Science is mere info/data?

[Biochemist]

... If Science recognized this as even possible, then many scientific disciplines would not exist because of their inherent inferiority to such a method. For example those disciplines which investigate human behavior apart from its physical realization.

K-

I seem to be in Tormod's camp here. I am a little confused about the method you are lauding here. Care to elaborate?

[Harzburgite]

If it were still ancient times, such arguments would definitely have driven us down a different path in the investigation of knowledge: One that revolved around refinement of arguments and not physical evidence.

What do you have against using physical evidence? (The tenor of your posts certainly suggests you consider physical evidence undesirable.)

What is wrong with using a combination of refined arguments and physical evidence? If there is nothing wrong then I am confused, for that is a good description of science? If there is something wrong then I am also confused, for surely both together, refined arguments and physical evidence, is better than only one.

In today's age however, a person making such an argument would have to overcome the average intellectual's unfounded belief that any argument which does not point to experimental data produced by someone with a phd is not useful.

What a strange contention. What evidence do you have this is so? What matters is the quality of the data, not the qualifications of the researcher.

[Kriminal99]

Please provide examples. I am not sure what you are referring to when you say science is based on proof wothout requiring reasoning.

 

Such as...?

 

Such as...? You are failing to explain to me what differentiates science from the "other ways". Without knowing what you are referring to I am unable to comprehend your meaning here.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

That what is possible? And disciplines such as...?

 

Er sorry... I guess the way that was worded was a bit confusing. I meant that many followers of science believe in the concept of "proof" which doesn't require any signifigant reasoning. Whereas, there really is no such thing as proof which doesn't require reasoning, because you have to reason to use any evidence you aquire. And whenever you do so there is a chance you are wrong. This means that every person should be asking to see the reasoning associated with any scientific theory rather than believing that it has simply been proved because a person with a phd says so. A recent example of a theory which almost or to some degree permeated the general populace was the idea that race was meaningless because of some trivial statistical find related to genetics which basically said that people differentitate more from person to person within a race than the characteristics which define races socially on some percent of dna level. And this was supposed to mean that race was insignifigant.

 

Anyone could discount this argument by simply realizing that A) People with black skin do not have babies that are white with any degree of frequency :xx: For all they know dark skin prevents UV damage which would might slightly alter a person's chemistry in a way that would be difficult to percieve yet alters behavior, for example perhaps by dulling emotions or some facet of consiousness which would result in less emotionally driven behavior - of any of an infinite number of such possibilities. Anotherwords, pure induction takes priority over this type of argument. (Yes I do believe races are different, but not that one is "better" than another because there is no objective best, except possibly diversity. Any other view is naive in my opinion.) A more objective way of wording this point but that fewer people might understand is simply to say that percent of dna is not what people are worried about when they consider the concept of a race.

 

As for the authority bit, that was more of something that has less to do with how the population at large interprets science. This post is not only about whatever ideas are involved with the scientific method within the scientific community, but also science's place in modern culture. But basically it is relevant within the scientific community as well to some degree. If someone tells you 1+1=2, and you understand this concept yourself, they gain some credibility in your eyes.

 

If tommorow this person tells you that although the rational numbers and irrational numbers are both infinitely dense, but one is more dense then the other, or that there is a god and he watches your every move, or any number of other things which you cannot come to the same conclusion as you can in the way you can with 1+1=2 you might give them the benefit of the doubt. However this is wrong for several somewhat obvious reasons. To begin with the person who tells you something signifigant is almost always never responsible for discovery of the idea - which means any reasoning ability that would

have been implied by his discovery of said idea is not attributed to him, he could just be heir to the throne that has no clue what he is doing. Second, all people are bias and you don't know what this person's bias is.

 

Basically only a few people actually carefully consider alternatives to ideas, or know many reasons why a particular way of thinking or idea works. Rather they get their methods from other people and any doubts are quelled by social pressure. People are generally limited in their thinking because they need a sort of "ammunition" to consider alternative ways of thinking, or rather inspiration. This is sort of what philosophy provides, a wealth of inspiration for all kinds of ways of looking at any given situation. Note how many important arguments in all fields are analogous to philosophical arguments. The "Russel" paradox and the "This statement is not true" paradox for example. Even when given the opportunity to examine alternative ways of thinking, most people, even within the scientific community, avoid such examples because they challenge the way they are currently thinking or can be difficult since they seem to lack the structure present in their way of thinking.

