Philosophy Now Forum

Is science as source of truth and absolute conclusions, or is it a constantly evolving, changing, source of theories and hypothesis that gain or lose favor, in time, becoming more or less plausible?

Is science simply a method of deciding what is more and what is less probable?

Is science, and its methodology, free from all corruptible emotional, instinctual, social and cultural elements? Is science infallible or just the best we've got?

The mankind has already reached his peak. Since this point the science has became a belief. There is not any integral, strong enough, respectable personality able to put alternatives against failed Einstein’s ideas (seeing “wrong” motion of stars in galaxies)
- Determinism?
- Gravitational property of antimatter?
- Rising entropy?
- Physical singularities?
- QED for protons/antiprotons?
- Empty space?
- …
:(

By all means, this topic got unusually straight-forward answers (not that you're known for you complicated questions though, for better or worse, and not that I'm known to be able to give straight-forward answers):

1) Science has two aspects in that first sentence: first, it's building its own history, and this history is used to gain an accumulation of knowledge instead of just jumping from thought to thought as if we were on a stream-of-consciousness. Second, science in the belief in its capabilities, in the applications of it, and so forth, in other words; the practical side of science, is one of jumping, but it's not always so that we jump "forward" to new results, sometimes we also jump backwards because some hypothesis made long time ago suddenly makes sense and/or a past experiment's result suddenly makes sense. This can later be refuted, and then gone back to again. I heard some time ago that scientists were again working on new methods of lobotomy for extreme cases of neurological or psycho-neurological suffering. I personally didn't like those news but that's the case.

2) Humans interpret science, and we choose dynamically what it should mean, what are the implications of it. Indeed, often it is merely about the probabilities of something, but sometimes it's also just an argument which isn't measured itself (the argument I mean, not the experiment), unlike statistics which tells exactly the probability of something, a scientific exploration of a problem can yield answers that are ambiguous and which can be used politically, socially, economically and so forth without an overall "probability-measure", or even used by other sciences to gather results themselves, without having fully verified the source of the new exploration. My point may be: there is no objective consensus (in historical terms) to science, it is what we make of it, though of course we can have a consensus now, and we may see the totality of all arguments as the probability of something, however this is human judgement as if in a courtroom and not measured results.

3) Above answers this question, which would be no to the first part of the question, and to the second part: "not the best we got, but one of the best parts of the best we got". You need a good philosophical understanding of philosophy coupled with an effective less philosophic understanding of it. In the 19th century there were lots of new sciences springing up from the soil but most of it was garbage and only philosophical strictness could avoid the new but faulty sciences to be quelled from gaining popular support. People made science about all kinds of shit, from hand-writing to measuring the size of people's skull as an attempt to determine their intelligence.

The Voice of Time wrote:By all means, this topic got unusually straight-forward answers (not that you're known for you complicated questions though, for better or worse, and not that I'm known to be able to give straight-forward answers):

Pearls before swine...why do questions need to be made complex to be profound?

Tell me...when you go to a aprty and you find a bunch of teenagers there, boys and girls, do you put on a classical C.D. wanting them to learn to enjoy the finer aspects of a concerto I b-minor?

The Voice of Time wrote: 1) Science has two aspects in that first sentence: first, it's building its own history, and this history is used to gain an accumulation of knowledge instead of just jumping from thought to thought as if we were on a stream-of-consciousness. Second, science in the belief in its capabilities, in the applications of it, and so forth, in other words; the practical side of science, is one of jumping, but it's not always so that we jump "forward" to new results, sometimes we also jump backwards because some hypothesis made long time ago suddenly makes sense and/or a past experiment's result suddenly makes sense. This can later be refuted, and then gone back to again. I heard some time ago that scientists were again working on new methods of lobotomy for extreme cases of neurological or psycho-neurological suffering. I personally didn't like those news but that's the case.

Simplifying things, again: science is an endless search for how things work, without expecting a final answer to end all answers to ever come.

