Science as a general experiment

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

So sometimes some people think of science like a form of religion, whatever religious is supposed to be, or they harken back to the notion of natural philosophy and think of it like that, or as the word "science" is used the posit is often as if there are these distinct objects "religion" and "philosophy" and "science" and they are in various relations of conflict and harmony here or there.

Of course there's philosophy of science. Actually the philosophical theory of science is better than the religious one, but what if it's better to think of science somehow elsewise?

Mathematics is said to be unreasonably effective in the natural sciences, or some such thing, by some people, like there's a supposed mystery to it all or whatever. However, this problem can be waived, or reinterpreted maybe, if science is fundamentally predicated on the notion of experiments (as with Popper for instance in the basic falsification doctrine), so that science in general or as a mass historical unit or something, is to be seen itself as one abstract experiment, namely regarding the effectiveness of reason and mathematics in the natural sciences. So the transition from alchemy to chemistry was grounded in the transition from a qualitative to a quantitative analysis of the elements, for example, such that chemistry as a whole is the experiment to see if quantifying as such is more effective than qualifying was.

[peter]

Science is above all an activity. An applied set of generally accepted techniques. Has it coherence as a whole (or enough at last to be viewed from the perspective of a general investigation into the efficacy of the techniques when applied to the material universe) ........ yes, I think it does! I'm not sure many scientists would disagree with that, even though it is thinking on a scale larger than most would take it to.

[wayfriend]

Science is not a religion ... but science and religion compete in that they both fulfill the same human need. The need is not precisely to understand, but rather, to feel that the world has a recognizable order and that things that happen, even when we do not understand why they happen, we are yet sure that they happened for a reason which can be understood. They both provide the assurance that the world is explicable.

The conflicts that arise come from producing differing explanations. But this does not arise from differing theological beliefs nor from differing quantum theories. It arises from something far more fundamental.

For this reason, many people try to find a way for them to coexist in their personal pantheon of explanatory principles.

[Zarathustra]

Mathematics is said to be unreasonably effective in the natural sciences, or some such thing, by some people, like there's a supposed mystery to it all or whatever. However, this problem can be waived, or reinterpreted maybe, if science is fundamentally predicated on the notion of experiments (as with Popper for instance in the basic falsification doctrine), so that science in general or as a mass historical unit or something, is to be seen itself as one abstract experiment, namely regarding the effectiveness of reason and mathematics in the natural sciences. So the transition from alchemy to chemistry was grounded in the transition from a qualitative to a quantitative analysis of the elements, for example, such that chemistry as a whole is the experiment to see if quantifying as such is more effective than qualifying was.

Science and the philosophy science divide into distinct studies because of the differences between, for instance, metaphysics and epistemology, or even methodology and ideology. Because science purportedly deals with the real world, it unavoidably traverses the vast multifaceted intersection that we characterize with various dichotomies (e.g. subjective/objective, perception/knowledge, ideal/actual, etc.). The practice of science commits one to various ontologies (e.g. naturalism, materialism, etc.) as well as various epistemologies (e.g. empiricism, reductionism, etc.), as well as various methodologies (e.g. falsification principle, scientific method, etc.). You're right, it s an experiment in itself over and above its own individual experiments, namely, an attempt to apply metaphysics/ontology/methodology in a way that can be confirmed, not merely entertained and debated. The premise that reality is explicable is tested in the act of explication, not merely postulated. It contains its own criteria for what an explanation is.

Religion is similarly rooted in the idea that reality is meaningful, but this is not the same as explicable. It's the difference between "everything happens for a reason" and "everything operates according to causal mechanisms that can be deduced through reason and verified through experiment." Religion isn't an experiment that verifies its own metaphysics. Science is.

[peter]

But there's an interesting.......dislocation(?) here that is illuminating. To a degree science decides in advance what it will accept within its purview as being fit for study - or even acceptable to prove. Any scientist who strays into the realm of the paranormal very quickly becomes aware that he/she had better drop that hot potato pretty quickly or face professional ostracism; yet entirely the same rationale leads in the case of UFO research, to the opposite end. Here, though there be not a shred of evidence that such entities exist (beyond the anecdotal) to suggest they don't is to be considered as having a blinkered vision. Any evidence that there might be more to the universe 'than your philosophy can know' is immediately wrung out of existence by construction of twisting hypotheses that act as get out of (metaphysical) jail cards, and pull the focus back toward what has seen decided in advance, as being a 'scientifically acceptable' place for the practice to be.[/i]

[Zarathustra]

How could science study the paranormal? You'd have to have a theory to test. There is no theory of the supernatural. It's outside of naturalism and materialism (the metaphysics of science). Aliens are not.

We've already tested paranormal claims, ESP, etc. There is simply no evidenced for it.

[peter]

No, my point is Z, that the areas where science does not deem it 'a fit region for study' seem to be almost predetermined by a certain kind of thinking within which the 'practice' operates. To step beyond this area is to attract the professional distain of your contemporaries, and this in itself serves to limit the much vaunted freedom of enquiry on which the discipline is commonly believed to be founded. Incidentally, I think this operates just as much, if not more so, lower down within given disciplines themselves where to step beyond the accepted paradigm within which the field works can certainly be professionally dangerous if not suicidal. Witness the fate of those two physicists who claimed to have performed cold water fusion a few years ago; from that time onward I doubt much work has been done in this area at all - no worker in the field who had a shred of care about his future prospects would touch it with a barge pole.

