Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 9:04 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
#81
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 16, 2022 at 11:00 am)GrandizerII Wrote:
(January 16, 2022 at 10:02 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: As Steven Novella said "There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?"

Dot points:


People, namely scientists, conduct science. Science does not conduct itself.

Scientists, being people, can sometimes fail at using logic properly to evaluate results. They can also end up doing very shoddy research.

Subjectivity plays an inevitable role when interpreting results and determining conclusions. And as such, biases are at play as well.

Politics itself is certainly at play when it comes to conducting science (e.g., grant providers funding only selective topics for research depending on certain ideological views).

Science has known limitations.

Your view of science (and Steven's view of science) sounds quite ideological to me.

I am going to turn this into Science vs Religion.
Also, the word ideology has a negative connotation for me.
I looked at the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Are you guys going with definition 1a?
1a. manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture

I suppose with that definition, science is an idealogy but so is just about everything, such as taking a shower.

===================================
1. That’s true. Science does not conduct itself. It isn’t an entity with a brain.
The goal of science is to understand nature, which means that science is done by entities with a brain.

ALSO, science is an open system.
Anyone can join in. Anyone can buy the equipment, chemicals, computers and redo a previously done experiment or try something new.
Anyone can go to university and study and then get a job doing research.

Religion is a closed system. Anyone can read the “holy” text but the “gods” are not going to just talk to anyone.
There are no “religion” scientists. Nothing new and of value comes from the religion side.
There is no experiment that we can perform, unless if you want to try to tell a mountain to get up and walk. The problem with that is that you need to have sufficient faith in order for that to work. How do we measure “faith”? Where can I buy a faith-o-meter?
In other words, there is no useful experiment that we can perform. It will always fail. No mountain is going to get up and walk around.

2. Yes, individual scientists can fail but since it is an open system, anyone can verify their work (peer review) and it can be done at any time, today, tomorrow, in 100 y.
Any scientists who commits a fraud eventually gets discovered.

Religion: How can we verify if a guy is really the son of a god?
How can we verify that a prophet is really talking to a god?
How can we verify that some guy, 2000 y ago, brought dead people to life? It happened too long ago during a period where everyone is superstitious. There were no reputable news paper agencies, no reputable scientific organizations.

Once again, science is verifiable and religion is not.

3. Yes, that is true. This is like #2.

4. Yes, that is true. Science costs money. If you are doing pure research, then you are most likely not going to produce some “product”. Companies are not going to pay you to do pure research. They want a marketable product. For example, the semiconductor industry will pay you to find a way to make the gate of field effect transistors thinner.

The only entity that can fund pure research is the government. NASA is one example. ROSCOSMOS is another example - the russian space agency. JAXA, the japanese space agency. CNSA - China National Space Administration.

5. That’s normal.
We can’t time travel to the past and verify certain things such as during the time period that coal formed. We use logic + evidence to fill in the gaps of our knowledge.
We can’t dig to the center of the Earth. We use logic + evidence to fill in the gaps of our knowledge.

We could also claim that space aliens came and put the coal there or put life on Earth, but that has no particular value in the domain of science because it does not explain the mechanism of coal formation. Space alien stories belong in the domain of sci-fi.
Replace the words “space aliens” with gods, and the story goes to the religion section.
Reply
#82
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 16, 2022 at 11:00 am)GrandizerII Wrote:
(January 16, 2022 at 10:02 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: As Steven Novella said "There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?"

Dot points:


People, namely scientists, conduct science. Science does not conduct itself.

Scientists, being people, can sometimes fail at using logic properly to evaluate results. They can also end up doing very shoddy research.

Subjectivity plays an inevitable role when interpreting results and determining conclusions. And as such, biases are at play as well.

Politics itself is certainly at play when it comes to conducting science (e.g., grant providers funding only selective topics for research depending on certain ideological views).

Science has known limitations.

Your view of science (and Steven's view of science) sounds quite ideological to me.

First, its wonderful to see there are others on this forum who appreciate Dr. Novella and, I assume, The Skeptics guide.

Second.  Yes, you are correct that science include subjectivity because it includes people.  But the scientific modality has built in peer review processes that balance an check that subjectivity.