The Voice of Time wrote:2) Humans interpret science, and we choose dynamically what it should mean, what are the implications of it. Indeed, often it is merely about the probabilities of something, but sometimes it's also just an argument which isn't measured itself (the argument I mean, not the experiment), unlike statistics which tells exactly the probability of something, a scientific exploration of a problem can yield answers that are ambiguous and which can be used politically, socially, economically and so forth without an overall "probability-measure", or even used by other sciences to gather results themselves, without having fully verified the source of the new exploration. My point may be: there is no objective consensus (in historical terms) to science, it is what we make of it, though of course we can have a consensus now, and we may see the totality of all arguments as the probability of something, however this is human judgement as if in a courtroom and not measured results.

You would agree, then, that science, particularly the sciences dealing with the humanities,is affected and infected by psychological, personal, subjective, social and cultural and above all economical, factors?
How one asks a question, or that he does so, determines the outcome.

For example...the quest to find how "the universe began" already presupposes in its own questioning that a beginning did occur...and since a beginning occurred then an end will occur, closing the binary logic. But this is based on a Judeo-Christian nihilistic viewpoint....and it is taken for granted, though nowhere in nature or in experience has a beginning nor an end ever been perceived.

The Voice of Time wrote: 3) Above answers this question, which would be no to the first part of the question, and to the second part: "not the best we got, but one of the best parts of the best we got". You need a good philosophical understanding of philosophy coupled with an effective less philosophic understanding of it. In the 19th century there were lots of new sciences springing up from the soil but most of it was garbage and only philosophical strictness could avoid the new but faulty sciences to be quelled from gaining popular support. People made science about all kinds of shit, from hand-writing to measuring the size of people's skull as an attempt to determine their intelligence.

In fact science, as we know it, developed in ancient Hellas and was driven by a very Doric spirit of non-acquiescence to the authority of nature (the gods)....the scientific method was perfected during the Middle Ages and was influenced, no doubt, by the Renaissance which was nothing more than the rediscovery of ancient Greek wisdoms through the Muslim scholars that safeguarded them at the time.

Science is rooted in a particular way of thinking and engaging the world...it is rooted in a philosophy.
All, but the most obtuse, know this.

Hi Satyr
I think you have mixed up your Hellenes. It was the Ionians that developed philosophy and science.
The renaissance didn’t influence much of the middle-ages, coming as it did right at the end. Scientifically it was the development of technology, specifically the telescope and microscope that enabled interested parties to see further and in more depth than the Greeks had been able to. It was the observations of Galileo after all, that finally demolished the geo-centric system created by Eudoxus at the behest of Plato, developed by Aristotle’s lodger Callipus and bloated by Aristotle himself; it is a good example of science being ‘rooted in a particular way of thinking’. What changed is the empirical data, people, notably the catholic church, could no longer subscribe to theories that were demonstrably untrue.
The idea that scientific method was perfected is wrong; professional scientists have all sorts of ideas for all sorts of reasons. What makes them science is the broad acceptance by many individuals, with different philosophies, influences or axes to grind, that a given idea is the best explanation currently available, or at least has the potential to be so in the future. The consensus is often grudging and rarely unanimous, but when the observed data contradicts a theory, it is only nutters who don’t eventually let go.

No, it was the Doric spirit of order and challenging and resistance that underlay Ionian brilliance.
The Ionians were decadent and that is why they lost the war.
The struggle between Ionians and Dorians mirrors both the Cold War struggle and our present day ideological conflicts.

Yes, and was not Galileo one of the first to use the scientific method as we know it today?

Hi Satyr,
You say:

'No, it was the Doric spirit of order and challenging and resistance that underlay Ionian brilliance.'

I would be happy to learn about this Doric spirit. I suspect you are conflating Spartan and Corinthian ideologies. That it underlays (sic) Ionian brilliance does raise the question why the Dorians are not themselves noted for their intellectual prowess.

You go on:

'"The Ionians were decadent and that is why they lost the war."

