Is science a belief?

[Pebble]

Made the mistake of reading some philosophy and ended with a question - silly me.

Deductive reasoning is accepted as truly rational: progression from provable premises to inescapable conclusions. This is however rare in science.

Inductive reasoning is common in science: Generalisation from provable premises to similar situations. Much of physics, cannot tell what the rest of the universe is doing.

Inference to best explanation, is even more common: Use of a combination of provable but not necessarily related, provable premises to conclude cause and effect on the basis of probability. Sometimes 'provable' with experiment, sometimes not (evolution)

The bulk of reliance on scientific methodology is dependent on proving that probability is logical rather than subjective, and this cannot be proven!

Finally: Data aquisition is theory dependent - you only look for what you believe is possible!

Conclusion: Science is not rational, we are all believers!

I know this is wrong, but how to prove it, suggestions welcomed:'(

[Tim the Mage]

I don't know about proof but if we apply deductive reasoning to the premise you posit it doesn't hold up. Induction gives us better answers (or rather answers that accord better with what we perceive to be the case). After all deductive reasining can answer questions science can't answer (is there a god, what noise does a tree falling in a forest make, etc.) but we would rather engineering was empirically based. Deduction is need to pose the questions but we answer many of those through inquiry and test rather than through reasoning.

Interestingly most academic sociology has given up on the scientific approach in favour of conversation followed by 'reasoning' - it makes me want to scream!

[Pebble]

Induction gives us better answers (or rather answers that accord better with what we perceive to be the case).

There-in lies the conundrum

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Deductive reasoning is accepted as truly rational: progression from provable premises to inescapable conclusions. This is however rare in science.

Reminds me of the old joke about traditional logic textbooks, which deal first with deduction and then with induction. First they explain the fallacy, then they commit it...;D

Seriously, though— what have you been reading?

[Pebble]

Seriously, though— what have you been reading?

Philosophy of science: a very short introduction. By Samir Okasha


ISBN 978-0-19-280283-5

Not impressive overall, as fails to really commit to the questions raised, but they are there.

[tolman]

Finally: Data aquisition is theory dependent - you only look for what you believe is possible!
On that point, even if it were correct, it still hasn't prevented numerous old incorrect theories being doubted and then abandoned because they didn't fit later observations, and countless other potential theories being strangled at birth because they didn't fit with reality when experiments were done.

Someone may only look for what they think is possible, but that doesn't mean they must find what they expect, or that they can't find other quite unexpected things. If they're any good as a scientist, they won't ignore such results, but will try to understand them.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Philosophy of science: a very short introduction. By Samir Okasha


ISBN 978-0-19-280283-5

Not impressive overall, as fails to really commit to the questions raised, but they are there.

Righto. Obviously, I haven't read the book, but I'm guessing that it has something to do with this:
http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/ph29a/okasha.html

[Pebble]

Righto. Obviously, I haven't read the book, but I'm guessing that it has something to do with this:
http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/ph29a/okasha.html

Correct, and while as previously observed, one can later observe anomalies that arise in experiments once one's theory changes, or even that outcomes do not fit your current theory.

The concept that one is far more likely to design and carry out experiments that fit with current paradigms is an entirely defencible argument.

[Matt]

The problem of induction was addressed by Karl Popper. The findings of science aren't proven. That doens't mean that they're not arrived at rationally. We accept them as provisional truths until they're falsified.

Scientist often claim to reject faith, however at the heart of the scientific method is the unfalsifiable assumption that the universe opperates according to fixed rules whihc may be determined by observation. This I call my article of faith. It serves me well.

[Dr B]

Inductive reasoning got us out of caves.......something philosophers always forget.......:smiley:

[Mulder]

Science works - look at the computer you're using to read this! That's because it is self correcting based on evidence. Above all, science is practical, unlike most, if not all, formal philosophical systems which tend to be rigid and unchanging.

[farmersboy]

I never could see the point in philosophy...

[Tim the Mage]

I never could see the point in philosophy...

You would be an engineer then?

[farmersboy]

Funnily enough, yes.

[Pebble]

Scientist often claim to reject faith, however at the heart of the scientific method is the unfalsifiable assumption that the universe opperates according to fixed rules whihc may be determined by observation. This I call my article of faith. It serves me well.


I like that. Better still, it may not be unfalsifiable, simply that we would not know how to design the required studies given our current understanding.

I suppose where I really disagreed with this guy, was firstly the notion that pobability is subjective, it can be truly objective, and is continually improving. Second that scientists, rarely challange their fundamental paradigms, I think we do that quite often.

While I agree with the general theme that philosophy is largely a waste of time, most of what is posted on UK Skeptics is really philosophy rather than science. So I indulge in this nasty habit too.

[tolman]

Well, there are philosophers, and then there are once-half-read-an-article-on-QM "You merely learned things, whereas I learned how to think" philosophers (or philosophy students).

For all that they may go on about the subjectivity of reality, the latter kind of philosopher still seem to act as if reality does exist and is highly stable and predictable.
In fact, if they didn't act as if their philosophy was pointless, they'd probably be dead.

[Tim the Mage]

Well, there are philosophers, and then there are once-half-read-an-article-on-QM "You merely learned things, whereas I learned how to think" philosophers (or philosophy students).

For all that they may go on about the subjectivity of reality, the latter kind of philosopher still seem to act as if reality does exist and is highly stable and predictable.
In fact, if they didn't act as if their philosophy was pointless, they'd probably be dead.

The problem with philosophy is its accessibility (despite the best endeavours of philosophers). It takes skills and knowledge to design and build a bridge that doesn't fall down but any idiot can create a philosophy (and plenty have) claiming to reveal the eternal verities. However, there is a real point to philosophy that does lie somewhere in the 'learning how to reason' area - people with some appreciation of moral philosophy do appear to handle debate better. Maybe they just know better words?

[Pebble]

Inductive reasoning got us out of caves.......something philosophers always forget.......:smiley:

Science is more rational than philosophy, becasue it has on average consistently outperformed the latter! I suppose enviornmentalists and the victims of total war, might transiently (at least) beg to diffir.

The problem with science is that it is relatively indifferent to human motivation, probably because we have rather poor tools to evaluate the nature of conciousness etc. This leaves the field open to the fruit bat elements of society. Perhaps if psychology were a rigorous science, philosophy would be relegated to the fringes, like astronomy has done with astrology?

[tolman]

Studying philosophy can certainly teach some people how to think more clearly, but then studying lots of other things can also teach lots of other people how to think more clearly.

I do sometimes wonder if philosophy is maybe something that people shouldn't be allowed to study until after they've really come to grips with some other field.

[Tim the Mage]

Science is more rational than philosophy, becasue it has on average consistently outperformed the latter! I suppose enviornmentalists and the victims of total war, might transiently (at least) beg to diffir.

The problem with science is that it is relatively indifferent to human motivation, probably because we have rather poor tools to evaluate the nature of conciousness etc. This leaves the field open to the fruit bat elements of society. Perhaps if psychology were a rigorous science, philosophy would be relegated to the fringes, like astronomy has done with astrology?

My head hurts small stone... Rationality is, in itself a matter of philosophical discourse - after all (and please don't take this as too much of a challenge) I can't be sure that what you mean by rational and what I mean by rational are the same.

Pure science bumps into philosophy all the time (which is a good thing) and the idea of empiricism is but a philosophical construct. But then I'm not a scientist so what would I know? But economists do:

http://www.stanford.edu/~hammond/ratEcon.pdf

For me, you confidence in science is, surely, more of a confidence in engineering. And I prefer the engineer's response: "I don't care what your precious theory says, will the damn thing fly?"

[Pebble]

For me, you confidence in science is, surely, more of a confidence in engineering. And I prefer the engineer's response: "I don't care what your precious theory says, will the damn thing fly?"

Pharmaceuticals: will the drug work
Toxicology: what is the LD 50 of this agent
Chemistry: Will these compounds react, to form what etc.
Physics: will Mars be there when the craft arrives
Medicine: will relieving this obstruction to blood flow improve organ function


etc. etc

[Matt]

You know I've always thought of science as a branch of philosophy just as biology is a branch of science or caclulus is a branch of mathematics. And since I mention mathematics I think of that too as a branch of philosophy.

Philosophy is simply love of knowledge after all. At least that's what the etymology tells me.

[Pebble]

You know I've always thought of science as a branch of philosophy just as biology is a branch of science or caclulus is a branch of mathematics. And since I mention mathematics I think of that too as a branch of philosophy.

Philosophy is simply love of knowledge after all. At least that's what the etymology tells me.

Red rag to bulls surely: Going from Plato thinking experimenting should be shunned in favour of thinking a problem through, to the current vogue for thought experiment, and comparing this to the rigors of empiricism, seems a stretch. It is a bit like saying that science is a subset of human activity, technically true, but misses the point.:-[

[farmersboy]

You know I've always thought of science as a branch of philosophy just as biology is a branch of science or caclulus is a branch of mathematics. And since I mention mathematics I think of that too as a branch of philosophy.

Philosophy is simply love of knowledge after all. At least that's what the etymology tells me.

Well I never knew that - it had nothing to do with pointless conjecture on such drivel as the meaning of life.

[Matt]

Well I never knew that - it had nothing to do with pointless conjecture on such drivel as the meaning of life.

That I would file under metaphysics - another branch of philosophy. However other branches of philosophy seem more relavent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy#Branches_of_philosophy

[farmersboy]

That I would file under metaphysics - another branch of philosophy. However other branches of philosophy seem more relavent.

Yes, they seem to cover more practical things.

[Cuddles]

Physics: will Mars be there when the craft arrives

Depends whether you remember that feet and metres are different.:smiley:


You know I've always thought of science as a branch of philosophy just as biology is a branch of science or caclulus is a branch of mathematics. And since I mention mathematics I think of that too as a branch of philosophy.

I disagree. Biology is a branch of science becase it uses scientific tools to study a certain subset of the things science can study. Calculus is a branch of mathematics because it uses mathematical tools to study a subset of the things maths can study. Science is not a branch of philosophy because it usese many tools that simply do not exist in philosophy, and can study areas that have nothing to do with philosophy. In addition, philosophy can exist independently of anything else, but science requires knowledge.

When it comes down to it, philosophy is just thinking, and those thoughts often have nothing to do with reality, or simply have no consequences whether they are correct or not. Science is far more than that. It is thinking plus the tools required to test those thoughts. Philosophy is thinking regardless of reality. Science is thinking about reality.


Philosophy is simply love of knowledge after all. At least that's what the etymology tells me.

And the etymology of skepticism would tell you something very different from modern definitions of skepticism. That's not a good trap to fall in to. Philosophy is not the love of knowledge, because it cannot give you any knowledge. In order to gain knowledge you have to do more than just think about things, you have to find out how, and if, those thoughts apply to the real world. And that is the realm of science. Philosophy is the love of thinking about possible knowledge. Science is the love of actual knowledge.

[Matt]

Science is not a branch of philosophy because it usese many tools that simply do not exist in philosophy.

Can you give an example of one of these tools. I suspect we'll find that it's simply a matter of opinion whether these tools exist within the realm of in philosophy.

You might like to note that much of what is now called science was once called natural philosophy.

[Mike Hall]

at the heart of the scientific method is the unfalsifiable assumption that the universe opperates according to fixed rules whihc may be determined by observation.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that.

The theory that the universe operates according to fixed rules surely is falsifiable, at least in principle? In a universe where the rules frequently vary, no observation could stand up to repeated measurement.

Each time you mixed sodium hydroxide with hydrochloric acid at room temparature you'd wind up with beaker containing an arbitrary mix of chemicals. Or perhaps, occasionally, a dung beetle or the Radio Times. Not, as we reliably observe (100% reliably, as far as I'm aware), common salt and water.

Given our experimental observations can be reliably repeated, I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that the universe operates according to fixed rules. Or at least, our corner of the universe (in time as well as space) operates according to fixed rules.

If an experiment could be conducted, where a given observation consistently produced an arbitrary result, that would be evidence supporting a universe with arbitrary physical laws.

No?

[tolman]

You might like to note that much of what is now called science was once called natural philosophy.
But that could easily be explained as an appeal to tradition in an academic world where tradition did mean a great deal, and/or a world where 'philosophy' had a much more general meaning than it effectively has in current usage.

People could have started off calling science 'creation studies' but that wouldn't mean it was still a subset of religion.

[Pebble]

Can you give an example of one of these tools. I suspect we'll find that it's simply a matter of opinion whether these tools exist within the realm of in philosophy.

You might like to note that much of what is now called science was once called natural philosophy.


The cornerstone of science is experimental methodology. Experiments need to be independent of the individual carrying out the experiment, and give predictible results in controlled but otherwise independent circumstances. Philosophy, never tries this approach out, I believe!

[Tim the Mage]

The cornerstone of science is experimental methodology. Experiments need to be independent of the individual carrying out the experiment, and give predictible results in controlled but otherwise independent circumstances. Philosophy, never tries this approach out, I believe!

But "this approach" was and is a method of philosophical enquiry? I believe...isn't the point of philosophy after all!

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Made the mistake of reading some philosophy and ended with a question - silly me.

Deductive reasoning is accepted as truly rational: progression from provable premises to inescapable conclusions. This is however rare in science.

Inductive reasoning is common in science: Generalisation from provable premises to similar situations. Much of physics, cannot tell what the rest of the universe is doing.

Inference to best explanation, is even more common: Use of a combination of provable but not necessarily related, provable premises to conclude cause and effect on the basis of probability. Sometimes 'provable' with experiment, sometimes not (evolution)

The bulk of reliance on scientific methodology is dependent on proving that probability is logical rather than subjective, and this cannot be proven!

Finally: Data aquisition is theory dependent - you only look for what you believe is possible!

Conclusion: Science is not rational, we are all believers!

I know this is wrong, but how to prove it, suggestions welcomed:'(



Pebble,

Can you help here? As I said earlier, I haven't read the book. The nearest thing I can find is this:
http://www.questia.com/library/book/philosophy-of-science-a-very-short-introduction-by-samir-okasha.jsp

Not very helpful, as it gives only snippets. How does the author get— or purport to get —to the conclusion that " Science is not rational, we are all believers!" ?

[Pebble]

But "this approach" was and is a method of philosophical enquiry? I believe...isn't the point of philosophy after all!

Need to expand slightly. Independent verifiable experimentation in philosophy - how so?

Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Russel etc certainly kept very quite about this if that is what they were doing. Or are you crediting 'though experiment' with being independently verifiable.

[Pebble]

Pebble,

Can you help here? As I said earlier, I haven't read the book. The nearest thing I can find is this:
http://www.questia.com/library/book/philosophy-of-science-a-very-short-introduction-by-samir-okasha.jsp

Not very helpful, as it gives only snippets. How does the author get— or purport to get —to the conclusion that " Science is not rational, we are all believers!" ?

The issue of inference to best fit is clearly reliant on probability. He proposes that most probability is a matter of opinion, i.e. your belief that there is a 90% probability that the sun will rise tomorrow is your opinion, not a disprovabale fact until tomorrow. Certainly this would be very different to my use of probability.

I think however the mainstay, was that unless a paradigm shift is occurring, research confines it self to exploring details withing the currently prevaling orthrodox view. We are not challanging the fundamentals, these we accept (believe in) until the evidence base becomes incompatible with status quo and then we look for a new paradigm. The idea is that mostly we explain away anomalies - e.g. the non elipsoid trajectory of pluto, dark matter etc. Here we pursue evidence that supports our initial belief, so in putting the answer before the question, we are behaving like creationists - trying to find facts that fit the theory rather than trying to disprove our original theory - ie testing it to destruction.

[Cuddles]

Can you give an example of one of these tools. I suspect we'll find that it's simply a matter of opinion whether these tools exist within the realm of in philosophy.

Basically, the scientific method. Pretty much the whole point of philosophy is that it thinks about things without ever bothering to check if those thoughts actually match up with reality. Once you start testing to see what really happens, you are doing science and not philosophy.

As you say, this is really a matter of opinion that depends very much on how you define philosophy. However, I suspect that while your opinion is similar to the definition given by philosophers, mine is more similar to the one used by most scientists and the general public.


You might like to note that much of what is now called science was once called natural philosophy.

Again, irrelevant. Chemistry was once called alchemy. Astronomy was once called astrology. You can't just assume that the historic usage of a word is the same as its current usage.

[Matt]

The cornerstone of science is experimental methodology. Experiments need to be independent of the individual carrying out the experiment, and give predictible results in controlled but otherwise independent circumstances. Philosophy, never tries this approach out, I believe!

And here is where we disagree. Empiricism is the school of philosophy dating back to Aristotle who criticised Plato's approach of attempting to derive truth from thought alone without reference to experience.

Plato's top down approach is contrasted with the younger philosopher's bottom up approach in this famous depiction of the two men together. Plato is poiting up at the source of all his knowledge, heavenly ideals. At the same time Aristotle is indicating downwards at the earth and solid reality, where he thought one should look for truth.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Sanzio_01_Plato_Aristotle.jpg/458px-Sanzio_01_Plato_Aristotle.jpg

Or at least that's what I was taught in my Philosophy of Physics lectures.

Since the time of Aristotle empiricsm was put on a philosophical back burner until developments in experimentation launched what we know call science.

More on empiricism here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism

[Dr B]

Perhaps if psychology were a rigorous science, philosophy would be relegated to the fringes, like astronomy has done with astrology?

Eeerrrrr sorry to pop back to this but eeerrr 'cough' Psychology is a science. In many ways it can be seen as more demanding than other branches. I often encounter comments like this - usually by people that (i) have not done a psychology degree (ii) have not done a psychology PhD, (iii) do not work in a leading experimental department, (iv) are not actively publishing in experimental psychology, (v) do not try to tackle the main issues facing experimental psychology on a daily basis. This is not directed at you Pebble - just the thematic properties of comments like that....O0

Now - there are certainly sections of 'fluffy psychology' (which no one based in an experimental department takes seriously) - but using that to bash the real science over the head is like using shledrake to undermine biology....

