What qualifies as science?

exchemist said:
Usually I can't understand a word you say, but I gather that you are sceptical of this thing called the "Scientific Method".

So am I. I managed to get a degree in physical science, at a good UK university, without this concept cropping up once. Nobody I know talks about it. Since joining this forum I have had to look up on the internet what it is. Frankly I see little worthwhile in it, save the basic principles that (reproducible) observational evidence is king and that all theory needs to be tested against it.

Is it possible that this is part of the way science is taught in particular countries, e.g. the USA?
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Observation evidence ?

Many doctors have observed patients with observational out of body knowledge , of the operation and converstations between operational staff .
 
exchemist said:
Usually I can't understand a word you say, but I gather that you are sceptical of this thing called the "Scientific Method".

So am I. I managed to get a degree in physical science, at a good UK university, without this concept cropping up once. Nobody I know talks about it. Since joining this forum I have had to look up on the internet what it is. Frankly I see little worthwhile in it, save the basic principles that (reproducible) observational evidence is king and that all theory needs to be tested against it. Well, hallelujah.

Is it possible that this is part of the way science is taught in particular countries, e.g. the USA?
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It's hopefully changing, which was the purpose of William F. McComas' paper. To reduce the influence of the science "myths" upon textbooks. Only the global or universal claim about SM is legend -- not multiple methods and statistical approaches applied / recruited in varying contexts.
 
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exchemist said:
Usually I can't understand a word you say, but I gather that you are sceptical of this thing called the "Scientific Method".

So am I. I managed to get a degree in physical science, at a good UK university, without this concept cropping up once. Nobody I know talks about it. Since joining this forum I have had to look up on the internet what it is. Frankly I see little worthwhile in it, save the basic principles that (reproducible) observational evidence is king and that all theory needs to be tested against it. Well, hallelujah.

Is it possible that this is part of the way science is taught in particular countries, e.g. the USA?
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I got my first introduction to the Scientific Method in the sixth grade (elementary school) in the 1960's. Mr. Komatsoulis, an American science teacher of Greek heritage gave the lesson and it was something I remembered thoughout my life. The other thing he taught us, that with any freedom comes responsibility, is also an early lesson that life's experiences deepened for an entire lifetime. Mr. Komatsoulis was only a part time teacher, also worked for NASA in the '60s, probably did a lot of work on the Apollo mission support, but he taught us about the scientific method almost a decade before that, about the time of Sputnik and the space race.

Another experimentalist. Excellent. I hope you passed on some of this wisdom. It seems to be in shorter supply than ever these days.
 
C C said:
It's hopefully changing, which was the purpose of William F. McComas' paper. To reduce the influence of the science "myths" upon textbooks. Only the global or universal claim about SM is legend -- not multiple methods and statistical approaches applied / recruited in varying contexts.
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Now THAT McComas, Myths of Science, is a really good paper on the subject. I read nothing at all in it that I would disagree with. Thank you.
 
danshawen said:
I got my first introduction to the Scientific Method in the sixth grade (elementary school) in the 1960's. Mr. Komatsoulis, an American science teacher of Greek heritage gave the lesson and it was something I remembered thoughout my life. The other thing he taught us, that with any freedom comes responsibility, is also an early lesson that life's experiences deepened for an entire lifetime. Mr. Komatsoulis was only a part time teacher, also worked for NASA in the '60s, probably did a lot of work on the Apollo mission support, but he taught us about the scientific method almost a decade before that, about the time of Sputnik and the space race.

Another experimentalist. Excellent. I hope you passed on some of this wisdom. It seems to be in shorter supply than ever these days.
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I see , the experimentalist is important of course . Yet being an experimentatist does not equate with the freedom of the experiment conceived by an open mind .
 
exchemist said:
Is it possible that this is part of the way science is taught in particular countries, e.g. the USA?
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When I was a biological science student (at a pretty good science school in California) I don't recall any lectures on scientific method.

My impression is that here in the US scientific method is stressed more in those subjects whose claim to be sciences might be disputed. Psychology, sociology and cultural anthropology for example.

I'd guess that the same is true in the UK.
 
exchemist said:
Though it is interesting to think how Einstein came up with special relativity for instance. He does seem to have said, well if the speed of light is independent of velocity of source and receiver, however absurd that seems, what would that imply? - and hence come up with the ideas that distance and time must alter, to preserve constancy of distance/time = speed. That seems to me a deductive step.
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Yes, I agree that Einstein's special relativity does almost seem to be a deduction from observation, for precisely the reasons you give. Maybe I can shelter my earlier remark under its "rarely if ever" qualifier. This might constitute the "rarely". Einstein did have to embrace a hugely counter-intuitive assumption though, even if it was kind of hanging right there in front of everyone in experimental results like Michelson and Morley's. Nobody else seemed willing to grasp it.

I don't think one can generalise.
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I'm inclined to lean towards methodological and ontological pluralism at the moment.

I like to think that scientists have a whole toolkit of assorted methods that they dip into as needs dictate. There isn't any established algorithm that tells them which methodological procedure or tool to employ when. Part of scientific creativity is figuring out new and original ways of deploying existing methods and maybe even inventing a new one now and then.

And I'm inclined to think that there are different kinds of being. Physical objects exist in one way. The laws of physics exist in another way. Fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes exist in yet another way. We need to make sense of ideas and word meanings. Numbers and the abstract structures of mathematics certainly seem to have some kind of objective existence. We probably need to have some account of unrealized possibilities which might arguably even be observed having physical effects in quantum mechanics. The past, present and future seem to have different kinds of reality. If it is to have any claim to completeness, metaphysics will have to provide an account of all of that. (I expect that some of them might be reducible to others.)

