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But that is merely adding to what we already knew. revising dates about how many billions of years (I presume you are talking of billions of years) the universe is does not overturn the idea that the universe is billions of years old.
The universe is expanding. Disagreements and new evidence about what cause that to happen and whit is going to be the end does not overturn anything. It is addition information and evidence to help improve our understanding.
Atoms were the smallest particle we could see, then we found they were made up of smaller particles and 'String theory' is not really relevant .
To Newtonian physics, Einstein added relativity and to relativity was added quantum physics-where your string theory comes in.
This is all additional information. Newtonian physics and relativity is just as valid now as when they were discovered. Neither Newtonian physics nor relativity is 'ridiculed'.
Astrology is pretty much discredited, as is alchemy totally. Flat earth has effectively lost any credibility,though there is still some insistence on an all in one creation
Those are things that have been totally discre dited and not 'added to with new information' as I put it.
Science adds to what was already shown to be so and NONE of it that I can think of -or any of the examples you mentioned-have been discredited in the way non-scientific claims have been discredited.
Finding wormholes and parallel universes or even finding that it is a holographic projection from beyond the cosmos does not mean that everything we have in the textbooks goes in the bin like astrology, alchemy,the flat earth and 6-day creation. It just means that we need another chapter.
You really have to understand the distinction between new information that adds to what we know and new information that discredits what we thought we knew.
If you contradict a previous theory, you don't "add" knowledge, but we understand things differently. These changes in understanding are mostly generated by theories and beliefs.
Atoms could not be "seen", but they were suggested based on theoretical understanding and empirical experiments.
Anyway, my point is different and I have nothing against science. I only get confused when "science" is portraied as rock solid and rational compared to religion/philosophy which are based on "beliefs" and therefore irrational. That is hardly the case. "Science" is also much about beliefs and theories. We are just human beings with limited understanding. Our senses and brains are limited. When people are mentioning science, I usually ask: "what science?", that of 1800, of today or perhaps science in 2300, (which promises to be very exciting!)
By that, I'm not suggesting that every religious belief is true just because people believe in that. I'm saying the two are less different than some like to think.
If you contradict a previous theory, you don't "add" knowledge, but we understand things differently. These changes in understanding are mostly generated by theories and beliefs.
Theories (hypothesis) are one thing. You don't say they are proven fact until proven.
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Atoms could not be "seen", but they were suggested based on theoretical understanding and empirical experiments.
until they were proven when the atom was first split.
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Anyway, my point is different and I have nothing against science. I only get confused when "science" is portrayed as rock solid and rational compared to religion/philosophy which are based on "beliefs" and therefore irrational.
Philosophy and especially the religious side of it is not as 'rock solid' as verified scientific fact. Hypotheses and speculation is great, but it is irrational to portray it as fact when it is unverified. Verified science is fact if anything is. Given that new discoveries are made all the time, the facts are valid, so far. The examples you gave just add to and clarify the corpus of data.
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That is hardly the case. "Science" is also much about beliefs and theories.
Yes, but we don't 'we believe this is so until verified. The Higgs -Boson was hypothesized, but the searchers were braced for finding it wasn't there. In the event, it was. This is different from the speculations of Philisophy which can suggests avenues of research for science, but it can prove nothing of itself- and religion even less so.
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We are just human beings with limited understanding. Our senses and brains are limited. When people are mentioning science, I usually ask: "what science?", that of 1800, of today or perhaps science in 2300, (which promises to be very exciting!)
It is the same science- the method has been used to verify facts since the Greeks, though they were limited by not having the hardware. Just because more and more information has been found the Science of Newton or Copernicus is not in any way rendered wrongheaded theories that we laugh at these days.
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By that, I'm not suggesting that every religious belief is true just because people believe in that. I'm saying the two are less different than some like to think.
They are more different than some like to pretend. Science uses method to weed out incorrect hypotheses. Religion adhered to its claims on faith and rather discourages any questioning of whether it is true or not.
Those are some excellent points. How many times have you read the conflicting studies regarding coffee? One day coffee is curing Alzheimer's disease and the next day it is causing cancer.
In the year 2014, the problem is not Science, but our faulty understanding of it. The problem is that things are just becoming too complicated. All the easy problems have been solved.
Take cancer research as an example. There are daily cancer research publications that all find correlations between a set of genetic markers and cancer progression. The problem is that there are millions of these genetic-combinations that could be involved in disease progression. While most peer-reviewed journals dont contradict each other, they all do lead you down a different path. Now this doesn't mean that the science is wrong, it just means that our methodology is flawed and that the theory is too complicated for our current models.
