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Champion
 
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coffmeister (5/14/2007)
I have enough issues with being a number for a corporate machine, or in fact, not even that! Flippin temp jobs.Get in there!!! You gots ta lourve the corporate machine!!!! Just like battery farming, it's why everything is so cheap! Matt J (Disclaimer: Battery Farming is neither big nor cleaver.....kids, don't try it at home, unless of course you're literally just going to buy a 4 pack of AA's and attempt to breed them. You probably won't do that much damage 'battery farming' in the literal sense.)
If I wanted to listen to an arsehole, I'd fart!
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Wag
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Tart (5/11/2007)
But we ARE talkign about absolutes. Thiswhole thing started byMr Dreadful saying sciencecan't prove anything.
In a comment he's subsequently written off as 'tongue in cheek'.
MrDreadful
Science is hypothesising about the physical and metaphysical, while proving neither and arguing about the validity of both.
Sufficiently vague to mean anything - cut out the 'metaphysical' and it's not too distinct from Karl Popper's definition of science (but only because it's incredibly vague).
Tart (5/11/2007)
ie that you can't use science to give you a conclusive proof.
Which is true, according to the philosophy of science since Popper entirely contradicts the whole distinction of science from any other discipline.
The point of science is that it never concludes - testing never ceases, questioning never ceases. The conclusion of a line of research puts that research outside the remits of science. Only the things which can be effectively questions - that could be refuted or falsified through experiment - are within the bounds of science (with the provisos laid out above).
Tart (5/11/2007)
I am pointing out that you can't prove ANYTHING if you start going down the "but how do you really know?" root.
There are as many different criteria for verification as there are belief systems - so there are as many coherent answers to that question as you choose to think of. Science is distinct in that it has criteria for falsification instead, rather than verification.
Tart (5/11/2007)
So to try and pretend science is a flawed way of finding things out because "it doesn't prove anything" is a way to imply that that uncertainity is exclusive to science, which it isn't.
The first half of your sentence is true - it would apply to any system - although it's worth pointing out that had (have?) extreme difficulty accepting this with regards to science (you couldn't seem to grasp that science could be and is meaningful without 'proving anything').
The second half misses the point - I can't think of any epistemology other than science which is based on uncertainty and skepticism. As far as I understand it, uncertainty _is_ exclusive to modern science - that's why Popper proposed 'falsification' as the one-word demarcation between 'science' and 'not science'. Every other system supplies certainties and proofs and some point or other - science, by definition, never, ever provides these.
Tart (5/11/2007)
I'm agreeing with you. The reason "Proof" was in quotes (sorry if there was random caps, that's just bad typing on my part) was purely because I know it actually proves fuck all in a complete 100% way
This really isn't a trivial point - I'm on page 108 of Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" (actually very readable - clear prose with very little terminology).
There are no percentages involved. The scientific method is a framework in which scientists can talk to eachother, make proposals and test proposals in a coherent fashion. There's no special equation that a scientist receives on completing his degree that tells him how certain he should be about theory X, given the results in papers A, B and the opposing ones in paper C.
The scientific method tells you what you have to do and how you have to do it - you need to advance a hypothesis - based on a proposed theory - which can be falsified and then you need to try really hard to falsify it. Other people can choose to take your results at face value or go and do it themselves. The point at which you stop trying to falsify a hypothesis/replicate an experiment is up to the individual. When lots of individual scientists stop trying to falsify a hypothesis, that's a consensus.
Tart (5/11/2007)
but people work on the assumption that it does. How many people (possibly already paranoid about such things) are goign to get on a plane if you start playing the "of course, we don't REALLY know that this plane will fly" semantic wankery mind games with them?
It depends if you're wearing a white coat or not. It doesn't depend on any rational/pseudo-rational/semi-rational scientific analysis. People get on planes because they think "it's safe". That has next to nothing to do with science and everything to do with advocacy. Sometimes it so happens that people effectively advocate opinions that are in accordance with a given scientific consensus. Sometimes not.
If you want to describe the philosophy of science as semantic wankery - that's fine, so long as you don't want to make any statements about science. I can call Architectual Theory a 'load of old crap'. I don't have anything to do with architecture, so it really doesn't matter if no one takes my opinions on architecture seriously.
Tart (5/11/2007)
As for "common act of fatih": I think there is a big difference between trusting hundreds (thousands?) of years of scientists work and getting on a plane compared to sitting in a box and believing god will make it fly. I think we need more words here - i don't think "faith" applies to both.
Sorry, but I'm afraid I don't see any real difference at all. It seems to me that people who get into a plane and believe God will stop it from falling suffer just as many crash casualties as people who get into a plane and believe Science will stop it from falling.
