How Science Can Be Incapable of Recognizing Facts

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by BeHereNow, Mar 22, 2011.

  1. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    Followers of Science say it is a ‘self correcting system’.
    That means sooner or later they will get it right.

    They readily admit that Science has incorrectly identified facts in the past, will probably in the future, and probably are right now.
    Some things they now call facts, will one day be recognized as false beliefs, some things they call false beliefs, they will one day be recognize as facts.
    Now if they only knew which ones . . . wouldn’t that be great, but of course they do not.

    Althought followers of science are generally considered to be leaders in identifying facts, that is not always true.
    Followers of Science are sometimes one of the last to recognize that a fact, is indeed a fact, and not a mistaken belief.
    Legions of individuals will be aware of, and identify certain facts, and Science will deny them, as folklore or old wives tales.

    I’m not saying Science does not often get it right. All things considered, it might be that Science is mostly right, but still, it is often wrong.

    There are many types of things that may cause them to be wrong, mistaken beliefs about tools, or techniques, measurements, objectivity, or computer models.


    When it is wrong, I find often it is when it doubts the value of human experience.
    For the individual, first hand experience, coupled with similar accounts by others, is one of the strongest fact finding/identifying tools available, yet to followers of science, it is mere here say, one of the lowest forms of fact identification, if it can even be called that.

    The greatest tool for the individual, is the poorest of tools for the follower of science.

    I have heard of many examples, where laymen recognize a fact as a true belief, even though the followers of science doubted their experiences.

    As it turned out the laymen were correct, the followers of science were incorrect.
    One very recent one I found especially interesting.


    Mariners and Seaman have known about Rogue Waves for a long time.
    They were facts, that had been experienced.
    Waves would appear out of nowhere with heights of two to three times those before and after.

    The fantastic descriptions offered by Seamen, were considered the musings of Drunken Sailors who had exceeded their daily ration of grog.
    For Scientists they had little more factual consideration than mermaids and monster sea serpents.

    In 1915 or so Shackleton experienced a Rogue Wave, and wrote a very accurate and detailed description of his experience, but it took Science another 80 years, nearly 3 generations, to admit to this fact, that had been known for so long, probably for centuries, by uneducated sailors.
    Shackleton was a respected explorer, not some drunken sailor.

    Experience revealed facts that were hidden from science.


    Science may be impartial, and yet it seems followers of Scientist are quick to dismiss facts as reported by Shamans, Mystics, Herbal healers, people of Religion, what we might call un-Scientific, or lacking in science.
    Because the healing power of some substance or action is explained to be connected to Ancestor Worship, it is dismissed as non-factual.

    Because aboriginal shamans who believe the world is flat claim a cure for serious health problems by exotic plants and treatments, they are dismissed as bogus. True to its self correcting nature, science has recently given consideration to these ‘false beliefs’, folklore and such. I believe they have even recognized the factual nature properly identified by the aboriginals, and misidentified by followers of science.

    Christians who claim supernatural experiences are dismissed as readily as the mariners who told of rogue waves.
    A lack of evidence is not evidence, and yet many followers of science behave as though it is.

    The indivdual will always value experience, as a means to recognize facts, and the follower of science will alway doubt experience, and this makes them, at least temporarily, incapable of recognizing some facts.
     
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  3. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    No it doesn't.
    It means that it is a system capable of emendation.

    What's most problematic here however, is not your mis-interpretation of 'science', but rather your illicit assumption: that there is a "right".
     
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  5. John99 Banned Banned

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    And just what is "science"?
     
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  7. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    My assumption is that there are facts, and facts are 'right'.
    If I used poor wording, my apologies.
     
  8. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Which is precisely the assumption I was pointing out to you.

    You do realize that to assert that there are 'facts' and that they can be 'right' necessarily entails a number of significant things with respect to your epistemological POV?
     
  9. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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  10. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    We are using facts, as has been determined here.

    "A fact is, traditionally, the worldly correlate of a true proposition, a state of affairs whose obtaining makes that proposition true. Thus a fact is an actual state of affairs...

    Difficulties for this approach do, however, arise concerning the existence of negative, disjunctive, modal and moral facts... "

    This usage has nothing to do with my epistemology.
    It is the philosophical usage, that should proper in this section.

    I expect the use of terms to comply with a good philosophical reference, such as the Stanford reference.
     
  11. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    473
    Philosophy section, philosophy rules (that is to say, philosopical meanings to terms).
    Am I mistaken?
    We will not be biased toward science, or religion.