[Dr B]

On a more general note - experimental psychology (as we know it today) came out of what was Experimental Philosophy.

People like James (USA) and Stout (UK) were among some of the first to cross the divide.

On another note. Don't confuse Philosophy per-se with the Philosophy of Science specifically. I find the latter extremely useful for understanding the limitations of science.

:undecided:

[Pebble]

I often encounter comments like this - usually by people that (i) have not done a psychology degree (ii) have not done a psychology PhD, (iii) do not work in a leading experimental department, (iv) are not actively publishing in experimental psychology, (v) do not try to tackle the main issues facing experimental psychology on a daily basis. This is not directed at you Pebble - just the thematic properties of comments like that....O0

Now - there are certainly sections of 'fluffy psychology' (which no one based in an experimental department takes seriously) - but using that to bash the real science over the head is like using shledrake to undermine biology....

No I do not work in psychology, but have interactions with clinical psychologists and find (beware testimonial) that the evidence base they work with is thin, and there is a lack of appraciation of this.

Point taken about true basic psychological experimentation. But this will remain tarred with the general brush as long as the foot soldiers generalise the results of experiments to situations where the outcomes are either untested or poorly evaluated.

[tolman]

Since the time of Aristotle empiricsm was put on a philosophical back burner until developments in experimentation launched what we know call science.

So wouldn't it be equally accurate to call the scientific approach of Aristotle science, rather distinct from (even hampered by) philosophy at the time?

Practically speaking, people do science-like stuff all the time - making guesses about how things might work, trying them out and seeing what happens, modfying their explicit world models the same way the brain modifies its subconscious models. They'd do that even if every philosopher who ever lived had been strangled at birth.

To a certain extent, science is largely a formalisation of natural (and non-superstitous) approaches to the world, along with the body of knowledge that has accumulated from past practice, with the addition of rather more formal/accurate measurement and use of mathematics in some areas.

I can see some point in codifying useful ways of thinking, maybe even calling that collection of ways of thinking 'philosophy', but that doesn't mean philosophy can claim any kind of monopoly over those ways of thinking, or even any credit for inventing most of them.

[Dr B]

No I do not work in psychology, but have interactions with clinical psychologists and find (beware testimonial) that the evidence base they work with is thin, and there is a lack of appraciation of this.

I suspected as much - some areas of clinical (because its more medical) is very fluffy with regard to what mainstream psych is all about. However, you should not extrapolate from that limited observation to tarnish a whole discipline od research.


But this will remain tarred with the general brush as long as the foot soldiers generalise the results of experiments to situations where the outcomes are either untested or poorly evaluated.

With respect - it will only remain tarned by those making the mistake you just did......the fallacy of the sweeping generalisation perhaps? 8) Anyway...no worries I just wanted to pick up that often used but utterly fallacious argument....

Now back to the real debate.......

[Lord Muck oGentry]

The issue of inference to best fit is clearly reliant on probability. He proposes that most probability is a matter of opinion, i.e. your belief that there is a 90% probability that the sun will rise tomorrow is your opinion, not a disprovabale fact until tomorrow. Certainly this would be very different to my use of probability.

I think however the mainstay, was that unless a paradigm shift is occurring, research confines it self to exploring details withing the currently prevaling orthrodox view. We are not challanging the fundamentals, these we accept (believe in) until the evidence base becomes incompatible with status quo and then we look for a new paradigm. The idea is that mostly we explain away anomalies - e.g. the non elipsoid trajectory of pluto, dark matter etc. Here we pursue evidence that supports our initial belief, so in putting the answer before the question, we are behaving like creationists - trying to find facts that fit the theory rather than trying to disprove our original theory - ie testing it to destruction.

Thanks, Pebble.
When I see the word paradigm nowadays, I feel a pang of something like pity, as for an old acquaintance who has fallen into low company and bad ways...:smiley:

It would be interesting to hear from the working scientists on the forum whether they recognize anything of their own experience in the notion of normal science— unrevolutionary puzzle-solving within a broadly agreed framework— punctuated by bouts of revolutionary fervour.

[Pebble]

I suspected as much - some areas of clinical (because its more medical) is very fluffy with regard to what mainstream psych is all about. However, you should not extrapolate from that limited observation to tarnish a whole discipline od research.

Now back to the real debate.......

I would first like to pick up on the point about medicine. In terms of applying scientific methodology to real life, it is difficult to think of an area where there has been more effort than medicine. Over the past 30 years double blind methodology has been appled to vast numbers over prolonged periods followed by extensive registries to document that, that which has been observed occurs in real life populations. Sure there are areas of medicine that have lagged behind. But there is nothing fluffy about most of pharmacology anymore. Even in areas such as hospital infection, models of care delivery and preventative medicine, new techniques have been developed to overcome the constraints of moving real science out of the 'ideal' but artificial controlled enviornment.

[median]

Interesting thread everyone. Most enjoyable.

Just like to say that it is good to see some fighting the corner for philosophers, I always did think they get an unfair bashing a lot of the time.
The term 'philosophy' carries negative connotations (as in 'I have a new age philosophy') but has been responsible for formulation of logic, is linked closely with mathematics and has helped to inform science (Popper).

Possibly, psychology is also subject to a similar bad press because the term has been usurped or feature more highly in people's minds than other more rigorous branches of the discipline.

Regards

Median

[Matt]

Interesting thread everyone. Most enjoyable.

Just like to say that it is good to see some fighting the corner for philosophers, I always did think they get an unfair bashing a lot of the time.
The term 'philosophy' carries negative connotations (as in 'I have a new age philosophy') but has been responsible for formulation of logic, is linked closely with mathematics and has helped to inform science (Popper).

Possibly, psychology is also subject to a similar bad press because the term has been usurped or feature more highly in people's minds than other more rigorous branches of the discipline.

Regards

Median


It seems to me that most barbs aimed at philosophy apply only the metaphysics, just one branch of the subject.

I contend that science is another branch - a refined empircism, which is a school of epistemology.

Yet there subjects that are less contentious as branches of philosophy. What do the detractors of philosophy have against ethics or logic? Both clearly branches of philosophy taught in a contemporary philosophy course.

[tolman]

Thing is, it's possible to classify, for example, chemistry as being a branch of physics ("It's basically all about the interaction of electron shells"), but that classification isn't very useful - chances are that faced with a pretty average chemist and a really good physicist, you'd ask the chemist every time if you wanted to know about chemistry at any level from the most basic upwards.

It may be useful, for example, to count digital electronics, analog electronics, power systems, etc as part of electrical engineering, but despite the clear historical link, it may be less useful to think of computer programming as a branch of electrical engineering (and that's even acknowledging that many elec. eng students may do a fair amount of programming alongside their other studies.
Effectively, the disciplines have evolved to the point where the practices and concepts are different, even if someone may well use both disciplines when actually working.

Reading Popper (or, for most of us, reading some brief summary of his ideas), may help codify once implicit/subconscious concepts so that they may be more clearly talked about for intellectual entertainment, but does pondering on the philosophy of science actually have much effect on science itself?
It could be useful in the sense of giving the ability to more formally explain why some nonscience isn't science, but people were still pretty much as able to make that distinction pre-Popper, even if they possibly had a less formalised means of explaining it.

A philosopher isn't really needed to understand that theories are only provisional truths, since a quick look at the history of overthrown or modified old theories can illustrate that fairly adequately.

[tolman]

What's the point of calling science a subset of philosophy?

From a cynical scientist/engineer's viewpoint, it could look either patronising, or like some attempt to claim a share of glory, with no particular upside.
Once, the 'natural philosophy' tag may have been useful, but it was ditched when that use had expired.

Maybe it's just that a scientist doesn't necessarily see a point in classifying things just for the sake of it, but only if there's a real purpose (Do I get more time off teaching? Do I get to use the philosophy department coffee room with the nice sofas?)

[Tim the Mage]

What's the point of calling science a subset of philosophy?

From a cynical scientist/engineer's viewpoint, it could look either patronising, or like some attempt to claim a share of glory, with no particular upside.
Once, the 'natural philosophy' tag may have been useful, but it was ditched when that use had expired.

Maybe it's just that a scientist doesn't necessarily see a point in classifying things just for the sake of it, but only if there's a real purpose (Do I get more time off teaching? Do I get to use the philosophy department coffee room with the nice sofas?)

I hear an engineer speaking rather than a scientist. Of course science is about speculation rather than application. What's the point of it if it isn't - it just becomes engineering, merely playing with the bricks created by someone else.

[Dr B]

I would first like to pick up on the point about medicine.

There was no point about medicine - it was about more medically oriented psychology (some quarters of clinical psych / psychiatry etc) which use a disease and medical-based view of certain behaviours. I never mentioned medicine per-se.

A great deal of medical-based psychology borders close to woo. Anyone remember the phrase 'pathological gambling'? - pathological, oh really......and what is the evidence for this? The term has now been changed to 'problem gambling' ......i wonder why.

In addition - many philosophers and scientists have argued that Freudian psychology (as an example) is utter pseudoscience as it is totally unfalsifiable and there is no scope for it to be wrong. None of this has anything to do with the science of psychology which is taught in universities all over the world.

As a consequence of my clarification (and see original post) most of the below is irrelevant (and indeed I would agree with you on much of this).



In terms of applying scientific methodology to real life, it is difficult to think of an area where there has been more effort than medicine. Over the past 30 years double blind methodology has been appled to vast numbers over prolonged periods followed by extensive registries to document that, that which has been observed occurs in real life populations. Sure there are areas of medicine that have lagged behind. But there is nothing fluffy about most of pharmacology anymore. Even in areas such as hospital infection, models of care delivery and preventative medicine, new techniques have been developed to overcome the constraints of moving real science out of the 'ideal' but artificial controlled enviornment.

[tolman]

I hear an engineer speaking rather than a scientist. Of course science is about speculation rather than application.
Science isn't about speculation. Speculation is merely one aspect of it, in much the same way it's an aspect of engineering - a way of generating ideas that can then be checked out to see whether they seem to work.

The point of science isn't just to generate speculative models of reality for some personal intellectual satisfaction, it's to generate models of reality which seem to be useful (ie which correspond with the real world well enough that they can be used for making accurate predictions with less expense and danger than trying everything out full-scale and in real time).

It's not about just asking "What if?" questions, it's about gaining the knowledge to allow us to accurately answer "What if?" questions.
That's what causes people to pay for science being taught and done.

To the extent that an area of science can't really be checked against reality, it's debatable whether it's really science (in the sense of knowledge), or just potential science.
For example, as long as it was not possible to decide between string theory and various other competing theories by any appeal to the real world, it'd also be basically irrelevant which, if any, may be more or less correct.
No decisions would (or even could) be affected by a suspicion that one or another may be correct, saving possibly those aimed at trying to find a way of distinguishing between them, or guessing how to allocate funds out of a limited budget.


What's the point of it if it isn't - it just becomes engineering, merely playing with the bricks created by someone else.Now, what was that I said about people being patronising?

[Pebble]

I suspected as much - some areas of clinical (because its more medical) is very fluffy with regard to what mainstream psych is all about. However, you should not extrapolate from that limited observation to tarnish a whole discipline od research.

OK so you have not directly stated that medicine is fluffy, but the above statement becomes difficult to comprehend if that was not the inference.




With respect - it will only remain tarned by those making the mistake you just did......the fallacy of the sweeping generalisation perhaps?.

Now back to the real debate.......

The point you have neatly sidestepped here, is that it is the behaviour of card carrying psychologists that is responsible for my perception.

I note that no 'real scientist' is willing to take up the challange of defending the 'paradigm' argument.

[Pebble]

The point of science isn't just to generate speculative models of reality for some personal intellectual satisfaction, it's to generate models of reality which seem to be useful (ie which correspond with the real world well enough that they can be used for making accurate predictions with less expense and danger than trying everything out full-scale and in real time).




'Real academics' claim to pursue knowledge for its own sake considering any potential use to which that knowledge can be put as entirely secondary. This appears to be a dying breed. Survival of the fittest at work?

[tolman]

'Real academics' claim to pursue knowledge for its own sake considering any potential use to which that knowledge can be put as entirely secondary. This appears to be a dying breed. Survival of the fittest at work?
I suppose there's what people claim when pontificating in a common room, and then there's what people claim on grant applications.

Anyway, it's possible to pursue 'pure' knowledge about reality without getting involved in immediate applications, but ideas still needs some cross-checking with reality to ensure you *have* actually gained knowledge and not merely generated speculation.

I'm not sure that many Nobel prizes get awarded for untested theories.

(and I know I'm using 'theory' in the small-T everyday sense, not the strict 'tested hypothesis' sense)

[Matt]

I'm not sure that many Nobel prizes get awarded for untested theories.

But Al Gore got one :cheesy:

</AGW denialist>

[Lord Muck oGentry]

I note that no 'real scientist' is willing to take up the challange of defending the 'paradigm' argument.

Pebble,

I'm sorry to be tedious here. Which argument do you mean by " the 'paradigm' argument"?

Is it an argument meant to show that science moves from paradigm to paradigm, with intervals of upheaval? Or is it an argument meant to show that paradigm-shifts of this sort must be irrational? Or is it something else?

[Pebble]

Pebble,

I'm sorry to be tedious here. Which argument do you mean by " the 'paradigm' argument"?

Is it an argument meant to show that science moves from paradigm to paradigm, with intervals of upheaval? Or is it an argument meant to show that paradigm-shifts of this sort must be irrational? Or is it something else?

As mentioned above everything is a paradigm these days. As I understand the notion, it describes the theory or group of theories that describe the current understanding of a given branch of study.

The notion being proposed (I have not stated that I agree with this) is that most of the time the underlying theory is not challanged. Where anomalies are observed, one assumes that there is some missing data that can reconcile the anomaly with the current theory. Further it is claimed that many anomalies will not be observed as one is generally looking for data that support the theory rather than trying to disprove the theory. Next, it is much easier to get funding for projects that 'flesh out' a given understanding than challange it. Finally, it is much easier to publish findings that accord with current understanding (peer review), observations that challange the current position must be much better supported by evidence than those which accord with the current beliefs.

In essence the whole process is geared to resisting major change, and that there is an unequal playing field. Major changes such as occurred with Darwin, Kepler etc are strongly contested and converting the scientific community is managed better by forceful personalities than by the force of argument alone.

I suspect that this was very true a couple of hundred years ago, and much less so now, but presenting coherent evidence is difficult, especially given the behaviour of Einstein and I believe Schrodinger.

[tolman]

I guess it's often easier to see paradigms in hindsight.
In reality, I'd have thought that things are frequently finer-grained, and that sometimes even small changes can be difficult, whereas larger ones can just happen as a result of evolution, not revolution.

Presumably there are historic reasons/evidence why people think a particular way, so new results/ideas which contradict the current popular theory will have to provide better evidence than those which accord with it, since the non-controversial ideas effectively have the weight of the historic reasons/evidence behind them.

However, I'd wonder how significant the suggestion is of things conflicting with paradigms not being looked for.
At any one time, in a mature discipline where the methods basically work, the large majority of scientists seem likely to be working inside the box doing things which are useful enough for someone else to fund, and few of those are generally going to be hugely groundbreaking, even if they are finding out new things.

How many of the really big shake-ups would have to have happened sooner or later, (often not much later) merely from the slow collection of facts from people *not* trying to think outside the box?

Are there really many people prepared to throw funding around for people simply trying to prove what is already believed true?
Would anyone pay for someone to do that if they didn't have confidence that anomalous results would be reported and investigated?

Surely with Darwin, it was the weight of collected evidence and a chain of reasoning that it was hard to find fault with that counted, rather than personality? Many people who were opposed to the ideas were opposed for reasons which had little to do with science.

With Kepler, he was just trying to explain Brahe's measurements. Was there even an orthodoxy in existence about how planets moved, or just a collection of personal theories based on data of varying accuracy?

[Pebble]

Are there really many people prepared to throw funding around for people simply trying to prove what is already believed true?
Would anyone pay for someone to do that if they didn't have confidence that anomalous results would be reported and investigated?

Surely with Darwin, it was the weight of collected evidence and a chain of reasoning that it was hard to find fault with that counted, rather than personality? Many people who were opposed to the ideas were opposed for reasons which had little to do with science.

With Kepler, he was just trying to explain Brahe's measurements. Was there even an orthodoxy in existence about how planets moved, or just a collection of personal theories based on data of varying accuracy?

In terms of funding, it is clear that the 'great and the good' are the real power brokers in most grant awarding bodies, and these individuals legacy is to a certain extent based upon current theories surviving. Certianly they would not wish to fund individuals that would deliberately falsify results, but those committed to furthering theories to which they themselves are committed are favoured.

As to Darwin>

http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/default.htm


This site suggests that evolution was but one of a competing number of possible theories being developed. Darwin is likely to have favoured evolution as the explaination largely as this was his grandfathers (Erasmus Darwin) favourite theory.

Ussher/Lightfoot proposed on biblical research that god had created most species as are.

Ray/Linnaeus codified natural species (much like geneticists are doing now), inadvertently pointing out the similarities between man and apes.

Lamarck propsed inheritance of acquired characteristics

While Darwin propsed 'surivial of the fittest'

Certainly Darwind theory holds up best to skeptical analysis, but hardly the straight line suggested in retrospect.

As for Kepler, not really my area, but as I understand it the Platonic theory (or perhaps vision) had stood unchallanged for 2000 years, so certainly accepted orthrodoxy.

