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Sunday, January 29, 2017

Philosophy Still Owns Science.

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KARL POPPER

     

Lawrence M. Krauss, atheist and physicist, says:
Philosophy used to be a field that had content, but then "natural philosophy" became physics, and physics has only continued to make inroads. Every time there's a leap in physics, it encroaches on these areas that philosophers have carefully sequestered away to themselves, and so then you have this natural resentment on the part of philosophers. This sense that somehow physicists, because they can't spell the word "philosophy," aren't justified in talking about these things, or haven't thought deeply about them---
(Ross Andersen, “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?” The Atlantic (April 23, 2012). Pm et 396. Online URL:http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...solete/256203/visited 7/2/12.)

problem is philosophy is still very important to scinece, and in fact any time a scientist pretends to be using scinece to examine something beyond the domain of scinece he is using philosophy More over philosophy directly informs and shapes and guides science in its understanding.

Exhibit A: Popper's Verisimilitude

Karl Popper is almost universally admired by scientists. He's the only philosopher of science who is so admired among scientist that he's almost thought of as one. Popper used philosophy to show that science doesn't' prove things. He did not use science to talk about scinece he used philosophy. His argument about verisimilitude come right out of philosophy.

He argues that one cannot confirm an abstract ideal through empirical observation. This is strictly a matter of philosophy. That forms the basis for his notions on verisimilitude.

Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, New York:Routledge Classics, original English publication 1959 by Hutchison and co. by Routldege 1992. On line copy URL: http://www.cosmopolitanuniversity.ac...Popper1959.pdf digital copy by Cosmo oedu visited 2/6/2012, p4


Karl Popper (1902-1994) is one of the most renewed and highly respected figures in the philosophy of science. Popper was from Vienna, of Jewish origin, maintained a youthful flirtation with Marxism, and left his native land due to the rise of Nazism in the late thirties. He is considered to be among the ranks of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Popper is highly respected by scientists in a way that most philosophers of science are not.[1]

He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a self-professed ‘critical-rationalist’, a dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally, a committed advocate and staunch defender of the ‘Open Society’, and an implacable critic of totalitarianism in all of its forms. One of the many remarkable features of Popper's thought is the scope of his intellectual influence. In the modern technological and highly-specialised world scientists are rarely aware of the work of philosophers; it is virtually unprecedented to find them queuing up, as they have done in Popper's case, to testify to the enormously practical beneficial impact which that philosophical work has had upon their own. But notwithstanding the fact that he wrote on even the most technical matters with consummate clarity, the scope of Popper's work is such that it is commonplace by now to find that commentators tend to deal with the epistemological, scientific and social elements of his thought as if they were quite disparate and unconnected, and thus the fundamental unity of his philosophical vision and method has to a large degree been dissipated.[2]

Unfortunately for our purposes we will only be able to skim the surface of Popper’s thoughts on the most crucial aspect of this theory of science, that science is not about proving things but about falsifying them.

Above we see [from larger article] that Dawkins, Stenger and company place their faith in the probability engineered by scientific facts. The problem is probability is not the basis upon which one chooses one theory over another, at least according to Popper. This insight forms the basis of this notion that science can give us verisimilitude not “facts.” Popper never uses the phrase “fortress of facts,” we could add that, science is not a fortress of facts. Science is not giving us “truth,” its’ giving something in place of truth, “verisimilitude.” The term verisimilar means “having the appearance of truth, or probable.” Or it can also mean “depicting realism” as in art or literature.”[3] According to Popper in choosing between two theories one more probable than the other, if one is interested I the informative content of the theory, one should choose the less probable. This is paradoxical but the reason is that probability and informative content very inversely. The higher informative content of a theory is more predictive since the more information contained in a statement the greater the number of ways the statement will turn out to fail or be proved wrong. At that rate mystical experience should be the most scientific view point. If this dictum were applied to a choice between Stenger’s atheism and belief in God mystical God belief would be more predictive and have less likelihood of being wrong because it’s based upon not speaking much about what one experiences as truth. We will see latter that this is actually the case in terms of certain kinds of religious experiences. I am not really suggesting that the two can be compared. They are two different kinds of knowledge. Even though mystical experience per se can be falsified (which will be seen in subsequent chapters) belief in God over all can’t be. The real point is that arguing that God is less probable is not a scientifically valid approach.


