Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bubbles on November 17, 2015, 07:42:48 AM
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Because it takes human beings to gather and correlate the data.
Science is completely man made ( or alien made if we encounter ETI )
Agree? Disagree?
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Isn't this just a question of whether anything at all exists unless it is observed?
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Isn't this just a question of whether anything at all exists unless it is observed?
I hadn't intended it quite that way, I just notice some people treat science ( or what they think is science) as some sort of eternal truth rather than people's attempt to put reason on the universe.
Some might argue science exists regardless .......,
😉
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Because it takes human beings to gather and correlate the data.
Science is completely man made ( or alien made if we encounter ETI )
Agree? Disagree?
Yes - science is a method so in any reasonable sense only exists in the context of intelligent life recognising and using that method.
But the underlying principles that science reveals about nature exist outside of intelligent life. Indeed many are so fundamental that they are essential for intelligent life to have evolved in the first place.
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Science is knowledge (from the Latin word scientia - 'knowledge': that, in itself comes from the verb for 'to know' - scire) - in this case knowledge about how we believe the universe works. Notice that it is based on human understanding and is a form of belief as opposed to a form of certainty. I agree that there are some areas that are more certain than others, but we still function - for instance, in nuclear science - in the deeply unknown because in many such cases the timescale involved is far beyond what we have experienced as a species.
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But the underlying principles that science reveals about nature exist outside of intelligent life. Indeed many are so fundamental that they are essential for intelligent life to have evolved in the first place.
But that is a human understanding, PD - and effectively assumes that intelligent life only exists here because earthly sentient beings are the only ones we've experienced.
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Yes, but Hope, the knowledge that can be gained around science is testable, repeatable, and as PD says the scientific laws and principles (those that we understand and those that we don't) will carry on doing their thing regardless of anything we do.
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But that is a human understanding, PD - and effectively assumes that intelligent life only exists here because earthly sentient beings are the only ones we've experienced.
No, there's nothing there to say the only intelligent life that observes and understands is on earth.
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No, there's nothing there to say the only intelligent life that observes and understands is on earth.
Yes there is, Rhi, because our 'intelligent' understanding may differ from the 'intelligent' understanding of other, non-earthly sentient beings. That is why I used the term 'assumes' - because it is all dependent on our human viewpoint
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Yes, but Hope, the knowledge that can be gained around science is testable, repeatable, and as PD says the scientific laws and principles (those that we understand and those that we don't) will carry on doing their thing regardless of anything we do.
I don't deny the truth of the italicised section, Rhi, but whatt we don't know is whetrher those principles apply 'cosmically' or merely 'universely' (I've used these terms in their scientific, rather than metaphorical senses). For instance, we can only assume that the speed of light is the same in some far distant galaxy as it is here; we have no idea whether there are constraints on that speed (or even lack of constraints) compared to 'here'.
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Science is a process - it's a methodology for increasing our confidence in deductions about how reality works.
The findings that come out of science are a description of things that exist independently of people, but as with anything else the communication of those ideas requires a communicator.
Science requires scientists, but the natural laws uncovered are independent.
O.
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Because it takes human beings to gather and correlate the data.
Science is completely man made ( or alien made if we encounter ETI )
Agree? Disagree?
Of course 'science' is man made. We have created all the labels and divisions such as physics, chemistry, biology etc. We have developed the methodologies, the instruments and algorithms and everything else that we call 'science'. No doubt about that!
But we have done all this to understand the external world.
Now the question is whether what we have created is enough to observe and understand all reality or whether only certain phenomena are amenable to observation by us. Secondly, whatever we do observe and 'understand' does it actually represent reality or merely a model to suit our human logic.
If ants wanted to understand the world...
1. They would first of all be limited by their senses and their brain.
2. They would also be limited by the assumptions they make.
3. The logic and methodologies they develop would be another limitation.
4. Those aspects of the world that are visible and sensed by them would be only a small part of the world which is another limitation.
5. The instruments they develop to observe the world would be a further limitation.
6. Finally after all this, the theories and models they formulate using the data would again be only concepts about reality and not reality itself. Shadows on the wall!
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Because it takes human beings to gather and correlate the data.
Science is completely man made ( or alien made if we encounter ETI )
Agree? Disagree?
Agree. Not even controversial.
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But that is a human understanding, PD - and effectively assumes that intelligent life only exists here because earthly sentient beings are the only ones we've experienced.