 

Anyways the point is the opinion of anyone who isn't extremely aware of as many alternative ways of thinking (which results in reasoning ability) as possible is completely useless as far as determining the validity of an idea. No matter how many people seem to agree with an idea, the vast majority of such people are just pack wolves that were socially forced to accept said idea and in turn apply said pressure to other people. And a phd is no evidence that a person is one of the few with the reasoning ability.

 

And this doesn't even address the fact that no matter how adept a person is at reasoning, they still have biases which may differ from yours. Both of these problems can be dealt with in a very simple manner, never attribute any weight to someone's opinion because of who they are or who agrees with them. Rather only evaluate opinions based on how much sense they make, and don't take an idea as written in stone just because you can't think of any alternatives right then.

 

Let society enforce this and in no way try to institute forcing someone to accept an idea, using any kind of pressure at all, that they are not capable of convinicing said person of. And don't willingly accept ideas you don't understand.

 

The only kind of pressure that should be able to be applied of this nature is economic pressure in the form that, if you are not capable of doing something of value because of your beliefs then said employer will not hire you. Its his company and he can hire whoever he wants, and if your ideas are superior you or someone else can found another company on them and see if you are more successful. This system does not require a publicly run secondary education system.

 

But the US publicly run secondary education system limits the ways people think about things by its very nature. Seperation of Church in state requires this as well, because due to the limitations of how we think every belief set can equally be considered a religion as for example Christianity can. The education system is messed up anyways for a host of other economic reasons, such as the lack of economic incentive to refine the ability to teach ideas...

 

Im not sure how you could be missing the things which I am pointing out which differentiate science from other pursuits of knowledge. Especially if you have any sort of fascination with science yourself, in which case you shouldn't need me to tell you what ideas set apart science from other kinds of approaches to gaining knowledge. The best explanation for this I can gather is that you are one of those who simply classifies all reasoning as science because science is the popular term of the day. Well I don't know how much more simply I can point to what I am talking about. The scientific method revolves around physical evidence as the end all be all of any argument, and the ability to communicate said physical evidence from person to person without any problems. Another barrier of communication that may be going on here is that there are of course some people with more advanced ideas than others. You might have one science buff repeatedly shouting "wheres the proof, wheres the proof, wheres the proof" while another has an idea of science that is completely aware of many problems that I would have. However they are the minority which is one reason why I address it in this manner, the other reason being that there are cases of arguments which no matter what are considered unscientific but are superior to any argument that could be made which is scientific. The person I just mentioned would accept this fact and merely claim that science is only useful in some situations, but the vulgar opinion of today is that anything unscientific is useless when talking about anything remotely complicated.

 

Again the type of argument I am referring to is one which relies on everyone's first person experience as the information to base the argument on. Hopefully you recognize this as the format that all informal arguments follow... It is believed that a strict discipline such as science is needed in many cases that I believe it is not because there is no way to create objective or even nearly universal arguments without it. I am contending that people just didn't try long or hard enough, and in many cases arguments provided by science would be inferior to this form of argument.

 

In the last post I was pointing to most aspects of psychology as an example of a science which would be better replaced by refined informal argument. And by informal, the methods I would use to make such an argument might be considered far from informal to someone who understood it, but I am not so arrogant as to try and force people to accept my method as the best before they even understand it so it is best objectively qualified as informal.

[Harzburgite]

I meant that many followers of science believe in the concept of "proof" which doesn't require any signifigant reasoning. Whereas, there really is no such thing as proof which doesn't require reasoning, because you have to reason to use any evidence you aquire. And whenever you do so there is a chance you are wrong. This means that every person should be asking to see the reasoning associated with any scientific theory rather than believing that it has simply been proved because a person with a phd says so.

This is arrant nonsense. Integral to the presentation of any scientific hypothesis is the evidence and the reasoning. Only in text books might you be presented with the facts without a full development of proof, and this would be adequately provided by the references. All the data, the reasoning, the conclusions are there in the literature. You can accept anything you wish, because it is convenient to do so, or review how science arrived at that point. The choice is there, the choice is yours.

[Kriminal99]

This is arrant nonsense. Integral to the presentation of any scientific hypothesis is the evidence and the reasoning. Only in text books might you be presented with the facts without a full development of proof, and this would be adequately provided by the references. All the data, the reasoning, the conclusions are there in the literature. You can accept anything you wish, because it is convenient to do so, or review how science arrived at that point. The choice is there, the choice is yours.