Thus the statements which are of special interest to the scientist are those with a high informative content and (consequentially) a low probability, which nevertheless come close to the truth. Informative content, which is in inverse proportion to probability, is in direct proportion to testability. Consequently the severity of the test to which a theory can be subjected, and by means of which it is falsified or corroborated, is all-important.[4]


Scientific criticism of theories must be piecemeal. We can’t question every aspect of a theory at once. For this reason one must accept a certain amount of background knowledge. We can’t have absolute certainty. Science is not about absolute certainty, thus rather than speak of “truth” we speak of “verisimilitude.” No single observation can be taken to falsify a theory. There is always the possibility that the observation is mistaken, or that the assumed background knowledge is faulty.[5] Uneasy with speaking of “true” theories or ideas, or that a corroborated theory is “true,” Popper asserted that a falsified theory is known to be false. He was impressed by Tarski’s 1963 reformulation of the corresponded theory of truth. That is when Popper reformulated his way of speaking to frame the concept of “truth-likeness” or “verisimilitude,” according to Thronton.[6] I wont go into all the ramifications of verisimilitude, but Popper has an extensive theory to cover the notion. Popper’s notions of verisimilitude were critixized by thinkers in the 70’s such as Miller, Tichy’(grave over the y) and Grunbaum (umlaut over the first u) brought out problems with the concept. In an attempt to repair the theory Popper backed off claims to being able to access the numerical levels of verisimilitude between two theories.[7] The resolution of this problem has not diminished the admiration for Popper or his acceptance in the world of philosophy of science. Nor is the solution settled in the direction of acceptance for the fortress of facts. Science is not closer to the fact making business just because there are problems with verisimilitude.

Exhibit B:



Philosophical roots of reductionism


Reductionism is both a philosophy and a tool in science. “Methodological reductionism” is the process of reducing phenomena to its smallest constituent parts to understand what makes it function is a method for dealing with complexities that need to broken down.(8) Then there is “philosophical reductionism” which maintains as it’s goal a philosophical and/or ideological tenet that science can explain everything:

"One form of scientific reductionism follows the belief that every single process in nature can be broken down into its constituent parts and can be described scientifically. The broadest sense of the term upholds the idea that science can be used to explain everything, and that nothing is unknowable. By looking at the individual constituent processes, scientists can gain an understanding of the whole process. For example, a reductionist believes that the complexity of the human brain is a result of complex and interacting physical processes. If scientists research and understand these underlying chemical reactions, then they can explain intelligence, emotion and all of the other human conditions. The only way to comprehend fully the sheer complexity of the human brain is to look at the individual pieces." (9)

Here we can definitely see the ideological aspects of science at work. These advocates of this certain type of reductionism believe that “everything can be explained through science.” Obviously for this to be true science has to be the most valid from of knowledge if not the only form of knowledge. Materialists, who tend to philosophical reductionists, and this includes phyisicalists, go step further and just refuse to accept as knowledge anything that can’t be quantified and pinned down by their methods. God can’t be apprehended by their methods so there must not be a God. This notion of science as the most or only valid form of knowledge is clearly ideological and stems form philosophical concerns. In the issue of reductionism we can see one of the most obvious junctures at which philosophy has clung to scientific development and is still being infused with science. Reductionism is inherently infused with philosophy.

"Reductionism encompasses a set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological claims about the relation of different scientific domains. The basic question of reduction is whether the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from one scientific domain (typically at higher levels of organization) can be deduced from or explained by the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from another domain of science (typically one about lower levels of organization). Reduction is germane to a variety of issues in philosophy of science, including the structure of scientific theories, the relations between different scientific disciplines, the nature of explanation, the diversity of methodology, and the very idea of theoretical progress, as well as to numerous topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, such as emergence, mereology, and supervenience." (19)