No just because someone doesn't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So the planets have been orbiting around the sun for millions of years, far before there was life on earth let alone intelligent life. So for the vast majority of time no-one 'understood' that as happening, because there was no intelligent life to be able to understand it. Yet it was still happening.
The basic phenomena and principles that science uncovers exist whether or not we understand them and whether or not there is intelligent life capable of such understanding.
Your comment is a bit like someone opining that the earth was flat until we recognised that it was round. Or that the sun went round the earth until we recognised that the earth orbit round the sun. The earth has always been round and always orbits round the sun regardless of human understanding of those phenomena and the principles that underpin them.
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No just because someone doesn't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I didn't say that it did. What I said was that the conditions that apply here within our particular planetary/solar system context MAY differ from those applying in others. All we knoiw is what ap[plies within our context; we have to assume everything else.
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I didn't say that it did. What I said was that the conditions that apply here within our particular planetary/solar system context MAY differ from those applying in others. All we knoiw is what ap[plies within our context; we have to assume everything else.
No we don't assume anything - if we follow scientific method we observe and measure and then generate theories based on evidence to understand what is going on elsewhere. Nothing is assumed.
but the key point is that whatever is going on 'out there' is going on whether or not we understand it.
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No we don't assume anything - if we follow scientific method we observe and measure and then generate theories based on evidence to understand what is going on elsewhere. Nothing is assumed.
but the key point is that whatever is going on 'out there' is going on whether or not we understand it.
Does anyone have categorical evidence that, for instance, the speed of light is the same to other side of the cosmos as it is here? Or that life elsewhere in the cosmos is even remotely similar to ours - no, we tend to assum that it is going to bear a resemblance in that it will be based on a base substance - like carbon, nitrogen, or whatever.
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The basic phenomena and principles that science uncovers exist whether or not we understand them and whether or not there is intelligent life capable of such understanding.
Unfortunately with that statement you have left science and started on metaphysics
Your comment is a bit like someone opining that the earth was flat until we recognised that it was round. Or that the sun went round the earth until we recognised that the earth orbit round the sun. The earth has always been round and always orbits round the sun regardless of human understanding of those phenomena and the principles that underpin them.
Well the sun does go around the earth every day, it's the only sensible way to view it on a daily basis. It is no more incorrect than to talk about the earth going around the sun. It is a matter of perspective, adopting the best model to solve a particular problem to a desired level of accuracy or precision.
Similarly we don't need to account for the curvature of the earth unless we are flying or considering huge differences. Local inclines are far more significant on a day to day basis, walking to the shops for example.
Similar to the way we don't bother considering elliptical orbits, curvature of space-time or expansion of the universe when pointing out the silliness of thinking the sun goes around the earth.
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Does anyone have categorical evidence that, for instance, the speed of light is the same to other side of the cosmos as it is here? Or that life elsewhere in the cosmos is even remotely similar to ours - no, we tend to assum that it is going to bear a resemblance in that it will be based on a base substance - like carbon, nitrogen, or whatever.
No and scientists don't assume that either. They develop theories that are currently the best explanation for scientific data and observation and if new data arise which means that the current theory should be rejected and a new one adopted (and that would need to be on the basis of considerable evidence just as current theory is based on strong evidence) then scientists will do that.
On your life elsewhere question - I think you are delving into the world of science fiction rather than science. Science certainly doesn't assume that life elsewhere would necessarily need to be based on the same basic building blocks as life here.
But again that isn't the point. Whether not not we understand the physics of light transmission on the other side of the universe, or the nature of life there has no bearing on the actual phenomenon and principles there. The remains the same whether or not we understand them.
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Arguably some of the experimentation and learning exhibited by other animals amounts to 'doing' science. There's a view that science all of a sudden starts around 1600 when more obviously people carry out experiments as part of it, even though it might be phrased in terminology that is redolent of superstition,see Paracelsus in terms of medicine, or even Newton with alchemy. In part that is due to the need for the method itself to delineate what forms part of its remit.
However, even since then the question of what is science as a method has moved on, driven by Hume's covering of the problem of induction (which in his own way is what Hope is covering). That seemed to be about it for the philosophy of science, though not at all with the practice, until Popper and falsification, which was followed by the questioning of Kuhn and his paradigms, and now is perhaps being given a more rigorous challenge by the Carroll, the physicist who appears on the April page of Vlad's calendar of nearly nude antitheists. (Dawkins appears as both January and December, being the alpha and omega of Vlad's fixation).