Do you wish to be taken seriously? If so you need to explain what you mean by decadent, the war you are referring to, and why this is pertinent.

You then say:

"The struggle between Ionians and Dorians mirrors both the Cold War struggle and our present day ideological conflicts. "

The protagonists in the Cold war did not engage directly; ‘our present day ideological conflicts’ is meaningless without qualification.

And finally:

"Yes, and was not Galileo one of the first to use the scientific method as we know it today?"

What scientific method? Can you describe a typical scientist 'as we know it today', or even a typical science 'as we know it today'? Amongst your problems and let’s face it, you have a bucket-load, is that you are aware that the world is not as facile stories suggest. But through laziness or stupidity you replace one load of old bollocks with your own. The ‘scientific method as we know it today’, if it means anything, is just the admission that reality is the great big thing before your eyes, not the wretched meanderings two inches behind them.

uwot wrote:Hi Satyr,
You say:

'No, it was the Doric spirit of order and challenging and resistance that underlay Ionian brilliance.'

I would be happy to learn about this Doric spirit. I suspect you are conflating Spartan and Corinthian ideologies. That it underlays (sic) Ionian brilliance does raise the question why the Dorians are not themselves noted for their intellectual prowess.

No, the Dorians were not known for verbosity and decadence but they did leave behind laws (Lykurgus) and deeds.

The Acropolis is built in the Doric style and one Greek academic, Liadinis, claims that Socrates was killed because of his Spartan sympathies.
What is great in the Athenians is what they held in common with the Spartans. It was that challenging, uncompromising, fearless spirit that underlies since today.
To question even the sacred; to hold nothing above man, except his ancestors.

uwot wrote:You go on:

'"The Ionians were decadent and that is why they lost the war."

Do you wish to be taken seriously? If so you need to explain what you mean by decadent, the war you are referring to, and why this is pertinent.

You are free not to take me seriously and to attack me personally...if you keep in mind that this will only open the possibility of me doing so in turn.

The decadence of Athens can be compared to the decadence of America.
They lost the war because they had grown soft on the wealth they were pillaging form their Ionian "sister states", and buggery and verbosity filled the agora.

uwot wrote:You then say:

"The struggle between Ionians and Dorians mirrors both the Cold War struggle and our present day ideological conflicts. "

The protagonists in the Cold war did not engage directly; ‘our present day ideological conflicts’ is meaningless without qualification.

They did not because the U.S. having studied the Athens-Sparta conflict saw in the Soviets a modern day Sparta.
The Spartans won that war, didn't they, turd?

Instead they opted to strangle the Soviets economically because Americans had become too fat and stupid and soft to ever deal with a real direct military conflict with them.

The Athenians, Ionians, were more feminine: they were talkers, braggarts, show-offs...they built monuments to themselves. The Spartans did not even build a wall around their city because they were the walls.They had spirit and this spirit was Aryan...Doric. You might know it as fascistic or Aristocratic...noble, masculine.

The Shadow of Sparta

Sparta

Read a book....save a brain-cell.

uwot wrote:And finally:

"Yes, and was not Galileo one of the first to use the scientific method as we know it today?"

What scientific method? Can you describe a typical scientist 'as we know it today', or even a typical science 'as we know it today'?

Are you asking me to describe to you the scientific method?

uwot wrote: Amongst your problems and let’s face it, you have a bucket-load, is that you are aware that the world is not as facile stories suggest.

A personal attack; one more and I unleash.

uwot wrote:But through laziness or stupidity you replace one load of old bollocks with your own. The ‘scientific method as we know it today’, if it means anything, is just the admission that reality is the great big thing before your eyes, not the wretched meanderings two inches behind them.

Ah...second assault.
You faggots find bullies in those you poke and then beat the shit out of you.

Listen moron...the scientific method did not emerge magically, nor did it evolve suddenly.

Retard...empiricism was not the rule but a later development in human history.

Retard, what brilliant definitions of reality: the "great big thing before our eyes..." simply brilliant.
It's a thing...
Reality is a "big thing" and it rests before our eyes, making even hallucinations real.