 

This statement was directed at the general population. Not everyone on this forum understands even what you do, or in alot of other places. However depending on the discipline what you say is not always the case even within the scientific community. Especially within disciplines where most of what is determined does not require much reasoning, such as biology where much of science might consist of looking at animal attributes. There are scientists who think the only signifigant aspect of science is gathering evidence, and aren't aware of how easy it is to make a mistake in reasoning. I wouldn't expect to many quantum physicists to have this same type of conception of science.

 

What is the trademark of science? Evidence. We don't need any more evidence in many of the disciplines that science is currently investigating. We need better reasoning using the evidence we already have. The scientific community does not center around debate of ideas and understanding of the evidence they have, rather it centers around wasting other people's money to gather more evidence than they need. Why? Because basic physical laws like those that govern simple motion were easy to figure out this way. Being the stupid monkeys that we are we generalize and believe that this is the best way to approach all intellectual problems. The reasoning is the important and difficult part, and the part that needs to be better developed. Many scientists DO view reasoning as more trivial than it really is.

 

People who understand that some arguments could be made just as well based on mechanical reasoning and everyone's common knowledge or rather more and better reasoning and less evidence would want to use the second method wherever possible because it doesn't cost anything. Many aspects of psychology would not exist in the way they do now. If this is what you are claiming, then you do not represent the entire scientific community.

 

I doubt thats what you were claiming anyways, because you do not seem to have advanced views regarding reasoning even though you deem it an important part of "science". You resort to aggresiveness when you do not understand someone else's views (unless you know thats generally silly and just can't restrain yourself) and speak as though every scientific theory is likely to be correct before you view the reasoning. People are much more likely to be wrong about something than they are to be right, and skepticism is the direction to travel in to develop better reasoning skills. You should be encouraging people to doubt the things claimed by science and open to the possibility that someone has a way of looking at it that you have not yet thought of. Yet typically anyone who doesn't agree with the consensus beliefs are ignorantly deemed "crackpots" out of fear that the person giving such labels might be wrong about something and repeated claims made that something has already been "proven" as if such a statement has any meaning at all.

 

Alot of things would be different if reasoning was viewed the way it should be. You wouldn't really have specialization as much as you do now, in the sense that while scientists would collect experimental data, everyone would be expected to draw their own conclusions from the data. The scientist may suggest an interpretation, and if what was being conducted did not concern the general population then it would be the same as it is now. But you would never have for example a law changed to accomodate a scientific theory or reasoning unless the general population agreed that the reasoning was sound. All people are your peers, not just other scientists. Because reasoning is the important factor, the place where bias and mistakes are likely to be applied, it is not your place to force your views onto someone else unless they understand and agree without any pressure being applied. That means for example privatizing education so you don't have the government forcing people to accept ideas in order to get good grades. In the end the situation regarding all things intellectual would look like the history of philosophy, and from this mess something greater than Science would emerge.

[Harzburgite]

This statement was directed at the general population. Not everyone on this forum understands even what you do, or in alot of other places. .

Sorry, I have almost no idea what this means.

 

......what you say is not always the case .....Especially within disciplines where most of what is determined does not require much reasoning, such as biology where much of science might consist of looking at animal attributes..

Later you accuse me (with full justification) of being aggressive. I become aggressive when faced by ignorance that lacks an excuse. From the tenor, content and structure of your posts it is clear you do not lack intelligence. It is disappointing you have not put that intellect to better use. If you had studied even a smidgeon of biology you would understand that reasoning is just as applicable, indeed just as necessary in biology as in any other science.

 

There are scientists who think the only signifigant aspect of science is gathering evidence, and aren't aware of how easy it is to make a mistake in reasoning. .

1. At some stages of some sciences the only logical thing to do is to gather evidence. When Peach and Horne, with the Geological Survey, were mapping the Highlands of Scotland a century ago there were no theories that could even approach explaining the complexities of what they saw. Yet they dutifully observed with a precision and comprehensiveness that speeded up our understanding of this orogen once appropriate theories had been developed. Not good science - great science. Near perfect, objective data gathering for posterity.

2. If the only thing certain scientists are doing is gathering data it hardly matters if they don't understand how easy it is to make a mistake in reasoning.

What is the trademark of science? Evidence. We don't need any more evidence in many of the disciplines that science is currently investigating. We need better reasoning using the evidence we already have.

Please give one or two examples. You may be right. I can't think of a single instance where this is true, but that may well be my ignorance.