    Family calls, I'll check back in later.
    Thanks
     
  12. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    I'm afraid you're going to require a little more research then.
    That usage has all the epistemological relevance any other would....
     
  13. John99 Banned Banned

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    Well since this is the philosophy section i will tell you:

    There is no real definition for science. Science can be anything, it can be opening and closing the hand, can be breathing in air, can be looking at birds fly.
     
  14. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  15. John99 Banned Banned

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    Are you saying those things are not scientific?
     
  16. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Now you're learning.

    One has been linked to. And you have been directed to look at other, similar links, more than once in the past. Science does indeed have a definition - above all it's a methodology.

    These can be scientific. But they are not science.
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Science is evidence based. To accept personal anecdote as proof of anything would be stupid. Stories may indeed be the point of introduction to a phenomenon, but it takes science to confirm it.
     
  18. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to have a habit of being off-base posts, don't you?
    No. For the individual first-hand experience is not necessarily a "fact finding tool", it simply is. An experience. The interpretation (i.e. factual or not) is left up to the individual. Who may or may not be capable of distinguishing correctly whether the experience, and the resulting conclusions therefrom were indeed factual.
    First-hand experience does, however, lead to (probably) increased personal belief about X or Y.

    If someone told you they had an eight-foot green dog in their kitchen would you accept it as fact? On their say-so? After all, according to you they, having experienced this dog, must be correct, right?

    Science simply asks for more evidence (and better substantiation) than any particular individual, or small group of individuals requires.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2011
  19. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    ". . .not necessarily. . ."
    How can I possible disagree with that????
    How could any sane person disagree with the obvious.
    Of course some experiences are not fact finding.
    I do not eat ice cream cones to find facts.


    I see. Unlike followers of science, who ALWAYS use their experiences to identify real facts, and not false beliefs. . .Wait, that's not right.



    If myself and a few million other people had experiences with an eight foot green dog in their kitchen I'd have to give it serious thought, I'll say that.
    Would I believe it was a fact, I do believe I would.
    ET made it.

    Quite a knack for pointing out the obvious.
    I said as much myself
    Followers of science require SO MUCH specific, and sometimes irrelevant, substantiation, that they can't see the nose on their face, literally.

    Maybe it's someone else's nose.
    Maybe it is an illusion, I'm being tricked.
    Does anyone else see the nose on my face?
    How much does it weight. If it can't be weighed, how can it exist.
    It is sunburned, but my forehead isn't, must not be my nose.

    They can quantify the taste of a mango, without eating a mango, and they can't verify the nose on their face, without a team of fellow followers of science.
     
  20. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    Okay, so describe Shackleton's experience to me. Pretty stupid was he?
    He knew all about the FACT of rogue waves, 80 years before the followers of science.
    You think he was stupid, because he KNEW the FACT of rogue waves, and science doubted him.
    He KNOWS the FACTS, because of his real world experiences, but he is stupid, but those smart followers of science, they are just too clever, because they deny FACTS.
    FACTS experiences by hundreds (more) of sailors over the years.

    And if he were the one exception, but of course in the last 500 years of modern science, it happened quite often, and continues to happen.
     
  21. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    You managed it...

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    Huh? Science doesn't work on experience?
    Maybe you should re-read that link you gave to John99.

    And, now, by asking for a million witnesses, you're asking for corroboration. Isn't that something science does?

    Then there's nothing to argue about and the OP is unwarranted.

    Really?
    Or would that be a supposition?

    Inane rants don't help your "case".
     
  22. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    473
    From my SEP reference:
    Philosophers and other theoreticians of science differ widely in their views of what science is. Nevertheless, there is virtual unanimity in the community of knowledge disciplines on most particular issues of demarcation. There is widespread agreement for instance that creationism, astrology, homeopathy, Kirlian photography, dowsing, ufology, ancient astronaut theory, Holocaust denialism, and Velikovskian catastrophism are pseudosciences. There are a few points of controversy, for instance concerning the status of Freudian psychoanalysis, but the general picture is one of consensus rather than controversy in particular issues of demarcation.

    It is in a sense paradoxical that so much agreement has been reached in particular issues in spite of almost complete disagreement on the general criteria that these judgments should presumably be based upon. This puzzle is a sure indication that there is still much important philosophical work to be done on the demarcation between science and pseudoscience.
     
  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    That this phenomenon was unknown to science doesn't make it untrue. What are you asking for? That science should accept a story without evidence or data? That is basically unscientific and it will never happen. One may consider it a hypothesis and prepare for it. That might be prudent, but it doesn't make it a scientific fact.
     

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