Philosophy Now Forum

Does anyone view orthodox science as having any fundamental methodological flaw(s), despite the wealth of data it has generated? In other words, does it need to change, or even be replaced wholesale, if it is not to bring itself, and even humanity, into crisis? Is orthodox science methodologically unsound but the best 'science' we can expect? Is it just fine?

This may be of one 'umbrella question': What of the methods of orthodox science?

thanx

You speak of sciences as if it can be changed like underwear. The science we know is here to stay, like nature itself. Its reality. It can't be extricated as you suggest because it is inexorably and intrinsically liked to our being.

Perhaps you are talking about the science of body-piercing and make-up.

My enquiry regards the methodology of (current) orthodox science, not general science's staying power. For example, does the methodology arbitrarily foster ever increasing and more deeply segregated specialisations? Will specialisations eventually begin to converge, as result of discoveries founded on current methodology? Or will anything about the methodology have to change in order to prevent broader and deeper scientific and philosophical division and to ultimately unite the sciences?

I hope I am clearer now...

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I think an interesting book for you to read on this subject is " Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge" by Edward O. Wilson. He sees the sciences coming together to get a better understanding of the world, and in also getting a better working world.

But I think that there will always be those who will like to keep the old ways of science so as to protect their own piece of turf.

As with anything there are pros and cons. We commonly see 'bad science' getting airtime, such as studies with suspicious political backers surprisingly turning up results that favor the practices of said political backers, and recent fraud in the case of that korean cloning expert. One thing that I think is clear is that the problems of current scientific practice are prevalent.
The problem is telling the difference between good science and bad science; not all science is based on the same principles anymore than all football teams playing styles are the same. What really matters in the method of science is how science and information is held to account, this will then determine the way it is gathered.

hi philro,
thank-you for your 2nd response and, i've read wilson's 'consilience', an interesting view. thanks for that, anyway. i agree with you that specialists can be tribal, vain, territorial or however one identifies it.

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hi psychonaut,
i agree that a lack of accountability and transparency is a big issue for science. this is of course a political issue and science needs to be reigned in and treated with a 'local' injection of democracy, wherever practicable.

i'm still wondering about what i see as a fundamental question: is there something inherent in the orthodox methodology that makes science branch, narrow, burrow and lose touch with it's 'centre' so 'industriously'?

my view is that specialisms of science can never gain closure(since there is no closed 'area' of reality), and are therefore ultimately forced to reach beyond what defines them, creating new specialisms, chasing that 'specialist's chimera' of completeness and coherence, while at the same time, have left behind a flourishing and deepening legacy of specialist infrastructures, 'dialects' and 'languages', that remain dynamic and ripe for new branching(and occasional merging!).

either, this is the only way it can be and there is no hope for a unified understanding, unless all roads do turn out to lead into one 'naturally', or, an organisational remedy is possible whereby a 'data-analogising, data-synthesising centre' is established and run democratically(the research-employees and executives being elected by all registering scientists).

This 'nucleus', if achievable, would hopefully be just as important and accessible to the specialists as their own specialisms are to them. It may even be able to evolve into something of an ethical body as well, as it grows in legitimacy, at first as a voice, and finally as a regulatory body, attached to the UN, say. It may even shift methodological and/or conceptual paradigms! [specialist]

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what'dya reckon folks?

It seems to dismiss things that can not be repeated easily as 'not existing' where in a chaotic universe, some things can happen but not be easily repeated. for example, miracles etc. etc.

Science has provided may great things to society but I do think this inability to accept the quirks is a flaw.

hi jetsetjason,

isn't the quirkiness, really no more than a feeling that a subject feels when confronted with an object that is unfamiliar to that subject? is there really any quirkiness out there? is there really any mystery but a subject's mystification? any quirkiness other than a subject's 'quirkification'?

the subjective is has often customarily been incorrectly linguistically-objectivised. i like to correctly linguistically-subjectivise, the incorrectly linguistically-objective.

to justify calling something a miracle one would have to know how the event one is calling a miracle is unrelated to related events. i wont hold my breath.

thanx

god plays dice

hi jetsetjason

not being able to find a context of pattern underlying a context of randomness, neither means that there is one to find nor means that there isn't one to find.

who knows what the next conceptual paradigm might throw up with respect to current wonderings about 'radioactive decay', if there is to be a post-quantum paradigm-shift, that is.

with nothing to go on as to the source of the quantum-randomness plus the fact that physics hasn't reached bedrock, what is the justification for the claim that quantum-randomness is an absolute context unto itself?

i, at any rate, am aware that i know not whether god play's dice or not.

'quirkification' remains as yet, known only in it's subjective form. if, by some paradigm-shift, absolute randomness is framed somehow in logical terms... one wont feel the urge to quirkificate about it any longer anyway, if one, at all, had that urge in the first place.

i would indeed quirkificate, if science were able to establish absolute quantum-randomness as a fact without the need for a paradigm-shift to make sense of it.

thanx

chaos theory takes over in a complex system, the universe is very big, therefore very complex therefore chaotic

hi jetsetjason,

my views are:

bigness isn't 'therefore' complexity. complexity isn't 'therefore' chaos.

chaos for the subject isn't 'therefore' chaos of the object.

quirkiness for the subject isn't 'therefore' quirkiness of the object.

'chaos theory' is a subject's tool rather than something that takes over an objective system.

systems can and do break down... into little mutually-conflicting systems. this is what you're calling 'chaos' (subjectively).

there is no objective puzzle, only puzzlement.

there is no objective quirkiness, only subjective quirkification.

thanx.