The scientific community does not center around debate of ideas and understanding of the evidence they have, rather it centers around wasting other people's money to gather more evidence than they need. .

Really! An example again would not go amiss.

People who understand that some arguments could be made just as well based on mechanical reasoning and everyone's common knowledge or rather more and better reasoning and less evidence would want to use the second method wherever possible because it doesn't cost anything. .

I have almost as low an opinion of common knowledge as I do of common sense, for both are singularily uncommon.

 

 

I doubt thats what you were claiming anyways, because you do not seem to have advanced views regarding reasoning even though you deem it an important part of "science". .

I take it from this that you do have advanced views on reasoning? People who agree with your views hold advanced ones, others are primitive, or short-sighted, narrow minded. Do I have an appropriate descriptive yet?

People are much more likely to be wrong about something than they are to be right, and skepticism is the direction to travel in to develop better reasoning skills. .

We are in agreement then. I think you are much more likely to be wrong than you are to be right, and I am very skeptical of your entire biased approach to reasoning.

 

May I close by asking whether it was at undergraduate or graduate level that your theories were roundly rejected by the academic establishment?

[Kriminal99]

Sorry, I have almost no idea what this means.

 

Later you accuse me (with full justification) of being aggressive. I become aggressive when faced by ignorance that lacks an excuse. From the tenor, content and structure of your posts it is clear you do not lack intelligence. It is disappointing you have not put that intellect to better use. If you had studied even a smidgeon of biology you would understand that reasoning is just as applicable, indeed just as necessary in biology as in any other science.

 

1. At some stages of some sciences the only logical thing to do is to gather evidence. When Peach and Horne, with the Geological Survey, were mapping the Highlands of Scotland a century ago there were no theories that could even approach explaining the complexities of what they saw. Yet they dutifully observed with a precision and comprehensiveness that speeded up our understanding of this orogen once appropriate theories had been developed. Not good science - great science. Near perfect, objective data gathering for posterity.

2. If the only thing certain scientists are doing is gathering data it hardly matters if they don't understand how easy it is to make a mistake in reasoning.

Please give one or two examples. You may be right. I can't think of a single instance where this is true, but that may well be my ignorance.

Really! An example again would not go amiss.

I have almost as low an opinion of common knowledge as I do of common sense, for both are singularily uncommon.

 

 

I take it from this that you do have advanced views on reasoning? People who agree with your views hold advanced ones, others are primitive, or short-sighted, narrow minded. Do I have an appropriate descriptive yet?

We are in agreement then. I think you are much more likely to be wrong than you are to be right, and I am very skeptical of your entire biased approach to reasoning.

 

May I close by asking whether it was at undergraduate or graduate level that your theories were roundly rejected by the academic establishment?

 

The first statement was meant to point out that not all people have the same level of understanding of science, ie the extent of some people's reasoning seems to be if a claim came from a phd its true. If I am talking to more than one person (which I am) it is silly for you to come on to the forum angry because you believe a specific point I am making is obvious, when other people still do not understand or agree with that point.

 

If you claim that your particular brand of biology needs signifigant reasoning to complete, I will not disagree with you. The general idea behind my claims is that too much of science and the way it is shared with the general populace is not done with respect for A) the complexity of reasoning needed in the theories, and :rolleyes: the wide variety of different interpretations and reasoning that could be used based on the same experimental results that have not been eliminated as viable alternatives. Anotherwords, considering how much people disagree with claims in any area where they believe they understand the subject and the reasoning is not as simple as 1+1=2 (as evidenced by philosophy which anyone can participate in and everyone is on equal ground), it becomes clear that the reason why scientific claims are treated as being so concrete is because of the political structure related to science. Meaning, the money goes towards the theories which benefit the people giving the money, and people who disagree with those theories are not as well heard if heard at all, scientists or not. Then the general populace accepts these theories in the name of "science", perhaps believing that it has really been subjected to proper scrutiny or based on some generalization of a complex problem that was simplified to the point of being trivial using the scientific method that they experienced in high school or college or whatever.

 

However the difference in interests between the general populace and the scientific community alone means that a system in which people themselves do not review scientific theories is flawed. In some very few cases it may be that the reasoning is trivial, and therefore no scientist could get away with being wrong because it would be too obvious. It is not really a matter of which science, as much as it is a mattter of what exactly you are trying to claim in a given experiment. But the fact that any, if not most science requires reasoning complicated enough that is quite possible that people have mistaken or biased views means that relying on scientists as authoritative sources is flawed. It takes just as much effort for the general populace to identify which claims are complicated enough to warrant careful scrutiny as it does to scrutinize every scientific claim.