I certainly remember the belief from pulmonary hypertension that vasospasm, led to vascular rigidity and ultimatley being replaced by proliferation of vascular fibrostic cells causing irreversible heart failure, was only very grudgingly replaced by and acknowledgement that the vasoreactive component was only demostrable in a tiny minority of patients, and that in most the proliferative phase was probably the initiating pathological abnormality. This had massive implications for drug development, treatment approach and research direction. It was certainly resisted long after the evidence base for the vasomotor theory was considerably less well supported than any other possible theory, but as that was the standard, the evidence base required to move on was greater than that supported by history alone.

[tolman]

With planetary motion, once accurate data was collected, it was clear that motion wasn't circular. Whatever someone had been taught to believe, if their belief caused them to predict a planet being in one spot and it was actually elsewhere, they'd have to accept there was something wrong.

One could look at Kepler and say "Look - as soon as Brahe's really accurate measurements were available, someone could work away, dismiss theories that didn't work, and eventually come up with a good solution. If it hadn't been him, it would have been somebody else, and probably fairly soon afterwards"

I'm confused what the point is supposed to be re: Darwin, since there doesn't seem to have been some existing monolithic paradigm for him to fight against, and many of the threads of his ideas weren't novel, even if the coherent synthesis of ideas in one solid theory backed by evidence was.
To quite an extent, what both drew significant support and also annoyed those with emotional reasons to want him to be wrong was that it was extraordinarily hard to argue against the basic premises of what was at heart a very clear and simple theory. About the best you could do was go Lamarckian or something and argue that descent-with-modification doesn't happen.

When it comes to medicine, I suppose it does tend to be rather more 'traditional', but medicine isn't just science, it's science with lots of things added.
I imagine the thought "Have I really been unknowingly giving a poor treatment for the last 30 years?" may make doctors hope that little bit more that a new idea is wrong. (There aren't many other areas of science where people dying wouldn't be assumed to be an explicit failure of some kind, rather than something which often just happens.)

[Lord Muck oGentry]

As mentioned above everything is a paradigm these days. As I understand the notion, it describes the theory or group of theories that describe the current understanding of a given branch of study.

The notion being proposed (I have not stated that I agree with this) is that most of the time the underlying theory is not challanged. Where anomalies are observed, one assumes that there is some missing data that can reconcile the anomaly with the current theory. Further it is claimed that many anomalies will not be observed as one is generally looking for data that support the theory rather than trying to disprove the theory. Next, it is much easier to get funding for projects that 'flesh out' a given understanding than challange it. Finally, it is much easier to publish findings that accord with current understanding (peer review), observations that challange the current position must be much better supported by evidence than those which accord with the current beliefs.

Fair enough, Pebble.

Let me offer some chuntering.
First: I suppose that Okasha is referring to the literature generated by Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This is probably obvious to those who have posted so far, but it may be useful to lurkers.
Second: I suppose that Okasha must have referred to the symposium Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge ( ed. Lakatos and Musgrave). Here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos
Third: if anything at all counts as a paradigm, Newtonian physics does. It unified Galileo's terrestrial physics with Kepler's celestial physics, correcting both and exhibiting them as special cases. It enjoyed great success in practice— up to, and including, putting bods on the Moon. As Damon Runyon might have said: if this is not a paradigm, it will do until a paradigm comes along.

On to the question about paradigms and rationality.
Here is the often-told story about the discovery of Neptune, prompted by the observation of perturbations in the orbit of Uranus:
http://www.bookrags.com/research/leverrier-adams-and-the-mathematica-scit-0512345/
Were Leverrier and Adams lucky? IMO, yes.
Were they therefore irrational? IMO, no.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems obvious that deciding questions within paradigms can be rational.

What about deciding questions between paradigms? Well, I'd be happier about that question if I knew what it meant.
@ Pebble. Can you cast some light on this? ( On touche toujours sur le cheval qui tire)

[Pebble]

Fair enough, Pebble.

Let me offer some chuntering.
I suppose that Okasha must have referred to the symposium Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge ( ed. Lakatos and Musgrave). Here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos

@ Pebble. Can you cast some light on this? ( On touche toujours sur le cheval qui tire)

Thanks for the link, this does actually address the precise question I was asking. It is of course only a theory, but one that provides a rational way of describing the apparently irrational behaviour of scientists.

Falsificationism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsificationism), (Popper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper)'s theory), proposed that scientists put forward theories and that nature 'shouts NO' in the form of an inconsistent observation. According to Popper, it is irrational for scientists to maintain their theories in the face of Natures rejection, yet this is what Kuhn had described them as doing. But for Lakatos, "It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO rather we propose a maze of theories and nature may shout INCONSISTENT"[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#cite_note-2). This inconsistency can be resolved without abandoning our Research Programme by leaving the hard core alone and altering the auxiliary hypotheses. One example given is Newton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton)'s three laws of motion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion). Within the Newtonian system (research programme) these are not open to falsification as they form the programme's hard core. This research programme provides a framework within which research can be undertaken with constant reference to presumed first principles which are shared by those involved in the research programme, and without continually defending these first principles. In this regard it is similar to Kuhn's notion of a paradigm.
Lakatos also believed that a research programme contained 'methodological rules', some that instruct on what paths of research to avoid (he called this the 'negative heuristic') and some that instruct on what paths to pursue (he called this the 'positive heuristic').
Lakatos claimed that not all changes of the auxiliary hypotheses within research programmes (Lakatos calls them 'problem shifts') are equally as acceptable. He believed that these 'problem shifts' can be evaluated both by their ability to explain apparent refutations and by their ability to produce new facts. If it can do this then Lakatos claims they are progressive[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#cite_note-3). However if they do not, if they are just '' changes that do not lead to the prediction of new facts, then he labels them as degenerate.
Lakatos believed that if a research programme is progressive, then it is rational for scientists to keep changing the auxiliary hypotheses in order to hold on to it in the face of anomalies. However, if a research programme is degenerate, then it faces danger from its competitors, it can be 'falsified' by being superseded by a better (i.e. more progressive) research programme. This is what he believes is happening in the historical periods Kuhn describes as revolutions and what makes them rational as opposed to mere leaps of faith (as he believed Kuhn took them to be).


Can now leave the dead horse alone.

[tolman]

A new idea doesn't have to be accepted as 'probably true' in order for people to be interested in it. Even people who are deeply skeptical may still investigate claims to see what happens, whether it's to try and find out where the claimant went wrong, or to see if some other new ideas may result from the examination.

Think of what happened with Cold Fusion - lots of people thinking "Looks like a load of bollocks, but I'd better check it out", and I don't think that was all down to the lure of possible applications, but also to the interest in someone suggesting something not previously thought likely was possible.

[Dr B]

OK so you have not directly stated that medicine is fluffy, but the above statement becomes difficult to comprehend if that was not the inference.

No it does not - I was relating to medically orientated quarters of psychology. Anyway, it's irrelevant as it was your initial claim against psychology that I challenged. I mentioned the medical-psychology stuff purely becasue I thought that was what you were basing your sweeping and hasty genmeralisation on. I would concur with you about problems in those areas - but they are not representative of mainstream academic psychology.




The point you have neatly sidestepped here, is that it is the behaviour of card carrying psychologists that is responsible for my perception.


No - i side stepped nothing and it is clear that your perception is based in your own ill-informed position and is not the fault of anyone else. This I hinted at above so I fail to see the side-stepping.

Your perception is common - but ill informed. That is the only point I am making.



I note that no 'real scientist' is willing to take up the challange of defending the 'paradigm' argument.

What nonsense - read the archives.........

[Mulder]

Psychology has a problem few other sciences suffer from.

In physics, it is possible to say what an atom will do in certain circumstances. In chemistry most reactions are predictable in given conditions. Even in biology, cells operate fairly predictably.

In psychology, however, you are dealing with a range of human behaviour which varies across the population. You cannot really predict with certainty what any individual will do in given circumstances, only what some or most will do. Indeed, crowds tend to be much more predictable than individuals. I think this can make psychology seem a bit fluffy sometimes.

[Matt]

In psychology, however, you are dealing with a range of human behaviour which varies across the population. You cannot really predict with certainty what any individual will do in given circumstances, only what some or most will do. Indeed, crowds tend to be much more predictable than individuals. I think this can make psychology seem a bit fluffy sometimes.

Actuially that sounds a lot like statistical physics, typically portrayed as one of the "hard" sciences.

[Mulder]

Actuially that sounds a lot like statistical physics, typically portrayed as one of the "hard" sciences.

Except that in physics, the 'individuals' (like molecules in a gas) simply reflect a range of physical states whereas crowds act more like collections of cellular automata exhibiting emergent order. :smiley:

There are often parallels between sciences ...

[Dr B]

Psychology has a problem few other sciences suffer from.

In physics, it is possible to say what an atom will do in certain circumstances. In chemistry most reactions are predictable in given conditions. Even in biology, cells operate fairly predictably.

In psychology, however, you are dealing with a range of human behaviour which varies across the population. You cannot really predict with certainty what any individual will do in given circumstances, only what some or most will do. Indeed, crowds tend to be much more predictable than individuals. I think this can make psychology seem a bit fluffy sometimes.

It's the complexity of some of the issues that arguably make it a harder science than those not educated in it realise.

By the way - physics and psychology are both (logically speaking) probabilistic. While I agree with the essence of your point and some quarters of physics are well defined, to a higher level, so are many areas of psychology.

There are many aspects of vision, perception (i.e., illusions etc) attention and memory that occur realiably enough that it would be perverse to think these principles are not common in the brains of observers. Attentional failures, memory confabulations, etc are all so well established that their existence is now beyond question and the search is on for the mechanisms.

I think it all depends on the type of psychology you take as your model. I agree that fluffy areas like many quarters of social psychology are very problematic. However, they are still a science in the true sense of the word (but not my cup ot tea).

Psychiatry and some quarters of clinical psychology are not what i would call science.....but some aspects of these areas have more credibility than others so it gets very complicated very quickly.

My point is you cannot take sheldrake and criticise biology as a science because of him. You cannot take the fluffy areas of psychology and generalise to the larger academic field as a whole.

[Pebble]

I mentioned the medical-psychology stuff purely becasue I thought that was what you were basing your sweeping and hasty genmeralisation on. I would concur with you about problems in those areas - but they are not representative of mainstream academic psychology.


No - i side stepped nothing and it is clear that your perception is based in your own ill-informed position and is not the fault of anyone else.

Your perception is common - but ill informed. That is the only point I am making.

What nonsense - ..


Obviously a very sensitive issue. Perhaps you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of some of the high quality research in the field. I have seen plenty of animal work and population based work, which is fine as far as it goes. Also some of the work on individuals with specific neurological lesions is good. But from what you are implying there is much more that I am unaware of.

As to the issue of side stepping, if large numbers of doctors are behaving poorly, then I expect medicine in general to take the rap, and sort them out. The same is true of police, soldiers, priests etc. As a profession one must accept the consequences of having members that practice voodoo or whatever in your name.
If I accept your argument then, the catholic church is right to dis-own the priests who abused their position over years and were covered for by the hierarchy. They can simply point out that these individuals are not truly representative of the word of god, and their actions cannot be used to discredit that. WHile this is a technically correct point, it is emblematic of a failure to confront the real problem.

[Tim the Mage]

The problem for psychologists is the same as that facing other "social scientists" in that the efforts to act scientifically are undermined by:

1) People claiming to be psychologists (or sociologists or economists or marketing behaviour experts or psephologists) who reject quantitative analysis as somehow not revealing enough
2) The difficulties in conducting closed experiments in social sciences (I think also these are difficult and boring compared to running focus groups)
3) Preference for anthropological methods of research (e.g. participant observer methods) over anything involving number crunching

Parts of this are quite difficult to overcome (although it surprises me that the well established experimental tradition in academic marketing seems to be largely ignored by academic sociologists studying essentialy the same phenomena).

Thus (and this is a common example) some sociologists dismiss the statistical evidence on the benefits of two parent families in preference for qualitative studies and case studies of successful and positive intervention with single parents.

I also think distinctions need to be made between different 'branches' of psychology - in my experience clinical psychologists (despite being mostly slightly loopy) are very cautious in their conclusions when compared to organisational and social psychologists whose capacity for the sweeping generalisation is quite striking. Indeed the widespread use of psychometric testing (which I'm sure, like lie detectors, can be fixed) should be worrying. Some of the tests seem good and supportive but others are only a slight imprvement of casting augeries or using horoscopes.

[tolman]

I guess the problem is that much of the visible side of psychology, apart from dramatic protrayals of criminal profilers, etc. comes from people in the media either saying things that seems odd or things where most people would think "I could have told you that for nothing!".

I suppose it doesn't help that psychology can also end up being linked in some people's perceptions with psychiatry and/or psychotherapy, with people either seeing them as largely similar (with the ever present couch and bad European accent), or thinking that maybe psychology is just a poor relation of psychiatry.

From my point of view, I'd tend to see the lower-level side of things (perception, etc) as essentially neuroscience/neurophysiology, and consider that distinct from 'psychology'.
However, that could be unfair in that as soon as something's reliably demonstrated to happen, unless it's a terribly subjective or high-level property of the brain, it gets whisked off into a different category.


Indeed the widespread use of psychometric testing (which I'm sure, like lie detectors, can be fixed) should be worrying. Some of the tests seem good and supportive but others are only a slight imprvement of casting augeries or using horoscopes.
Am I just being cynical, or is one of the reasons for using psychometric tests to give people another possible excuse for justifying their choice of candidate - if they want someone, they ignore the test if not favourable, if they don't want someone, they try and find some convenient excuse for not employing them.
I can't help wondering if the prevalence of graphology in French employment screening is mainly to give an extra possible reason for someone to reject people who didn't go to the same great university as they did, or who was otherwise 'unsuitable'.

[Dr B]

Obviously a very sensitive issue. Perhaps you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of some of the high quality research in the field. I have seen plenty of animal work and population based work, which is fine as far as it goes. Also some of the work on individuals with specific neurological lesions is good. But from what you are implying there is much more that I am unaware of.


Not a sensitive issue at all - just addressing a factual error. In terms of other areas - these areas should keep you going for a while

Cognitive science
Cognitive Psychology
Neuropsychology (brain-damaged patient work)
Neuroscience (PET / fMRI)
Neurophysiology (EEG / ERP)
Developmental Psychology & Developmental Neuroscience
Psychophysics (vision & action)



As to the issue of side stepping, if large numbers of doctors are behaving poorly, then I expect medicine in general to take the rap, and sort them out. The same is true of police, soldiers, priests etc. As a profession one must accept the consequences of having members that practice voodoo or whatever in your name.

But large numbers of those working in those disciplines above are not behaving in that way - maybe you could give lots of examples (and not counting known woo's who, to my mind do not work in these central fields as a whole; i.e., fenwick)



If I accept your argument then, the catholic church is right to dis-own the priests who abused their position over years and were covered for by the hierarchy. They can simply point out that these individuals are not truly representative of the word of god, and their actions cannot be used to discredit that. WHile this is a technically correct point, it is emblematic of a failure to confront the real problem.

No - not at all. I merely pointed out that you have made a hasty generalisation and one that does not stand up to scrutiny. Dont forget, I am agreeing with you in part - but only in relation to the fringe psychiatric field - which as i have been saying all along is not mainstream academic psychology (it's a different field) - so it cannot be used as a criticism.

I agree with you that psychology gets a bad rap because of those other areas - but those other areas are often totally unrelated to psychology as an experimental science. Maybe the fact that both sciences start with the same letters is confusing to some 8)

I doubt anyone can tackle the real point if they don't appreciate the object being discussed in an accurate manner

[Dr B]

Hi Tim

Nice post and I generally concur....


The problem for psychologists is the same as that facing other "social scientists" in that the efforts to act scientifically are undermined by:

1) People claiming to be psychologists (or sociologists or economists or marketing behaviour experts or psephologists) who reject quantitative analysis as somehow not revealing enough

This is rare if ever to my mind. I have only worked in one department that had a qualitative psychologist - and she has now retired and not been replaced by a similar other. Off the top of my head I guess I have worked with 200 psychologists (in terms of the departments I have worked in and studied in) and that is the only instance. So to my mind, it is not representative of mainstream academic psychology.



2) The difficulties in conducting closed experiments in social sciences (I think also these are difficult and boring compared to running focus groups)


Not sure what you mean here



3) Preference for anthropological methods of research (e.g. participant observer methods) over anything involving number crunching

Nop.....dont know of this being common either.....either with me, or colleagues far and wide. Dont get me wrong - I think your point is fine as and where it happens but its not the norm or even the mainstream



Parts of this are quite difficult to overcome (although it surprises me that the well established experimental tradition in academic marketing seems to be largely ignored by academic sociologists studying essentialy the same phenomena).


Sociology has nothing to do with psychology - they are separate disciplines on the whole.



Thus (and this is a common example) some sociologists dismiss the statistical evidence on the benefits of two parent families in preference for qualitative studies and case studies of successful and positive intervention with single parents.


Excellent example - but thats sociology again - not psychology (cool example though. 8)



I also think distinctions need to be made between different 'branches' of psychology - in my experience clinical psychologists (despite being mostly slightly loopy) are very cautious in their conclusions when compared to organisational and social psychologists whose capacity for the sweeping generalisation is quite striking.

Absolutely - I did make this point much earlier but I think it has been overlooked. Hasty generalisations have a habit of doing that.



Indeed the widespread use of psychometric testing (which I'm sure, like lie detectors, can be fixed) should be worrying. Some of the tests seem good and supportive but others are only a slight imprvement of casting augeries or using horoscopes.

There is no widesread use of these in academic psychology (again - as an experimental science). I know psychometrics tries to align itself with psychology (for prestige) but we all think its bollocks and always have.....O0

[Dr B]

Could I also add that its best not to confuse 'folk psychology' and the type of person you may encounter on day-time TV :cheesy: (generally....) talking about pet psychology as indexing, in any way, the scientific field of psychology.

