What is science?

[robvalue]

(This is meant as a brief introduction and summary, not a detailed description. For more detail, please see: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method )

I have noticed that the word "science" is nearly as misunderstood as "atheist". And some people even think they mean the same thing, or that to accept one you must also accept the other.

This is my interpretation of science, put in a very simple way.

Science is really straightforward. It's a method. At its most basic, it's a method for distinguishing what is true from what is false. It is essential to have such a method, or else you can never make any meaningful decisions about anything, and must accept as true everything you are told.

The one and only method that has been demonstrated to work, time and time again, is the scientific method. It begins with this: applying reason and evidence. That's it. If you think it is anything more than this, on a fundamental level at least, you have misunderstood it.

Everyone uses this method all the time, they just don't even consciously realize it. Simple example:

I come to an elevator. I want to go to floor 3. There are 5 buttons, marked floor 1 to floor 5. I need to make a decisions about which button to press. How do I decide?

I look at what evidence I have. Say I have used this elevator hundreds of times before, and every time the button I pressed corresponded to the floor indicated. This is very strong evidence that this time, if I press button 3, it will take me to floor 3. I have no good reason to think it won't.

I could consider pressing another button. What if someone changed the wiring around? What if the buttons now stop the lift instead of getting it to move? What if the building collapses when I press button 3? What if 3 is now an unlucky number, so I should press another and hope I get to floor 3 anyhow?

These are all alternative claims. To each, I think what evidence there is. There is no evidence for any of them. So I reject them as useless.

It's that simple. If you didn't use science, you wouldn't be able to do anything at all. You'd be rooted to the spot, unable to make any decisions, because you have no way of choosing the best decision.

Exactly the same with religion. Someone brings me a book, any book, and tells me that it describes accurately real events. This book is a claim. It is not evidence. Nothing can be evidence for the truth of itself, or else you'd have to believe any claim which said it was true, which every claim does. I'd have to accept a piece of paper saying, "1+2=4. This is true. It's really true." Of course the author will say it's true, because that is his claim.

So I check the book against reality. I see if there are other sources of evidence which can either back up, or cast doubt on, the claims made in the book. If I find some, and the evidence is convincing, I can conclude the book is probably real. If there is poor or no evidence, I reject that the claim it is true. I'm not claiming that it is not true, it might be, just that it hasn't been demonstrated to be true. The scientist has no interest in or need to disprove claims that are made without evidence. There is an infinity of possible claims, and we only have a limited amount of time, so it makes sense only to focus on claims that have evidence.

You use this method all the time, regarding virtually anything. But you treat religion as a special case, and you'll accept either very poor evidence or indeed no evidence at all, a useless technique which has been marketed as "faith".

Faith is the very opposite of science. It's believing something even though you have no good reason to. And it's a method not used in any other area than religion. I think that tells you all you need to know.

Theists will often try to muddy the waters by saying that faith in the bible is the same as faith in me pressing button 3 to take me to floor 3. That's a totally dishonest tactic. Faith in casual terms, just means confidence. You have a good reason to believe something. In this case, the past has confirmed it every time. But religious faith is totally different. You believe something that you have no reason to think is true, other than someone says so.

Which is a problem. If you'd have bumped into another religion before your one, and if faith is a good way to learn truth, most likely you'd have developed faith in that religion. Then suddenly all the other religions are wrong, because you already have faith in one.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So, like, science isn't all those test tubes and Bunsen burners and electric dealies that go *zzzzzz* and stuff?

Boru

[Thumpalumpacus]

Science is not skepticism. Skepticism is a premise of science. It is built into the method. The reason why replicable results are preferred over unsubstantiated claims is because it soothes the skepticism of hard-nosed thinkers.

But science is much more than skepticism, and indeed, too much skepticism hamstrings scientific understanding. Wegener's theory of continental drift is a good example: skeptics asked "How could entire continents move?" Faced with no answer, the hypothesis was sidelined. Their question was fair; they weren't being too skeptical; but sometimes, the same skepticism that drives the scientific process also hampers it.

It's not that I disagree with the thrust of your post, Rob. I just thought that was fertile ground for discussion, too.