 

The science I was referring to where excessive experiments are done and experiments are often misinterpreted is psychology.

 

By common knowledge I was referring to ideas as simple as the fact that you can see certain colors, feel certain things, form certain kinds of ideas etc.

 

By claiming that your views on reasoning were undeveloped, I was referring to the tactics you use in debate. Aggressive acts in debate never serve any purpose, despite the fact that this has never been formally recognized. Of course you believe my views are ignorant and I believe yours are ignorant. Repeatedly stating these beliefs, speculating on each others motives etc gets us nowhere towards understanding and comparing opposing arguments. All of these things are irrelevant because we can look at the arguments themselves to determine if they are correct.

[Qfwfq]

Please try both to keep cool.

 

Harzburgite's unnecesary remarks of end June must have gone unnoticed, sorry. In any case, instead of replying with similar remarks, you may click "report bad post" but in any case please reply with a bit more aplomb (e. g. "that is no reason to get angry or aggressive").

 

I fully agree that one shouldn't get angry and aggressive just because other's say something that isn't true because they don't know better. We are all ignorant, but the purpose of discussion is to exchange notions and prove our points of view to others, it is not to call each other ignorant, silly or other words of this (un)kind.

[Kriminal99]

Please try both to keep cool.

I fully agree that one shouldn't get angry and aggressive just because other's say something that isn't true because they don't know better. We are all ignorant, but the purpose of discussion is to exchange notions and prove our points of view to others, it is not to call each other ignorant, silly or other words of this (un)kind.

 

So anotherwords what you are saying is my statement was.... silly? :doh: I could have worded it better maybe if I asked something like "is it really necessary to be aggressive towards my views because you don't understand or agree" but to some degree the point you are trying to make with this makes the words used seem aggresive regardless.. simply because you are trying to say a person's action was wrong. Silly seems like a harmless claim compared to ignorant to me, but it doesn't really mattter because when you are dealing with people like us on the forum probably anything implying that we are not omnscient gods of knowledge will be taken as an act of aggression lol.

 

I often wondered about what is the best way to react in this situation (with the drive as you have to maintain the quality of discussion) but it seems the choices are limited to saying nothing and letting your clear headed statements be responded to with aggression and hope people see through the endless propaganda claims like (your statement is rediculous, you are just mad cause x, you are not qualified or don't know your stuff) or ask how their statements are justified and what purpose they serve without speculating on their motivation or justification yourself.

 

It takes a lot of restraint to do this though, although much less if you are on a forum where blatant aggression is considered detrimental to discussion and stopped AND objectively evaluated rather than just claiming only the person opposing popular opinion of the forum is being aggressive. I will try harder to prevent myself from this type of action and Im sure others here will do the same (if any of them reply to the thread after so long)

[Qfwfq]

I only stepped in to prevent the discussion from degenerating and I tried to be fair by talking to both. In responding to Harzburgite's aggressivity you should leave words of judgement, such as 'silly' up to the discretion of mods. Personally, I avoid them even as a mod, I would leave them to extreme cases of silliness in attitude. I certainly hadn't said that your statement was silly; I only asked you to avoid making matters worse.

 

I don't see the need for you to reply as you did to a mod stepping in, especially with some of those remarks, just because I didn't 100% take sides. Replies to a mod stepping in should be limited to the essential, if you find it necessary.

 

I don't see the point in comparing the words 'silly' and 'ignorant' when I try to avoid trouble of this kind. In any case I disagree with your comparison. We are all ignorant but we aren't all silly, still there wasn't any need for Harzburgite's remark, justifying becoming aggressive when faced by "ignorance that lacks an excuse" (????) but neither is it necessary to respond using words that might further increase trouble.

 

I often wondered about what is the best way to react in this situation...

I did suggest clicking the "Report bad post button" which allows you to write a few lines to say exactly what you find wrong with it, and I also said sorry for the remark having gone unnoticed before you replied to it. However:

It takes a lot of restraint to do this though, although much less if you are on a forum where blatant aggression is considered detrimental to discussion and stopped AND objectively evaluated rather than just claiming only the person opposing popular opinion of the forum is being aggressive. I will try harder to prevent myself from this type of action and Im sure others here will do the same (if any of them reply to the thread after so long)

It doesn't take a lot of restraint to report the bad post to the mods and stopping blatant aggression, flaming or any other attitude against rules of the site and of friendly civil discussion also depends on members, including yourself. As a mod I read as much of the posts as I can, when I can, I don't always have much time online, but, most of all, nobody's perfect and Harzburgite's remark didn't stand out so obvious to one that wasn't fully following the discussion.