[Dr B]

There is a further point I would like to make about one aspect that does make Psychology marginally different from psychics / biology etc. However, this difference does not mean any of these areas do not constitute science - rather it is an important observation

In psychology it can be the case that opinion is divide on central issues for decades. There are psychologist who argue strongly that there is no such thing as autism, schizophrenia, dyslexia and so on. However, these arguments are not necessarily invalidating every study in these areas - they are merely pointing out that the collection of observations we call 'autism' (for example) are slightly illusory and we may need to generate new ways to think about this.

I find this a strength in psychology and not a weakness (as long as it is not applied incorrectly).

There are debates as to whether we should think of visual imagery as strickly visual (Pylyshyn vs Kosslyn) whether cognition really requires representation (the dynamic view), whether attention is top-down or bottom-up, whether attention requires inhibition or just mechanisms devoted to saliency processing and so on. Some of these are large reaching theoretical debates and some are smaller ones occuring within specific domains. But I would contend that it is debates like these that help to make a science.

There are controversial aspects within psychology - which happen at a level that do not occur in other sciences - but that does not make it unscientific.

[Tim the Mage]

Dr B, many thanks for being so polite in your demolition of my argument!

My concern probably lies with what you term as 'folk' psychology although my worry relates more to the conflation of the very cuddly study of human resources management with psychology often in the form of 'occupational psychology'. Frankly, as a skeptical layman in this regard I worry instinctively about businesses like this one (Psychological Solutions):

http://www.psychsol.com/

Berhaps you can tell me whether the specifically psychological matters here are defensible? I can deal with the stuff on leadership and most of the general management stuff which I know to be mostly mumbo-jumbo but there's stuff in there that claims scientific validation.

My favourite sociology reference (which I'll try and find) is one that argues against male teachers for primary children on the basis of about 20 interviews with 7 year old boys who said they liked women teahcers better! This report got national newspaper coverage without anyone pointing out the nonsensical basis of the conclusion.

[Pebble]

Cognitive science
Cognitive Psychology
Neuropsychology (brain-damaged patient work)
Neuroscience (PET / fMRI)
Neurophysiology (EEG / ERP)
Developmental Psychology & Developmental Neuroscience
Psychophysics (vision & action)



Thanks, Plenty on pubmed to go through here, certainly in PET/ fMRI numbers seem small, and inferences more than I can bear. Will keep looking.

Minor point most neuroscientists I know do not regard themselves as academic psychologists, I presume you are claiming those areas where these tecniques are used for cognitive/pychological research rather than the whole field.

[Dr B]

Hi Pebble

Actually, most neuroscientists in the UK (brain imaging) are psychologists - many psych departments (including my own) have their own scanner. However, brain-imaging is so complex that its a team based thing and most departments have a psychologist that also has an engineering / physics background to help with the very technical aspects.

The collective term is cognitive neuroscience in UK / europe and behaviorual neuroscience in USA (I have no idea where there is such a bias in terms.....maybe just one of those thingsO0)

Check out people like Nancy Kanwisher, Steve Yantis (USA), Jon Driver, Geriant Rees, Zoe Kourtzi, John Duncan, etc (UK) for examples of world leaders - all psychologists....all using brain imaging.

The term neuroscientist is generic and also used for neurophysiologists, and psychologists employing a brain-oriented approach, as well as those coming from cross-over areas as well - but trust me (or check the names / disciplines i have given you) classically trained psychologists dominate the field.

[Pebble]

Check out people like Nancy Kanwisher, Steve Yantis (USA), Jon Driver, Geriant Rees, Zoe Kourtzi, John Duncan, etc (UK) for examples of world leaders - all psychologists....all using brain imaging.

The term neuroscientist is generic and also used for neurophysiologists, and psychologists employing a brain-oriented approach, as well as those coming from cross-over areas as well - but trust me (or check the names / disciplines i have given you) classically trained psychologists dominate the field.

A group that understands the importance of work enviornment!

http://www.visionsciences.org/VSS_2008_Program.pdf

Will explore further.

Apologies for Wiki reference, but your suggestion neuroscience is now dominated by psychologists may require some further evidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience

[Dr B]

Apologies for Wiki reference, but your suggestion neuroscience is now dominated by psychologists may require some further evidence:


you are citing wiki over the names i gave are you......do you want to re-think that?

[Dr B]

something for the weekend?

dont think there is any Wiki here.......;D;D

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Ward, L. M. (2003). "Synchronous neural oscillations and cognitive processes." Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(12): 553-559.

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[median]

"Selective spatial attention to left or right hand flutter sensation modulates the steady-state somatosensory evoked potential."

I want that written on my tombstone..puh-lease.

Sorry, I,ve entered the silly zone...please disregard...

[Dr B]

;D;D;D

are you drunk and posting...it's a deadly combination;D;D

[dalriada]

My concern probably lies with what you term as 'folk' psychology although my worry relates more to the conflation of the very cuddly study of human resources management with psychology often in the form of 'occupational psychology'. Frankly, as a skeptical layman in this regard I worry instinctively about businesses like this one (Psychological Solutions):

I've come rather late to this debate, so I suppose I should hold my hand up and confess that I did qualify as an occupational psychologist (MSc) and worked (very briefly) in that area. It was without doubt the most ruthlessly self-absorbed, over-priced, area of true-wooness and evangelical avarice I've ever come across in my entire life. An appalling business. Health psychology appears to be getting a bad rap on this thread though, the evidence-based and evidence-informed approach to research and practice is seen as the gold-standard, whatever other ideas are floating around.

[Pebble]

Dr B,

Sorry for the slightly glib response earlier. My essential point is that neuroscience is a very wide field, and while huge progress is now being made in the area of understanding the brain including psychology, I think the field is much much larger than this.

For example:

Pubmed: Neuroscience by search criteria.

Limited to Human: clinical trial, Meta-analysis; comparative study or validation studies: First 5 relevant recent publications:


Stroke:


1: Arenillas JF, Ispierto L, Mill&#225;n M, Escudero D, P&#233;rez de la Ossa N, Dorado L, Guerrero C, Serena J, Castillo J, D&#225;valos A.
Metabolic syndrome and resistance to IV thrombolysis in middle cerebral artery ischemic stroke.
Neurology. 2008 Jul 15;71(3):190-5.

2: Debrey SM, Yu H, Lynch JK, L&#246;vblad KO, Wright VL, Janket SJ, Baird AE.
Diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance angiography for internal carotid artery disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Stroke. 2008 Aug;39(8):2237-48. Epub 2008 Jun 12. Review.

3: Ownsworth T, Fleming J, Shum D, Kuipers P, Strong J.
Comparison of individual, group and combined intervention formats in a randomized controlled trial for facilitating goal attainment and improving psychosocial function following acquired brain injury.
J Rehabil Med. 2008 Feb;40(2):81-8.

4: McColgan P, Sharma P.
The genetics of carotid dissection: meta-analysis of a MTHFR/C677T common
molecular variant. Cerebrovasc Dis. 2008;25(6):561-5. Epub 2008 May 16.

5: Sare GM, Gray LJ, Bath PM.
Effect of antihypertensive agents on cerebral blood flow and flow velocity in acute ischaemic stroke: systematic review of controlled studies.
J Hypertens. 2008 Jun;26(6):1058-64.


Peripheral neuropathy

1: Guarneri B, Bertolini G, Latronico N. Long-term outcome in patients with critical illness myopathy or neuropathy: the Italian multicentre CRIMYNE study.J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2008 Jul;79(7):838-41. Epub 2008 Mar 13. 2: Hauerberg J, Kosteljanetz M, B&#248;ge-Rasmussen T, Dons K, Gideon P, Springborg JB, Wagner A. Anterior cervical discectomy with or without fusion with ray titanium cage: a prospective randomized clinical study.Spine. 2008 Mar 1;33(5):458-64. 3: Priolo T, Lamba LD, Giribaldi G, De Negri E, Grosso P, De Grandis E, Veneselli E, Buoncompagni A, Viola S, Alpigiani MG, Gandullia P, Calevo MG. Childhood thalidomide neuropathy: a clinical and neurophysiologic study.Pediatr Neurol. 2008 Mar;38(3):196-9. 4: Hughes RA, Donofrio P, Bril V, Dalakas MC, Deng C, Hanna K, Hartung HP, Latov N, Merkies IS, van Doorn PA; ICE Study Group. Intravenous immune globulin (10&#37; caprylate-chromatography purified) for the treatment of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (ICE study): a randomised placebo-controlled trial.Lancet Neurol. 2008 Feb;7(2):136-44. 5: Gordon T, Brushart TM, Amirjani N, Chan KM. The potential of electrical stimulation to promote functional recovery after peripheral nerve injury--comparisons between rats and humans.Acta Neurochir Suppl. 2007;100:3-11.

Brain injury:

1: Wang JY, Bakhadirov K, Devous MD Sr, Abdi H, McColl R, Moore C, Marquez de la Plata CD, Ding K, Whittemore A, Babcock E, Rickbeil T, Dobervich J, Kroll D, Dao B, Mohindra N, Madden CJ, Diaz-Arrastia R. Diffusion tensor tractography of traumatic diffuse axonal injury.Arch Neurol. 2008 May;65(5):619-26. 2: Thompson DK, Wood SJ, Doyle LW, Warfield SK, Lodygensky GA, Anderson PJ, Egan GF, Inder TE. Neonate hippocampal volumes: prematurity, perinatal predictors, and 2-yearoutcome.Ann Neurol. 2008 May;63(5):642-51. 3: Hoge CW, McGurk D, Thomas JL, Cox AL, Engel CC, Castro CA. Mild traumatic brain injury in U.S. Soldiers returning from Iraq.N Engl J Med. 2008 Jan 31;358(5):453-63. Epub 2008 Jan 30. 4: Giovannoni G, Kinkel P, Vartanian T. Treating multiple sclerosis in the natalizumab era: risks, benefits, clinical decision making, and a comparison between North American and European Unionpractices.Rev Neurol Dis. 2007 Fall;4(4):184-93. Review. 5: Dabydeen L, Thomas JE, Aston TJ, Hartley H, Sinha SK, Eyre JA. High-energy and -protein diet increases brain and corticospinal tract growth interm and preterm infants after perinatal brain injury.Pediatrics. 2008 Jan;121(1):148-56.

Metabolic disorders

1: Kuczynski B, Reed B, Mungas D, Weiner M, Chui HC, Jagust W. Cognitive and anatomic contributions of metabolic decline in Alzheimer diseaseand cerebrovascular disease.Arch Neurol. 2008 May;65(5):650-5. 2: Huang C, Mattis P, Perrine K, Brown N, Dhawan V, Eidelberg D. Metabolic abnormalities associated with mild cognitive impairment in Parkinsondisease.Neurology. 2008 Apr 15;70(16 Pt 2):1470-7. Epub 2008 Mar 26. 3: Gavva NR, Treanor JJ, Garami A, Fang L, Surapaneni S, Akrami A, Alvarez F, BakA, Darling M, Gore A, Jang GR, Kesslak JP, Ni L, Norman MH, Palluconi G, Rose MJ,Salfi M, Tan E, Romanovsky AA, Banfield C, Davar G. Pharmacological blockade of the vanilloid receptor TRPV1 elicits markedhyperthermia in humans.Pain. 2008 May;136(1-2):202-10. Epub 2008 Mar 11. 4: Meenakshi-Sundaram S, Mahadevan A, Taly AB, Arunodaya GR, Swamy HS, ShankarSK. Wilson's disease: a clinico-neuropathological autopsy study.J Clin Neurosci. 2008 Apr;15(4):409-17. Epub 2008 Jan 31. 5: Maggi S, Noale M, Zambon A, Limongi F, Romanato G, Crepaldi G; ILSA Working Group. Validity of the ATP III diagnostic criteria for the metabolic syndrome in an elderly Italian Caucasian population: the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging.Atherosclerosis. 2008 Apr;197(2):877-82. Epub 2007 Sep 11.

Epilepsy:

1: Hoda JC, Gu W, Friedli M, Phillips HA, Bertrand S, Antonarakis SE, Goudie D, Roberts R, Scheffer IE, Marini C, Patel J, Berkovic SF, Mulley JC, Steinlein OK, Bertrand D. Human nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy: pharmocogenomic profiles of pathogenic nicotinic acetylcholine receptor beta-subunit mutations outside the ion channel pore.Mol Pharmacol. 2008 Aug;74(2):379-91. Epub 2008 May 2. 2: Vossler DG, Conry JA, Murphy JV; ZNS-502/505 PME Study Group. Zonisamide for the treatment of myoclonic seizures in progressive myoclonic epilepsy: an open-label study.Epileptic Disord. 2008 Mar;10(1):31-4. 3: Lhatoo SD, Alexopoulos AV. The surgical treatment of status epilepticus.Epilepsia. 2007;48 Suppl 8:61-5. Review. No abstract available. Erratum in:Epilepsia. 2007 Dec;48(12):2384.4: Ferro JM, Canh&#227;o P, Bousser MG, Stam J, Barinagarrementeria F; ISCVTInvestigators. Early seizures in cerebral vein and dural sinus thrombosis: risk factors and role of antiepileptics.Stroke. 2008 Apr;39(4):1152-8. Epub 2008 Feb 28. 5: Wiebe S, T&#233;llez-Zenteno JF, Shapiro M. An evidence-based approach to the first seizure.Epilepsia. 2008;49 Suppl 1:50-7. Review.

[Pebble]

Check out people like Nancy Kanwisher, Steve Yantis (USA), Jon Driver, Geriant Rees, Zoe Kourtzi, John Duncan, etc (UK) for examples of world leaders - all psychologists....all using brain imaging.
.

Have looked up this bunch, and agree they are serious. Five of the six are indeed psychologists and clearly involved in proper research.

Looking over their CVs and Pubmed publications I note that most of the work seems to involve relatively or very small numbers. The impression is that neuropsychology is where cardiology was 50 - 60 years ago. Then catheterisation and echocardiography were coming on stream and many small mechanistic studies were undertaken. Later when large studies were performed, many of the observations made and associations noted in those early days proved incorrect, and only when large scale studies were performed did the magnitude of normal variation and inter-individual differences as well as the observer bias in test reporting become apparent. Is that a valid analogy, or do you believe that the situation in terms of visual pathways are beyond that?
Finally, I get the impression from your second list that the edges between what I would regard as neurology and psychology is now getting blurred, perhaps unsurprising. To explain, everyone has a psychological reaction to ahving had a heart attack, but research into the fundamentals of myocardial infarction would never be considered psychological research. Attention and cognitive function as impaired by alzheimer's is clearly neurology to me, but there are obvious psychological overtones.

[Tim the Mage]

Have looked up this bunch, and agree they are serious. Five of the six are indeed psychologists and clearly involved in proper research.

Looking over their CVs and Pubmed publications I note that most of the work seems to involve relatively or very small numbers. The impression is that neuropsychology is where cardiology was 50 - 60 years ago. Then catheterisation and echocardiography were coming on stream and many small mechanistic studies were undertaken. Later when large studies were performed, many of the observations made and associations noted in those early days proved incorrect, and only when large scale studies were performed did the magnitude of normal variation and inter-individual differences as well as the observer bias in test reporting become apparent. Is that a valid analogy, or do you believe that the situation in terms of visual pathways are beyond that?
Finally, I get the impression from your second list that the edges between what I would regard as neurology and psychology is now getting blurred, perhaps unsurprising. To explain, everyone has a psychological reaction to ahving had a heart attack, but research into the fundamentals of myocardial infarction would never be considered psychological research. Attention and cognitive function as impaired by alzheimer's is clearly neurology to me, but there are obvious psychological overtones.

Although this somewhat occult discussion is quite fascinating, Pebble, I am not sure it takes us any closer to resolving the initial contention. You want a definite boundary between the hard science of neurology and the woo of psychology but have been shown not only that clinical psychology is a serious hard science but that the boundary with neurology/neuroscience (not surprisingly) is blurred.

To put it in terms that resonate with a wider audience, your problem is with semantics, with defining what is one kind of science and what is another. I guess some folk would call me a sociologist (never!), others a social anthopologist and still others a geographer but none of those convenient pigeonholes describe my strictly limited academic capacity.

To take it further from science your contention is about words and their limitations. What we need now is an Eng Lang specialist not a scientist8);D

[Pebble]

Although this somewhat occult discussion is quite fascinating, Pebble, I am not sure it takes us any closer to resolving the initial contention.

My original question was about the nature of science, and has been perfectly answered by Lord Muck in post 61. The current discussion was raised by a 'throw away' comment about the nature of psychology.


want a definite boundary between the hard science of neurology and the woo of psychology but have been shown not only that clinical psychology is a serious hard science but that the boundary with neurology/neuroscience (not surprisingly) is blurred.

Please look at the question I have put again, I am asking for Dr B's opinion, not insisting on a hard difference. I have indeed stated how I would tend to regard the difference, but that is simply stating my understanding, this is clearly Dr B's field not mine.



take it further from science your contention is about words and their limitations. What we need now is an Eng Lang specialist not a scientist8);D

Disagree, it is clear that Dr B thinks my view is archane and that things have moved on, I am simply trying to determine the degree to which my position is undermined (on an evidence base that I can independently validate).

[Tim the Mage]

My original question was about the nature of science, and has been perfectly answered by Lord Muck in post 61. The current discussion was raised by a 'throw away' comment about the nature of psychology.



Please look at the question I have put again, I am asking for Dr B's opinion, not insisting on a hard difference. I have indeed stated how I would tend to regard the difference, but that is simply stating my understanding, this is clearly Dr B's field not mine.