In each case we're talking about uninformed trust. I've been on planes - I never saw anyone reading papers on aerodynamics.
You seem to be suggesting that people who believe in God will try to get into cardboard boxes and expect faith to make them fly. I've never seen anyone do that and while I may imagine it may happen, I think it happens rarely enough that it's not relevant to the majority of people wanting to fly from place to place, regardless of their religious convictions.
People who use planes are no more informed about aerodynamics than people who use microwaves are about photons. Their trust in the performance of the plane/microwave is not based on Science any more than the construction workers on conveyor belts are necessarily scientifically informed. In the vast majority of cases, faith people have in technology is based on their upbringing, their social environment and their personal experiences.
I'm getting the impression that you think science is just another word for 'personal experience fancied up by some semantic wankery'. It's not.
Popper helpfully mentions this school of reasoning about science - psychologism - (unpopular in the 1930's, pretty much dead after Popper):
By the immediate feeling of conviction which it conveys, we can distinguish the true statement, the one whose terms agree with experience, from the false statement, whose terms do not agree with it. Science is merely an attempt to classify and describe this perceptual knowledge, these immediate experiences whose truth we cannot doubt; it is the systematic presentation of our immediate convictions
Marios
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Devil's Advocate
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Marios (5/16/2007)
The second half misses the point - I can't think of any epistemology other than science which is based on uncertainty and skepticismApart from, you know, Skepticism? People get on planes because they think "it's safe". That has next to nothing to do with science and everything to do with advocacy. But it does have a hell of alot to do with science. If it wasn't for science, the planes wouldn't fly and people wouldn't get on them. It's not just some random reason people think they are safe: They ARE safe.
You seem to be suggesting that people who believe in God will try to get into cardboard boxes and expect faith to make them fly. I've never seen anyone do that and while I may imagine it may happen, I think it happens rarely enough that it's not relevant to the majority of people wanting to fly from place to place, regardless of their religious convictions. No, it's a delibrate example to show that having faith in something without evidence or in spite of it is different from "faith" inline with the evidence. here is a simpler one: I think we can all agree that it's not an act of faith to believe your garden exists, but it would be to think there are fairies at the bottom of it. the former is consistent with the evidence, the latter isn't.
People who use planes are no more informed about aerodynamics than people who use microwaves are about photons. Their trust in the performance of the plane/microwave is not based on Science any more than the construction workers on conveyor belts are necessarily scientifically informed. In the vast majority of cases, faith people have in technology is based on their upbringing, their social environment and their personal experiences. a) That is supremly judgemental of you "oh how the plebs use things they don't understand" and b) isn't that just "empircal evidence"? I know planes will fly because, well, guess what: THEY FLY. Again, it's not an act of faith anymore than believing this keyboard i'm typing on exists is an act of faith. and even if you insist on using faith to describe it, it's still different from faith based on no evidence.
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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Squire
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Science can be proved (until proven wrong)
Religion has NEVER been proven. (but religious happennings have ben explained by science as possible, though not through "divine intervention")
A plane stays in the air due to scientific methods, based on laws (yes... laws) of physics.
A plane doesn't stay in the air based on faith. (unless you are talking about a bunch of people praying REALLY hard for every plane in the air... you know... similar to Terry Prachett's aquaphobes keeping things levitated over water because of their devout fear of water actually repelling them from it)
Science exists because people can prove it exists.
Religion is a bunch of lies made up by people to explain what they couldn't explain because they hadn't discovered science yet and a series of commands for the cheifs to keep their people in line.
Let's stop this stupid argument and face facts shall we? (You know... the facts that we all know without contestation... unlike religion which is, basically, a waste of time, effort and blood. Science never started 90% of the wars in the world. -but it sure as hell ended a couple-)
CP Player of much reknown.
Used to play Jimmy the Fish at LT.
Man of many knots.
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Wag
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Devil's Advocate
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Tart (5/16/2007)
and even if you insist on using faith to describe it, it's still different from faith based on no evidence.
Er... I mean one is rational, the other isn't. Damn it, I knew there were proper words for these things! Right, can I go back to pretenting to be a wizard now?
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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Squire
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What did I just say?
Stop it. We all know what science is.
CP Player of much reknown.
Used to play Jimmy the Fish at LT.
Man of many knots.
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Overlord
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| [Admin hat on] Coll if people wish to discuss, they are perfectly entitled to discuss. If they contravene the rules of the forum then I'll moderate them. [admin hat off] Otherwise you have the choice to read or not to read.
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