No, politics shouldn't influence scientific research, but it often does because people insist on injecting their ideologies into science.  Case in point, GW Bush supported a ban on genetics research that used aborted featuses.  That was a political decision, not a scientific one.  And it was rooted in religion, which makes it even worse.

Science is simply the best and most reliable way of learning and understanding the universe.  More so than any other form of human endeavor.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
Reply
#83
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 16, 2022 at 11:51 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:
GrandizerII Wrote:People, namely scientists, conduct science. Science does not conduct itself.

Scientists, being people, can sometimes fail at using logic properly to evaluate results. They can also end up doing very shoddy research.

Sure, scientist can make a mistake and be biased in his research, but that is where many other scientists come in and test his claims and make scientific consensus, so that in the end science is objective.

Yeah, that's a bit of a fantasy, though. This may be your hope or expectation of science, but science isn't necessarily self-correcting or objective, and it certainly isn't omniscient (as I've heard some people like to say).

Like I said earlier, there are known limitations to science. See Thomas Kuhn and his notion of paradigm shift. Simplistically speaking, there is a specific framework in which scientists operate that makes it very difficult for new radical ideas to be readily embraced (even if they end up being true). There's often quite some resistance to these ideas (at least at the start). As such, it is more reasonable to say that scientists, collectively speaking, do not automatically opt to correcting errors made by any one individual scientist or erroneous positions held by the consensus. Certain circumstances need to occur first because these radical (but true) ideas become accepted within the scientific community.

There are also gaps in our knowledge that we may never be able to fill through science. For example, the hard problem of consciousness. To this point, despite many attempts, it has been very difficult to find a proper starting point to solving this problem scientifically. See also the gap between relativity and quantum. Additionally, see the many interpretations of quantum mechanics taken seriously within the scientific community (Copenhagen vs MWI for example), hard to see any consensus there in the foreseeable future.

More relevantly, putting aside whether science is truly self-correcting or objective or even omniscient (as some people elsewhere have said!), the statements that you (and others) have made about science do reflect an ideology. One that is often politically-driven and unshakable. How many times have atheists (for example) used science as a weapon to combat opposing philosophies and claims made by religious people? Do you see yourselves eventually thinking that evidence is more than just physical evidence, that maybe you should start taking the idea of revelation seriously? That maybe this world doesn't necessarily behave in a natural way (as in the laws of nature do not operate in a consistent manner)?

I certainly don't take revelation seriously and set a high bar for what constitutes evidence. And I don't mind saying that I hold to an ideology when it comes to my views of the world and the way it generally operates (including that science is the best way to attain conclusive knowledge about selective aspects of the world, despite its limitations). We shouldn't be so averse to the term, and we needn't feel so insecure if our views are compared to those of religious folks and called ideological views just like theirs.
Reply
#84
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 16, 2022 at 8:52 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:
(January 16, 2022 at 11:51 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Sure, scientist can make a mistake and be biased in his research, but that is where many other scientists come in and test his claims and make scientific consensus, so that in the end science is objective.

Yeah, that's a bit of a fantasy, though. This may be your hope or expectation of science, but science isn't necessarily self-correcting or objective, and it certainly isn't omniscient (as I've heard some people like to say).

Like I said earlier, there are known limitations to science. See Thomas Kuhn and his notion of paradigm shift. Simplistically speaking, there is a specific framework in which scientists operate that makes it very difficult for new radical ideas to be readily embraced (even if they end up being true). There's often quite some resistance to these ideas (at least at the start). As such, it is more reasonable to say that scientists, collectively speaking, do not automatically opt to correcting errors made by any one individual scientist or erroneous positions held by the consensus. Certain circumstances need to occur first because these radical (but true) ideas become accepted within the scientific community.

First, Kuhn's analysis of the Copernican revolution shows how little he knows about the evidence that was available at the time. And, frankly, this paragraph shows the same thing.

The first, most important part is that we *cannot* know whether a particular result is the result of experimental error, incorrect predictions from a theory, or that the theory itself has problems. So, we should not expect there to be 'automatic' error correction--it is impossible without a good deal of evidence what the error actually is.

In the case of the Copernican revolution, the actual evidence in support of the new position simply wasn't available until Galileo and Kepler did their investigations. So we would not *want* the scientists at the time to automatically go for the Copernican system, especially since it ended up (in the version Copernicus gave) being more complicated than the Ptolemaic system.