Fag, determining what is real and what are the delusions of a moron, of your kind, is what all debate is about.

The scientific method is one way of determining what is more and what is less plausible - in other words what is more or what is less real.
Since no absolute can ever be detected or has ever been detected...we are dealing with probabilities.

And I quote for the imbecile, from Quigley (The evolution of Civilization) :

Quigley, Carroll wrote:Science is a method, not a body of knowledge or a picture of the world. The method remains largely unchanged, except for refinements, generation after generation, but the body of scientific knowledge resulting from the use of this method or the world picture it provides is changing from month to month from day to day. - The Evolution of Civilization

Quigley, Carroll wrote:The rule of simplicity in scientific hypothesis is by no means something new. First formulated in the late Middle ages, it was known as "Occam's razor" and was applied chiefly to logic. Later it was applied to the natural sciences. Most people believe that Galileo and his contemporaries made their great contributions to science by refuting Aristotle. this "refutation of Aristotle," or, more correctly "refutation of Plato and the Pythagorean rationalists," was only incidental to the much more significant achievement of making the commonly accepted rules about the universe more scientific by applying to them Occam's razor. - The Evolution of Civilization

Hi Satyr

You say:

"The Acropolis is built in the Doric style and one Greek academic, Liadinis, claims that Socrates was killed because of his Spartan sympathies."

A little bit of research would have shown you that everyone knows about Socrates Spartan sympathies; Plato's Republic is arguably the most famous philosophical treatise.

"What is great in the Athenians is what they held in common with the Spartans. It was that challenging, uncompromising, fearless spirit that underlies since today."

You might wish to edit this.

"To question even the sacred; to hold nothing above man, except his ancestors."

And this.

'"You are free not to take me seriously and to attack me personally...if you keep in mind that this will only open the possibility of me doing so in turn."

It's the risk we run.

"The decadence of Athens can be compared to the decadence of America."

As can that of chalk and cheese.

"They lost the war because they had grown soft on the wealth they were pillaging form their Ionian "sister states", and buggery and verbosity filled the agora."

I have no interest in promoting the 2500 year old cause of Athens.

"The U.S. having studied the Athens-Sparta conflict saw in the Soviets a modern day Sparta."

Do you really believe this?

"The Spartans won that war, didn't they, turd?"

Which war?

"Instead they opted to strangle the Soviets economically because Americans had become too fat and stupid and soft to ever deal with a real direct military conflict with them."

Smart move. Engaging the Soviets would have involved up to 20 000 nuclear warheads.The Americans exploited 20th century wars they didn't start very successfully. They were less accomplished in the fights they picked themselves.

"The Athenians, Ionians, were more feminine: they were talkers, braggarts, show-offs...they built monuments to themselves. The Spartans did not even build a wall around their city because they were the walls.They had spirit and this spirit was Aryan...Doric. You might know it as fascistic or Aristocratic...noble, masculine."

I know it as Spartan.

"Are you asking me to describe to you the scientific method?"

Yes please.

"A personal attack; one more and I unleash."

Go for it.

"Ah...second assault.
You faggots find bullies in those you poke and then beat the shit out of you."

Could you rearrange these words to make a coherent sentence?

"Listen moron...the scientific method did not emerge magically, nor did it evolve suddenly."

So what is it?

"Retard...empiricism was not the rule but a later development in human history."

When did it arrive?

"Retard, what brilliant definitions of reality: the "great big thing before our eyes..." simply brilliant."

Thanks.

"It's a thing...
Reality is a "big thing" and it rests before our eyes, making even hallucinations real."

Doesn't follow.

"Fag, determining what is real and what are the delusions of a moron, of your kind, is what all debate is about."

Splendid, let's have a debate then.

"The scientific method is one way of determining what is more and what is less plausible - in other words what is more or what is less real.
Since no absolute can ever be detected or has ever been detected...we are dealing with probabilities."

Agreed. So an absolute statement about one race being superior is not true.