Reductionism goes back to the Greeks and tied to philosophy up to the development of early modern science and beyond. The Greek atomists were reductionists. They wanted to cut up reality in order to get at the basic elements. The idea of positing basic building blocks doesn’t require that one abolish other aspects of reality. Yet certain of the pre-Socratics, such as Leucpp and Democritus, began doing this.(11) The term “reductiosm” is not very old. The modern issues enter science from philosophy. Ontological reductionism was part of the dispute between nominalists and realists in the middles.(12) The major alternative to reductionism is holism. Holism also goes back to the Greeks with Aristotle. The Atomists had atoms in the void as the final explanation and Aristotle had final cause of an unmoved mover as the final cause and explanation of all harmony and unity in the world.(13) Modern science abhors teleology, the idea that everything is directed toward a goal or an end point. The teleological is the hall mark of Aristotle’s’ unmoved mover. Atoms in the void don’t require a goal; they are the end of the process. Thus science has had this atheistic bias literally since the Greeks. Likewise, theistic thinking takes on a holistic bias form the Greeks as well. Science was slow to completely turn over to the atomists and did so in stages. The bias against teleology was not adopted into biology until the middle of the nineteenth century (with Darwin and Wallace). Natural mutation and random selection have come to dominate in biology and replace any idea of purposefulness.(14) The distinction between appearance and reality is a carry over from Democritus’ claim that binary oppositions in experience, such cold and hot, sweet and sour, are really just atoms moving in void. We take this as empirically proved because we dismiss experience as subjective and go with the ‘objective measurement,’ never really considering how we are conditioned by philosophical hold over to think this way.


In both B and C we see philosophy providing the basis for science, not just a way that was useful in the days of the Greeks and is no longer but in the modern world it offers guides and the basis of methodological discussion.

Science is method. It not facts it's not lists of "proven things" it's methodology. no methodology, no scinece.

the minions of this nonsense always get themselves in trouble. look at Exhibit D where Krauss makes a fool of himself trying to take down philosophy.

Exhibit C:hilarious exchange between Krauss and Andersen (interviewer for the Atlantic)(plum my commentary).

A humorous exchange occurs when Andersen points out that philosophy offers a basis for computer science. Krauss says: “Well, you name me the philosophers that did key work for computer science; I think of John Von Neumann and other mathematicians, and---.” Andersen says: “But Bertrand Russell paved the way for Von Neumann..”

Karauss says: “But Bertrand Russell was a mathematician. I mean, he was a philosopher too and he was interested in the philosophical foundations of mathematics, but by the way, when he wrote about the philosophical foundations of mathematics, what did he do? He got it wrong.” So not only can we take him over as one of the science boys since he did math but (which would just as easily mean math is part of philosophy again) but he also got it wrong about math (yet that reflects on his philosophical side not on his math side, not real sure how that works since it would be the math side that got it wrong). Andersen remarks “Einstein got it wrong.” To which Krauss replies:

"Krauss: Sure, but the difference is that scientists are really happy when they get it wrong, because it means that there's more to learn. And look, one can play semantic games, but I think that if you look at the people whose work really pushed the computer revolution from Turing to Von Neumann and, you're right, Bertrand Russell in some general way, I think you'll find it's the mathematicians who had the big impact. And logic can certainly be claimed to be a part of philosophy, but to me the content of logic is mathematical."

Science guys are happy when they are proved wrong? I guess he must be ecstatic since Albert’s article? We’ll have to ask him how happy he’s been since his book was panned. It means there’s more to learn, such as the meaning of life and the value of philosophy. He admits logic is part of philosophy and Russell was into both it just eludes him that this also means philosophy is the foundation of computer science and math together that makes it the foundation of physics. Now that’s the “unthinkable” we should be taught to think. Maybe the fortress of facts is a house of cards and maybe there’s more than one form of knowledge in the universe? Scientists being happen when they get it wrong doesn’t change the original fact being made that there are other views than that one.
(ibid: see above the Andersen interview)

In each case we see that philosophical thinking is still making vital contributions and is both guiding scinece and correcting it.
[1] Steven Thornton, “Karl Popper,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2011 edition Edward N. Zalta Editor, URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/popper/ vested 2/6/2012
[2] ibid
[3] Miriam-Webster. M-W.com On line version of Webster’s dictionary. URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verisimilar?show=0&t=1328626983 visited 2/7/2012
[4] Thornton, ibid.
[5] ibid
[6] ibid
[7] ibid
(8)“Scientific Recutionsm,” website: Experiment-Resources.com. URL: http://www.experiment-resources.com/...uctionism.htmlvisited 3/13/2012
Experiemnt-reserouces.com is a site ran for educational purposes by a psychologist and other unnamed authors who work in the seicnes.
(9) Ibid.
(10)Brigandt, Ingo and Love, Alan, "Reductionism in Biology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .
(11)Richard H. Jones, Reductionism: Analysis and the Fullness of Reality. Danvers, Massachusetts: Associated University Press.2000, 37.online copy, Google books, URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=sUg...epage&q&f=true visited 3/13/2012
(12) ibid.
(13) ibid.