 

I don't see what you mean by "just claiming only the person opposing popular opinion of the forum is being aggressive". Who made this claim and about who and what?

[Kriminal99]

I only stepped in to prevent the discussion from degenerating and I tried to be fair by talking to both. In responding to Harzburgite's aggressivity you should leave words of judgement, such as 'silly' up to the discretion of mods. Personally, I avoid them even as a mod, I would leave them to extreme cases of silliness in attitude. I certainly hadn't said that your statement was silly; I only asked you to avoid making matters worse.

 

I don't see the need for you to reply as you did to a mod stepping in, especially with some of those remarks, just because I didn't 100% take sides. Replies to a mod stepping in should be limited to the essential, if you find it necessary.

 

I don't see the point in comparing the words 'silly' and 'ignorant' when I try to avoid trouble of this kind. In any case I disagree with your comparison. We are all ignorant but we aren't all silly, still there wasn't any need for Harzburgite's remark, justifying becoming aggressive when faced by "ignorance that lacks an excuse" (????) but neither is it necessary to respond using words that might further increase trouble.

 

I did suggest clicking the "Report bad post button" which allows you to write a few lines to say exactly what you find wrong with it, and I also said sorry for the remark having gone unnoticed before you replied to it. However:

It doesn't take a lot of restraint to report the bad post to the mods and stopping blatant aggression, flaming or any other attitude against rules of the site and of friendly civil discussion also depends on members, including yourself. As a mod I read as much of the posts as I can, when I can, I don't always have much time online, but, most of all, nobody's perfect and Harzburgite's remark didn't stand out so obvious to one that wasn't fully following the discussion.

 

I don't see what you mean by "just claiming only the person opposing popular opinion of the forum is being aggressive". Who made this claim and about who and what?

 

Actually I have no interest whatsoever in someone taking sides and Im sorry if I gave you that impression and don't see how I gave an indication of such.

 

My point was that A) calling something silly is not an act of aggression from my point of view, it depends on how you view that word. "Ignorance without an excuse" on the other hand clearly demonstrates a desire to be aggressive by the person saying it. :Waldo: It really isn't the words used but the intent that determines weather something is potentially "aggressive". And if you are claiming anything other than that your opponent knows everything and is 100% right in his actions your claim is going to interpreted as being aggressive to some degree by some people. Anotherwords, I believe that your actions are no less "aggressive" than mine.

 

The belief that arguments shouldn't become aggressive is a belief like any other, and if you are aggressive in its name then your actions seem to be self defeating... I said that I often wondered what could be a good way to deal with this situation, what I meant was that I do not wish for a debate to degenerate into aggressiveness but there seems to be limited means of avoiding it anytime you are disagreeing with someone. I do not understand what you mean regarding your opinion that we are all "ignorant". I also don't see why you think responses to a moderator should be limited, unless you are trying to portray some false facist authoritarian image where you are omniscient and your actions are beyond analyzation because they are always right or something.

 

Regarding the last statement you made (and I hope that you misinterpreted this to think I was talking about you or something and thats why you responded this way) about "Opinions opposing the popular opinion of the forum", I wasn't talking abotu this forum I was talking about other forums I have been to. Of course every forum mod and site runner dillude themselves into believing that they are open minded and open to opposing opinions or criticism, but this usually is limited to pointing out "trivial mistakes" or small deviations in opinion. Disagreeing with them on any signifigant matter, and more importantly being right about it usually drives them to an animalistic rage where they abuse their power to squelch their opponents and pretend that they are somehow justified in their facist behavior. This of course effects the whole atmosphere of the forum by letting people who are already known to share opinions with the mods know that they can get away with any degree of aggressiveness or dishonest debate tactics against such a person who disagrees to such a degree. There was a particuarly amusing occurence of this on another science forum I visited where the moderators were parading the site as a "science" site while maintaining this opinion nazi attitude. This site, I was remarking was the exact opposite BECAUSE you were calling aggressiveness on both sides fairly.

