Science

[kmik]

I think contrary to most people here I actually like science. That is to say I studied physics and math and I love and enjoy it. Although reading some stuff as of late and thinking about it I've come to realize that science is an intellectual hobby and not much else. Most importantly it in no way suggest an objective truth. First of all, I think, and that is contrary to popular belief, science is deeply rooted in cultural understanding and human thought - that is, it does not exist independently of ourselves or of consciousness. It's not strictly "cultural" so to speak but it has to do with human way of thinking. The problem is that as opposed to language science is seen as something universal. The reason for that is that once some scientific advancement is made there is no need to reinvent it. However, Newton's paradigm could very well be replaced by another. There's nothing fundamental or essential about it. Theoretically there could be a million other ways of understanding the same phenomena, because space and time etc. arer human constructs. It's hard to imagine something else because we are used to thinking like that but it could very well be. So I think that science in many ways is perhaps very similar to, say, Feminist or Marxist literary criticism. Both take something very abstract and analyze it in a very specific and non-holistic way. Does that suggest objective truth? Actually, yes. But only objective truth within that framework. i.e what holds with one theory of literary criticism does not work with the other. That is not objective truth because it's not holistic. Science is overspecialized. As opposed to religion (as Dostoevsky notes in the Brothers Karamazov - I've forgotten which character says that, though) it is not a holistic understanding of everything but rather a collection of individual theories to be applied to individual cases. Now if the say that science "works"? First of all, just because it "works" does not mean it helps you understand everything and the thing is that it WORKS WITHIN ITSELF. I mean of course the results are right, that's why it is science (I have a very hard time expressing that thought clearly :/).

I dont know thats just this thought I had and every time I have a thought I put it here

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Newton's paradigm could be replaced? On the scale of the very big and the very small, Newtonian mechanics have been replaced for a century now. Einstein anyone? Countless scientific theories have been discarded, from the humoural theory to phlogiston, to lamarckian evolution.

The beauty of science is that it's a constant practice of refining and developing theories. If we can make a firm mathematical equation for a theory it becomes a law, and we have no reason to think that the law wouldn't hold on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. Using laws and facts we can formulate theories to explain phenomena. The Darwinian theory of evolution is not a law, because it isn't mathematically reducible, but it is a fact that we evolved from sea slime via fish and apes. The theory is the process of understanding how it happened.

We've harnessed the power of the atom, landed on the moon, eradicated smallpox, and built computers that can perform trillions of calculations per second. Comparing this to a social theory like feminism ormarxism seems absurd. What exactly do you mean when you say that it "works within itself"?

The problem with seeing the nature of reality as a social construction is that our bodies evolved sensory organs in response to external stimuli. Time and gravity exist external to humans, sorry.

As for holism, I don't think it has much value, it's like saying that card tricks aren't "real" magic. Well, of course not, but "real" magic is fiction, so the card magic is the real magic. . . it's just explicable through reduction to component parts.

"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)"

- Alan Sokal

 

[kmik]

I knew I didn't put it well. I don't mean science does not progress. I mean in the first place you could have different theories for understanding Newtonian mechanics, in OTHER terms than velocity, space, and time. These things don't really exist. SOMETHING exists, but we imagine it in our brain to help us understand it.

I am comparing it to a social theory because both are very specific ways at looking at something abstract. The physician does not take into account all the factors in the system only what's relevant to him, just like Feminists only talk about, well, feminism when analyzing things.

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Physics is easy to pick on cause it's difficult to understand, but what about Darwinian evolution? Do you think that speciation could be explained in other terms besides nonrandom survival of random mutations?

 

[kmik]

Of course I can't because I'm not a genius and not a Darwin but in Darwin's theory so much is already assumed. Of course it's difficult to propose an alternative because you're used to thinking like that.

What do you mean easy to pick on physics? I actually like physics. The thing is that science only offers answers in its own definitions. Newtonian meachanics only work within Newtonian mechanics

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Almost everything that Darwin assumed is still being borne out in modern biochemical laboratories. And he wrote it in the Victorian Era. Darwinism is, I think not only the best theory we have for the origins of the diversity of life, it's the only one that in principle could ever account for it.