"And I quote for the imbecile, from Quigley (The evolution of Civilization) :

Quigley, Carroll wrote:Science is a method, not a body of knowledge or a picture of the world. The method remains largely unchanged, except for refinements, generation after generation, but the body of scientific knowledge resulting from the use of this method or the world picture it provides is changing from month to month from day to day. - The Evolution of Civilization

Well and good, but what is the method?

Quigley, Carroll wrote:The rule of simplicity in scientific hypothesis is by no means something new. First formulated in the late Middle ages, it was known as "Occam's razor" and was applied chiefly to logic. Later it was applied to the natural sciences. Most people believe that Galileo and his contemporaries made their great contributions to science by refuting Aristotle. this "refutation of Aristotle," or, more correctly "refutation of Plato and the Pythagorean rationalists," was only incidental to the much more significant achievement of making the commonly accepted rules about the universe more scientific by applying to them Occam's razor. - The Evolution of Civilization

[/quote]

I've never heard of Quigley, Carroll, but as you choose to quote her, you evidently agree that the great contributions made by Galileo 'and his contempories' were in refuting Plato and Pythagoras rather than Aristotle. It is my contention that such a belief is utter bollocks; would you care to debate that point?

Satyr, you asked in your first post:

Is science as source of truth and absolute conclusions, or is it a constantly evolving, changing, source of theories and hypothesis that gain or lose favor, in time, becoming more or less plausible?

I would say the latter (constantly evolving), based for example on new observations that don't fit the current theories. This leads to new hypotheses and new tests of them. According to T. Kuhn, this evolution occurs in fits and starts, as when there is turmoil or controversy in the scientific community over past tests, experiments, or theoretical constructs.

uwot wrote:

Quigley, Carroll wrote:Science is a method, not a body of knowledge or a picture of the world. The method remains largely unchanged, except for refinements, generation after generation, but the body of scientific knowledge resulting from the use of this method or the world picture it provides is changing from month to month from day to day. - The Evolution of Civilization

Well and good, but what is the method?

See how I knew you were one of those.
You thought I was making up this "scientific method" didn't you boy?

Read a book...I can't go back to science101.

uwot wrote:I've never heard of Quigley, Carroll, but as you choose to quote her,

No shit?!

You have the internet don't ya...look "her" up.

uwot wrote:you evidently agree that the great contributions made by Galileo 'and his contempories' were in refuting Plato and Pythagoras rather than Aristotle. It is my contention that such a belief is utter bollocks; would you care to debate that point?

I would, but that would have to mean that I would waste more time on you. Since you so brilliantly engaged me, first, in personal assault...I think I'll save my time and read a book.

But I will give you a hint:
There's a reason why Plato and certain aspects of Greek thought were integrated into Christianity.
For instance the notion of "first there was the word" rather than "first there was the phenomenon, the activity, and then there was the word to describe and define it" goes back to this.
Plato's ideal world is also related: the more real reality.

There were some schools of thought amongst the Greeks which thought that the senses were unreliable and that man could reason his way to the real.

This goes contrary to the scientific method.
The scientific method, imbecile, is empiricism, which is tested and retested.

Empiricism, contrary to liberal bullshit, is about sensuality; about judging using the senses.
In other words appearances are not only relevant but more reliable than girlish fantasies about equality and love and a utopian future...an Ideal one.
We actually evolve the senses not to fool us or to test our faith or our moral fiber...but to judge, and with this judgment to discriminate...and with this discriminating judgment to survive!!!


Good luck with the rest.

Mike Strand wrote:I would say the latter (constantly evolving), based for example on new observations that don't fit the current theories. This leads to new hypotheses and new tests of them. According to T. Kuhn, this evolution occurs in fits and starts, as when there is turmoil or controversy in the scientific community over past tests, experiments, or theoretical constructs.

If this is so then these "fits and starts" must be triggered by environment; necessity being the mother of all invention.