Maybe my pervasive pluralism rubs off from living in the vicinity of Stanford. (For those who don't recognize the reference, I'm referring to the so-called 'Stanford School of the philosophy of science'.)

http://philosophy.ucsc.edu/news-events/colloquia-conferences/stanfordschoolphilosophyofscience.html
 
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Yazata said:
When I was a biological science student (at a pretty good science school in California) I don't recall any lectures on scientific method.

My impression is that here in the US scientific method is stressed more in those subjects whose claim to be sciences might be disputed. Psychology, sociology and cultural anthropology for example.

I'd guess that the same is true in the UK.
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That could be it, I suppose. The use of the term "Scientific Method", with capital letters, is something I only came across after joining some of these forums after I retired. I was particularly baffled when someone directed me to a link in which a series of formal-looking steps were solemnly set out, with a flow scheme. It looked unbelievably Gradgrindian - reminiscent of that scene in the Dead Poets' Society with the graph of a poem's greatness etc.
 
C C said:
It's hopefully changing, which was the purpose of William F. McComas' paper. To reduce the influence of the science "myths" upon textbooks. Only the global or universal claim about SM is legend -- not multiple methods and statistical approaches applied / recruited in varying contexts.
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I'd better take a look at that paper then.
 
Yazata said:
When I was a biological science student (at a pretty good science school in California) I don't recall any lectures on scientific method. .
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I don't even recollect it in middle and high school science classes, which is where Rhett Allain claims it's tacked upon the walls like the Ten Commandments in a Bible school.

But then scientism is something I never encountered back then, either. Even in the sense of any one instructor during their brief departures into personal views hawking a totalitarian science orientation that would save the world from theism / creationism, idiot politicians, capitalism, racism, "feminist pseudoscience", philosophy, or whatever assorted sometimes self-conflicting bogeymen the unofficial members of such a school of thought would worry over in their insomniac bouts at night (which global genuflection to the Holy Method would ward off).
  • "Scientism is a term used to describe the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or the most valuable part of human learning—to the exclusion of other viewpoints." --Scientism

- - -
 
Yazata said:
Yes, I agree that Einstein's special relativity does almost seem to be a deduction from observation, for precisely the reasons you give. Maybe I can shelter my earlier remark under its "rarely if ever" qualifier. This might constitute the "rarely". Einstein did have to embrace a hugely counter-intuitive assumption though, even if it was kind of hanging right there in front of everyone in experimental results like Michelson and Morley's. Nobody else seemed willing to grasp it.



I'm inclined to lean towards methodological and ontological pluralism at the moment.

I like to think that scientists have a whole toolkit of assorted methods that they dip into as needs dictate. There isn't any established algorithm that tells them which methodological procedure or tool to employ when. Part of scientific creativity is figuring out new and original ways of deploying existing methods and maybe even inventing a new one now and then.

And I'm inclined to think that there are different kinds of being. Physical objects exist in one way. The laws of physics exist in another way. Fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes exist in yet another way. We need to make sense of ideas and word meanings. Numbers and the abstract structures of mathematics certainly seem to have some kind of objective existence. We probably need to have some account of unrealized possibilities which might arguably even be observed having physical effects in quantum mechanics. The past, present and future seem to have different kinds of reality. If it is to have any claim to completeness, metaphysics will have to provide an account of all of that. (I expect that some of them might be reducible to others.)

Maybe my pervasive pluralism rubs off from living in the vicinity of Stanford. (For those who don't recognize the reference, I'm referring to the so-called 'Stanford School of the philosophy of science'.)

http://philosophy.ucsc.edu/news-events/colloquia-conferences/stanfordschoolphilosophyofscience.html
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Sure but science isn't restricted to physics , algorithm , numbers , abstract objects of mathematics , QM , biology , microbiology , geology , weather etc .

Science is also about the unknown , NDE , and the afterlife . Which both have thousands of examples that people experience both . Both of which should be investigated more .
 
river said:
Which both have thousands of examples that people experience both .
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Experiences aren't necessarily experiences of the thing being reported. NDEs have been studied, and there is no reliable evidence that they are real.
 
spidergoat said:
Experiences aren't necessarily experiences of the thing being reported. NDEs have been studied, and there is no reliable evidence that they are real.
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Why do you say this ? What is deemed " not reliable evidence " , to conclude that they are not real experiences ?
 
river said:
Science is also about the unknown , NDE , and the afterlife . Which both have thousands of examples that people experience both . Both of which should be investigated more .
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NO NO NO and just to be clear NO

:)
 
river said:
Why do you say this ? What is deemed " not reliable evidence " , to conclude that they are not real experiences ?
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For one thing, these people are experiencing extreme states of mind, and therefore cannot be a reliable witness. They experience lack of oxygen in some cases. Their reporting is not specific. You can say you see the doctors, but anyone can imagine a doctor. Some doctors have used an electronic display to show a number in a place the patient cannot see. No one has ever reported seeing that exact number. No one has reported any information that they could not have otherwise known or guessed.
 
spidergoat said:
For one thing, these people are experiencing extreme states of mind, and therefore cannot be a reliable witness. They experience lack of oxygen in some cases. Their reporting is not specific. You can say you see the doctors, but anyone can imagine a doctor. Some doctors have used an electronic display to show a number in a place the patient cannot see. No one has ever reported seeing that exact number. No one has reported any information that they could not have otherwise known or guessed.
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NDE why does extreme states of mind equates to unreliable witness ?

http://iands.org/ndes/nde-stories/17-nde-accounts-from-beyond-the-light.html

http://ndestories.org
 
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