Disagree, it is clear that Dr B thinks my view is archane and that things have moved on, I am simply trying to determine the degree to which my position is undermined (on an evidence base that I can independently validate).

No need to be quite so sniffy. small stone. I merely try to return the discussion to something us mere mortals can appreciate (even if we do not understand). Hence the reference to the occult - what you are doing (and I have no objection to this) is uncovering some knowledge that relates to the question you raised but then couching it in a language that is 'hidden' to those not party to that knowledge.

Maybe that is about validation but for us mere mortals struggling with the complexities of life's vicissitudes what you are doing in creating a new arcana rather than broadening understanding. I could apologise for not being clever enough to be one of those elitist scientists you worship but can't really accept that only your 'hard' science is acceptable.

I also dislike being talked at like an idiot (I may be one but it is rather rude of you to remind me).

[Pebble]

Tim,

Sorry to offend, not my intention. Just trying to be clear on why I am pressing on. It it were simply semantics, I would not be continuing as previously noted "On touche toujours sur le cheval qui tire"

[zenthinker]

Yes science is a belief but of a particular kind. Science is based upon the idea that logic is infallible and that all that can be known can be deduced through that which comes to us through our senses. Since the senses are limited in nature and logic only applies within a very narrow framework, this is an assumption of enormous proportions. Consider the following argument from the philosopher Bertrand Russell:

"Experience has shown that it is dangerous to start from general principles and proceed deductively, both because the principles may be untrue and because the reasoning based upon them may be fallacious. Science starts, not from large assumptions, but from particular facts discovered by observation or experiment. From a number of such facts a general rule is arrived at, of which, if it is true, the facts in question are instances… Science thus encourages abandonment of the search for absolute truth, which belongs to any theory that can be successfully employed in inventions or in predicting the future. "Technical" truth is a matter of degree: a theory from which more successful inventions and predictions spring is truer than one which gives rise to fewer. "Knowledge" ceases to be a mental mirror of the universe, and becomes merely a practical tool in the manipulation of matter."

Russell shows here that science can lay no claim whatever upon absolute truth because it is limited in nature and is really just a system of manipulation of matter. If you want to understand just how limited the intellect is, try describing a colour ? You can't do it because it is outside of the intellects grasp and indeed all experience is like this. The idea that you can model the universe on impressions that come to you through the senses is deluded. The intellect gives the impression that it is explaining things but in reality it cannot grasp anything that doesn't have a label. The word "blue" is a label that keeps you away from the understanding that the experience of the colour blue is beyond intellectual grasping. The whole universe is really like this and the intellect is a mirage, nothing more than a tower of "logic". Consider the following quote:

"By the nature of our processes of sense-perception, our direct perception of the world "outside our skins" (so to speak) does not show us that world "outside our skins," but, rather, the impact of that unperceived real world upon the biology of our mental-sensory processes. In other words, the shadows on the wall of Plato's Cave"

Human understanding is limited by biology and our make-up and therefore science can never claim that it explains anything. At best it can claim a narrow understanding of particular perceived phenomena. The real cause of that phenomena may be entirely beyond intellectual grasp. Science is the assumption that logic and the intellect are infallible and is therefore belief.

[Trinoc]

Therefore ... ?

[tolman]

Yes science is a belief but of a particular kind. Science is based upon the idea that logic is infallible and that all that can be known can be deduced through that which comes to us through our senses.

Fundamentally, despite the existence of 'pure' areas, defended by their practitioners as such areas tend to be, science is a significantly practical enterprise based on the assumptions that a physical universe exists and exhibits a useful degree of consistency, and that people are generally capable of apprehending what happens in the universe with a reasonable degree of accuracy and repeatability, both via the [obviously] constrained natural senses, and by using senses augmented by instrumentation.

However, those same assumptions about reality are generally acknowledged, implicitly if not explicitly, by pretty much every person considered to be sane, whether scientists or not.
Even someone who might honestly believe in innumerable spirits constantly micromanaging reality and playing with everyone's senses must still generally act as if reality were somehow still largely consistent, unless they are to rely on everyone else feeding and cleaning them.

Some people who take philosophy far too seriously, and/or who consider themselves more profound than others might go on about how we can't really *know* anything, but they don't seem to understand how little everyone else cares.
'Good enough' is actually good enough for most people, even those who might pretend otherwise.

It is of course possible that microscopes are merely a figment of our imagination, or that they don't actually do what everyone thinks they do, but that seems to be one of the vanishingly small possibilities that people who actually have a life don't seem likely to worry much about.

Without needing any input whatsoever from philosophers, it really should be clear to anyone with an age in double figures that not only is science not infallible, but neither does it pretend to be infallible.

Also, science doesn't pretend to be capable of fully explaining everything, especially not the subjective things like "What a colour feels like to an individual". However, since nothing else can possibly explain that either, it's hardly a meaningful criticism of science to say it isn't all-knowing.

That said, there is a great amount of scientific knowledge that is about as close to certain as anyone needs to get.
Along with its close sister-subject, engineering, science is something that countless millions of people repeatedly bet their life on on a daily basis, with an astonishingly high success rate.

[Pebble]

If you want to understand just how limited the intellect is, try describing a colour ? You can't do it because it is outside of the intellects grasp and indeed all experience is like this.

Human understanding is limited by biology and our make-up and therefore science can never claim that it explains anything. At best it can claim a narrow understanding of particular perceived phenomena. The real cause of that phenomena may be entirely beyond intellectual grasp. Science is the assumption that logic and the intellect are infallible and is therefore belief.

The fundamental problem with this argument is that it omits consideration of technology. We can accurately describe colour in terms of the wavelenght of the light emitted or reflected, and then the intensity in terms of the number of photons. This can be done repeatedly giving the same results every time and under every available circumstance. If this were not possible then we would not have television etc.

As to the second paragraph 1200 years after Occam this argument wears a little thin.

The real question for you then is if Hill's criteria for cause and effect can be demonstrated again and again under varying circumstances with independent researchers, validators and using diffiring technology - why should we not accept the relationship as proven. Further if this cannot be regarded as proof, what on earth can any form of metaphysical enquiry possibly add?

[Floppit]

I haven't read all 94 replies so apologies if I'm repeating what has already been said.

I view science as a procedure rather than a belief, a process by which evidence is gathered, significance and chance calculated and conclusions drawn. As it's a process I don't think it can know anything, however it has led to us knowing lots of stuff!

I need a degree of trust as I'm not in the position to replicate every study I might be interested in but science as a process doesn't require trust, replication and debate are built into it's structure (these days!).

[Lord Muck oGentry]

zenthinker said:


Consider the following argument from the philosopher Bertrand Russell:

"Experience has shown that it is dangerous to start from general principles and proceed deductively, both because the principles may be untrue and because the reasoning based upon them may be fallacious. Science starts, not from large assumptions, but from particular facts discovered by observation or experiment. From a number of such facts a general rule is arrived at, of which, if it is true, the facts in question are instances… Science thus encourages abandonment of the search for absolute truth, which belongs to any theory that can be successfully employed in inventions or in predicting the future. "Technical" truth is a matter of degree: a theory from which more successful inventions and predictions spring is truer than one which gives rise to fewer. "Knowledge" ceases to be a mental mirror of the universe, and becomes merely a practical tool in the manipulation of matter."

I believe this is from Russell's " Religion and Science" ( 1935).

On this occasion, Bertie's argument wasn't very good. He asserts, for example, that science ( why not " scientists"?) proceeds from particular facts to general rules. Well, does it? Won't it do to say that it proceeds from " large assumptions " to particular facts— and abandons those large assumptions when they are inconsistent with those facts? I'm not a historian of science, but I should have thought the latter at least as plausible as the former.

On to his assertion that science thus encourages abandonment of the search for absolute truth. Thus marks a nonsequitur. And the word absolute is doing only rhetorical work here— what sort of truth do we ordinarily contrast with the absolute sort?

From zenthnker, again:

If you want to understand just how limited the intellect is, try describing a colour ? You can't do it because it is outside of the intellects grasp and indeed all experience is like this.

What are we to make of this? What is it to describe a colour? Well, I can describe one blue as duck-egg blue and other blues as royal blue or navy blue. If our intellect is limited in not being able to describe colours, we can probably bear it.

[lazerustheduck]

What are we to make of this? What is it to describe a colour? Well, I can describe one blue as duck-egg blue and other blues as royal blue or navy blue. If our intellect is limited in not being able to describe colours, we can probably bear it.But that's not a description it is a comparison reliant of the other party knowing what duckegg blue and royal blue are.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

But that's not a description it is a comparison reliant of the other party knowing what duckegg blue and royal blue are.

I'm not sure what you mean by " comparison reliant...", but you need to show it can't be both.

[SimonC]

If you want to understand just how limited the intellect is, try describing a colour ? You can't do it because it is outside of the intellects grasp and indeed all experience is like this.

I think that you need to distinguish between intellect, perception, and the ability of language to describe subjective perception. Not necessarily the same things, in my humble opinion.

[lazerustheduck]

I'm not sure what you mean by " comparison reliant...", but you need to show it can't be both.What the original question was to describe what blue is. You can't it's simply impossible, blue is blue it's as simple as that.

[SimonC]

'Blue' is the subjective, visual, human interpretation of electomagnetic radiation at around the 450–495nm wavelength.

What we lack is the linguistic capacity to describe that subjective experience, without resorting to comparison to similar phenomena.

[Trinoc]

'Blue' is the subjective, visual, human interpretation of electomagnetic radiation at around the 450–495nm wavelength.

What we lack is the linguistic capacity to describe that subjective experience, without resorting to comparison to similar phenomena.
... which of course applies to any subjective impression. We can only describe something we perceive by analogy with something someone else can perceive - either by concrete example ("I call the colour of this ball 'blue'") or by measurable properties ("I see light in the wavelength range 450-495nm as 'blue'").

[zenthinker]

Well there have been quite a few replies to my post and all of them show that you do not grasp the fundamental point I was trying to make. Science is belief because it assumes that the universe is logical in nature and that therefore it can be explained by logic. However in reality "logic" is something that belongs to human beings and not to the universe. Human logic is based on our experiences of how the visible world seems to behave and when we say "this is not logical" what we're really saying is that this doesn't conform to our "normal" way of viewing things. That's all. Because something is illogical it does not mean it is not true.

Logic only operates within a very narrow framework, one that I call the Newtonian framework because Newtons laws of motion are intuitively understandable by human beings ie. they seem to "make sense". However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense". A particle can be in more than one place simultaneously for instance which does not conform to human ideas of logic. Therefore the underlying universe is not logical in it's operation and therefore logic cannot be imposed upon it. If logic cannot be imposed upon it then ultimately the human mind cannot understand it because the human mind can only understand that which it perceives as logical.

Our so called logical thoughts are built entirely on our perception of the world. In my previous post I gave the example of the impossibility of describing the colour blue. In reality all our perceptions are beyond description but our intellect plays a trick on us so that we imagine we can "describe" and "explain" things. For instance try describing what "hot" is. You cannot do it except by resorting to it's extreme opposite "cold" and "describing" it in relation to cold. However you cannot describe "cold" except by resorting to "hot" and hence you are really not describing anything. If you met a person who had never experienced hot or cold you would never, even until the end of time be able to give them any idea of what "hot" and "cold" were. It is entirely dependent on experience and your "logic" is also dependent entirely on experience. Therefore since your senses are limited in nature it is impossible for you to conceive of anything that is outside of those sense perceptions and hence it is ultimately impossible for you to understand how the universe really works. You are only capable of proposing similarities.

This is the great error that logicians and scientists make. They assume that the universe is logical in nature and that their senses can ultimately comprehend it's workings. As I said earlier this is a massive and totally unjustified assumption. Bertrand Russell is entirely correct when he says that science is nothing but the manipulation of matter. It contains no "truth" whatsoever. It is just a very limited "logical" construction based entirely on limited human perception of the world. It is really a mirror of human psychology.

[Trinoc]

Well there have been quite a few replies to my post and all of them show that you do not grasp the fundamental point I was trying to make. Science is belief because it assumes that the universe is logical in nature and that therefore it can be explained by logic.
Science doesn't exactly assume logic is correct ... it applies logic to observable facts and finds that it does work. The skeptical scientific method in action, in fact.

We can't prove that there isn't a great, unobservable foundation to the universe which does not follow any kind of logic, but we can see that at least the part of the universe we can observe follows what we call logic.

If you are trying to convince yourself than nothing can ever be known therefore you may as well not bother, that is your choice. However, most of us would beg to differ, and point to the many things we do know, in the sense that by applying that knowledge we can predict the results of further observations which then turn out to be correct.

[tolman]

Well there have been quite a few replies to my post and all of them show that you do not grasp the fundamental point I was trying to make. Science is belief because it assumes that the universe is logical in nature and that therefore it can be explained by logic.

And you clearly don't grasp the point I made, that in reality, the assumptions science makes about the universe are essentially the same ones that normal, sane people the world over make in everyday life, only more explicit and more formalised.

Apart from pontification, even the people who'd like to think they're above all the 'reality' stuff very rarely practice what they preach - they don't jump out of high windows on the assumption that gravity is an illusion, they don't walk across motorways on the assumption that the vehicles they think they see aren't actually real, they don't stick their hands in fires* on the assumption that 'heat' is some abstract scientific concept, (possibly based on a deeply subjective Caucasian and phallocentric worldview).
(*At least, rarely more than once.)

The other thing you don't seem to grasp is that people who view science as a highly successful and substantially practical pursuit, as well as one which can give great satisfaction, really aren't hugely interested in philosophical musings on science
They've heard it all before, very probably thought about from time to time in an idle moment, and then put it to one side with all the other things that don't seem likely to be particularly enlightening.


However in reality "logic" is something that belongs to human beings and not to the universe. Human logic is based on our experiences of how the visible world seems to behave and when we say "this is not logical" what we're really saying is that this doesn't conform to our "normal" way of viewing things. That's all. Because something is illogical it does not mean it is not true.
Indeed - an apparent contradiction between events as perceived and reported and the explicit understanding of how the world works is interesting, since that's actually one of the driving factors of science - to try and build the best possible understanding of the universe.


However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense". A particle can be in more than one place simultaneously for instance which does not conform to human ideas of logic.
It's probably more sensible to say that what we find at the deepest level does not conform to the everyday view of 'particle', and that people who might find themselves confused by the different meanings of the word at different physical scales might be better avoiding quantum mechanics.


Therefore the underlying universe is not logical in it's operation and therefore logic cannot be imposed upon it. If logic cannot be imposed upon it then ultimately the human mind cannot understand it because the human mind can only understand that which it perceives as logical.
You seem to be confusing 'logic' and 'common sense'.
It's not 'common sense' that I can have two rigidly fixed solid metal rods running through the air from one building to another, and that I can transmit a huge amount of power through them without them moving.
However, there are few people who doubt that that can happen, even if they don't understand how it works.
There's also no doubt that there's a comprehensive scientific understanding of electricity which allows what happens to be explained and what will happen to be predicted with great accuracy.

The whole point of science is to extend human knowledge beyond 'what everyone knows' into 'what some people have found out' whilst doing so in a sufficiently well-ordered and well-argued way that people can generally have confidence in the findings, and which allows people disagreeing with them to put forward an alternative view.

[Mongrel]

Well there have been quite a few replies to my post and all of them show that you do not grasp the fundamental point I was trying to make.


I got the underlying point though "Nadgers, more philosophical wanking"

[zenthinker]

I got the underlying point though "Nadgers, more philosophical wanking"

I get the impression from reading this site that the reason so many of you "logicians" seem to hate philosophy so much is that it's a little too threatening to your own belief systems. If it's not black and white you hate it don't you. If it questions the underlying assumptions of science it's heresy isn't it?

[Tim the Mage]

I get the impression from reading this site that the reason so many of you "logicians" seem to hate philosophy so much is that it's a little too threatening to your own belief systems. If it's not black and white you hate it don't you. If it questions the underlying assumptions of science it's heresy isn't it?

Seems the regulars did their 'ganging up on you' act - your point was a good one (although Hobbes did it rather better around 300 years earlier) about our perception.

Two things these "skeptics" dislike - 1) deductive reasoning; 2) any suggestion that they might be adopting the same presumptive approach as those they claim are merchants of woo.

What is really being said is that we shouldn't care whether or not "science" is a belief as the answers we get from what folk here like to call "critical thinking" are superior to those you or I might get from the deductive approach philosophers might employ.

And on logic - too few here fail to realise that if the premise is wrong all the logic in the world won't make the answer right (I have tried to introduce this through referring to Humpty Dumpty but I think that wasn't serious or scientific enough!)

Me, I'm just here for the joy of debate and the chance to challenge ignorant observations about economics and sociology. And to poke a little fun now and thenO0

[tolman]

I get the impression from reading this site that the reason so many of you "logicians" seem to hate philosophy so much is that it's a little too threatening to your own belief systems.
People here don't hate philosophy.

However, I'd guess that quite a few dislike people who think that because they've read a book or two on the subject, they somehow know more about all forms of thinking than anyone else, including people who have probably read quite enough philosophy to realise its limitations.

Basically, the only people who respect philosophical poseurs are others of their kind and the very easily impressed, and I'm not sure how many people in either category anyone should expect to find on a skeptic's site.

Philosophy doesn't threaten science any more than it threatens gardening.
Far brighter people than you have pondered long and hard on science, but exactly how have any of them threatened it, or even much influenced it?

If it's not black and white you hate it don't you. If it questions the underlying assumptions of science it's heresy isn't it?
On the contrary, I think many people here thrive on thinking about grey areas.
Which underlying assumption of science do you have any evidence for being ill-founded.

You seem to have firmly made up your mind in what I must say appears to be a fairly black-and-white fashion, and have failed to make any attempt to address a single point that anyone has raised so far.