[Qfwfq]

I did not say that you were being aggressive, I had simply stepped in preventively because there was a slight risk of an argument breaking out between you and Harzburgite and instead you grabbed the opportunity to blow up an argument with me. Since you don't mind the word silly, I'll ask you if you don't think it silly to grab this opportunity for arguing. Harzburgite or me, one is a s good as the other, perhaps?

 

Let me tell you that this isn't what these board are for and if you don't like the rules you can step out. If guests that you welcomed into your house appear like they could be starting fights with each other, and also with you when you step in, you have every right to throw them out don't you? Wouldn't you just expect them to apologize and respect the host? There is nothing Fascist or authoritarian about doing what a mod should do, I only said your reply should be appropriate. I say that we are all ignorant because none of us is omniscient and we can't help it. I stepped in more critical of Harzburgite but I'm now much more critical of you, you could have left it at that. I did not step in to criticize your scientific opinions but only as a mod, you are welcome to your opinions as long as you respect the place and its rules, but arguing back was not the right thing to do, it is pointless and can only make you unwelcome and could even get you banned if you insist.

[Tormod]

Of course every forum mod and site runner dillude themselves into believing that they are open minded and open to opposing opinions or criticism, but this usually is limited to pointing out "trivial mistakes" or small deviations in opinion. Disagreeing with them on any signifigant matter, and more importantly being right about it usually drives them to an animalistic rage where they abuse their power to squelch their opponents and pretend that they are somehow justified in their facist behavior.

 

Uhm... Beware or I will have you detained for even talking about opposing our (secret) forum opinion. :Waldo:

[HydrogenBond]

Solid reproduceable data is solid objective science. If more than one theory exists about the data than there is some level of subjectivity involved in the theories. When it comes done to subjectivity in theory, prestige has the advantage. Prestige can draw in more resources to back the claim thereby having the best shot at proving or disporving the theory. With alternative theories about the same data implying some degree of subjectivity, maybe we all need to be more open to new ideas because even the exisiting theories are not 100% objectiive science. I like the idea of coorperatively brain storming new ideas to their logical conclusion to see if they are consistent with logic and common sense (help it ripen), rather than immediately discount it because it is new, green or is different than consensus subjective theory.

[Theophilus]

Is it correct to say that science is mere data about nature?

From wikipedia.org:

Science is both a process of gaining knowledge, and the organized body of knowledge gained by this process. The scientific process is the systematic acquisition of new knowledge about a system. This systematic acquisition is generally the scientific method, and the system is generally nature. Science is also the scientific knowledge that has been systematically acquired by this scientific process

 

To make it relevant to human beings, we term that as philosophy?

Philosophy is now widely used to designate the pursuit of knowledge or wisdom about fundamental matters concerning life, death, meaning, reality, being and truth.

 

So science in itself is meaningless unless we philosophize?

 

In its earliest manifestation, philosophy included the investigation of all areas of human experience in an attempt to discern a coherent, comprehensive explanation of that experience.

 

At some point, various disciplines were separated from this general pursuit for understanding and, thereby, became largely autonomous. "Science" (ology) came to be understood exclusively as the investigation of physical/material phenomenon without immediate regard to such issues as epistemology and metaphysics.

 

Of course, it is impossible to actually study anything without some theory of knowledge and reality whether acknowledged or not, i.e., if knowledge is impossible, then that includes knowledge of the physical universe (if it exists at all).

 

So, "philosophizing" is inescapable. When a "scientists" propounds a new hypothesis, he does so only in the context of some basic assumptions about the "nature of things."

 

Some of those assumptions are:

1. The uniformity of nature - unproven.

2. Causation - disproven by Hume.

3. The reliability of sense perceptions - dubious if not disproven.

4. The existence of physical "laws" (gravity) - unproven.

 

Modern science (secular) is mere Operationalism rather than a process for the discovery of anything like actual facts.

[Kriminal99]

I did not say that you were being aggressive, I had simply stepped in preventively because there was a slight risk of an argument breaking out between you and Harzburgite and instead you grabbed the opportunity to blow up an argument with me. Since you don't mind the word silly, I'll ask you if you don't think it silly to grab this opportunity for arguing. Harzburgite or me, one is a s good as the other, perhaps?

 

Let me tell you that this isn't what these board are for and if you don't like the rules you can step out. If guests that you welcomed into your house appear like they could be starting fights with each other, and also with you when you step in, you have every right to throw them out don't you? Wouldn't you just expect them to apologize and respect the host? There is nothing Fascist or authoritarian about doing what a mod should do, I only said your reply should be appropriate. I say that we are all ignorant because none of us is omniscient and we can't help it. I stepped in more critical of Harzburgite but I'm now much more critical of you, you could have left it at that. I did not step in to criticize your scientific opinions but only as a mod, you are welcome to your opinions as long as you respect the place and its rules, but arguing back was not the right thing to do, it is pointless and can only make you unwelcome and could even get you banned if you insist.

