Questioning Scientific Titans

[ScepticOrganism]

Hey everyone,

So I was discussing with my gf today Archimedes's famous term "Eureka!", and how it came to be. I told her that he basically came up with a way to make it so that large heavy ships don't drown.

At a certain point she said that there is this flaw, and that flaw in that theory, and "wouldn't it be easier to do this and that?". At which point I became "triggered", I started acting like a bible thumping Christian saying "how dare you question Archimedes!!"

I also told her that "we're bent to the bias of the vintage point of our own history, so you can't really act like you would have figured it out in his time". And that she needed to have deep scientific knowledge about many scientific disciplines in order to properly gauge, or even say that there were "flaws" with his theory.

And to her credit, she admitted that the word flaw might not have been the most appropriate term. She's also quite the mathematician, she's even the top student in our uni. At any rate, I felt bad afterwards, because I felt like I was some kind of "extremest".

I guess my point is, or rather my question is; at which point do we become allowed to freely flaunt terms like "flaw" and whatnot at scientists and even some theories?

[The Grand Nudger]

At any point, any time.

[Aoi Magi]

The best thing about science is it being falsifiable, so anyone, even a toddler with no actual scientific understanding can look at it and find flaws. Whether that flaw is valid or not is a different question altogether.

[Veritas_Vincit]

I think the key difference between Science and Religion is that science actively looks for mistakes, it constantly asks itself "What if I'm wrong?"

By contrast, religion is the complete opposite, it advocates faith (IE belief without evidence, aka gullibility) and uses affirmations to keep it's head firmly in the sand.

[ScepticOrganism]

At any point, any time.

I wonder though, don't you find it a bit "arrogant" when someone questions a theory that has been proven to be correct already? specifically the principle of buoyancy? Like imagine someone questioning the theory of evolution, I would lose it in a matter of seconds. I wouldn't even bare staying in the same room with that person, I would simply excuse myself from the conversation...

The best thing about science is it being falsifiable, so anyone, even a toddler with no actual scientific understanding can look at it and find flaws. Whether that flaw is valid or not is a different question altogether.

I totally agree!! That's why science will always be much "humbler" than religion ever will. I just find it arrogant when someone tries to disprove something that has already been proven to be perfectly applicable. I blame myself for not being armed with the right arguments at the time.

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I think the key difference between Science and Religion is that science actively looks for mistakes, it constantly asks itself "What if I'm wrong?"

By contrast, religion is the complete opposite, it advocates faith (IE belief without evidence, aka gullibility) and uses affirmations to keep it's head firmly in the sand.

I perfectly agree! I guess I just went a bit too far this time.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wonder though, don't you find it a bit "arrogant" when someone questions a theory that has been proven to be correct already? specifically the principle of buoyancy? Like imagine someone question the theory of evolution, I would lose it in a matter of seconds. I wouldn't even bare staying in the same room with that person, I would simply excuse myself from the conversation...

I'm not sure it's applicable, in that science isn;t in the proving business, to begin with - and we -do- science by  questioning theories.  Questioning the various theories surrounding evolution is exactly -how- we ended up with such a successful theory.  I suppose it takes patience, in some cases, to have that sort of conversation....but if you don't have it then it's probably for the best to recuse one's self.

[Aoi Magi]

The best thing about science is it being falsifiable, so anyone, even a toddler with no actual scientific understanding can look at it and find flaws. Whether that flaw is valid or not is a different question altogether.

I totally agree!! That's why science will always be much "humbler" than religion ever will. I just find it arrogant when someone tries to disprove something that has already been proven to be perfectly applicable. I blame myself for not being armed with the right arguments at the time.

If you did that, and I'm sorry to say this but I'd consider you a bigot. I actually prefer people who put thought and effort in disproving established theories including evolution. Just because there's a plethora of evidence doesn't mean a theory isn't flawed. And compared to you or me who have accepted that theory, someone who knows next to nothing about the theory has a much better chance at finding that flaw. Sometimes knowledge limits us from seeing the possibilities, which the imagination of a child can, so why get annoyed? Maybe you are not annoyed at them but at yourself for not being able to explain why or how they are mistaken?

[ScepticOrganism]

I wonder though, don't you find it a bit "arrogant" when someone questions a theory that has been proven to be correct already? specifically the principle of buoyancy? Like imagine someone question the theory of evolution, I would lose it in a matter of seconds. I wouldn't even bare staying in the same room with that person, I would simply excuse myself from the conversation...

I'm not sure it's applicable, in that science isn;t in the proving business, to begin with - and we -do- science by  questioning theories.  Questioning the various theories surrounding evolution is exactly -how- we ended up with such a successful theory.  I suppose it takes patience, in some cases, to have that sort of conversation....but if you don't have it then it's probably for the best to recuse one's self.

I totally agree!! That's why science will always be much "humbler" than religion ever will. I just find it arrogant when someone tries to disprove something that has already been proven to be perfectly applicable. I blame myself for not being armed with the right arguments at the time.

If you did that, and I'm sorry to say this but I'd consider you a bigot. I actually prefer people who put thought and effort in disproving established theories including evolution. Just because there's a plethora of evidence doesn't mean a theory isn't flawed. And compared to you or me who have accepted that theory, someone who knows next to nothing about the theory has a much better chance at finding that flaw. Sometimes knowledge limits us from seeing the possibilities, which the imagination of a child can, so why get annoyed? Maybe you are not annoyed at them but at yourself for not being able to explain why or how they are mistaken?

I suppose in some ways I am a bigot. I tend to look at things a tad bit too linearly at times, so I should broaden up the way I view things, and keep my childish "triggers" in check.

[Alex K]

The fame of persons behind scientific theories is irrelevant. All good theories stand on their own. Questioning authorities - and theories - is crucial if you want to make important contributions in science. If you ask scientists working at or with the Large Hadron Collider data, they will probably tell you that their job is to poke holes into the Standard Model of particle physics.

Now, if you would like to question the law of buoyancy, it depends on what aspect of it exactly you want to question. Same with evolution. Your criticism has to ne well founded and reasoned, and if you criticise some technical aspect, you need to understand it. Otherwise, it's just embarrassing Crackpottery.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Here's how I view it: this is less a problem about science and scientists and more a problem about science history. It's really easy (or should be really easy) for any high schooler today to point out a billion flaws in the work or methods of the ancient Greeks, middle-ages scholars, Renaissance thinkers, 18th/19th century biologists and doctors, 19th/20th century physicists... But that's completely missing the point. When told of how someone did something ingenious (but flawed) for the first time (Archimedes, Euclid, Darwin, Bohr, whoever), the appropriate focus (at least from a lay perspective) is not on the difference between how that person did it then and how we do it today, but on the difference between how everyone else did it then (or, perhaps, how no one had ever done it then) and how the scientist made the breakthrough that got science and humanity so much closer than they had been before. Conversely, when someone points out flaws/inefficiencies in those sorts of breakthroughs, it's probably best not to deny or minimize the flaw/inefficiency but instead to explain it in historical perspective and show why it was amazing that the scientist got as far as he did when the tools (both tangible and intellectual) available at the time were a fraction of what we take for granted today (and try to use our understanding of those things to find flaws in our own theories and build even better ones).