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I'm very curious now; how many Christians and Muslims actually understand The Scientific Method. You know, the step-wise process that is generally taught in most North American and European and advanced Asian culture's high-schools (even earlier in many enlightened middle school curricula).
By "understand" I mean: are you familiar with the steps involved in designing a true scientifically valid and credible test process? Do you understand these terms:
√ hypothesis
√ null hypothesis
√ theory
√ evidence
√ deductions
√ conclusions
√ peer review
If so, would you be so kind as to define and discuss the process's key elements to us without rancor and insult?
But of course if you do feel there are inherent problem areas when these principles are correctly and honestly utilized, please outline those. I don't mean the incorrect or inflated conclusions associated with a few particular failed experiments or of some particularly dishonest researcher or team, whose results were later "outed" by the scientific community, and shown to be incorrectly conducted or exaggerated. (Note: Science abhors dishonestly, and is very efficient at self-policing!)
I'd just like to know if you folks correctly understand the process as it's meant to be (and generally is) utilized.
I'm very curious now; how many Christians and Muslims actually understand The Scientific Method.
I'm not a scientist, but I think I have a better-than-average understanding of the scientific method.
Quote:
Do you understand these terms:
√ hypothesis
√ null hypothesis
√ theory
√ evidence
√ deductions
√ conclusions
√ peer review
If so, would you be so kind as to define and discuss the process's key elements to us without rancor and insult?
Hypothesis = a proposed, though unproven (and often unprovable), explanation.
Null hypothesis = Okay, not quite sure. I think it's sort of like instead of the hypothesis being "a causes b", it's more of a "a doesn't cause b" kind of hypothesis. You're trying to prove a lack of correlation, rather than a correlation.
Theory = Kind of like a hypothesis that's grown up, a hypothesis that is, so far, consistent with the evidence. While hypotheses may or may not be taken seriously, theories always should be.
Evidence = That which tends to convince people whether something is true or not.
Deductions = Conclusions made from the evidence.
Peer review = When other people in the same field scrutinize one's work, making sure it holds up to logic and evidence, or showing how it doesn't.
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But of course if you do feel there are inherent problem areas, also outline those.
I'd say the main problem area as it relates to this particular forum (and how it's used in such forums) is that these things only deal with natural and/or repeatable phenomena. It's impossible, for example, to scientifically test whether Jesus was resurrected or not (clearly not a natural event), or whether the creation of the universe was caused by naturalistic or purposeful (theistic) means (all we know is that the universe is here and some of "how" it was created, but we can't know who or what caused it to happen).
Good response, KD, but I'm going to hold off commenting on anything until perhaps a few more posts come in. Plus, I gotta go clean out the chicken coop. Really!
But of course if you do feel there are inherent problem areas when these principles are correctly and honestly utilized, please outline those. I don't mean the incorrect or inflated conclusions associated with a few particular failed experiments or of some particularly dishonest researcher or team, whose results were later "outed" by the scientific community, and shown to be incorrectly conducted or exaggerated. (Note: Science abhors dishonestly, and is very efficient at self-policing!)
I'd just like to know if you folks correctly understand the process as it's meant to be (and generally is) utilized.
I'm not a Christian or a Muslim, but I think I have a pretty good grasp of the limitations and problems with the scientific process.
SM's strong point is describing physical processes. It's limitation is understanding the meaning of what it describes. For example:
If I were to play Beethoven's Ode to Joy to two people and ask them to describe what they had just heard, this is how they could respond:
1. The philosopher would describe it as a musical composition celebrating the unity and brotherhood of all mankind.
2. The scientist would describe it as a non-random fluctuation of air pressure for a determined length of time.
While the SM was able to arrive at a technically true description of the physical process involved, it was no able to arrive at the meaning of what he had heard.
With that it mind, the SM not only does a poor job of arriving at meaning, it often fails to ask the very meaningful questions that are necessary to evaluate the information they are able to determine is technically true.
For example, scientist may posit that man made global warming is causing the earth to get warmer. But they may fail to even ask what the temperature of the earth should be, and whether AGW is bringing us closer to or further away from that goal.
Those are just examples. My primary point is that the SM is a very powerful tool, but it's limitations don't allow it to provide a complete understanding of our universe or the nature of the problems we face.
If I were to play Beethoven's Ode to Joy to two people and ask them to describe what they had just heard, this is how they could respond:
1. The philosopher would describe it as a musical composition celebrating the unity and brotherhood of all mankind.
2. The scientist would describe it as a non-random fluctuation of air pressure for a determined length of time.
Each of the responses are data sets nothing more and nothing less, because there is no stated hypothesis from which we can use to test.
If the hypothesis is, Individuals listening to a music performance are biased by their professional or academic training, then the data would reflect positively upon the original hypothesis. Of course if this was the basis of the study in a peer reviewed article the questions would be raised about what the wording of the question, how is was presented and were there any biases in the question that would influence the responses.