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16 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:24 AM

    "problem is philosophy is still very important to scinece, and in fact any time a scientist pretends to be using scinece to examine something beyond the domain of scinece he is using philosophy More over philosophy directly informs and shapes and guides science in its understanding."

    Very true. Claims made by scientists that are supported by evidence are science. Claims not supported by evidence are philosophy.

    So philosophy is clearly superior as it is not supported by evidence...

    Pix

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:27 AM

    With regards to reductionism, it certainly is a useful tool. Whether any scientist still holds it as a philosophy is unlikely, as pretty much everyone nowadays accepts that emergence is real.

    Pix

    ReplyDelete
  3. im-skeptical4:43 PM

    The Science-Philosophy Schism

    ReplyDelete
  4. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)9:21 PM

    Anonymous said...
    "problem is philosophy is still very important to scinece, and in fact any time a scientist pretends to be using scinece to examine something beyond the domain of scinece he is using philosophy More over philosophy directly informs and shapes and guides science in its understanding."

    Very true. Claims made by scientists that are supported by evidence are science. Claims not supported by evidence are philosophy.

    or ideology or bigotry

    So philosophy is clearly superior as it is not supported by evidence...

    supported by different kind of evidence, deductive e reasoning ss more certain than inductive.

    Pix
    7:24 AM
    Anonymous said...
    With regards to reductionism, it certainly is a useful tool. Whether any scientist still holds it as a philosophy is unlikely, as pretty much everyone nowadays accepts that emergence is real.

    I distinguish between methodologiocal aqnd philosophical. I still prefer wholism

    ReplyDelete
  5. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)9:26 PM

    Skepie links to more of his ignorant twaddle.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous4:27 AM

    Pix: Very true. Claims made by scientists that are supported by evidence are science. Claims not supported by evidence are philosophy.

    JH: or ideology or bigotry

    True. Wait, I thought you were arguing FOR philosophy? I put my trust in the claims of science because they are supported by science. I will not put my trust in philosophy, ideology or bigotry because they are not, and because I am doubtful of our ability to distinguish between the three.

    JH: supported by different kind of evidence, deductive e reasoning ss more certain than inductive.

    Deductive reasoning from a premise based on opinion is far less certain that inductive reasoning based on observations. At the end of the day, philosophy is not based on observations (if it was, it would be science). This means that any resemblence between philosophical claims and reality is merely coincidence.

    Pix

    ReplyDelete
  7. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)9:23 AM

    True. Wait, I thought you were arguing FOR philosophy? I put my trust in the claims of science because they are supported by science. I will not put my trust in philosophy, ideology or bigotry because they are not, and because I am doubtful of our ability to distinguish between the three.


    It's really shocking and ridiculous that you put Philosophy in the same pigeon hole as ideology and bigotry,I wonder if you have ever read any philosophy?>

    JH: supported by different kind of evidence, deductive e reasoning ss more certain than inductive.

    Deductive reasoning from a premise based on opinion is far less certain that inductive reasoning based on observations. At the end of the day, philosophy is not based on observations (if it was, it would be science).

    who says it;s based upon opinion,science based upon pinon, you cant even start the process of logical deduction. Science always comes down to interpreting data., That medans using logic and making opinion.

    Philosophy is not programmatic as science is. It's not a matter of going through some set of issues and making discoverers about how they work,it's more methodical. Science uses th same medthod then prtends it doesnt.


    This means that any resemblence between philosophical claims and reality is merely coincidence.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous2:31 AM

    JH: It's really shocking and ridiculous that you put Philosophy in the same pigeon hole as ideology and bigotry,I wonder if you have ever read any philosophy?>

    Odd, I was wondering if you have read any science.

    JH: who says it;s based upon opinion,science based upon pinon, you cant even start the process of logical deduction. Science always comes down to interpreting data., That medans using logic and making opinion.