But, for example, look at the development that happened after the Michelson Morley experiment. A number of different proposals were made, from questioning he results of the experiment itself to aspects related to the ether and possible length contractions. This was all before Einstein submitted his proposal (which was in line with some of the other theoretical work previously). Once a good theory was found, the shift happened fairly quickly because the evidence was already there.

In comparison, quantum mechanics took decades between the first realization that the plum-pudding model of the atom couldn't work (because of the existence of the nucleus) to the realization that electrons, say, have a wave aspect. This involved heated debates on all sides with evidence proposed, questioned, and explanation proposed and debated.

If you expect that working science expects to reject a consensus view and adopt another view quickly, then you misunderstand how science *should* work. It *should* be a process of figuring out what from the old system works, what the different possibilities are for a new system, weighing the evidence and figuring out if it is mistaken (which often happens), etc.

Quote:There are also gaps in our knowledge that we may never be able to fill through science. For example, the hard problem of consciousness. To this point, despite many attempts, it has been very difficult to find a proper starting point to solving this problem scientifically. See also the gap between relativity and quantum. Additionally, see the many interpretations of quantum mechanics taken seriously within the scientific community (Copenhagen vs MWI for example), hard to see any consensus there in the foreseeable future.

Many doubt that there even *is* a 'hard' problem of consciousness. And the 'soft' problem is being worked on with major advances in process. The different interpretations of QM are mostly philosophical rot. The theory itself is very clear about what it predicts and the observations agree with it. Anything else is probably useless metaphysics.

Quote:More relevantly, putting aside whether science is truly self-correcting or objective or even omniscient (as some people elsewhere have said!), the statements that you (and others) have made about science do reflect an ideology. One that is often politically-driven and unshakable. How many times have atheists (for example) used science as a weapon to combat opposing philosophies and claims made by religious people? Do you see yourselves eventually thinking that evidence is more than just physical evidence, that maybe you should start taking the idea of revelation seriously? That maybe this world doesn't necessarily behave in a natural way (as in the laws of nature do not operate in a consistent manner)?

I'll be more than happy to take revelation seriously when it gives testable predictions of sufficient detail that is can be taken seriously. if you want to propose non-physical evidence, please present it in a way that leads to testable predictions that can be tested via public observations.

I'm not sure who has said that science is omniscient. It is *by far* the best way to eliminate falsehoods that we have found. Simple logical consistency is very far from being sufficient.

Quote:I certainly don't take revelation seriously and set a high bar for what constitutes evidence. And I don't mind saying that I hold to an ideology when it comes to my views of the world and the way it generally operates (including that science is the best way to attain conclusive knowledge about selective aspects of the world, despite its limitations). We shouldn't be so averse to the term, and we needn't feel so insecure if our views are compared to those of religious folks and called ideological views just like theirs.

Agreed. There is an aspect of ideology, but I would argue that it is more the cautious aspect of science that frustrates people than the fact that it actually reaches conclusions eventually.
Reply
#85
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 16, 2022 at 8:52 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:
(January 16, 2022 at 11:51 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Sure, scientist can make a mistake and be biased in his research, but that is where many other scientists come in and test his claims and make scientific consensus, so that in the end science is objective.

Yeah, that's a bit of a fantasy, though. This may be your hope or expectation of science, but science isn't necessarily self-correcting or objective, and it certainly isn't omniscient (as I've heard some people like to say).

Like I said earlier, there are known limitations to science. See Thomas Kuhn and his notion of paradigm shift. Simplistically speaking, there is a specific framework in which scientists operate that makes it very difficult for new radical ideas to be readily embraced (even if they end up being true). There's often quite some resistance to these ideas (at least at the start). As such, it is more reasonable to say that scientists, collectively speaking, do not automatically opt to correcting errors made by any one individual scientist or erroneous positions held by the consensus. Certain circumstances need to occur first because these radical (but true) ideas become accepted within the scientific community.

There are also gaps in our knowledge that we may never be able to fill through science. For example, the hard problem of consciousness. To this point, despite many attempts, it has been very difficult to find a proper starting point to solving this problem scientifically. See also the gap between relativity and quantum. Additionally, see the many interpretations of quantum mechanics taken seriously within the scientific community (Copenhagen vs MWI for example), hard to see any consensus there in the foreseeable future.

