Back to basics for the rest of us

OK I want to be careful how I open this. I respect that there are many extremely knowledgeable people on this site. I am here because I love science. I was originally in aerospace engineering before I decided to be a physician. But now I want to get back to hard facts; proven information. Side note: Sadly much of modern medicine is not. Regardless I am Particularly interested in the areass of mathematics and physics. And here's my issue. As I have read through various threads I see many friendly supportive comments however I also see many debates that occur. People have all kinds of fancy terms to explain why somebody with an opposing view is wrong. I hear the terms science, pseudoscience, theory, idea, Magic etc. clearly many of you are real scientists of which I am far from obviously. But what I am after is how to find resources with the simple facts. In other words there are so many branch points in these areas being debated and studied but there hasn't really been proof...yet. I just want what has been proven. I think many average people in the population hear various news clips and ideas and just assume everything is fact. This is why I am reaching out to you. I want to better understand what has been clearly proven. For example if I understand this correctly the universe is expanding in an accelerating manner. Maybe that has been proven. But from what I understand dark matter has not been proven. I'm not shooting down the dark matter theory I'm just saying it has not been proven. Yet high school students or people I talk to Who have heard about this in the news talk about it as fact. I just want facts. Am I asking too much?

 

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Science isn't about proving things, it's about disproving them.

The strongest ideas in science are the ones that haven't been disproven yet.

Science makes an observation about the world, and comes up with ideas to explain those observed facts. If those ideas aren't proven to be false, such an idea may even become a scientific theory.

 

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So nothing has ever been proven?

 

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Being a physician means you know how to research the scientific literature. If you're not familiar with public science forums it is pretty ridiculous but fun. The literature never lies.

 

Honestly the literature can make my head spin. At least in medicine a typical research article will have a conclusion like "our research "suggests" or "may indicate"... All that tells me is its 50/50 whether the conclusion is correct. not to mention pharmaceutical companies fund projects and have the results presented to us as FACT. I think I'm going to start by stepping back and pondering the scientific method.

 

Here is an interesting statement I just found: "In general, science answers questions like "how," "when," "where", but never "why" in the ultimate sense." With that in mind I need to ponder how I will approach this. Thanks for your input.

 

Read the literature. You want to learn about modern physics read the literature when in doubt. Cranks never do this. Some of what you said raise my crank detector several notches. Good luck.

 

But that cautious approach to claims is exactly what science is about. It's funny how many of us can study science to a high level with little or no thought about what science is. The essence of science is that it makes predictive models of the physical world, based on objective (=reproducible) observation. There is no claim to ultimate reality, or to "proof" of anything. All models in science are provisional and some are used in the full knowledge that they are incomplete or defective. A famous example is Newtonian mechanics, which breaks down in the quantum realm and under relativistic conditions but is invaluable in our daily lives. Another might be the "arrow-pushing" we do in the reaction mechanisms of organic chemistry: a physical chemist will tell you there is no justification for thinking electrons physically move along the arrows as drawn, but the method works for predicting how reactions take place, so we use it. I am sure medicine may have its own examples.

As Daecon says, a model can be disproved, or shown to be incomplete or faulty, by reproducible observations that do not fit the predictions made by the model. But further observations that do fit the model do not prove it - they merely serve to corroborate it. This is because it is always possible, in principle, that some new observation may one day be made that does not fit. In other words, no model is final: science is always open to new discovery and improvement of its models. The models of science are inherently provisional.

Where we get disputes about "pseudoscience" etc., on forums like this one, is when we get contributors who fail to advance theories that are supported by reproducible observation. The "theory" may be just an idea or a notion, with no experimental evidence for it, for instance. Or it may rely on observations that are not reproducible and hence have a subjective element that makes the observation suspect. Claims of alien spacecraft or ghosts fall into this category.

It is remarkable how many people do not grasp the idea of the provisional predictive models backed by objective observation.

I was very lucky in having a chemistry teacher at school who would never tell you when you got an explanation "right". He would always say: "Yes, this is one model." He was quite good at exposing us to alternative models in chemistry and conveying their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps this comes more easily in a subject such as chemistry, with its messy complexity, than physics, where complete analytical solutions to problems are more often possible.

 

Aren't all doctors scientists (biology)?

And you're questioning the scientific method?

:EDIT:

If you're interested in dark matter/energy this article http://sciencenordic.com/nobel-prize-winner-let’s-find-dark-matter-and-dark-energy says in a large part how much is unknown. Heck, we don't fully understand why gravity does what it does and that was a fundamental force before humanity started to think.

 

Not questioning the method. Questioning the integrity of some utilizing it. Definitely an issue in medicine. I know it's an issue as well as some other fields. Don't be naïve.

 

Brucep your crank detector is misfiring. In medicine if there is one thing we are learning it is that reading the literature does not suffice. There are some serious integrity issues in terms of how data is reported and interpreted. Not to mention hidden agendas. The next time somebody tells you Lipitor lowers your risk of a cardiac event by 33% be sure to read the literature so you can see deceptive conclusions. Three people in the control group had a heart attack two people in the lipitor group did not. What they don't clearly tell you is that 97 people in both groups did not have a heart attack. So your risk reduction is not 33% it's 1%.

Now I have to move on. I have people to try and help. I'm sure you will do the same.

 

Integrity of whom?

You can't stop me!

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Yes, this is because medicine is an applied science with a lot of money involved and competition between businesses. So sure, as with anything scientific with commercial implications, one has to be careful with some of the claims and read around a bit. Humans are humans, after all and science is not a pure religion divorced from the world.

 

And if you would like to be supremely technical: There are no proofs in any field other than mathematics.

(I don't know if the above statement would be a start for a rather strange argument.)

 

Well......yes and no...... I suppose there are also branches of logic outside maths where the concept of proof would apply. Also, though in a rather looser sense, proof is a feature of the criminal law.

 

I'm out on a limb here. Philosophy is not a strong point. (Neither is logic.) But from what I've seen is that the philosophy/logic rely on mathematical statements for validity. I vaguely remember Immanuel Kant writing that philosophy needs something like a mathematics to verify it's own claims. Akin to what mathematics can judge for physical theories.

Or judge Judy https://ca.celebrity.yahoo.com/post/130212748243/watch-a-man-lose-his-judge-judy-case-in-just-26

 

Proof can also be used in the sense of "tested" - e.g. 80-proof liquor has been tested to contain 40% alcohol.

 

Not in my experience. They tend to be technicians, mostly. A damned good diagnostician is hard to find, but decent techs are all over the place.

 

Yes there's a danger that both you and I start talking out of our respective arses here

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. I think logic lends itself to symbols that can be thought of as a branch of maths, but I really know practically nothing about this.