As far as physics go, I just meant that its easy to confuse people with calling time and space human social constructions. I think it's a lot of pointless hand-waving. We know that the big bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago. We can use quantum mechanics to make amazingly accurate predictions even though we don't entirely understand it. The fact that we're not absolutely impartial observers is irrelevant I think

 

[kmik]

All these accurate predictions are accurate within the scientific framework... The fact is that science uses scientific models. There could be different models, hypothetically. Everything we define, say, a wave - that's a mathematical model for some abstract phenomena that could be understood completely differently in other terms.

 

[kmik]

It's like light can be understood both as matter and as wave. Quantum theory proves it wrong because it has a dualistic nature. But theoretically you can see how we can have different models for the same thing

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

It's like light can be understood both as matter and as wave. Quantum theory proves it wrong because it has a dualistic nature. But theoretically you can see how we can have different models for the same thing

All that is is scientific progress. The wave-particle duality is a testable scientific hypothesis. Whatever words we use we're still exaiming the same phenomena and won't arrive at radically different results.

 

[kmik]

No that's the thing. It's not how we call it but how we understand it. You can't see how two different models could be both empirically true while observing the same phenomenon?

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Well yes I suppose I could in that case, I don't see that as a really strong argument against scientific reductionism tho.

 

[JoeVice]

science, like religion, is often used as a crutch when facing real world problems. it can even be more ridiculous than wearing the cross the shoulder, since it is for the most part well established, even among the most thick-headed bible thumper, that to a certain extent religious/personal beliefs sometimes need to be set aside. fucking science sometimes fills the role of religious/personal beliefs. so, in any given conflict/quest for knowledge/growth, yada yada, if something is being used to fall back on, science included, it should be considered a block.

 

[kmik]

If two scientific theories can be true at once it proves that science is not "objective" since it depends on the subject and understood through our consciousness.

 

[peptide X]

Metalheads don't like science???

 

[Norsemaiden]

If two scientific theories can be true at once it proves that science is not "objective" since it depends on the subject and understood through our consciousness.

One scientific theory can be more objective than another because the person formulating the theory is thinking more objectively.
Science is supposed to be as objective as possible. What could be more objective than science?

 

[hibernal_dream]

One scientific theory can be more objective than another because the person formulating the theory is thinking more objectively.
Science is supposed to be as objective as possible. What could be more objective than science?

Mathematics, assuming you are talking about empirical science.

 

[kmik]

What do you mean "more objective"? In physics, in our universe that is, nothing can be 100% accurate (even theoretically); but suppose we lived in a deterministic universe where Newtonian mechanics hold completely. Then there could be two different models which are 100% accurate.

What's objective about mathematics? It is completely made up. You define your axioms which can be completely arbitrary and go on from there. There could be two different branches of mathematics which completely negate each other - say non-Euclidean and normal geometry.

 

[Norsemaiden]

What do you mean "more objective"? In physics, in our universe that is, nothing can be 100% accurate (even theoretically); but suppose we lived in a deterministic universe where Newtonian mechanics hold completely. Then there could be two different models which are 100% accurate.

What's objective about mathematics? It is completely made up. You define your axioms which can be completely arbitrary and go on from there. There could be two different branches of mathematics which completely negate each other - say non-Euclidean and normal geometry.

Is there anything less subjective though?

 

[kmik]

Tough question. I really can't answer that

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

Of course I can't because I'm not a genius and not a Darwin but in Darwin's theory so much is already assumed. Of course it's difficult to propose an alternative because you're used to thinking like that.

When Darwin's theory was first proposed, it was the alternative as people had already been assuming something completely different for centuries. It's not difficult to propose alternatives because we're used to thinking about evolution, it's difficult to propose an alternative, because we expect any new hypotheses to be testable and to pesent supporting evidence that can be duplicated well enough to prove its relevency within a certain statistical degree of confidence. Have you ever heard of Intelligent Design? That was proposed as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution and some schools in the more religious areas of the US even tried to implement it into their syllabi. However, it was unable to provide any sort of testable evidence, and so it was rejected by the scientific community, as well as a supreme court judge as a poorly disguised attempt to legitimize that particular subculture's emotional attachment to their belief in Creationism.

Objectivety is the ability to reject or accept data based on their statistical relvancy and consistency with other scientific models, regardless of your personal beliefs. This is why Darwinian evolution can be seen as an objective truth while Intelligent Design and Creationism cannot. The genetic factors relating to evolution are testable and our geological record confirms several intermediary evolutionary steps between extinct and extant organisms. Meanwhile, Creationism and Intelligent Design offer no supporting evidence other than man's own desire to believe it. Even that however, can be defined by psychological models.