More relevantly, putting aside whether science is truly self-correcting or objective or even omniscient (as some people elsewhere have said!), the statements that you (and others) have made about science do reflect an ideology. One that is often politically-driven and unshakable. How many times have atheists (for example) used science as a weapon to combat opposing philosophies and claims made by religious people? Do you see yourselves eventually thinking that evidence is more than just physical evidence, that maybe you should start taking the idea of revelation seriously? That maybe this world doesn't necessarily behave in a natural way (as in the laws of nature do not operate in a consistent manner)?

I certainly don't take revelation seriously and set a high bar for what constitutes evidence. And I don't mind saying that I hold to an ideology when it comes to my views of the world and the way it generally operates (including that science is the best way to attain conclusive knowledge about selective aspects of the world, despite its limitations). We shouldn't be so averse to the term, and we needn't feel so insecure if our views are compared to those of religious folks and called ideological views just like theirs.

What are you asking for? You want all resistance to be removed?
Which circumstances must occur?

Personally, I doubt that the hard problem of consciousness would be solved.

The gap between relativity and QM is an indicator that the current theories that we have are just models. The models are sufficient to explain a wide range of situations. Since they are able to explain and have predictive power, these models are considered good and usable.
They are not going to get eliminated just like classical physics has not been eliminated. These things are just models and work well under certain circumstances and that is why we keep them and use them.

One example that is still used is the localized electron bonding model (LE model). It is a simple concept and very successful at predicting which electrons are lone pairs and which electrons participate in bonding. From that, chemist deduce the properties of compounds.
The problem is that it relies on the octet rule and so, it does not work in the case of BF3. The Boron in BF3 ends up with 6 bonding electrons. Apparently, Boron has an orbital that is empty. You can draw the molecule such that it obeys the octet rule but this does not match experimental evidence. The bond length B-F are all the same length. Also, BF3 is a very reactive compound, it behaves as a electrophile (This has to do with the empty orbital).

Quote:One that is often politically-driven and unshakable. How many times have atheists (for example) used science as a weapon to combat opposing philosophies and claims made by religious people?

That’s normal. With science, we extract information from nature.
Science contradicts the Bible quite a number of times.
So, when the Bible says that a star was floating above the manger of Jesus, it is something that we have to object to. It is an indication that primitive people thought that stars are little dots on a dome shaped firmament.
When the Bible says that stars will fall down like leaves, again, it is an indication that primitive people thought that stars are little dots on a dome shaped firmament.

Back to your line
“even if they end up being true”

Science is always tentative. We just keep on refining the models that we have.
We can be very certain of certain things. Stars are not little light bulbs on a dome. Ancient humans didn’t know much about the universe and the Bible reflects it.
Reply
#86
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 16, 2022 at 10:17 pm)polymath257 Wrote: First, Kuhn's analysis of the Copernican revolution shows how little he knows about the evidence that was available at the time. And, frankly, this paragraph shows the same thing.

The first, most important part is that we *cannot* know whether a particular result is the result of experimental error, incorrect predictions from a theory, or that the theory itself has problems. So, we should not expect there to be 'automatic' error correction--it is impossible without a good deal of evidence what the error actually is.

In the case of the Copernican revolution, the actual evidence in support of the new position simply wasn't available until Galileo and Kepler did their investigations. So we would not *want* the scientists at the time to automatically go for the Copernican system, especially since it ended up (in the version Copernicus gave) being more complicated than the Ptolemaic system.

But, for example, look at the development that happened after the Michelson Morley experiment. A number of different proposals were made, from questioning he results of the experiment itself to aspects related to the ether and possible length contractions. This was all before Einstein submitted his proposal (which was in line with some of the other theoretical work previously). Once a good theory was found, the shift happened fairly quickly because the evidence was already there.

In comparison, quantum mechanics took decades between the first realization that the plum-pudding model of the atom couldn't work (because of the existence of the nucleus) to the realization that electrons, say, have a wave aspect. This involved heated debates on all sides with evidence proposed, questioned, and explanation proposed and debated.

If you expect that working science expects to reject a consensus view and adopt another view quickly, then you misunderstand how science *should* work. It *should* be a process of figuring out what from the old system works, what the different possibilities are for a new system, weighing the evidence and figuring out if it is mistaken (which often happens), etc.