    Science is based on observation. It is not entirely opinion free, but is probably the nearest we get to that. Certainly it uses logic, but how you think opinion is involved in "interpreting data". Again, I have to wonder if you have read any science.

    JH: Philosophy is not programmatic as science is. It's not a matter of going through some set of issues and making discoverers about how they work,it's more methodical. Science uses th same medthod then prtends it doesnt.

    You appear to be saying that philosophy is more methodical than science, and also that it is less methodical than science.

    Pix

    ReplyDelete
  9. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)8:55 AM

    Hey Pix

    Anonymous said...
    JH: It's really shocking and ridiculous that you put Philosophy in the same pigeon hole as ideology and bigotry,I wonder if you have ever read any philosophy?>

    Odd, I was wondering if you have read any science.

    I tried to read newton's optics. It was pretty tough. I've read a great deal of social sciences. It's a pity you don't understand that your prejudice against social science is still prejudice and is ideological.

    JH: who says it;s based upon opinion,science based upon pinon, you cant even start the process of logical deduction. Science always comes down to interpreting data., That medans using logic and making opinion.

    Science is based on observation. It is not entirely opinion free, but is probably the nearest we get to that. Certainly it uses logic, but how you think opinion is involved in "interpreting data". Again, I have to wonder if you have read any science.

    It's certainly not opinion free at all in terms of people who do science.Boyle imposed a phony standard of objectivity upon experimental protocols so that it would give the appearance of being opinion free, But it;s just that opinions are expressed in different ways. it gives lip service to objectivity but uses objectivity to hide behind.

    JH: Philosophy is not programmatic as science is. It's not a matter of going through some set of issues and making discoverers about how they work,it's more methodical. Science uses th same medthod then prtends it doesnt.

    You appear to be saying that philosophy is more methodical than science, and also that it is less methodical than science.

    No I, not saying that but there is a clearer standard of methodology in science and more diversity of method in philosophy,although there is no actual"scientific method," so there is some diversity there too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)9:07 AM

    In under graduate school I studied astronomy four classes, I read the material. I had a class on geo-morphology which I liked a lot. I read the material there and used to talk to the prof every day before class, That class convinced me not to be a creationist. After that I took a class taught by the kind of guy I'm at war with, a bloody minded anti-religious assshole who was the epitome of what i call "scientisism."

    The scuttlebutt about that guy was that he had lived with a chimp as part of his research.His wife got fed up and gave him an ultimatum,me or the chimp. he chose the chimp.

    He had a trick he was always making literalistic statements about the statements religious people made. "How Jesus be in your heart?Is he pumping blood? I laid a little trap for him,One day, overcast, I said "Dr._____" do you think the sun will come out today?" He says "I expect it might" I said"where is is it coming out from?" He was so pissed!

    He also mocked and ridiculed Aquinas for not knowing about evolution I told him Aquinas had a theory of evolution. He was totally incredulous I brought in a book by Peter Singer (an atheist) to prove it he was mad as hell.



    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous12:40 AM

    JH: I tried to read newton's optics. It was pretty tough. I've read a great deal of social sciences. It's a pity you don't understand that your prejudice against social science is still prejudice and is ideological.

    When have we ever even discussed social science?

    JH: It's certainly not opinion free at all in terms of people who do science.Boyle imposed a phony standard of objectivity upon experimental protocols so that it would give the appearance of being opinion free, But it;s just that opinions are expressed in different ways. it gives lip service to objectivity but uses objectivity to hide behind.

    Boyle was a devote Christian who believed an alchemy and died in 1691. It is telling that you have to go back to a theist who lived well over three centuries to support your claim.

    This is just cherry-picking. You have decided science is not objective, and you have searched high and low to find evidence of it, and this is the best you can find to support your ill-informed opinion.

    Especially ironic when you have just accused me of being prejudiced against social science.

    Can you point to any other human endeavour is any more objective than science?

    JH: In under graduate school I studied astronomy four classes, I read the material. I had a class on geo-morphology which I liked a lot. I read the material there and used to talk to the prof every day before class, That class convinced me not to be a creationist.

    So think back to those classes and tell me what was merely opinion, but was presented as objective fact.

    Pix

    ReplyDelete
  12. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)8:54 AM

    Anonymous said...
    JH: I tried to read newton's optics. It was pretty tough. I've read a great deal of social sciences. It's a pity you don't understand that your prejudice against social science is still prejudice and is ideological.