[Vraith]

No, my point is Z, that the areas where science does not deem it 'a fit region for study' seem to be almost predetermined by a certain kind of thinking within which the 'practice' operates. To step beyond this area is to attract the professional distain of your contemporaries, and this in itself serves to limit the much vaunted freedom of enquiry on which the discipline is commonly believed to be founded. Incidentally, I think this operates just as much, if not more so, lower down within given disciplines themselves where to step beyond the accepted paradigm within which the field works can certainly be professionally dangerous if not suicidal. Witness the fate of those two physicists who claimed to have performed cold water fusion a few years ago; from that time onward I doubt much work has been done in this area at all - no worker in the field who had a shred of care about his future prospects would touch it with a barge pole.

I think that happens less than supposed. Especially since almost all the best-known scientists got that way by breaking boundaries.
The real boundaries/limits aren't disdain from ones peers, it is the totally irrational arrangements for funding---step outside THOSE rules and arbitrary processes...THEN you get screwed.

The cold-fusion people actually deserved what they got...because they didn't just make mistakes or have sloppy methods---they made false claims. I wish the anti-vax "researcher" got that kind of treatment.
[[OTOH, there ARE some scientists still pursuing cold-fusion]].

There isn't any field that's forbidden/excluded from science [except where politicians and/or religious powers are afraid of it] as long as you have a conjecture/theory that potentially explains and makes testable claims/predictions. If you got that, all you have to do is convince someone to pay for it. And that's at least as hard as coming up with a good thing to explain/test to begin with.

Not that the pettiness and exclusion/rigidity doesn't exist, it does. But those aren't the greater dangers or limits for scientific pursuit.

[wayfriend]

That's a very fair point - the quest for funding is itself a screening process that filters out directions that are not considered worthy by some scale. On the industrial end (pharma) as well as on the nominally charitable end (grants). We've all heard pleas that the government should not fund such-and-such research.

Social stigma also plays into it. Who's gonna fund research on white supremacy, for instance.

However, anyone who thinks theology doesn't have as many lines of inquiry or as robust a methodology for scrutinizing theories has not been looking. Or talking to Wos. When you judge such by scientific assumptions of diligence, you fail immediately.

[Zarathustra]

No, my point is Z, that the areas where science does not deem it 'a fit region for study' seem to be almost predetermined by a certain kind of thinking within which the 'practice' operates.

Well, that "certain kind of thinking" is just the definition of science, right? Science, by definition, can't investigate theories that depend upon the supernatural or the paranormal. It has nothing to do with individual people, politics, government grants, or peer pressure. You're simply no longer doing science once you stray from naturalism.

Witness the fate of those two physicists who claimed to have performed cold water fusion a few years ago; from that time onward I doubt much work has been done in this area at all - no worker in the field who had a shred of care about his future prospects would touch it with a barge pole.

Those two physicists were frauds, weren't they? At the very least, no one could reproduce their results. The results weren't ignored, they were tested by others. This is the peer review process. Cold fusion doesn't have any legitimate theoretical basis, AFAIK. The results were suspect from the beginning because they varied from known accepted physics. This isn't a limit on the "vaunted freedom" of science, but instead the limits that foundational criteria place upon a discipline. Science must be distinguishable from pseudoscience.

If someone came up with a feasible theory for cold fusion, the scientific community wouldn't shame them into not testing it. Ditto with the "paranormal." If there was credible evidence that it existed, and a theory for how it could be produced naturally, then there's no reason why it wouldn't be a legitimate area of study.

[peter]

Anyone advocating studies pertaining to the linking of race with intelligence would receive short shrift and yet no lesser figure than Nobel prize laureate Dr James Watson made the following remark, and paid the price for it.

I am inherently gloomy about the prospects for Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really

His co worker Dr Francis Crick also found himself in trouble over his controversial views on the practice of eugenics, another study area where, for obvious reasons scientists 'fear to tread'.

But yes, I take on V's point about funding - but doesn't it amount to virtually the same thing. The research grants are allocated by the research councils, who in turn take their advice from informed members of the discipline under consideration. And if they give the thumbs down then thumbs down it is! To a practicing scientist no funding and professional cold shouldering are essentially the same thing.

[Vraith]

Anyone advocating studies pertaining to the linking of race with intelligence would receive short shrift and yet no lesser figure than Nobel prize laureate Dr James Watson made the following remark, and paid the price for it.

And yet, studies have been done. What they've shown is that Watson SHOULD have paid a price, cuz he didn't know shit about race or intelligence or how to test it.
He was NOT speaking from science, cuz he didn't have that data. He was speaking from his bias and lack of knowledge.

[peter]

I spotted that inconsistency before I posted V. but thought to slip it by you! Silly me......

[Skyweir]

Hahaha tut tut

I am learning that V is indeed a SME and Im loving reading his and others posts here.

Itd be an extreme cold day in northern hemisphere July when you could slip anything by V.

Im wondering what point is sought from this topic. Mig proposes an interesting interrelationship between science, religion and philosophy.

Weve progressed thru various contexts in which science is distinguished from generally religion and philosophy. Scientific methodology is as open to abuse as any other process. As exampled by the Watson narratives above.

Is it Mig that you want to highlight the evolution of scientific thought
Is it this and the more general evolution of science from its philosophical, and alchemy beginnings. That science is at its heart born of observation Observing the natural world

Im obviously not possessed of a scientific mind so either way its a very interesting exploration