I assume you will soon leave with your prejudices about people unsullied by thought or experience, just as your opinion of science seems also likely to remain unchanged for precisely the same reasons.

[SimonC]

However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense". A particle can be in more than one place simultaneously for instance which does not conform to human ideas of logic.

I'd ask how we know these amazing things about the 'quantum universe'. What process of enquiry led to these fascinating conclusions? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was mostly logical deduction and empirical testing, wasn't it? Like the testing going on at CERN.

I certainly don't 'hate philosophy' - all discussions of morals, ethics, aesthetics etc are philosophical in nature. Science is pretty much useless in that regard. It's just that philosophy isn't generally the best tool for investigating the material universe ( to the limits of our perceptions, if you choose to add that caveat ).

[tolman]

Seems the regulars did their 'ganging up on you' act - your point was a good one (although Hobbes did it rather better around 300 years earlier) about our perception.
Maybe if the newbie had actually bothered to try and debate anything, rather than just saying "This is what I think" followed by various versions of "You're all wrong", they'd have got a better reception.

What is really being said is that we shouldn't care whether or not "science" is a belief as the answers we get from what folk here like to call "critical thinking" are superior to those you or I might get from the deductive approach philosophers might employ.
I think what's really being said is that a good fraction of the people who desire to categorise science as a belief are doing so from a position of disliking science for some personal reason or another. The reason they wish to categorise it is to be able to make the leap to saying "Because I've put science in the ill-defined 'belief' category, I can now consider it identical to other things in that category whenever it suits me to do so".
They're not trying to further their understanding of science by categorising it, they're trying to compensate for their lack of understanding of it.

And on logic - too few here fail to realise that if the premise is wrong all the logic in the world won't make the answer right.
But if what you're fundamentally bothered about is explanatory and predictive ability, right up to the point that you fail to be able to predict things, all the philosophers in the world wailing and gnashing their teeth won't make your predictions any less useful.
If you ever do reach that point, it'll still be a damn good bet that it's a scientist that you look to for a better world-model, not a philosopher.

[Croydon Bob]

Logic only operates within a very narrow framework, one that I call the Newtonian framework because Newtons laws of motion are intuitively understandable by human beings ie. they seem to "make sense". However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense". A particle can be in more than one place simultaneously for instance which does not conform to human ideas of logic. Therefore the underlying universe is not logical in it's operation and therefore logic cannot be imposed upon it. If logic cannot be imposed upon it then ultimately the human mind cannot understand it because the human mind can only understand that which it perceives as logical.

I've just caught up on the last few pages of this thread. I'm not a scientist, I don't have science qualifications and I write for a living. But I can smell bull when I'm exposed to it and the above is bull. Typical woo mumbo jumbo that could have been taken from a website selling healing crystals or somesuch rubbish.

[Allo Allo]

I've just caught up on the last few pages of this thread. I'm not a scientist, I don't have science qualifications and I write for a living. But I can smell bull when I'm exposed to it and the above is bull. Typical woo mumbo jumbo that could have been taken from a website selling healing crystals or somesuch rubbish.

Oooo - I squirmed with shame to read this post! It's plain rude. I think you must be having a bad day! You have made allegations with no backup source - how do you KNOW this is woo mumbo jumbo taken from a website selling healing crystals - and 'bull'? That is only your opinion after all. Everyone posting here has an opinion....it is really helpful to have others respect someone elses opinion rather than behave like some uncouth cretin and cut the thread dead! >:-) Do us a favour - mind our reputation!

[Matt]

Oooo - I squirmed with shame to read this post! It's plain rude. I think you must be having a bad day! You have made allegations with no backup source - how do you KNOW this is woo mumbo jumbo taken from a website selling healing crystals - and 'bull'? That is only your opinion after all. Everyone posting here has an opinion....it is really helpful to have others respect someone elses opinion rather than behave like some uncouth cretin and cut the thread dead! >:-) Do us a favour - mind our reputation!

Why aren't you respecting Croydon Bob's opinion?

[Allo Allo]

Why aren't you respecting Croydon Bob's opinion?


Good point! ;D ;D

Probably because he stated it in an offensive way?

Probably because he was uttering his hostility?

Probably because I am enjoying this thread (though not posting on it) and don't want it to stop dead?

Probably because in my years of watching people come and go here, it makes me sad that everyone is so TIRED of protecting their 'skepticism' against woo intruders, they just chase them away from sheer exhaustion?

Probably because I'm tired of the 'attitude'?

Probably because I've heard it all before?

Probably because I've been on the receiving end of such rudeness myself because of my woo ideas from Cuddles - who never knew or was ever aware of how ill it made me?

Probably because I believe that skeptics have such a bad reputation already it shouldn't be confirmed?

Probably because the only reason I am posting anything at all is that I am off sick myself and have the time to care?

Probably because I'm just old and bossy?

Who knows?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if it is stated politely - and agrees with my own! :bossy:

[tolman]

Probably because in my years of watching people come and go here, it makes me sad that everyone is so TIRED of protecting their 'skepticism' against woo intruders, they just chase them away from sheer exhaustion?

Probably because I'm tired of the 'attitude'?

Probably because I've heard it all before?
I don't think it's tiredness so much as boredom.
The typical 'science doesn't know everything' poster seems so predictable, practically at the level of the average creationist troll (assuming it's not a creationist troll having a go at science).

The *impression* they give is of someone who deep down has a personal problem with either science as a whole (like never being much good at it at school), or some particular finding of science (maybe contradicting something they'd like to believe, yet they can't actually show any credible evidence that that specific bit of science is wrong, so they try and have a go at science in general).

Unfortunately, just as with a pimply-faced creationist, if they're just ignored, they'll tend to just think that it's because no-one had any reply to their stunning argument.

As it is, it would seem that in this case, any number of replies might not have made any impact, since the person in question isn't actually listening, and seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that they're too profound for anyone else to understand, when instead, they're really saying nothing that hasn't been said more eloquently and less arrogantly many times before, and which even when said well, never seemed to influence science to any great extent, because it's largely irrelevant to the practical pursuit of scientific knowledge.

[Allo Allo]

I don't think it's tiredness so much as boredom.
The typical 'science doesn't know everything' poster seems so predictable, practically at the level of the average creationist troll (assuming it's not a creationist troll having a go at science).

The *impression* they give is of someone who deep down has a personal problem with either science as a whole (like never being much good at it at school), or some particular finding of science (maybe contradicting something they'd like to believe, yet they can't actually show any credible evidence that that specific bit of science is wrong, so they try and have a go at science in general).

Unfortunately, just as with a pimply-faced creationist, if they're just ignored, they'll tend to just think that it's because no-one had any reply to their stunning argument.

As it is, it would seem that in this case, any number of replies might not have made any impact, since the person in question isn't actually listening, and seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that they're too profound for anyone else to understand, when instead, they're really saying nothing that hasn't been said more eloquently and less arrogantly many times before, and which even when said well, never seemed to influence science to any great extent, because it's largely irrelevant to the practical pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Nice defence! Eloquently rude and well crafted! And it's true that I have read philosophical discussions on this board by thinking people that have been amicable and mentally stimulating.

UK Skeptics is surely not dedicated solely to the promotion of a single kind of skepticism - some knowledge, like our personal inner landscapes cannot be scientifically quantified. It's that that we display here everytime we 'talk' to each other. The connection should be that some aspect of our inner landscape is 'skeptical'. I refuse to have my skeptical aspect squeezed into a brick of prescribed dogmatic skepticism that I hurl at other people.

Bricks of prescribed dogmatic skepticism - the kind of bricks thrown around here are also irrelevant to the practical pursuit of scientific knowledge for they are most often not the kind of bricks used in the construction of it. Scientific skepticism has different shaped bricks to the UK Skeptics/James Randi kind....

In defence of our buddhist zenthinker poster - he might not be a creationist at all - but some kind of naturalist - or even a scientist!

^-^

[Admin]

dogmatic skepticism

That's an oxymoron and using it shows a total lack of understanding of what skepticism is.


Scientific skepticism has different shaped bricks to the UK Skeptics/James Randi kind....

See above.

[Admin]

Science is belief because it assumes that the universe is logical in nature and that therefore it can be explained by logic.

Science doesn't assume that at all.


Logic only operates within a very narrow framework, one that I call the Newtonian framework because Newtons laws of motion are intuitively understandable by human beings ie. they seem to "make sense". However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense".

Are you confusing logic with determinism? It looks that way to me.

Scientists did indeed once think that the universe is deterministic, but that notion was abandoned a long time ago. It is through science that quantum mechanics was developed by the way, not some mystical insight.


This is the great error that logicians and scientists make. They assume that the universe is logical in nature and that their senses can ultimately comprehend it's workings.

No, that's completely wrong.

You're displaying the sort of thinking much beloved of those into mystical/paranormal/supernatural/faith-based ideas. It's a waste of time and effort however. Even if you do show that science is flawed or wrong or unable to explain certain phenomena, it still adds no weight to any any counter-arguments or counter-philosophy.

"Science can't be used to explain qualia; therefore my spiritual 'knowledge' is correct" is not a valid argument.

[tolman]

In defence of our buddhist zenthinker poster - he might not be a creationist at all - but some kind of naturalist - or even a scientist!
I don't believe I said they were a creationist, just that the style of arrival and delivery was in some ways similar.

On the style issue, I'm not sure if it was here or elsewhere, but I kind-of-remember at least one person turning up somewhere like this with a username that seemed to proclaim a similar kind of self-image, and start saying rather similar things. Still, that was probably just someone cast from the same type.

[Tim the Mage]

Can I take my tongue out from my cheek now?

[Trinoc]

Can I take my tongue out from my cheek now?
I did wonder whether someone else was using your user name ... then I spotted "too few here fail to realise that if the premise is wrong all the logic in the world won't make the answer right" ...

[Allo Allo]

That's an oxymoron and using it shows a total lack of understanding of what skepticism is.

See above.

No - I am using it thus...quote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma) - outside of religion its current usage tends to carry a pejorative connotation—referring to concepts as being "established" only according to a particular point of view, and thus one of doubtful foundation.

You KNOW that I thoroughly dislike the 'skep speak' phrases, terms and ways of saying things that are churned out like meaningless jargon! I do not misunderstand skepticism at all - the kind you get on youtube/james randi - and sometimes here, is skepticism regurgitated, learned by rote, said by memory - and has very little to do with THOUGHT! If it's not skeptic 'dogma' - what IS it? The whole language and attitude is learned by the devotees!

Scientific scepticism is something quite different.

Anyway - how are you? Nice to entangle with you again! :smiley: - (and I like oxymorons especially when they make the exact point!)

[Lord Muck oGentry]

What the original question was to describe what blue is. You can't it's simply impossible, blue is blue it's as simple as that.

Sorry, I'm not with you here. The passage I quoted is this:

If you want to understand just how limited the intellect is, try describing a colour ?

You may be thinking of this:

The word "blue" is a label that keeps you away from the understanding that the experience of the colour blue is beyond intellectual grasping.

The second passage is hard to follow— for me, anyway. However, I'm going to hazard a guess: if we pursue the question, we shall soon be surrounded by qualia, sense-data, the sensory manifold and other creatures from the bestiary of philosophical idealism.

[lazerustheduck]

Sorry, I'm not with you here. The passage I quoted is this:


You may be thinking of this:


The second passage is hard to follow— for me, anyway. However, I'm going to hazard a guess: if we pursue the question, we shall soon be surrounded by qualia, sense-data, the sensory manifold and other creatures from the bestiary of philosophical idealism.No it is in fact quite a simple intellectual exercise, try describing blue, imagine someone has never seen the colour blue then describe it too them. You can't say it's like royal blue because they've never seen blue.

[Tim the Mage]

No it is in fact quite a simple intellectual exercise, try describing blue, imagine someone has never seen the colour blue then describe it too them. You can't say it's like royal blue because they've never seen blue.

And if you're colour blind blue might be green anyway.

Discussing abstract concepts (fun though it is) gets us no closer to answering the question - "is science a belief".

Looking through the thread I see three (there may be more) significances:

1) The idea that what we experience is vicarious (i.e. moderated through our senses)
2) Consideration of what we mean by 'logic' and 'critical thinking'
3) Whether 'philosophy' (whatever we mean by that term) helps us or hinders us in our understanding

For what it's worth I like philosophy but prefer its more practical (political?) manifestations to the esoteric stuff from Bertrand Russell - especially when we are so selective in our quoting.

But then Heinlein had the quote we should all love..


“Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.”

[tolman]

However, I'm going to hazard a guess: if we pursue the question, we shall soon be surrounded by qualia, sense-data, the sensory manifold and other creatures from the bestiary of philosophical idealism.
Which is, of course, not really relevant to science.
Science can still quite well describe the situations likely to lead to my experience of blueness in the future, and hence act as a useful predictive tool. Science can (and did) predict the kinds of materials at least potentially likely to lead to the manufacture of blue LEDs, etc

However, possibly more on topic:
My internal sensation of blueness is not only not easily described or explained, but it also appears to be something which has possibly less need of description or explanation than anything else I can think of.

Since by definition, there is nothing whatsoever in my conscious experience of blue which I do not experience, there seems no chance of me missing out on any of it through the lack of an explanation.

Complaining that science is flawed because it fails to provide a description of a sensation which seemingly can't be described by any other means either, and which has no clear need of description or explanation in the first place seems a rather odd strand of argument.

(That said, thinking/learning about colour vision from a biological/image processing viewpoint can be very enlightening in many ways, such as how the brain effective uses four primary colours, why the shortest visible light looks violet rather than just 'more blue', etc.)

[Lord Muck oGentry]

No it is in fact quite a simple intellectual exercise, try describing blue, imagine someone has never seen the colour blue then describe it too them. You can't say it's like royal blue because they've never seen blue.


There are two questions here, not one. One question is whether we can describe colours. The second is whether we can teach the meaning of colour-words by description alone.

The answer to the first question is that we can, because we do— the point of my first observation.

The answer to the second is that we teach the meaning of colour-words by means of samples of the sort that can be seen in an infant-school classroom. However, when the basic vocabulary has been mastered, the pupil can often follow descriptions such as " like a blue, but with a lot of green in it". If the pupil can correctly identify samples from that description, then he has in fact mastered a new colour term from a description.

[Matt]

Science is two things:

It is a method and it is the cannon of knowledge obtained from that method. Using the latter meaning, it is a number of beliefs. Very well supported beliefs which may nonetheless, in certain untested circumstances turn out to be false.

The method is also based upon a belief. Faith if you like. Faith that the world we perceive operates according to fixed rules which may be deduced by observation.

Due to the limitations of inductive methods the canon of scientific knowledge may only be considered provisional truths waiting to be refined. As such it doesn't matter that their origin suffers the flaw of being based upon an unfalsifiable belief whose truth will always remain provisional. It affects the integrity of the turths revealed by the scientific method not one jot. They are still provisional.

This discussion refers to the positive truths that the scientific method affirms. Though we can make fair (but unproductive) criticism of these affirmed truths, the potential truths that have been discounted by science must remain discounted in all eventualities.

For example if I were to say that gravity always repels and simple experiment shows that in all testable circumstances, it does not. Only one example of gravity attracting would be enough to disprove this hypothesis. Even if we were to find circumstances under which gravity repels we still know for certain that it does not always repel.

Likewise homeopathy. Homeopathy confidently predicts that it's preparations will have a pharmacological effect significantly greater than that of a placebo. Simple experiment shows that in all testable circumstances, it does not. As such the homeopathic hypothesis needs to be refined or abandoned - something that practitioners stubbornly refuse to do.

[Tony Williams]

But then Heinlein had the quote we should all love: “Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.”

Yesterday I was at a seminar on the history of aircraft weapons, and one of the participants was talking about the RAF's adoption of the SNEB air-to-ground rocket system several decades ago. While this was still being considered, the British noted that the warheads used a piezo-electric fuze, and demanded to know exactly how it worked. The French responded "we don't know, but it does work, so why worry?". In the end, the British accepted this and bought the system.

[Croydon Bob]

how do you KNOW this is woo mumbo jumbo taken from a website selling healing crystals

I didn't say that it was.


- and 'bull'? That is only your opinion after all. Everyone posting here has an opinion....

Indeed, yes.


than behave like some uncouth cretin and cut the thread dead!

It is my opinion that the loony who posted the woo mumbo jumbo and pretended that it somehow proves that science is a belief is more of an "uncouth cretin" than I am. You are in good company calling me a "cretin", by the way, when I first arrived on these boards Cuddles called me "retarded" for daring to point out that he had contradicted himself on a particular issue.

I hardly seem to have cut the thread dead, it has grown quite a bit since I last visited yesterday.

[Trinoc]

such as how the brain effective uses four primary colours, why the shortest visible light looks violet rather than just 'more blue', etc.)
Four primary colours ... ?

As for violet, that is because the "blue" cone alone would actually give a sensation like violet, only more so*. Light of exactly the wavelength detected by the "blue" cone also stimulates the green and even red cones a bit, so the sensation of blue is actually a combination of all three.

Hey ... this is getting dangerously close to a scientific description of "blue" ... do you think this will change zenthinker's point of view?

[* Does anyone know of any experiments in which some of the cones in the eye were temporarily knocked out, so that the subject could experience "pure" red, green or blue?]

[Trinoc]

It is interesting that when the word "belief" is applied to faith, it is taken to mean something taken to be infallible and not subject to test, but when "belief" is applied (usually pejoratively) to science, it is taken to mean that science is fundamentally fallible. The reality, of course, is closer to the opposite, though I don't think the faith-pushers will ever quite understand that the fact that scientific ideas are not infallible and are subject to change in the light of evidence, is science's greatest strength, not its weakness.