I certainly don't expect scientific consensus to take on an alternative view quickly. On the contrary.

My point (which you have partially reinforced with these paragraphs) is that science is very messy in real life. It's not one rigid and flawless method by which we can efficiently separate correct views from incorrect views. It often takes years, decades, perhaps even centuries for radical ideas to be embraced by the scientific community.

Where we part ways here is you think this is primarily because of insufficient evidence, whereas I think there's more to the story than that. I think human beings, scientists or not, are naturally resistant to new ideas that pose a threat to the worldviews they hold dear to and it therefore takes time to dismantle strongly held erroneous views, even if sufficient evidence was immediately presented and evaluated. Even in the example you brought up regarding the Michelson Morley experiment, we see there was initial opposition to the results of that experiment. Certain circumstances, however, did lead to scientific community widely accepting the results years or decades later.

Quote:Many doubt that there even *is* a 'hard' problem of consciousness. And the 'soft' problem is being worked on with major advances in process. The different interpretations of QM are mostly philosophical rot. The theory itself is very clear about what it predicts and the observations agree with it. Anything else is probably useless metaphysics.

Yeah, I don't know why some doubt there is a hard problem of consciousness, but the fact is no one has been able to scientifically show how the physiological translates to the phenomenological (or in the case of illusionists, to the appearance of the phenomenological). So whether you doubt there is a problem or not, the challenge remains.

I disagree that QM interpretations are mostly philosophical rot, and consider some of them to be different scientific (or science-based) stances on QM. Besides, surely, you must hold to some interpretation of QM (even if it's just the Copenhagen one). Otherwise, it's basically a "shut up and just do the maths" stance which isn't a stance that reflects much intellectual curiosity and appears to imply that science does have its limitations.

Quote:I'll be more than happy to take revelation seriously when it gives testable predictions of sufficient detail that is can be taken seriously. if you want to propose non-physical evidence, please present it in a way that leads to testable predictions that can be tested via public observations.

If it's non-physical, I'm not sure that's possible. But look, that's part of the ideology you hold to, so that's fair.

Quote:Agreed. There is an aspect of ideology, but I would argue that it is more the cautious aspect of science that frustrates people than the fact that it actually reaches conclusions eventually.

To be honest, I think what frustrates people as well is that people who hold to an idealized view of science often appear to have a blindness to the philosophical positions upon which science is based, positions which cannot be justified via science itself. All the while decrying those who do make claims not justified by science and referring to them as "useless metaphysics" or some such.
Reply
#87
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
@GrandizerII Which philosophical positions are you referring to here? I’m not being snarky; just enjoying the discussion and looking for a bit more clarity with regard to that last bit.
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”

Wiser words were never spoken. 
Reply
#88
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 2:58 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: @GrandizerII Which philosophical positions are you referring to here? I’m not being snarky; just enjoying the discussion and looking for a bit more clarity with regard to that last bit.

Well, science isn't really one thing, but varies depending on the field one conducts science in. So there may be slightly different answers to this question depending on which field we're talking about (physics vs. psychology, for example).

But simplistically speaking:

A blend of mild forms of empiricism and rationalism + a mild form of falsificationism + uniformity of the laws of nature + the reality of the external world and some other epistemological and metaphysical views that I can't think of off the top of my head now. There might also be some ethical position(s) underpinning the scientific method, but dunno.
Reply
#89
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 1:07 am)GrandizerII Wrote: Yeah, I don't know why some doubt there is a hard problem of consciousness, but the fact is no one has been able to scientifically show how the physiological translates to the phenomenological (or in the case of illusionists, to the appearance of the phenomenological). So whether you doubt there is a problem or not, the challenge remains.
 
Ish.  People have posited ways that it could, phenomenological reports are one of the consequences of control based theories.  Simply put, there are people who doubt that the hard problem is a problem because they think it might be influenced by our inaccurate views or beliefs about consciousness, about ourselves - and, ofc, because higher order representation doesn't actually leave any room for a hard problem.

No one believes that there's a machine hard problem, for example.  That if we had the schems for a machine which produced the article or the report, we would still be in the dark as to how it was accomplished. Probably a good example of how ideology and conceptualization can effect how we think about science.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#90
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 1:07 am)GrandizerII Wrote:
(January 16, 2022 at 10:17 pm)polymath257 Wrote: First, Kuhn's analysis of the Copernican revolution shows how little he knows about the evidence that was available at the time. And, frankly, this paragraph shows the same thing.