[robvalue]

Ok fair enough, thanks

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I made a small correction to accommodate this, do you think that's fair now? Maybe I'll just take it out.

I took it out, probably over complicating it. I thought they were pretty much the same, I'll check that out, cheers.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's just one opinion, bud ... as the other Americans wake up you'll have a shitstorm delivered to your doorstep, hopefully.

[robvalue]

Lol I'm sure, thanks Do you think I gave a good representation of science? I tried to write it myself rather than just crib off some website.

I tried not to get too carried away for fear people won't read it. But the logical conclusion of the method is that you have to make sure a claim is testable. Otherwise, you cannot find out anything about it, and the claim is useless.

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I added a qualifier that this is my simplistic interpretation. This is obviously aimed at people who misunderstand the very basics of science, and not at people who know more about it than me (everyone else on this board probably hehe).

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I added some more qualifiers to make it clear I'm only explaining the basics. I often see people talk about science as if it is some evil being, corrupting minds and spreading supposedly proven falsehoods. That's what I'm addressing

[Fidel_Castronaut]

This is real science. For all those theists out there that are so skeptical, watch and learn

[Alex K]

Nice intro -
One more thing I'd like to emphasize because you only mention it somewhat implicitely here

There is an infinity of possible claims, and we only have a limited amount of time, so it makes sense only to focus on claims that have evidence.

is the important idea that something like Occam's Razor should be in place - possibly justified through the use of Bayesian Statistics which informally tells us that the probability for a hypothesis should be lowered by additional assumptions. This is necessary in order to prevent that needlessly complicated explanations and unfalsifiable baggage pile on on the theoretical side, which would lead to a plethora of empirically indistinguishable baroque theories. This completely stifles understanding and usefulness. Of course, this is precisely where science collides with religion in a particularly subtle way, so we should discuss it further.

But science is much more than skepticism, and indeed, too much skepticism hamstrings scientific understanding. Wegener's theory of continental drift is a good example: skeptics asked "How could entire continents move?" Faced with no answer, the hypothesis was sidelined. Their question was fair; they weren't being too skeptical; but sometimes, the same skepticism that drives the scientific process also hampers it.

It is true that skepticism towards specific claims can be exaggerated out of prejudice. In the end though, I wonder - if they had had low enough standards back then to immediately accept Wegeners idea (of course, not knowing like we do in hindsight that Wegener was right), how many other false ideas would have crept in and muddied the science completely? Maybe Wegener was an unfortunate victim of a necessary precaution. Of course, maybe it was simply sociology and politics which hindered the deserved acceptance - lard knows I've seen how the scientific communities are prone to all kinds of human weaknesses such as following trends or being jealous of new ideas or overly conservative at times.

[polar bear]

I agree with you. Faith is ever changing to fit what science has proven beyond a reasonable doubt. People where jailed when they said the earth revolved around the sun or was not flat. Now religion accepts that fact. Now we see them "evolving" again with intelligent design. Not so long ago, evolution was no way acceptable, now they say that it is but god plays a role in it...ok?

On the other hand science only changes when a belief (hypothesis) is proven to be false. Science doesn't stop and say well I believe it (faith) so it has to be right, rather it says, lets try to find out the truth based on facts.

It is much harder to apply science because you have to admit you are wrong when the facts present themselves different from what you believe at the time. Faith on the other hand requires no change of mind until years of proof show how foolish it is to hold on the their belief.

[Alex K]

It is much harder to apply science because you have to admit you are wrong when the facts present themselves different from what you believe at the time. Faith on the other hand requires no change of mind until years of proof show how foolish it is to hold on the their belief.

I had a discussion with a physics crackpot the other day who tried to convince me of his fringe ideas about gravity or some such nonsense, and I once again realized how lazy their state of mind is. Doing real science correctly is a damn nightmare, because almost all of your brilliant ideas are wrong or even inconsistent after further analysis, and you not only have to live with that but even by yourself do the hard work of proving yourself wrong, weeding out tons of ideas before even writing down your first hypothesis for others to see. Imagine being in a framework such as conspiracy theory or theology, where there is no such mechanism of quality control - you immediately get lazy and pile on unchecked nonsense.