 

Well IMO usually in real life people have something to offer one another, namely friendship so when people discuss things that they have a difference in opinion in they just ignore the fact that they don't completely agree with the other person and instead concentrate on finding common ground so that they don't lose the respect of the other person. Sometimes since avg people value friendship over ideas they might even give up their difference of opinion over time and just not think about the issue any more (unless its only one person who is being really forceful with their ideas and not putting forth just as much effort to avoid argument)

 

But on an internet forum, especially one dedicated to science and other intellectual pursuits, the whole purpose is the ideas and you don't make friends here like you do in real life. This means that the people here are probably going to be people who don't compromise their ideas in favor of friendship to begin with (so those people probably WOULD say if they disagree with soemoen in real life), but especially not here because you have nothing to lose by sharing your ideas in fact its the only thing you can do to interact. The two situations are completely different and so I don't think its silly to disagree with someone on an internet forum.

 

If I invited someone to my house I might be doing it to socialize, in which case I might be mad if it we started having a debate. However if I invited them over under the impression that we were going to have a debate or discuss ideas (which means debate since people don't all agree with each other) and then got mad because there was a debate or because they disagreed with me then I don't see how my actions would be justified. If they came over and began yelling and become angry and insulting etc because I disagreed with them, then I might ask them to leave.

 

However I could simply act as though disagreeing with me was aggressive (because lets face it thats how people interpret disagreement), and then ask them to leave. I could claim that because they "refused to look at it from my perspective" (meaning they disagree with you despite your saying something that didn't convince them) they were being aggressive. Of course I would be doing the EXACT SAME THING by disagreeing with them, but since its my house I could just kick them out. Although it doesn't quite work this way in real life (because your actions would be too obvious and everyone would leave and have the debate at someone's house who is more objective, whereas internet forums are hard to set up) I might kick someone out who disagrees with me and then after hes gone try to convince everyone else he was being aggressive or somehow doing something wrong. Because I have power over that person I don't actually have to make convincing arguments, I can just eject him and then pretend like I won the argument. (which is usually what happens on internet forums) Pretty soon the people who chose to remain at your house would get the idea (weather they realize it consiously or not) and always "agree" with you.

 

If you are trying to make an argument past threatening to kick me off the board because I disagree with you, I'm not sure what it is. It sounds like you might be saying that the purpose of the board is to socialize rather than discuss ideas, but there are a few problems with that claim. First of all every science mod makes that claim when someone disagrees with them and then claims the board is all about discussing ideas related to science when people are agreeing with them. Which one is it, you can't have it both ways. Second of all, why would anyone go to an internet forum to socialize. Lastly, what kind of people who are interested in science value socializing over discussing disagreements in ideas?

 

Don't get me wrong. Competitivewise you guys are pretty high on the charts. However until I go to a forum and when I happen to completely disagree with the moderator and he says "I disagree, because of X" rather than kicking me off the forum I will feel like I have been decieved.

 

Solid reproduceable data is solid objective science. If more than one theory exists about the data than there is some level of subjectivity involved in the theories. When it comes done to subjectivity in theory, prestige has the advantage. Prestige can draw in more resources to back the claim thereby having the best shot at proving or disporving the theory. With alternative theories about the same data implying some degree of subjectivity, maybe we all need to be more open to new ideas because even the exisiting theories are not 100% objectiive science. I like the idea of coorperatively brain storming new ideas to their logical conclusion to see if they are consistent with logic and common sense (help it ripen), rather than immediately discount it because it is new, green or is different than consensus subjective theory.

 

I don't really agree that data can be all that solid. First of all there is a problem with sampling in any experiment- Say you are conducting a psychological study and grab random people off the street. Well if there is a starbucks down the street that might mean 65% of the people you sample have similar personality traits. Of course there are potentially a very large number of things like this that could be correlated to the way you sampled. And they are much less obvious when dealing with people than when collecting rocks for a physics experiment. Meaning you can't sample randomly over the population because you can't even see the boundaries of the population.

[Bio-Hazard]

Science is the explanation of the Universe.

 

However, some part of me itches and says science is god and god is science..