I would suggest though that just as the linear view that no science was done before Bacon, which is a fairly common view touted in the history of science, is incorrect. Aristotle, recently discussed, did do experimentation and try to develop theories from it. Also in many ways cooking is a derivative of science (domestic being a term of approbation, I would argue), it's just that we like our beginning and. End stories.
And that lack of a start point, that to me the idea of carrying out science is fuzzier than it is usually shown,means that I see the activity being done by other animals.
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Well the sun does go around the earth every day, it's the only sensible way to view it on a daily basis.
No it doesn't and no it isn't. The earth revolves once a day - the sun does not go around the earth once a day.
I understand that from a biased perspective it may seem as you describe, but that is merely misunderstanding. And the relation between the sun and the earth is exactly the same whether humans misunderstand it or not.
Similarly we don't need to account for the curvature of the earth unless we are flying or considering huge differences. Local inclines are far more significant on a day to day basis, walking to the shops for example.
Similar to the way we don't bother considering elliptical orbits, curvature of space-time or expansion of the universe when pointing out the silliness of thinking the sun goes around the earth.
But none of that changes the 'fact' of the (near) sphericalness of the earth. Whether we either misunderstand it, or it is completely irrelevant doesn't change that fact.
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Does anyone have categorical evidence that, for instance, the speed of light is the same to other side of the cosmos as it is here? Or that life elsewhere in the cosmos is even remotely similar to ours - no, we tend to assum that it is going to bear a resemblance in that it will be based on a base substance - like carbon, nitrogen, or whatever.
Scientists have a preference for universes that follow the cosmological principle and for thinking that we do not occupy a special position in the universe. However this is not a provable conclusion or always assumed.
Einsteins general theory of relativity is a set of equations which can have many different solutions, each of which gives a different universe. In some of these various values we think of as constants are variable over space or time. Normally we take the speed of light (in a vacuum) as being constant, but it is possible construct universes where it is not - VSL cosmology.
eg see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light
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I think Udayana is correct to mention metaphysics here and indeed with his pint about the sun. It is incorrect to state that we are simply describing what is actually there. To do so we ignore hard solipsism and that all science, and indeed any other study, is based on intersubjectivity, one that for science we gave a methodology which is validated by it working, whereas as other areas such as morals we work on a generalised ad populum basis, hence the term zeitgeist. That we cannot necessarily state that what happens is 'real' or indeed that 'reality' is a fully meaningful concept outside of our own perspective is though a mere philosophical amusement.
As to the sun and what goes round what, the Earth definitely goes round the Sub if you define going round as the overall movement in terms of what moves most in relation to the other body and what in scientific terms is the body with the most gravitational pull which thereby causes the other body to move elliptically in relation to that. However, as Udayana is pointing out that in itself in terms of the definition is metaphysics rather than reality. Again in scientific terms, this is unimportant and the Earth does move round the Sun. It has some mild importance in the history of theology and philosophy in terms of the displacement of the view that the Earth is central to all but other than that on a day to day basis, we use and should use the scientific description.
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Does anyone have categorical evidence that, for instance, the speed of light is the same to other side of the cosmos as it is here? Or that life elsewhere in the cosmos is even remotely similar to ours - no, we tend to assum that it is going to bear a resemblance in that it will be based on a base substance - like carbon, nitrogen, or whatever.
I would think that, if the speed of light was different in some far flung corner of the observable universe, it would probably look different to the way it does.
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Does anyone have categorical evidence that, for instance, the speed of light is the same to other side of the cosmos as it is here?
No, which is why the claim is provisional. It will remain our best understanding until and unless someone produces some evidence to think that it's wrong, not just 'what about this gap?'
Or that life elsewhere in the cosmos is even remotely similar to ours - no, we tend to assum that it is going to bear a resemblance in that it will be based on a base substance - like carbon, nitrogen, or whatever.
Which 'we' is this? Xenobiology as a purely hypothetical field is rife with discussions about what are the requirements for something to be considered 'life', and very few of them require particular elements in particular combinations. Most of them presume a chemical base of some sort, which means that oxygen, fluorine and water figure highly because they are the most common chemically reactive elements and compounds. Similarly silicon and carbon figure highly because they are both relatively abundant and interact reasonably well with those other compounds, but that's about likelihoods, not absolutes.