[tolman]

Four primary colours ... ?
Four effective internal primary colours, red, yellow, green and blue.
Other colours (cyan, magenta, etc) are not hard to imagine as blends of the first four, but yellow doesn't feel at all like a blend of red and green.
If anything, in terms of 'feel', green is closer to being a blend of blue and yellow.

Possibly this is a hangover from the evolution of colour vision via animals with a two-colour ('blue'/'yellow') system, or possibly it's down to the image processing being easier to do (and/or more robust) via successive colour-difference steps?

As for violet, that is because the "blue" cone alone would actually give a sensation like violet, only more so*. Light of exactly the wavelength detected by the "blue" cone also stimulates the green and even red cones a bit, so the sensation of blue is actually a combination of all three.
I'm wondering more of the distinct redness of violet, possibly a result of redness being a function of differences between 'red' and 'green' cone inputs, which results in the progressive lack of 'green' input at the shortest wavelengths causing an increasing perception of redness even if the 'red' input is by then largely absent.

[Tony Williams]

According to the New Scientist, some people have four types of colour receptors - the "tetrachromats". They are always female, as it is associated with the X chromosomes. They therefore see variation in what most people would regard as one shade of a colour.

[Trinoc]

Four effective internal primary colours, red, yellow, green and blue.
Other colours (cyan, magenta, etc) are not hard to imagine as blends of the first four, but yellow doesn't feel at all like a blend of red and green.
If anything, in terms of 'feel', green is closer to being a blend of blue and yellow.
I see what you mean, but I'm not convinced. There are only three sensors (except in a few women with tetrachromacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy) due to having one Daltonism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daltonism) gene). If you include the sensations caused by combinations of these then you have to regard the spectrum as a continuum, and yellow has no more special place than anything else, except perhaps for being the colour to which the eye is most sensitive.

Violet and magenta are oddities, since violet is off the scale covered by the cones and yet can still be perceived by virtue of the lower response from green and red cones, and magenta has no corresponding single wavelength since it involves stimulation of read and blue cones but reduced stimulation of green. Interesting that the two colours which rely on lower than normal stimulation of the green cone produce similar colour sensations.

[Trinoc]

According to the New Scientist, some people have four types of colour receptors - the "tetrachromats". They are always female, as it is associated with the X chromosomes. They therefore see variation in what most people would regard as one shade of a colour.
This was posted while I was typing my reply ...

Tetrachromats are rare exceptions, though.

[tolman]

Leaving aside the unquestioned ability of red/green/blue to act as external primary colours, I'd suggest that things like the widespread use of red, green, blue and yellow as the colours to use for a huge range of baby toys (bricks, etc) does rather reflect an implicit acceptance of those four colours as at least somehow internally privileged.

Whatever the number of different receptor classes in the retina, there's no reason at all why the internal colour space must mirror that of the sensors.

Processing the input signals by means of colour differences can easily lead to internal representations which don't have any obvious mapping to the receptors.
Indeed, (at least for people who see them as primaries) the internal 'red' and 'green' are fairly far removed from the signals from the 'medium' and 'long' receptors, and must themselves have been generated from some significant processing.
Generating difference signals from 3 types of input could lead fairly naturally to having a 2-dimensional space for representing hue and saturation, with results being somewhere on a graph with, for example, red-vs-green and blue-vs-yellow axes.

[Trinoc]

Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_triangle) is your 2D graph - variations on it are used in all video, printing and dying industries. The axes are not red-green and blue-yellow, though.

Some other useful info here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_color).

[Matt]

Green is considered a primary colour when combining light. Yellow is not
Yellow is considered a primary colour when filtering light, for example with pigments - typically paint mixing. in that paradigm Green is not considered primary.

[Tim the Mage]

My uncle was totally colour blind. I always assumed that it would be impossible to describe colour to him yet he worked in an environment (a pharmaceuticals research establishment) where I suspect an understanding of colour is required.

Having strayed from the thread I've found it quite enlightening - thanks.

[Tony Williams]

My uncle was totally colour blind. I always assumed that it would be impossible to describe colour to him yet he worked in an environment (a pharmaceuticals research establishment) where I suspect an understanding of colour is required.

Well, if you think about black-and-white photographs, you can make a lot of fine distinctions with different shades of grey.

[Mongrel]

My uncle was totally colour blind. I always assumed that it would be impossible to describe colour to him yet he worked in an environment (a pharmaceuticals research establishment) where I suspect an understanding of colour is required.

It's be interesting to hear his side of things, that's for certain.

What I suspect though is that he worked harder to train himself so that his colour blindness wasn't a hindrance. For example, from a purely H&S perspective everything should be clearly labelled anyway - he just has to read the labels or even look at the shape of the container (if there was a difference).

Another example is a friend of mine who suffers from Red-Green colour blindness, he doesn't have to know what the colours are in the traffic light just that the top one is stop and the bottom one is go (he's also handy to have around for testing web sites in that regard as well O0)

[Pebble]

Meanwhile back to the topic at hand.

If I understand the arguments to date I would summarise:

Science is a method not a belief. At it's heart is empiricism and a quest to minimise assumptions.

The philosophers view is that it is impossible to get rid of all assumptions (one has to assume that you exist to do the studies in the first place) and concludes that as one cannot get rid of all assumptions, then the whole of science is a logical fallacy.

Any advance or corrections?

[Tony Williams]

The philosophers view is that it is impossible to get rid of all assumptions (one has to assume that you exist to do the studies in the first place) and concludes that as one cannot get rid of all assumptions, then the whole of science is a logical fallacy.


Which just shows that too much thinking about a subject can result in you disappearing up your own fundamental orifice ::)

All of our understanding of existence involves an assumption we do actually exist. So is existence a logical fallacy?

[Croydon Bob]

All of our understanding of existence involves an assumption we do actually exist. So is existence a logical fallacy?

Like most skeptics (including you probably) I don't find these debates very useful. I grew out of them at the same time that I stopped dropping acid in my early twenties.

At the end of the day we all think that we exist, and we operate on an assumption that we exist and that "reality" is real. When nutters claim that they don't think any such thing and believe that this existence is all a dream or some similar nonsense, they are lying. Otherwise why do they bother to look before crossing the road, go to the doctor when ill, etc?

If everyone in history had started from a position of wondering about the existence of existence then humanity wouldn't even have the wheel let alone anything else that helps make our lives so comfortable.

Or to quote the philosopher, and Skeptics in the Pub founder, Dr. Scott Campbell: "That's bollocks, it's just philosophy!"

[Mulder]

Why do people 'drop' acid instead of just taking it? Does drop have some specific meaning here. I should say I know nothing of drug culture.

[farmersboy]

Why do people 'drop' acid instead of just taking it? Does drop have some specific meaning here. I should say I know nothing of drug culture.

Because it was originally available in liquid form, not pills.

Apparently.

[Trinoc]

Because it was originally available in liquid form, not pills.
So why doesn't one "drop" a cup of tea or a pint of beer (unless very clumsy, that is)?

[tolman]

Not only was it a liquid, but a potent one.

Often, it was packaged as drops soaked into paper in a [possibly patterned] grid, which was then dried and cut into small pieces, so people were actually taking one drop per piece.

At least in the UK, the existing term 'Acid Drops' might have provided at least some small amount of resonance, but I'm not sure if that had any meaning in the USA?

[Trinoc]

Not only was it a liquid, but a potent one.

Often, it was packaged as drops soaked into paper in a [possibly patterned] grid, which was then dried and cut into small pieces, so people were actually taking one drop per piece.

At least in the UK, the existing term 'Acid Drops' might have provided at least some small amount of resonance, but I'm not sure if that had any meaning in the USA?
I've heard of acid-impregnated paper - handy for smuggling it into jail - but the phrase I remember was always "Drop a tab of acid". I don't think it's anything more complicated than dropping a tablet into your mouth, like maybe dropping an aspirin for a headache.


Is the term used by today's yoof for tabs of E etc? I think I have heard it said.

[tolman]

The word 'tab' applies at least as well to a small square of paper as to a tablet.

[Trinoc]

The word 'tab' applies at least as well to a small square of paper as to a tablet.
Perhaps, but I didn't get the impression this was what they were talking about.

I think I'd be more likely to suck a piece of paper rather than try to swallow it, which hardly suggests dropping.

The suggestion that it refers to the act of dripping the acid onto the paper in the first place seems like a linguistic long shot.

[lazerustheduck]

Yes acid does usually come in soaked paper form, I don't know where drop comes from but one of the fast methods of taking it was as eye drops so perhaps that's the source.

[Trinoc]

Yes acid does usually come in soaked paper form, I don't know where drop comes from but one of the fast methods of taking it was as eye drops so perhaps that's the source.
OK. Clearly my ignorance of this enhances my status as a failed hippie.

[lazerustheduck]

OK. Clearly my ignorance of this enhances my status as a failed hippie.Apparently it's actually placed under the tongue to be absorbed.

[Chaz]

Put simply science is as close to the truth as we can possibly be at any given time. It is reasonable to accept scientific findings acquired through theory, trial, error and peer review making it a belief. Belief does carry with it a negative connotation for skeptics, however such belief is unarguably more sound than any faith based beliefs. Opponents tend to always point to the supposed "brazen fallibility of modern science". Associating with certain philosophers I encounter this a lot. But no matter how pretentious and post-modernist one wishes to be no one can call belief in evidence unreasonable or unfounded. Denial of the fallibility of modern science is however an outwardly unreasonable stance. It pains me to admit that fairies could potentially exist but nonetheless I must because to say that they absolutely do not would be unreasonable. It's the same with science. We can take it on face value but due to the limitations we have we have to allow for certain outrageous factors to be moderately considered. Irrespective, you have my answer.

[Pebble]

Put simply science is as close to the truth as we can possibly be at any given time. It is reasonable to accept scientific findings acquired through theory, trial, error and peer review making it a belief. Belief does carry with it a negative connotation for skeptics, however such belief is unarguably more sound than any faith based beliefs. .

The question is not whether hypotheses and theories are beliefs (evidence based beliefs - accepted), but scientific methodology or empiricism of itself!

[Chaz]

This makes no difference. One's theories and hypotheses are decided a posteriori(ie empirically). Refer to my previous post for the counter to this.

[Pebble]

This makes no difference. One's theories and hypotheses are decided a posteriori(ie empirically). Refer to my previous post for the counter to this.

No. Hypothesis generation is done on the basis of some available evidence and a lot of guesswork. Then one empirically tests, the hypothesis forming the basis of the apriori assumptions, which if validated leads to a theory. With the exception of genetics, where one simply uses statistical trawling to identify associations, and then develops hypotheses to form the basis of the next study - again only reaching the standard of a theory when evidence produced.

That is not however the point I was trying to get at. The question is whether scientific method is truly objective, or based on certain unprovable assumptions and therefore a belief?

[tolman]

That is not however the point I was trying to get at. The question is whether scientific method is truly objective, or based on certain unprovable assumptions and therefore a belief?

If one assumes the basic assumptions of science (universe exists, exhibits substantial regularity, is amenable to some kind of understanding) are wrong, then you're not left with anything to be remotely objective about.

If 'belief' as a term is extended to cover "everything except the unattainable truly objective", then it ceases to be a term of any descriptive value, and its use becomes meaningless, except possibly to people with one or other axe to grind, who wish to pretend two things are the same because one word can be stretched to describe both of them.

If the people who burn with desire to define science as a belief would actually be honest upfront about what their real intentions were, it would make life rather simpler all round.

[She_Liger]

Is science a belief?


No!
Science is the Reason.

[Mongrel]

If one assumes the basic assumptions of science (universe exists, exhibits substantial regularity, is amenable to some kind of understanding) are wrong, then you're not left with anything to be remotely objective about.

And every new tool we develop gets measured against the Universe, we plot out and postulate what the new tools should be able to do and then try and break the pre-existing assumptions of the what we know. We nearly always lose* and for the most part are happy about it.

Then you have to ask yourself; if a discovery came along which shattered the world view as we currently know it, which mindset would be most amenable to discovering it?

* We often find a few things which means we're able to refine the existing laws fractionally.

[zenthinker]

Science is indeed belief. It is the belief that logic is infallible and that everything can be deduced via that which comes to us through our senses. Having read many of the replies to my previous posts it is clear that very few of you understand the implications about what I was saying about the sense perceptions.

Human beings are only capable of proposing similarities to what they already know, and what they already know comes to them through the senses. It is impossible for a human being to conceive of anything that they have not experienced or for such a thing to be explained to them. You can not describe the colour blue because it is pure experience and neither could anybody who had not seen the colour blue understand what it was without seeing it.

It is no coincidence that the earliest theory of what constituted matter was that of the atom. This is just the most straightforward human extrapolation of a human experience. ie. matter is made up of smaller bits of matter called atoms. ie. it is conceivable. As the theory of matter progressed it became more complex and we now have the wave/particle duality model. But note that the wave idea is also something that is conceivable to human beings because we have experienced the wave concept through looking at the sea for instance. So there is nothing proposed here that is outside of human experience. ie. it is conceivable.

But consider the following - what if the real nature of matter is neither particle or wave. We now have a huge problem. The human being cannot conceive of anything except in terms of something familiar. Therefore if the real nature of matter is outside of that which we are capable of conceiving then human beings can never understand it. In other words our perceptions limit our ability to conceive. You can only perceive and suggest similarities to that which you already know and therefore your abilities are limited. You are within a kind of prison or cage of perception.

This is why science has no claim to truth, and is really a reflection of human perception which is severely limited in nature. Bertrand Russells statement that science is nothing but the manipulation of matter is entirely correct. Not only is it just the manipulation of matter, it can never go beyond that which is conceivable by human beings.

This is why certain philosophers say that ultimately the universe is unknowable. This doesn't mean that science isn't useful, it is. But it has no claim on truth in any shape or form whatsoever. It is I'm afraid a kind of belief albeit a "logical" belief.



On a side note, that arch materialist Richard Dawkins has now admitted that a strong case can be made for a deistic god. He is now being regularly out argued and seems to be shifting his ground. The article is here :

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2543431/is-richard-dawkins-still-evolving.thtml

[tolman]

But consider the following - what if the real nature of matter is neither particle or wave. We now have a huge problemFor a start, the particle/wave idea shows that some models of reality are more useful than others in certain circumstances.
Which one (if any) is 'real' doesn't actually matter, as long as we know what works, and when it works.
If the real nature of matter is different again, that's no problem at all, in the areas where the existing models work, and it's interesting, in the areas where they don't.


This is why certain philosophers say that ultimately the universe is unknowable.But practically speaking, it is knowable.


This doesn't mean that science isn't useful, it is. But it has no claim on truth in any shape or form whatsoever. It is I'm afraid a kind of belief albeit a "logical" belief.So, you're happy to define 'belief' as a term which covers anything that people think, (which makes it basically a useless word) and you also define 'truth' in an absolutist way that means it's not really applicable to anything at all human.

Personally, I'd prefer to use words in a way which actually gets some use out of them, where they can help distinguish between one thing and another, and to take the view that human thought isn't subservient to an absolutist interpretation of language.

As far as I can see, the people desperate to equate science with belief are generally (let me know if I've missed any):

a) People who want to believe something that science would contradict, or at least fail to support.

b) People who have a chip on their shoulder about not being much good at science themselves.

c) People who assume being able to attach the label of belief' to 'science' somehow makes science equivalent to any other belief, when it obviously does no such thing.

d) People who have read more philosophy than their critical faculties can reasonably cope with, and who think that pointing out that science isn't about Ultimate, Absolute Truth somehow gives them justification to feel superior, despite only being an N'th rate armchair philosopher.

Or some combination of the above.

[tolman]

On a side note, that arch materialist Richard Dawkins has now admitted that a strong case can be made for a deistic god.
It's always possible to make a *case* for a deistic god, since it's easy to define a deistic god in a way that's not possible to disprove.

"Deity created universe in some particular state a while ago, things have changed, and now here we are!"

[zenthinker]

a) People who want to believe something that science would contradict, or at least fail to support.

b) People who have a chip on their shoulder about not being much good at science themselves.

c) People who assume being able to attach the label of belief' to 'science' somehow makes science equivalent to any other belief, when it obviously does no such thing.

d) People who have read more philosophy than their critical faculties can reasonably cope with, and who think that pointing out that science isn't about Ultimate, Absolute Truth somehow gives them justification to feel superior, despite only being an N'th rate armchair philosopher.

Or some combination of the above.

Insult is the last refuge of the scoundrel tolman. Why not refute my points rather than resorting to insult.

By the way you still haven't grasped what I'm getting at here. Maybe you don't want to because despite what you "logicians" say you are scientific absolutists. You will not face up to the problem of limited sense perceptions. I was not talking about an alternative to the wave/particle model that you could conceive of but one that you couldn't. ie. It may be beyond human perception.

[tolman]

By the way you still haven't grasped what I'm getting at here. Maybe you don't want to because despite what you "logicians" say you are scientific absolutists.
So, you're happy to effectively call people liars if they honestly say that don't care about Ultimate Absolute Truth, but you jump on your high horse when someone lists *possible* common motives for some people wanting to do what you want to do - define science as a belief.
That seems to be somewhere beyond hypocritical.

Unless something struck close to home, and you're using righteous indignation as a cover, you seemingly don't care or understand that the motivations I listed all really exist in practice - people really do attack science for all those reasons, often in combination. If your motivation isn't in the list, feel free to describe what drives you to waste your time trying to tell people science isn't what they already thought it wasn't, or trying to tell them that they don't actually think the way they say they think.

You will not face up to the problem of limited sense perceptions. I was not talking about an alternative to the wave/particle model that you could conceive of but one that you couldn't. ie. It may be beyond human perception.
You obviously have a desire to think that limited human senses are a huge problem for science, and that people with a different opinion are 'failing to face up to the problem' when in reality, they just don't see that there is such a problem.