The first, most important part is that we *cannot* know whether a particular result is the result of experimental error, incorrect predictions from a theory, or that the theory itself has problems. So, we should not expect there to be 'automatic' error correction--it is impossible without a good deal of evidence what the error actually is.

In the case of the Copernican revolution, the actual evidence in support of the new position simply wasn't available until Galileo and Kepler did their investigations. So we would not *want* the scientists at the time to automatically go for the Copernican system, especially since it ended up (in the version Copernicus gave) being more complicated than the Ptolemaic system.

But, for example, look at the development that happened after the Michelson Morley experiment. A number of different proposals were made, from questioning he results of the experiment itself to aspects related to the ether and possible length contractions. This was all before Einstein submitted his proposal (which was in line with some of the other theoretical work previously). Once a good theory was found, the shift happened fairly quickly because the evidence was already there.

In comparison, quantum mechanics took decades between the first realization that the plum-pudding model of the atom couldn't work (because of the existence of the nucleus) to the realization that electrons, say, have a wave aspect. This involved heated debates on all sides with evidence proposed, questioned, and explanation proposed and debated.

If you expect that working science expects to reject a consensus view and adopt another view quickly, then you misunderstand how science *should* work. It *should* be a process of figuring out what from the old system works, what the different possibilities are for a new system, weighing the evidence and figuring out if it is mistaken (which often happens), etc.

I certainly don't expect scientific consensus to take on an alternative view quickly. On the contrary.

My point (which you have partially reinforced with these paragraphs) is that science is very messy in real life. It's not one rigid and flawless method by which we can efficiently separate correct views from incorrect views. It often takes years, decades, perhaps even centuries for radical ideas to be embraced by the scientific community.

And I think that is as it should be. There *should* be skepticism of the new ideas as well as skepticism of the old. If the old ideas have worked well (and that is usually the case), there *should* be some inertia in transitioning to new ideas. At the very least, an evaluation of what can be salvaged from the old ideas and how the translation process to the new ideas works needs to be done.

Quote:Where we part ways here is you think this is primarily because of insufficient evidence, whereas I think there's more to the story than that. I think human beings, scientists or not, are naturally resistant to new ideas that pose a threat to the worldviews they hold dear to and it therefore takes time to dismantle strongly held erroneous views, even if sufficient evidence was immediately presented and evaluated. Even in the example you brought up regarding the Michelson Morley experiment, we see there was initial opposition to the results of that experiment. Certain circumstances, however, did lead to scientific community widely accepting the results years or decades later.

And that is also how it should be. At the very least, the experiment has to be repeated under a variety of circumstances to see whether it is valid and how it holds up. There was an example with neutrino experiments recently where the observed speed of the neutrinos was faster than that of light. The scientists themselves didn't believe their results, which if true would have been revolutionary. It was found that a coil of wires slightly increased the distance that the light traveled, leading to a false speed for the light.

This sort of thing happens *all the time*. People, being human, make mistakes. Sometimes experiments are not done with sufficient care. Sometimes a hidden magnet can mess things up. The first thing that most scientists say when they get an anomalous result is ask where they made a mistake. And, if you actually read papers announcing discoveries, a good deal of the time is looking at various alternative explanations of the results.

Again, this is as it should be..

But there is more. The way a scientist can make their name is by proposing a new set of ideas that is testable *and passes the tests*. So while there may well be inertia on the part of the older scientists, there is most definitely not on the part of the younger ones. I would also claim that the older ones are as interested in figuring out what is actually going on and are, perhaps, more open to new ideas than you might suspect.

So, accepting the results years or decades later is *precisely* what should be expected from a subject that is self-critical at every stage. new ideas are considered. if there is not enough evidence, they are still discussed, even if not accepted, and once new evidence or a better formulation comes along, the shift is often quite fast. I can give multiple examples.

Quote:
Quote:Many doubt that there even *is* a 'hard' problem of consciousness. And the 'soft' problem is being worked on with major advances in process. The different interpretations of QM are mostly philosophical rot. The theory itself is very clear about what it predicts and the observations agree with it. Anything else is probably useless metaphysics.