O.
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Dear Rose,
Science is completely man made
Agree!
What they study is not, the universe.
I agree with Sane, we are all scientists.
Gonnagle.
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Scientists have a preference for universes that follow the cosmological principle and for thinking that we do not occupy a special position in the universe. However this is not a provable conclusion or always assumed.
Einsteins general theory of relativity is a set of equations which can have many different solutions, each of which gives a different universe. In some of these various values we think of as constants are variable over space or time. Normally we take the speed of light (in a vacuum) as being constant, but it is possible construct universes where it is not - VSL cosmology.
eg see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light
Scientists only have a 'preference' for such if that 'pretence' is consistent with observed behaviour. That isn't a preference as we might understand it in other contexts. It the observed behaviour ceases to be consistent with that 'preference' then scientists will necessarily prefer a different flavour which better fits the observed behaviour.
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Of-course. That is how we progress our understanding. Quite often there is a "tug of war" type conflict over whether an existing, preferred, theory can accommodate conflicting observations or whether a new theory is needed.
It is possible, hypothetically at least, that we find more than one theory that explains a set of observations, in which case we decide on which one to use, using a set of rules: Occam's razor, consistency with other theories and so on. Sometimes once school "wins" this battle for political reasons, temporarily, until more observations confirming or finally refuting the theory are found.
In all cases we are dealing with models of what seems to be an underlying reality, actual reality remains too slippery to get a hold of. The model may be perfectly useful and usable even if it is later superseded because of better observations or because a more widely applicable theory turns up.
As NS mentioned, Kuhn is our man here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn
Another, separate, point is that although we describe science as a process, performing this process like an algorithm sometimes just gets us stuck in loops or knots - to make progress and answer intractable problems often a sudden leap or new direction, based on intuition or imagination, must be taken.
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Science is completely man made
Agree, but then so is the concept of time and religions to name but 2.
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Not sure that time is so much a man-made concept as simply a way we experience.
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There are some interesting things in the background here about the nature of knowledge.
I can't improve on Outrider's definition of modern science. It's essentially about testing our ideas in an effective and repeatable way. What interests me is the unique way our human imagination creates various mental models by which we make sense of the new information science can provide. The ways we visualise conceptual and abstract notions, such as deep time or the structure of an atom, is intensely and instinctively creative. That these things 'exist' in the human mind is itself a fascinating idea - iterations of already existing phenomena reinterpreted and incorporated into our individual perspectives on the universe. Take fossils; most fossils come from ecosystems that are gone. In real terms they no longer exist. The creatures are dead and the habitats are changed. But, our investigations give access to those places once more. Our propensity for creative imagination brings them back to the present in a new from.
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Of-course. That is how we progress our understanding. Quite often there is a "tug of war" type conflict over whether an existing, preferred, theory can accommodate conflicting observations or whether a new theory is needed.
Which is obvious if you understand what a theory is in scientific terms. This isn't the same as we use it in common parlance, i.e. a sort of vague guess. A scientific theory must be based on a very substantial body of evidence.
As such it will not be replacement by a new theory until that new theory has of itself garnered that requirement of a very substantial body of evidence.
Of course an existing theory may be rejected rather more clearly if compelling evidence arises that evidently demonstrates the theory to be false.
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Ah interesting point, Samuel, and that imagination is the same one that gives rise to gods as explanations, as readons, as answers and why, given the methodology of science, and the lack of an intersubjective method, the phrase god of the gaps appears. That said the god of the gaps was always a 'stopgap' that people used to hang their internal beliefs and experience on. Also the gapgod is difficult to interpret but not impossible, like the internal one. That allows for a priesthood of interpretation, something that the lazy might analogise as the position of scientists today.
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It is possible, hypothetically at least, that we find more than one theory that explains a set of observations, in which case we decide on which one to use, using a set of rules: Occam's razor, consistency with other theories and so on. Sometimes once school "wins" this battle for political reasons, temporarily, until more observations confirming or finally refuting the theory are found.
Not really, as a commonly accepted definition of a scientific theory is that it represents the best explanation for observations based on the currently available evidence. So if there is a genuine debate as to which explanation best fits, then really neither should be described as a theory. And of course what would be needed would be more study to determine which of the two proposed theories actually fits the observations better and that would then become an actual theory, rather than a proposed one.