    PXWhen have we ever even discussed social science?

    The book i wrote is social sconce, and the studies i read for it, ad my BS is in sociology. I've tried to discuss it here and on all the message boards like carm with tons of atheists most of whom don't know shit about it.



    JH: It's certainly not opinion free at all in terms of people who do science.Boyle imposed a phony standard of objectivity upon experimental protocols so that it would give the appearance of being opinion free, But it;s just that opinions are expressed in different ways. it gives lip service to objectivity but uses objectivity to hide behind.

    PX:Boyle was a devote Christian who believed an alchemy and died in 1691. It is telling that you have to go back to a theist who lived well over three centuries to support your claim.

    sorry my fried but that shows real naivete.
    first of all Boyle was real important to my dissertation so (history of science) so natural to turn to him. But since he laid the foundations for experiment the protocols of recording experiments it's real important to under the historical foundations that shows us why the problem arose. I am an historian so I think historically anyway.



    Pix:This is just cherry-picking. You have decided science is not objective, and you have searched high and low to find evidence of it, and this is the best you can find to support your ill-informed opinion.


    Let's face reality now pix this is common knowledgeable in history of science this is what I mean by saying scientists are ghettoized, you don't know about other fields.This is the kind of stuff historians of science talk about and have for about 50 years now. Stop trying to pretend like it;s some aboration I made up..I am only repeating what I learned in graduate school.

    Pix:Especially ironic when you have just accused me of being prejudiced against social science.

    you are trying to write off the past 50 years of history and Philosophy of sdince as just my little prejudice that wont work. Anyone can read the thinkers and see it;s a trend in academic work,

    Pix:Can you point to any other human endeavor is any more objective than science?

    being objective itself is a scam. Humans are not objective, as I pointed out science has merely Lenard to use objectivity as a cloak for their biases,


    JH: In under graduate school I studied astronomy four classes, I read the material. I had a class on geo-morphology which I liked a lot. I read the material there and used to talk to the prof every day before class, That class convinced me not to be a creationist.

    PxSo think back to those classes and tell me what was merely opinion, but was presented as objective fact.

    It's misleading to cast it in terms of opinion vs fact.As I already pointed bout science iw not about proving facts it;s about disproving bad hypotheses. When you try to pretend that the verisemilitude left over that gives us our scientific assumptions is really the guarantee of facility and that that assumption of facts somehow disproves God or disproves religion, is totally dishonest and a game you play with yourself. You keep trying to imply that thye assumption of fact gives science some kind of edge but in its way it is no less a pretense than the assumptiomn of faith,

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous4:41 AM

    JH: first of all Boyle was real important to my dissertation so (history of science) so natural to turn to him. But since he laid the foundations for experiment the protocols of recording experiments it's real important to under the historical foundations that shows us why the problem arose. I am an historian so I think historically anyway.

    Okay, but surely any historian has to look at what happened in the next three hundred or so years.

    If you want to understand baseball, you do not look at games people were playing three centuries ago, and call it a day. You have to look at what people are doing today. Sure, what they did back then gives some historical background, but that is less important than, say, actually watching a game.

    JH: Let's face reality now pix this is common knowledgeable in history of science this is what I mean by saying scientists are ghettoized, you don't know about other fields.This is the kind of stuff historians of science talk about and have for about 50 years now. Stop trying to pretend like it;s some aboration I made up..I am only repeating what I learned in graduate school.

    It is a comon opinion, especially amongst people whose worldview is threatened by science.

    Please note, I am not saying it is perfectly objective, but I am saying it is more objective than anything else (noting that I exclude maths as abstract, and not actually about reality).

    Pix: Can you point to any other human endeavor is any more objective than science?

    JH: being objective itself is a scam. Humans are not objective, as I pointed out science has merely Lenard to use objectivity as a cloak for their biases,

    So in fact you cannot offer any human endeavor that is any more objective than science. I did not think so.

    JH: It's misleading to cast it in terms of opinion vs fact.As I already pointed bout science iw not about proving facts it;s about disproving bad hypotheses. When you try to pretend that the verisemilitude left over that gives us our scientific assumptions is really the guarantee of facility and that that assumption of facts somehow disproves God or disproves religion, is totally dishonest and a game you play with yourself. You keep trying to imply that thye assumption of fact gives science some kind of edge but in its way it is no less a pretense than the assumptiomn of faith,

    Science is about making predictions and testing them to support hypotheses. Sure, bad hypotheses get disproven along the way, but facts are not proven as such, just sufficiently well supported to be accepted.