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Originally Posted by mordant
The criticism of science by literalist theists is that it can't make up its mind. The problem is that their whole paradigm is based on making up your mind in advance and never changing it. Science is not a preordained set of doctrines, it is an ongoing investigation. The constant revision and refining of knowledge is a virtue, not a vice.
The other source of this criticism is the mistaken notion that all knowledge is black and white and never "it depends" or "we don't know". They desire a certitude that doesn't actually exist in the real world.
Even when Newtonian Physics could (and still does) explain celestial mechanics and host of other things, it was later found not to work correctly at all possible scales and situations. It just worked (and still works) well enough for prosaic everyday purposes. While general relativity and quantum mechanics are more accurate, they are an example of your point -- they add to and refine Newtonian physics rather than invalidate it. They are more generally applicable abstractions.
Finally, some things in reality are so interdependent on multiple causal chains that it's hard to reduce them to simple yes / no, black / white propositions. That is why The Onion famously poked fun at the conflicting studies about the question, are eggs good or bad for you: "Science Declares Eggs are Okay to Eat After All -- Until Next Tuesday". It is actually the wrong question -- the correct one is "in what ways are eggs good for you and in what ways are they bad for you?" Also, popular accounts of science produce attention grabbing and provocative headlines by quoting studies that make associations, and most people are not really clear that association is not cause. Some of the criticism of churn in scientific theory is not even about actual scientific theory, but about ongoing scientific speculation, debate about hypotheses, or merely data collection and collation.
Unless you are collapsing into solipsism, no, they don't. I don't have to believe a rock exists - I can touch it, measure it, compare it, break it, test it, taste it, and manipulate it with fire or water or acid or whatever to see what happens to it. A rock is, whether I "believe" it or not. Science progresses from something as simple as that and describes the universe.
You only need to believe in things that you can't otherwise touch or measure.
"Collapsing into solipsism".
Okay sean...I "understand" now. You BELIEVE that the concept of solipsism lacks merit. Of course...you can't claim that it is an infallible fact...since NOTHING is infallible...but, based upon what you BELIEVE your "understanding" to be, it lacks merit.
But then...it might not lack merit...and you cant prove infallibly that is does lack merit...then again, it can't be proven infallibly that the concept of solipsism has merit.
It all comes down to whether you BELIEVE it does or doesn't lack merit. Just like everything else you BELIEVE you know.
You can only BELIEVE information is valid. It might not be. Unless it was infallible. Oh, but wait, EVERYTHING is fallible.
Even that your rock does or doesn't exist...no matter what you BELIEVE you are touching, measuring, comparing, breaking, testing, tasting, manipulating with fire/water/acid, etc. Matter of fact...you only BELIEVE you are doing those things...you might not be. You can't prove infallibly that you are...and that you aren't just "a brain in a vat"...so........
Keep BELIEVING what you think you are doing or understanding (no matter what it is)...because that's the best anyone can ever do.
I'd suggest solipsism lacks merit because of a very simple experiment. As a young fellow I bit into a peanut butter and peach jam sandwich and found it was cheese. Now, if it was was a solipsistic universe, it would have been what I'd expected it to be. Thus the universe surprises us, so it is not a product of your or my imagination.
I expect that philosophers would laugh indulgently at that, but fifty -odd years on and I still think it is a good reason to consider that solipsism lacks merit and the universe is real...to a given value of 'Real'.
I'd suggest solipsism lacks merit because of a very simple experiment. As a young fellow I bit into a peanut butter and peach jam sandwich and found it was cheese. Now, if it was was a solipsistic universe, it would have been what I'd expected it to be. Thus the universe surprises us, so it is not a product of your or my imagination.
I expect that philosophers would laugh indulgently at that, but fifty -odd years on and I still think it is a good reason to consider that solipsism lacks merit and the universe is real...to a given value of 'Real'.
That's not how the concept works AREQUIPA.
I won't laugh at it at all...but it is just that it goes deeper than that. You only BELIEVE you were "a young fellow who was biting into what he though to be a peanut butter and jam sandwich, only to find out it was cheese". That might not have ever happened as you BELIEVED it did.
None of what we BELIEVE to be our lives and what we experience and comprehend to be real, can be infallibly proved to be so.
According to various versions of the concept...we DON'T know we aren't "just a brain in a vat" (sometimes being feed info that "surprises" us)...we only BELIEVE we aren't...and can never absolutely prove we are not.
I kinda dig it...but for some reason it tweaks me some and rumples my constitution to contemplate that possibility. Though I have always given it props ever since I first learned about it...but only because I felt logically forced to do so. Ahhhhh...the absolute possibility of some possibilities...they sure are a "sticky wicket" ain't they!