The next part of the process would be for another researcher to tinker with the questions based upon the criticisms, and would then retest to see if the responses were the same, and that process would be repeated over and over again until we find that philosophers and "scientist" respond to the question the same in repeated studies.
That is the scientific method. Your example left out all the important steps in the process.
Your second example suffers from the safe problems;
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scientist may posit that man made global warming is causing the earth to get warmer. But they may fail to even ask what the temperature of the earth should be, and whether AGW is bringing us closer to or further away from that goal.
If the studies fail to ask the questions that you put forward the peer review process will expose them either in direct criticism of the published study or the ability of another researcher to arrive at a different conclusion based upon the inclusion of the previously omitted variables.
In each case you haven't exposed any inadequacies in the scientific method just the inadequacies of two particular set of findings.
And so, if the hypothesis (i.e.: the best-guess question as it were, and the object of your intentions, to prove or disprove..) is correctly set out, the SM should be able to resolve that question, but certainly not it's consequences. I don't think too many scientists will claim that the specific elemental answers they "unearth" will thus answer for all the consequences of that information.
As in: what the implications of that proven hypothesis are, but that is, in actuality, the usual and major stumbling block to many who so vehemently dislike science per se. In fact, I'd claim that the reason for their dislike is that they all too often errantly overshoot those limited conclusions, that, let's say, prove A = 2.45, for instance. They aggressively note that "If A really does = 2.45, then my previous assumptions that A = 4.69 are probably all false, as well as anything that requires A to = 4.69...", If such errant values have historically been determined to be that value, but that number was arrived at purely by conjecture, then of course we have a major problem.
But it's not science's fault, and science is NOT an entity to be chastised, it's but a reliable toolbox set, as noted above.
A definition of The SM which I've always enjoyed, but is quite simple (and perhaps science should always be kept so...):
"Science is the process of asking Mother Nature simple questions, one at a time." (BTW, this in no way defines the SM, it just explains it's basic intentions and philosophy)
So... is science limited to observations within nature? Possibly, depending on your definition of "nature", being the determinate world around us, the one we can (hopefully) measure, observe, modify, tinker with and predict, once we've ascertained a majority of it's controlling rules.
And yet, as regards measuring a non-intuitive or perhaps subjective entity or paradigm like philosophy and it's brethren, these can indeed be accurately measured if the quantifiable elements are properly defined. As in: does psychological depression manifest itself in any measurable way? A change in some base enzyme, or in some measurable electrical state within the brain? I'd suggest that yes, it is all measurable, if we gain the future advanced technical ability to do so reliably and at the minute levels necessary to delineate such fine differences.
So then, can science be viewed as the only means to accurately determine the causes and effects we see in the natural world? Can it also be relied on as an accurate predictor for what else we should conceivably find, or of what happened in the past based on how we now know things work today?
Or is it too unreliable in your eyes? Or just useful in certain arenas?
And so, if the hypothesis (i.e.: the best-guess question as it were, and the object of your intentions, to prove or disprove..) is correctly set out, the SM should be able to resolve that question, but certainly not it's consequences.
That depends on the nature of the hypothesis. Not every hypothesis lends itself to testing or confirmation via the SM.
Quote:
A definition of The SM which I've always enjoyed, but is quite simple (and perhaps science should always be kept so...):
"Science is the process of asking Mother Nature simple questions, one at a time." (BTW, this in no way defines the SM, it just explains it's basic intentions and philosophy)
That's really more a definition of "science" than a definition of the SM. The SM is more like the process of getting the answers from Mother Nature, not the process of asking them. The only problem is that we can only get those answers in certain conditions. We can only study how a process happened if the process is repeatable, or if the process left some sort of evidence behind. For example, we can know what happens when a major asteroid strikes the Earth by looking at places where one has done so in the distant past. But you can't get Mother Nature's answer as to whether the universe was created by God or by naturalistic processes, unless one would leave behind a certain kind of evidence that the other would not. And you can't get Mother Nature's answer as to whether Jesus was resurrected (and how it happened) since it wasn't a process caused by Mother Nature, and is also not repeatable.
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So... is science limited to observations within nature? Possibly, depending on your definition of "nature", being the determinate world around us, the one we can (hopefully) measure, observe, modify, tinker with and predict, once we've ascertained a majority of it's controlling rules.
I wouldn't say "possibly", but "definitely" (though, yes, depending on the definition as you stated it above).
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And yet, as regards measuring a non-intuitive or perhaps subjective entity or paradigm like philosophy and it's brethren, these can indeed be accurately measured if the quantifiable elements are properly defined. As in: does psychological depression manifest itself in any measurable way? A change in some base enzyme, or in some measurable electrical state within the brain? I'd suggest that yes, it is all measurable, if we gain the future advanced technical ability to do so reliably and at the minute levels necessary to delineate such fine differences.