The crocodile hasn't evolved much over hundreds of thousands of years because it did not have to - it was not stressed or forced to adapt or perish.
Now apply this to racial matters.

During that short, relatively speaking, period of genetic isolation, when tribes of men were migrating and contained within geographical boundaries, which populations faced the least amount of environmental stressers and which the most?

It is said that the humans inhabiting Europe during the last Ice Age almost went extinct. Only a very few survived to pass on their genes...which ones?
Could it be the most capable, inventive, those that could innovate methods to survive in environmental conditions which the human body had not evolved to cope with?
This was a stresser which forced an evolutionary leap, a "fit and start", which overcame the slower to adapt physical form which used a natural selection process that required decades to have an effect.

I know it is cruel and immoral, by modern standards, but I do not base my thinking on my emotions or what I prefer or how I was told things ought to be in a perfect "ideal world".

Satyr wrote:

Mike Strand wrote:I would say the latter (constantly evolving), based for example on new observations that don't fit the current theories. This leads to new hypotheses and new tests of them. According to T. Kuhn, this evolution occurs in fits and starts, as when there is turmoil or controversy in the scientific community over past tests, experiments, or theoretical constructs.

If this is so then these "fits and starts" must be triggered by environment; necessity being the mother of all invention.

The crocodile hasn't evolved much over hundreds of thousands of years because it did not have to - it was not stressed or forced to adapt or perish.
Now apply this to racial matters.

During that short, relatively speaking, period of genetic isolation, when tribes of men were migrating and contained within geographical boundaries, which populations faced the least amount of environmental stressers and which the most?

It is said that the humans inhabiting Europe during the last Ice Age almost went extinct. Only a very few survived to pass on their genes...which ones?
Could it be the most capable, inventive, those that could innovate methods to survive in environmental conditions which the human body had not evolved to cope with?
This was a stresser which forced an evolutionary leap, a "fit and start", which overcame the slower to adapt physical form which used a natural selection process that required decades to have an effect.

I know it is cruel and immoral, by modern standards, but I do not base my thinking on my emotions or what I prefer or how I was told things ought to be in a perfect "ideal world".

Every human alive today is the end result of a continuous unbroken line of organisms, stretching back billions of years, that survived to pass on their genes. We are all survivors.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Every human alive today is the end result of a continuous unbroken line of organisms, stretching back billions of years, that survived to pass on their genes. We are all survivors.

Excellent reasoning....therefore a bichon frise is a survivor like a wolf is....one in the forests and the wilds the other in the salons of well-off pretentious fucks with a few extra square feet they want to fill with an accessory that grovels and pants and loves them no matter what.

A perfect analogy, come to think of it.
One type tried and tested, the other manufactured by the minds of charlatans who then go on and teach the bichon frise that it is just as good as the wolf is, maybe better, because the wolf will bite their empty heads off whereas the tiny little tame, pooch will tolerate their kicks.

After all they can have sex and produce a hybrid, right?
And how proud the bichon frise would be, if it could think beyond licking its anus, to be coupled with a wolf, whereas the wolf would howl in shame.

Satyr wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Every human alive today is the end result of a continuous unbroken line of organisms, stretching back billions of years, that survived to pass on their genes. We are all survivors.

Excellent reasoning....therefore a bichon frise is a survivor like a wolf is....one in the forests and the wilds the other in the salons of well-off pretentious fucks with a few extra square feet they want to fill with an accessory that grovels and pants and loves them no matter what.

A perfect analogy, come to think of it.
One type tried and tested, the other manufactured by the minds of charlatans who then go on and teach the bichon frise that it is just as good as the wolf is, maybe better, because the wolf will bite their empty heads off whereas the tiny little tame, pooch will tolerate their kicks.

After all they can have sex and produce a hybrid, right?
And how proud the bichon frise would be, if it could think beyond licking its anus, to be coupled with a wolf, whereas the wolf would howl in shame.

I think bichon frises are probably the result of artificial human breeding.
What I said was perfectly true. Think about it. I wasn't making a judgement call.