Ultimately, if something is beyond the possibility of detection by human senses, or by human senses augmented by any conceivable machine extension, then it is by definition beyond the possibility of experiment, or of influence on the conceivably observable universe, and therefore apparently irrelevant for practical purposes.

It's also likely to be unknowable to anyone who isn't practicing science, and therefore its unknowability isn't a meaningful black mark against science, except for those with a peculiar idea of what science is.

[zenthinker]

.Ultimately, if something is beyond the possibility of detection by human senses, or by human senses augmented by any conceivable machine extension, then it is by definition beyond the possibility of experiment, .

Precisely tolman, therefore science can make no claim to truth. Science works within the limits imposed by human perception and is thus limited in nature in the same way the senses are limited in nature. It is a narrow subset of the universe, one that Bertrand Russell described as merely "the manipulation of matter".


or of influence on the conceivably observable universe, and therefore apparently irrelevant for practical purposes

Not at all. Just because something cannot be perceived does not mean it has no influence. If the underlying nature of the universe is beyond human conception, does that mean it has no influence on our world?

[tolman]

Precisely tolman, therefore science can make no claim to truth.
You seem to be stuck with the same dumb argument, based on a misunderstanding of what science is, allied to a seeming fixation that people who actually understand science must share your misconceptions about it, and your devotion to Unattainable Absolute Ultimate Truth, even when they state quite clearly that they do not.

Science works within the limits imposed by human perception and is thus limited in nature in the same way the senses are limited in nature.
Humans can extend their perception in both timescales and lengthscales to vast and tiny extremes, and build machines to sense all kinds of things which human senses are quite incapable of perceiving. Humans are also capable of conceiving of things which lie far outside their capacity to directly percieve (various invisible radiations, electric/magnetic fields, etc), so at best, you seem to be using a ridiculously poor analogy.
However, the fact you keep using it does rather suggest that it's the best one you've got, and/or that you don't even understand what you're saying well enough yourself to come up with anything better.

It is a narrow subset of the universe, one that Bertrand Russell described as merely "the manipulation of matter".
I'd take the mere manipulation of matter over the cod philosopher's approach of misusing language (what we might call "merely masturbating over a dictionary") anyday.

Not at all. Just because something cannot be perceived does not mean it has no influence. If the underlying nature of the universe is beyond human conception, does that mean it has no influence on our world?
If the underlying nature of the physical universe has no discernable effect on the physical universe that can be measured by any conceivable means, or observed to make anything behave differently than if that underlying nature were different, how is that underlying nature relevant? How can it even be said to exist?
For an underlying nature to become relevant, it must actually affect something that someone can directly or indirectly observe.

If/when we observe something in the physical universe that science can't find any way of explaining, somehow I doubt the call will go out "For God's sake, bring us a philosopher!"

[Tim the Mage]

Try a little nonsense - I find it helps:


March Hare: …Then you should say what you mean.
Alice: I do; at least - at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing, you know.
Hatter: Not the same thing a bit! Why, you might just as well say that, 'I see what I eat' is the same as 'I eat what I see'!
March Hare: You might just as well say, that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!
The Dormouse: You might just as well say, that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!

[Pebble]

Science is indeed belief. It is the belief that logic is infallible and that everything can be deduced via that which comes to us through our senses. Having read many of the replies to my previous posts it is clear that very few of you understand the implications about what I was saying about the sense perceptions.

There is no requirement in science for logic to be infallible, merely that one is committed to continually challenging - empirically that which one holds to be proven.


beings are only capable of proposing similarities to what they already know, and what they already know comes to them through the senses. It is impossible for a human being to conceive of anything that they have not experienced or for such a thing to be explained to them. You can not describe the colour blue because it is pure experience and neither could anybody who had not seen the colour blue understand what it was without seeing it.

So prior to Archemides the cork screw was known by similarity to be the most efficient pump, prior to Newton gravity was known to exist, prior to Einstein relativity was known about etc, etc.



is no coincidence that the earliest theory of what constituted matter was that of the atom. This is just the most straightforward human extrapolation of a human experience. ie. matter is made up of smaller bits of matter called atoms. ie. it is conceivable. As the theory of matter progressed it became more complex and we now have the wave/particle duality model. But note that the wave idea is also something that is conceivable to human beings because we have experienced the wave concept through looking at the sea for instance. So there is nothing proposed here that is outside of human experience. ie. it is conceivable.

The fact that atomic structure was continually (and still is) questioned as the proposed models failed (fail) to explain all observations, doesn't indicate to you that your argument is flawed?



consider the following - what if the real nature of matter is neither particle or wave. We now have a huge problem. The human being cannot conceive of anything except in terms of something familiar. Therefore if the real nature of matter is outside of that which we are capable of conceiving then human beings can never understand it. In other words our perceptions limit our ability to conceive. You can only perceive and suggest similarities to that which you already know and therefore your abilities are limited. You are within a kind of prison or cage of perception.

Nope! what you have observed is one of the ongoing conundrums of science, that is why scientists continue to explore why nature of the atom. The LHC would never have been commissioned if this were not the case.



is why science has no claim to truth, and is really a reflection of human perception which is severely limited in nature. Bertrand Russells statement that science is nothing but the manipulation of matter is entirely correct. Not only is it just the manipulation of matter, it can never go beyond that which is conceivable by human beings.

Again - truth! what is that, observable reproducible/predictable events - now that is science



is why certain philosophers say that ultimately the universe is unknowable. This doesn't mean that science isn't useful, it is. But it has no claim on truth in any shape or form whatsoever. It is I'm afraid a kind of belief albeit a "logical" belief.

But what has philosophy ever achieved?


In essence, you are taking the position that what we now know as a consequence of scientific method is known, and therefore is within the remit of human logic/senses, but this clearly was not so before science showed it to be so. How would use of human senses have led us directly to knowing the distance between the earth and the Sun? or the nature of prions? the mathematical concept of 0, the nature and implications of infinity. Your worry about colour is superfluous - just look at any television screen and you will see that the nature of 'blue' is reproducibly understood.

[Mongrel]

As far as I can see, the people desperate to equate science with belief are generally (let me know if I've missed any):

a) People who want to believe something that science would contradict, or at least fail to support.

b) People who have a chip on their shoulder about not being much good at science themselves.

c) People who assume being able to attach the label of belief' to 'science' somehow makes science equivalent to any other belief, when it obviously does no such thing.

d) People who have read more philosophy than their critical faculties can reasonably cope with, and who think that pointing out that science isn't about Ultimate, Absolute Truth somehow gives them justification to feel superior, despite only being an N'th rate armchair philosopher.

Or some combination of the above.

I think you missed "People who have a deep, abiding need to believe can't comprehend that other people don't - therefore science is their belief"

[Croydon Bob]

Just because something cannot be perceived does not mean it has no influence.

Is this all a joke or are you really so lacking in understanding of what you are trying to discuss?

If it has an influence then it CAN be perceived.

Just because you don't understand doesn't mean that nobody understands.

[Tim the Mage]

If it has an influence then it CAN be perceived.
quote]

...but that don't make it real!

[QUOTE]
Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!" Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

[moltenentity]

Science is a belief system, because you need to have faith in science to believe it. After all we don't all do the experiments ourselves so we are just trusting the word of a scientist most of the time. Just as religious people put faith in the words of their holy book. As we know science can get it very wrong and it is constantly being updated all the time so it is best not to take it as the gospel. Science is just our way of understanding the reality we live in, but in the future no doubt we will have a new way of understanding our reality.

[Admin]

http://www.ukskeptics.com/article.php?dir=articles&article=is_science_another_religion.php O0

[Admin]

http://www.ukskeptics.com/article.php?dir=articles&article=is_science_another_religion.php O0

Hey, Jackson, you might want to revisit some of the statements in that article. ;)

[tolman]

Science is a belief system, because ...
Only by defining 'belief' so broadly that it covers basically any human activity based on experience of or expectations about the operations of reality, which effectively stretches the word 'belief' so far that it becomes effectively meaningless, and certainly becomes meaningless in the context of the phrase 'belief system'

There's an element of trust involved, as there is in any other human activity that involves more than one person.

A thought system that generally limits quite successfully how far someone can just make complete bollocks up seems to compare remarkably favourably with the most obvious examples of what people might consider 'belief systems'.

[Tony Williams]

Science is a belief system, because you need to have faith in science to believe it. After all we don't all do the experiments ourselves so we are just trusting the word of a scientist most of the time. Just as religious people put faith in the words of their holy book.
Can't you perceive the difference between believing something which emerges from an evidence-based rational analysis as opposed to what very primitive people once imagined about the world?

I do not need faith to believe in science because there is an overwhelming body of evidence that it works. If it weren't for science, we would still be living in caves and throwing rocks at wild animals to stay alive, rather than communicating over the internet.


As we know science can get it very wrong and it is constantly being updated all the time so it is best not to take it as the gospel. Science is just our way of understanding the reality we live in, but in the future no doubt we will have a new way of understanding our reality.
No - scientists can get it very wrong, because they are only human and their knowledge is inevitably incomplete. But science is a process rather than a body of knowledge, and the fact that our knowledge based on this process changes from time to time as new evidence emerges is a clear indication that it works. Unlike religious faith, which remains fixed despite any and all evidence against it.

[Admin]

Hey, Jackson, you might want to revisit some of the statements in that article. ;)


:ob:

[Darwins Pitbull]

I like that. Better still, it may not be unfalsifiable, simply that we would not know how to design the required studies given our current understanding.

I suppose where I really disagreed with this guy, was firstly the notion that pobability is subjective, it can be truly objective, and is continually improving. Second that scientists, rarely challange their fundamental paradigms, I think we do that quite often.

While I agree with the general theme that philosophy is largely a waste of time, most of what is posted on UK Skeptics is really philosophy rather than science. So I indulge in this nasty habit too.
Do you think Black is White?

[tolman]

Do you think Black is White?
You probably want to expand on that, if you want a meaningful answer.

[Pebble]

Do you think Black is White?

What I think is not the whole issue, I think one could argue the point.

[polomint38]

Do you think Black is White?


You probably want to expand on that, if you want a meaningful answer.


What I think is not the whole issue, I think one could argue the point.


It don't matter if you're black or white
http://www.loyal.k12.wi.us/forum/images/smilies/36_1_23.gif
.

[Admin]

Do you think Black is White?

Do you think green is heavier than red?

[Pebble]

Do you think green is heavier than red?

Which is lighter is a matter of shade!

[Matt]

Which is lighter is a matter of shade!

I'm not sure I like your tone. :-)

[Tony Williams]

I'm not sure I like your tone. :-)
Did you mean musical tone or muscle tone?

[Pebble]

I'm not sure I like your tone. :-)

It's an aquired taste, unlike my hue.

[Matt]

Tony and Hugh such lovely boys.

[Admin]

Would you walk it to Byker or bike it to Walker?


That's a daft saying up here as we have areas called Walker and Byker (as in Byker Grove fame!).

My granddad once asked an employee of his this question in fun and he stopped and thought, then answered, "I'd get the bus". ;D

[Pebble]

Tony and Hugh such lovely boys.


Do you think they are twins? So difficult to tell one from the other.

[Harryprice]

Do you think Black is White?

Yes. If you look at an illuminated white card, it is clearly white. If you switch the illumination off, the card is black. QED.

[Croydon Bob]

Do you think they are twins? So difficult to tell one from the other.

Aren't you thinking of Tony and David? Look the same, talk the same, policies the same...

[ChrisOfNottingham]

"Is science a belief?" is the sort of question that philosophers ask. It might provide an interesting discussion, which is fair enough. But by the time all the philosophers have agreed on what the the answer is, science and engineering have split the atom, landed on the moon, invented the internet and cured half the forms of cancer. I don't think the answer really matters.

For what its worth, I see science as a process. You can believe in it or not but if you follow the process its science.

[Croydon Bob]

But by the time all the philosophers have agreed on what the answer is,

Philosophers always maintain rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

(Apart from that I agree with you)

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Yes. If you look at an illuminated white card, it is clearly white. If you switch the illumination off, the card is black. QED.

Are you sure about that? I'd have said; It's white, of course, but you can't see a damned thing when the light's out.

I've heard it said that all cats are black in the dark. But they aren't. It's just that we can't tell the difference. :smiley:

[davidrodway]

Are you sure about that? I'd have said; It's white, of course, but you can't see a damned thing when the light's out.

I've heard it said that all cats are black in the dark. But they aren't. It's just that we can't tell the difference. :smiley:

Well, with no light it's got no colour, as colour is merely our perception and if we cant see it we cant perceive it. Objects have no intrinsic "colourdness", they merely reflect some wavelengths of light and not others, which we then interpret as colours which we give names to. You cant split the "colour" from the "seeing". Bees, for example, see flowers as diferent colours than we do. Who is right? You might as well ask what noise does a bell make in a vacuuum - none. If you reintroduce air you would hear a noise of course, but the noise you would hear would depend on the gases you reintroduced .

The most you can say is that in full spectrum light in air an object has a certain colour that humans agree to call "Red", "white" or whatever.

[ChrisOfNottingham]

I think my assumption is that an object's colour refers to its ability to reflect light of certain colours, even in the absence of any light. You see some funny colours for cars under orange street lights and the way my brain works is that is goes, "oh, your car looks a yucky brown green at the moment but it is really red."

[davidrodway]

I think my assumption is that an object's colour refers to its ability to reflect light of certain colours, even in the absence of any light. You see some funny colours for cars under orange street lights and the way my brain works is that is goes, "oh, your car looks a yucky brown green at the moment but it is really red."

In what sense is it "really" red?.
An object is also reflecting light in wavelengths outside the visible spectrum - if you could see them the object would appear a differrent colour - colours our eyes and brains are not wired up to perceive, that we probably cant even imagine.

[ChrisOfNottingham]

In what sense is it "really" red?.
An object is also reflecting light in wavelengths outside the visible spectrum - if you could see them the object would appear a differrent colour - colours our eyes and brains are not wired up to perceive, that we probably cant even imagine.

It is "really" red because over the full EM range of frequencies visible to the human eye, the ones that it can reflect are consistent with what is perceived to be red.

Outside of that range the term colour isn't really used. I know that sometimes infra red and ultra violet are referred to as colours but this is still close to the visible spectrum. If something blocks or reflects micro waves we don't describe it in terms of colours. Our notion of colour is both limited and defined by our organs of perception.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Well, with no light it's got no colour

I'm sorry to disagree, but it has got a colour — which we cannot make out in the dark.


as colour is merely our perception

As opposed to what? Our misperception? Is it that ginger cats are ginger only when the sun is high, and then change colour at dusk to grey and at midnight to black? But we had somehow failed to spot this until our attention was drawn to the point ?

Or are you using the notion of a thing's colour in an unusual way?

[tolman]

I think my assumption is that an object's colour refers to its ability to reflect light of certain colours, even in the absence of any light. You see some funny colours for cars under orange street lights and the way my brain works is that is goes, "oh, your car looks a yucky brown green at the moment but it is really red."
That's true within limits, but if you didn't already know what the correct colour was, it might be rather harder to 'see' it.

[tolman]

In what sense is it "really" red?.
An object is also reflecting light in wavelengths outside the visible spectrum - if you could see them the object would appear a differrent colour - colours our eyes and brains are not wired up to perceive, that we probably cant even imagine.
It's red in the sense that, for its practical descriptive abilities, we invented the word red.
Birds, bees and fish didn't.

[desogw]

i think not. science is something that people believe in because it's proven. while belief is something that we don't physically believe in, but we know that it exists.

[asydhouse]

Which is lighter is a matter of shade!

One thing I've learned from doing this MA in Photography/Fine Art is that there are many different whites, depending on the paper or other medium, and the different coatings etc. To us mortals they look white, but to a trained eye they are different. This is another case of "the more you know, the more you don't know" for me!

[asydhouse]

"Is science a belief?" is the sort of question that philosophers ask.

I recently read a book called "The Undercover Philosopher" by Michael Philips, a University Professor of Philosophy in the USA and Canada (possibly ex-professor). The reason I picked it up was the subtitle: A Guide to Detecting Shams, Lies, and Delusions.

Not much use as it turns out (unlike Schick and Vaughn's excellent primer on thinking "How To Think About Weird Things").

The only thing I remember from it now is that he thinks acupuncture is real and has been accepted by mainstream medical practice. (Some muddy water there, but the book came out only two years ago, so if he had really looked into it he wouldn't have written this chapter, instead of getting carried away with his scheme to introduce the concept of "scientism" as an over-riding "belief in science" (which shows he doesn't know what science is, to my mind... you wouldn't say that you "believe too strongly" in driving a car so that it stays on the road, after all!)

He has invented the concept of Knowledge Machines to describe the social institutions that "control" the currently accepted status quo in a particular area, such as medicine, and the criminal justice system etc. It's the old paradigm shift business from a slightly different perspective, really.

Anyway, he devotes a whole chapter to his conceit that "Scientism" prevented "science" from acknowledging acupuncture, and that a grassroots movement eventually caused science to accept the validity of acupuncture!

His ignorance is astonishing, and apparently he thinks that if some medical institutions (or possibly commercial health care provisioners etc) have been swayed by popular opinion into pandering to wishful thinking, it somehow exposes science as having been in the wrong! The complete mish mash of his thinking and research here exposes him as a bit of a fraud, to my mind, more interested in his clever construction than in the reality.

It's a shame really, because his chapter on the "recovered memory syndrome" fiascos of the 80s and 90s was quite good... but after reading this scientism drivel, I don't trust the rest of the book any more, so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I wrote him an email to a university address in Oregon that I found online, but I've had no reply. From what it says on the back of the book, I suspect he's no longer there... either that or he doesn't want to consider that he may have been wrong.

All quite ironic, considering the book's subtitle! >:D;D::)