But even in this example, you're talking about measuring and testing the natural elements involved.
Quote:
So then, can science be viewed as the only means to accurately determine the causes and effects we see in the natural world? Can it also be relied on as an accurate predictor for what else we should conceivably find, or of what happened in the past based on how we now know things work today?
Only if what happened in the past is naturally repeatable, or if we can physically observe its evidence, as with my asteroid example.
Quote:
Or is it too unreliable in your eyes? Or just useful in certain arenas?
The only way it can be "unreliable" is if the people using it are doing so in a faulty way. If the SM is used under the proper conditions, it's very reliable indeed. But as with any tool, it's only good for the jobs it was designed for. You can't use the SM to determine why some people find "Lolcats" so funny, or whether the Beatles were more talented than the Rolling Stones, for example.
Each of the responses are data sets nothing more and nothing less, because there is no stated hypothesis from which we can use to test.
If the hypothesis is, Individuals listening to a music performance are biased by their professional or academic training, then the data would reflect positively upon the original hypothesis. Of course if this was the basis of the study in a peer reviewed article the questions would be raised about what the wording of the question, how is was presented and were there any biases in the question that would influence the responses.
The next part of the process would be for another researcher to tinker with the questions based upon the criticisms, and would then retest to see if the responses were the same, and that process would be repeated over and over again until we find that philosophers and "scientist" respond to the question the same in repeated studies.
That is the scientific method. Your example left out all the important steps in the process.
Your second example suffers from the safe problems;
If the studies fail to ask the questions that you put forward the peer review process will expose them either in direct criticism of the published study or the ability of another researcher to arrive at a different conclusion based upon the inclusion of the previously omitted variables.
In each case you haven't exposed any inadequacies in the scientific method just the inadequacies of two particular set of findings.
Either you aren't familiar with the scientific process or you haven't put a lot of thought behind what both you and I wrote.
What I wrote is not at all controversial, and it is consistent with Rifleman's later responses.
There's a reason not every discipline at the academy uses the SM. Philosophy, law, history, English and art, each have their methods of evaluation that is appropriate to their field. As Rifleman has correctly pointed out, SM is a powerful tool, but only one of the tools in the toolbox. I would add that it is important to have the right tool for the right job.
SM is not the only tool of rational inquiry. It is a very important one, and in very many cases it is the best one. But it is only one of several tools of rational inquiry.
Some questions are objective and some are subjective. The SM excels at objective questions. It is weaker on subjective questions.
That is not a flaw in SM, it is only a limitation. Which is what I pointed out.
And so, if the hypothesis (i.e.: the best-guess question as it were, and the object of your intentions, to prove or disprove..) is correctly set out, the SM should be able to resolve that question, but certainly not it's consequences. I don't think too many scientists will claim that the specific elemental answers they "unearth" will thus answer for all the consequences of that information.
As in: what the implications of that proven hypothesis are, but that is, in actuality, the usual and major stumbling block to many who so vehemently dislike science per se. In fact, I'd claim that the reason for their dislike is that they all too often errantly overshoot those limited conclusions, that, let's say, prove A = 2.45, for instance. They aggressively note that "If A really does = 2.45, then my previous assumptions that A = 4.69 are probably all false, as well as anything that requires A to = 4.69...", If such errant values have historically been determined to be that value, but that number was arrived at purely by conjecture, then of course we have a major problem.
But it's not science's fault, and science is NOT an entity to be chastised, it's but a reliable toolbox set, as noted above.
A definition of The SM which I've always enjoyed, but is quite simple (and perhaps science should always be kept so...):
"Science is the process of asking Mother Nature simple questions, one at a time." (BTW, this in no way defines the SM, it just explains it's basic intentions and philosophy)
So... is science limited to observations within nature? Possibly, depending on your definition of "nature", being the determinate world around us, the one we can (hopefully) measure, observe, modify, tinker with and predict, once we've ascertained a majority of it's controlling rules.
And yet, as regards measuring a non-intuitive or perhaps subjective entity or paradigm like philosophy and it's brethren, these can indeed be accurately measured if the quantifiable elements are properly defined. As in: does psychological depression manifest itself in any measurable way? A change in some base enzyme, or in some measurable electrical state within the brain? I'd suggest that yes, it is all measurable, if we gain the future advanced technical ability to do so reliably and at the minute levels necessary to delineate such fine differences.
So then, can science be viewed as the only means to accurately determine the causes and effects we see in the natural world? Can it also be relied on as an accurate predictor for what else we should conceivably find, or of what happened in the past based on how we now know things work today?
Or is it too unreliable in your eyes? Or just useful in certain arenas?
In my opinion measurable objective questions are better suited for the SM then questions that are not measurable and subjective. It makes a lot of sense to answer questions related to the nature of DNA with the SM. It makes little sense to try to answer questions like, "what were the root causes of the war of 1812", with the SM. It's better to use the historical research method for that question.
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