    We discussed how the assumptions of science are actually well supported on your forum. Turns out that actually they are. Not proven, but very well supported.

    I have never said science disproves God or religion.

    I do say that the methodology of science gives it an edge. A part of that is that claims in science are supported by evidence, which immediately elevates it above most of philosophy, but the manner in which the claims are tested greatly lessens any human bias, and elevates it higher still.

    Pix

    ReplyDelete
  14. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)5:13 AM

    If you want to understand baseball, you do not look at games people were playing three centuries ago, and call it a day. You have to look at what people are doing today. Sure, what they did back then gives some historical background, but that is less important than, say, actually watching a game.


    that's a silly arguent,

    (1) it doen't doesn't answer the historical argument

    (2) the discussion in history of science includes current practice, the whole Kuhn thing is current, Leviathan and the air pump talks about the modern heirs to Boule's propaganda,

    the whole premise of learning history is that it has reliance ot present

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  15. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)5:18 AM

    JH: It's misleading to cast it in terms of opinion vs fact.As I already pointed bout science iw not about proving facts it;s about disproving bad hypotheses. When you try to pretend that the verisemilitude left over that gives us our scientific assumptions is really the guarantee of facility and that that assumption of facts somehow disproves God or disproves religion, is totally dishonest and a game you play with yourself. You keep trying to imply that thye assumption of fact gives science some kind of edge but in its way it is no less a pretense than the assumptiomn of faith,

    Science is about making predictions and testing them to support hypotheses. Sure, bad hypotheses get disprove along the way, but facts are not proven as such, just sufficiently well supported to be accepted.

    that only apply to hypotheses that belong to their proper domain,it does notapply to things that aren't scientific questions like the existence of God.

    We discussed how the assumptions of science are actually well supported on your forum. Turns out that actually they are. Not proven, but very well supported.

    when they are actually scientific questions

    I have never said science disproves God or religion.

    you strongly incriminate when you advance the dichotomy scinece =fact religion = no facts


    I do say that the methodology of science gives it an edge. A part of that is that claims in science are supported by evidence, which immediately elevates it above most of philosophy, but the manner in which the claims are tested greatly lessens any human bias, and elevates it higher still.


    wscience has no edge in understanding spiritual things, it only has an edge in its own domain,

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  16. Anonymous11:26 AM

    JH that's a silly arguent,

    (1) it doen't doesn't answer the historical argument

    (2) the discussion in history of science includes current practice, the whole Kuhn thing is current, Leviathan and the air pump talks about the modern heirs to Boule's propaganda,

    the whole premise of learning history is that it has reliance ot present

    Of course the present relies on history, I m not saying otherwise. The game of baseball today relies on the sports of the seventeenth century.

    The point is that ignoring how things have changed in the last three hundred years is stupid. If you want to know how baseball is played today, you are far better off watching a game. If you want to know how science is done today, you are far better off looking at what scientists do today.

    Now, if your history of science includes current practice then you are in a position to do. However, claiming that your history of science course includes current practice does not mean that what Boyle was doing in the seventeenth century is going to be the same as what modern scientists do.

    Pix: Science is about making predictions and testing them to support hypotheses. Sure, bad hypotheses get disprove along the way, but facts are not proven as such, just sufficiently well supported to be accepted.

    JH that only apply to hypotheses that belong to their proper domain,it does notapply to things that aren't scientific questions like the existence of God.

    It applies to all science, which is why the first word in my paragraph was science. The existence of God, as a general question, cannot be addressed, because the term God covers too many possibilities that there are no predictions. Specific claims can sometimes be tested.

    JH you strongly incriminate when you advance the dichotomy scinece =fact religion = no facts

    Not at all. I think you are confusing "no facts" with "not true". They are not the same. "no facts" also includes "don't know".

    JH wscience has no edge in understanding spiritual things, it only has an edge in its own domain,

    I have never said otherwise. However, that does leave us with scientific claims that are very well supported, and then other claims (outside direct experience) that are not as well supported. The latter includes spiritual claims.

    Pix

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