Yeah, I don't know why some doubt there is a hard problem of consciousness, but the fact is no one has been able to scientifically show how the physiological translates to the phenomenological (or in the case of illusionists, to the appearance of the phenomenological). So whether you doubt there is a problem or not, the challenge remains.

Oh, I agree that there is a *soft* problem of consciousness: determining the neural correlates of experiences. But, I don't see a 'hard' problem. Once we find those correlates between neural activity and reported experiences, I think we have solved the problem of consciousness.

Quote:I disagree that QM interpretations are mostly philosophical rot, and consider some of them to be different scientific (or science-based) stances on QM. Besides, surely, you must hold to some interpretation of QM (even if it's just the Copenhagen one). Otherwise, it's basically a "shut up and just do the maths" stance which isn't a stance that reflects much intellectual curiosity and appears to imply that science does have its limitations.

And this is where I think you are wrong. ALL of the interpretations lead to exactly the same predictions about observations. ALL of them will give the exact same answer for the energy difference between orbitals in an atom, or the correlation between measurements of entangled particles. And the fact that they do, in fact, give *exactly* the same results is *why(* it is philosophical rot.

Now, it may be possible that one or the other interpretations will lead to an *extension* of QM in a testable way and that is one reason scientists (as opposed to philosophers) keep thinking about the alternatives.

Quote:
Quote:I'll be more than happy to take revelation seriously when it gives testable predictions of sufficient detail that is can be taken seriously. if you want to propose non-physical evidence, please present it in a way that leads to testable predictions that can be tested via public observations.

If it's non-physical, I'm not sure that's possible. But look, that's part of the ideology you hold to, so that's fair.

The ideology is that any theory has to have testable predictions that can be publicly verified. If that cannot be done, you aren't doing science, you are doing metaphysics.

Quote:
Quote:Agreed. There is an aspect of ideology, but I would argue that it is more the cautious aspect of science that frustrates people than the fact that it actually reaches conclusions eventually.

To be honest, I think what frustrates people as well is that people who hold to an idealized view of science often appear to have a blindness to the philosophical positions upon which science is based, positions which cannot be justified via science itself. All the while decrying those who do make claims not justified by science and referring to them as "useless metaphysics" or some such.

Scientists have found that the philosophical issues tend to not give testable predictions. Instead, they tend to say how things 'must be' when actual evidence says otherwise. In general, it isn't blindness as much as the realization that the philosophy goes nowhere.

A good example is QM, where the actual theory is probabilistic and not deterministic or causal (in the classical sense). Most of the interpretations come from attempting to reconcile classical metaphysics with modern physics. But that is a problem: we *know* that classical metaphysics is wrong *because* we have actual experiments showing that QM works. What we need is a new metaphysics that isn't based on classical realism or idealism. but instead takes into account the discoveries of physics over the last century,
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Why are Christians so full of hate? I_am_not_mafia 183 16874 October 18, 2018 at 7:50 am
Last Post: Fake Messiah
  Tell All Book Says Pat Robertson Full of Shit Minimalist 12 3521 September 29, 2017 at 3:51 pm
Last Post: Atheist73
  No Surprise, Here. Xtians Are Full of Shit. Minimalist 5 1186 August 4, 2017 at 12:31 am
Last Post: ComradeMeow
  Orthodox Christianity is Best Christianity! Annoyingbutnicetheist 30 6746 January 26, 2016 at 10:44 pm
Last Post: ignoramus
  Heaven is full of tapeworms Brakeman 15 4504 August 13, 2015 at 10:23 am
Last Post: orangebox21
  This holy water thing is full of shit! Esquilax 35 12069 March 20, 2015 at 6:55 pm
Last Post: Ravenshire
  Christianity vs Gnostic Christianity themonkeyman 12 8459 December 26, 2013 at 11:00 am
Last Post: pineapplebunnybounce
  Russian antisuicide forum which is full of shit feeling 6 2347 December 18, 2013 at 4:17 am
Last Post: feeling
  Moderate Christianity - Even More Illogical Than Fundamentalist Christianity? Xavier 22 18217 November 23, 2013 at 11:21 am
Last Post: Jacob(smooth)
  My debate in Christian Forums in full swing greneknight 99 38325 September 17, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Last Post: System of Solace



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)