epistemology
"Publication" can be limited to your own notebook. If you do not keep one, you are not doing science. You are just living a rational life of interested curiosity about the world.
The informal life of interested curiosity also does not require any kind of an experiment. You could just look around you and ask questions and seek consistent answers without ever testing one, not even with an independent observation. In Anthem Equality 7-2521 could recreate the electrical lightbulb from the existing materials, but he says at the end that he does not know what the stars are. He may never know. He still led a life of rational-empirical (objective) enquiry, even though no science of astronomy existed at that moment.
Those who deny or seek to find away around that one Keynesian truth are not Keynesian.
Just as those who take an oath to the Constitution and immediately ask "Find me away around the Constitution" or 'the supreme court hasn't visited that particular portion yet.' are not Constitutional and their oath is a lie.
While we strive to recognize our ability and turn the thinking switch to the on position their goal is to padlock it shut with a welded key slot.
Over or under simplification and your mentioning the non-aggression principle which is another way of saying Give Peace A Chance I'm finding have one common false premise. They fail to take into account some important feature of human nature.
One can wish for 'peace' but then one can also wish for 'conflict' without the effort of stating how the balance is to be arrived at and maintained. Thus the delusion of inflation fails to recognize TANSTAAFL and turns a blind eye to those who must pay the bill.
A leftist will just accept the party mantra. An Islamic would say It's God's Will. No problem with the pesky need for explanation..no need for thinking.
And some will say I have to vote for evil ...I have not choice.
They are correct. They choose to have no choice.
than just a few words from you. . after reading lots of
word-products from you, I have an idea about how to
understand what you mean. . words are not math,
and it takes a whole bunch to allow what I called
"triangulation" to get the real meaning. . stress
analysis can involve bending, shear, tension, compression
and many combinations of those. . by using more
than just one formula, the engineer can home in on the
very most likely failure zone, depending on the loads
impressed on a material, a structure. . a good example
is notch sensitivity. . the exact shape of a feature
shaped like a notch, or dimple, or scratch, or impressed
feature like a stamped ID number on a ford driveshaft,
can raise stresses in extreme ways. . it's empirical
knowledge which allows accuracy, and that requires
testing to failure. . most engineers cannot afford that,
so comparison of calculated results is required. . just like
I compare your current words with those which I have
seen in the past, to arrive at my best estimate of
your current meaning. -- j
.
What do you mean by "triangulating" stress analysis calculations? You always have to identify and use essential features, determine sensitivity to relevant factors, and assess the accuracy of the results.
That Newton's law of gravitation could not account for 43 seconds of arc per century in the precession of the perihelion of the orbit of Mercury, after all the other perturbations were accounted for, does not mean that it is false. There is no such thing as infinite precision. Newton's principles of gravitation remain true and as accurate as they have always been, and is still used daily in science and engineering. Without them, Einstein's discovery of a more complex formulation accounting for more detail could not have been done.
Any conceptual, meaningful quantitative principle can in principle be measured and will or will not hold within some context of precision. Popper adds nothing to that. His philosophy offers no theory of the conceptual nature of science, replacing it as a-conceptual statements of "predictions" of measurements subject to an impossible standard of precision and omniscience in the name of "falsifiability". No wonder people who follow this anti-conceptual standard wind up as skeptics claiming that every theory is a disconnected falsehood waiting to be contradicted and replaced.
Meanwhile, Einstein's theory has had spectacular success -- to another finite degree of precision -- on a very limited number of cases, with little in the way of conceptual understanding or reason to distinguish it from competing theories. This lack of conceptual distinction is reason to regard it as tentative.
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