And, check it out...After reading that, I had a peanut butter and jam sandwich. It was very tasty. Thanx for the cue Ol' Buddy!
Yes, that's a possibility, but it is adding mental epicycles (or multiplication of logical entities) to the situation. It suggests that we are imagining a universe where we are constantly fooling ourselves. If I may say so this is explaining away unwelcome evidence as much as the idea that God refused to allow himself to appear in any way other than what would look the same if he wasn't there at all.
Occam's razor, again. That the Solipsistic universe would not keep fooling us, let alone stuff that you or I not only could not imagine but would not much like if we did, suggests to me that (rather like reliable predictability implies reality to a universe that is as near an illusion as makes no difference) the unexpectedness of it suggests (to me, at any rate) that it has a reality outside of and distinct from my (or your) imagination.
The knock -on (onto topic)of this is that there is a reality distinct from what humans perceive and imagine and science is the best way of finding out what these realities, unknown to us, are. Hypothesis and speculation is great. It reaches parts that science cannot. But until science finds a way of verifying it, they have no credibility. Hypotheses suggest ways for science to research, but, until the research produces solid results, they have no claim to be believable.
Thus science, every time, for fact. Philosophical hypotheses, much less so, and religious speculation, nope. Hardly ever.
Yes, that's a possibility, but it is adding mental epicycles (or multiplication of logical entities) to the situation. It suggests that we are imagining a universe where we are constantly fooling ourselves. If I may say so this is explaining away unwelcome evidence as much as the idea that God refused to allow himself to appear in any way other than what would look the same if he wasn't there at all.
Occam's razor, again. That the Solipsistic universe would not keep fooling us, let alone stuff that you or I not only could not imagine but would not much like if we did, suggests to me that (rather like reliable predictability implies reality to a universe that is as near an illusion as makes no difference) the unexpectedness of it suggests (to me, at any rate) that it has a reality outside of and distinct from my (or your) imagination.
The knock -on (onto topic)of this is that there is a reality distinct from what humans perceive and imagine and science is the best way of finding out what these realities, unknown to us, are. Hypothesis and speculation is great. It reaches parts that science cannot. But until science finds a way of verifying it, they have no credibility. Hypotheses suggest ways for science to research, but, until the research produces solid results, they have no claim to be believable.
Thus science, every time, for fact. Philosophical hypotheses, much less so, and religious speculation, nope. Hardly ever.
Yes...I agree that science is the best way to learn...learn all about the material aspects of "God" (to me) that is. Of course, I had to slip that in.
Religion, OTOH...is much less effective for any of that...though you can find some really great philosophy.
Thus science, every time, for fact. Philosophical hypotheses, much less so, and religious speculation, nope. Hardly ever.
Just to give philosophy it's due, modern research methods are built on the back of philosophy. The reason theories have null hypothesis that are falsified comes from Karl Popper and the rest of the guys in Philosophy. They developed the scientific method and explained why it was the rational way of coming to truth. Even today, a Ph.D. level course in research methods will almost invariably require you to read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn and some of the works of Karl Popper.
So the outcome of the scientific method is science, but the process is philosophy.
This is particularly true in the social sciences where you are typically forced to move away from the standard experimental design and into quasi experimentation.
If one's involvement in science is limited to reading the outcomes, you are studying the science. If one's involvement in science is conducting scientific research, you are practicing philosophy.
Just to give philosophy it's due, modern research methods are built on the back of philosophy. The reason theories have null hypothesis that are falsified comes from Karl Popper and the rest of the guys in Philosophy. They developed the scientific method and explained why it was the rational way of coming to truth. Even today, a Ph.D. level course in research methods will almost invariably require you to read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn and some of the works of Karl Popper.
So the outcome of the scientific method is science, but the process is philosophy.
This is particularly true in the social sciences where you are typically forced to move away from the standard experimental design and into quasi experimentation.
If one's involvement in science is limited to reading the outcomes, you are studying the science. If one's involvement in science is conducting scientific research, you are practicing philosophy.
That's my take on it anyway.
This correct, Box. Your distinction between someone who studies the outcomes of science and one who is a practitioner of science is a good one. I tried to communicate this truth when I discussed what a true PhD degree is . . . (fully recognizing that there are regrettably some institutions that do not adhere to the standard). A Doctor of Philosophy degree must mandate each candidate to demonstrate complete mastery of the scientific method and its associated methodologies. This ensures that the PhD holder has the requisite skills to advance the knowledge in his chosen fields . . . but also to do so in any other they properly research, study and prepare themselves in. The philosophy aspect is dominant. Social science (the Soft sciences) do indeed have a tougher row to hoe because of the variables they deal with. Their designs must be very robust . . . as must their guiding theories and methodologies.
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