The watering down of science

[peaccenicked]

Science was first attributed to the early Greeks but in truth it has a timeless element that was born in man’s first efforts to make tools. The Greeks had the advantage of being at the beginning of written History through Herodotus. Science is the history lesson of mankind’s processes of creation. In its very form it is set up against creationist myths and religious dogmas, which underlies the period that came to be known as the dark ages. A period that threw away theories such as the roundness of the earth and the practice of primitive democracy for government which used a type of lottery system reminiscent of our current and random selection of jury panels. Also much of early Greek mathematics was saved by the Persians from early Christian Roman book burning.
However science itself could never be still born with the need for better battling weapons and conditions or in the improvement of domestic appliances and tools for artistry.
It was always in the theatre of ideas that put religious ideas under suspicion, that the Inquisition and the authorities in general reacted, usually with torture and recantations, if not death.
Of course, this had changed dramatically by 1932. Here is the physicist Max Planck
“..Formerly it was only religion, especially in its doctrinal and moral systems was the object of skeptical attack. Then the iconoclast began to shatter ideals and principles that had hitherto been accepted in the province of art. Now he has invaded the temple of science. There is scarcely a scientific axiom that is not nowadays denied by somebody. And at the same time almost any nonsensical theory may be put forward in the name of science would be almost sure to find to find believers and disciples somewhere or other.” (Where is Science Going?)
Today science has become reduced to its technological achievements and those axioms pertaining to its success in the most part for popular science manuals. Whereas there are many fields in which science has become an ideological tool.
There many theories that are merely projections from known data that are now accepted as fact, these include “big bang” theory , “string theory” ,”alternative universe” ,and “dark matter” theories. These projections seek to answer unexplained questions that science by its temporal or natural limits is unable to cope with at present.
Nevertheless they have no more real existence than fairy tales.
Official science is short of answers on a few major questions, these include the twin tower collapse, the disappearance of the bees (http://www.endofempire.org/action.php?page=171), anti-global warming theory, and in the field of economy, how to view the recession.
Science on the whole needs to reclaim itself, as a world viewpoint opposed to ideology, as a protector of global interests, that defies corporate power and its impingements on national democracies and economies including the insane investment in massive military hardware.
The inane impartiality of little garden minded scientists is a condition for global catastrophe. Science may begin at home but it must not end there.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Unfortunately for you, String Theory is on the way out:

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=689539

http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/0465092756

And, given the fact that Lenin thought the Ether was 'objective', us Leninists needn't pretend we are all that smart when it comes to science.

[peaccenicked]

[quote=Rosa Lichtenstein;1059456]Unfortunately for you, String Theory is on the way out:

quote]


I did call string theory a fairy tale.

BTW, I am not a Leninist. I believe 'isms' miss the point and bypass any real objective debate.

I just think you are a pile of your own convoluted assumptions, totally anti dialectical, if you ask me. OH! The irony.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Today science has become reduced to its technological achievements and those axioms pertaining to its success in the most part for popular science manuals.The technological achievements of sciences are it's most noticeable and recognisable ones, and dare I say it, the ones that have changed our world the most. Those of us blessed with the fruits of technological achievement no longer have to face a lifetime of back-breaking work in the fields.


There many theories that are merely projections from known data that are now accepted as fact, these include “big bang” theory , “string theory” ,”alternative universe” ,and “dark matter” theories. These projections seek to answer unexplained questions that science by its temporal or natural limits is unable to cope with at present.Woah woah woah slow down there. The Big Bang is the one theory that best matches the cosmological evidence in comparison to it's competitors. String theory, alternate universes and dark matter are hypotheses that attempt to explain observed phenomenon, and may be confirmed or falsified pending further observational evidence. None of these things are immutable statements of authority delivered from on high (that's what the clergy specialise in), they are deducted from observations of the universe around us.

And in what way are any of those things remotely ideological?


Nevertheless they have no more real existence than fairy tales.Take your solipsism elsewhere. The things you mentioned have more going for them than fairy tales.


Official science is short of answers on a few major questions, these include the twin tower collapse, the disappearance of the bees (http://www.endofempire.org/action.php?page=171), anti-global warming theory, and in the field of economy, how to view the recession."Official science"? You are sounding more and more like a woo-woo conspiracy nut. Science never claims to have all the answers, but it does endeavour to find out as many answers as it can. The twin towers collapsed for known reasons (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/about.html), Colony Collapse Disorder is still a recent phenomenon so we don't know all that much about it, no reputable climate science rejects anthropogenic global warming, let alone global warming on it's own, and economy is not a field of science, unfortunately for us all. It is and always was a house of cards built on thin air.


Science on the whole needs to reclaim itself, as a world viewpoint opposed to ideology, as a protector of global interests, that defies corporate power and its impingements on national democracies and economies including the insane investment in massive military hardware.
The inane impartiality of little garden minded scientists is a condition for global catastrophe. Science may begin at home but it must not end there.I'm sorry, but what you're proposing would water down science just as much if not more than it is today, just in the other direction. Science is a way of looking at the universe and has nothing to do with politics.

[peaccenicked]

bbbbbbbbb

Woah woah woah slow down there. The Big Bang is the one theory that best matches the cosmological evidence in comparison to it's competitors. String theory, alternate universes and dark matter are hypotheses that attempt to explain observed phenomenon, and may be confirmed or falsified pending further observational evidence. None of these things are immutable statements of authority delivered from on high (that's what the clergy specialise in), they are deducted from observations of the universe around us.

And in what way are any of those things remotely ideological?

The big bang theory (http://www.rense.com/general53/bbng.htm)is not so unquestionable. It postulates a beginning to to the universe, that is everso handy for theological types. ie it posits a creation. There is always this possibility (http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/the-big-bang-wa.html).
As to 9/11. Pancake theory is hotly contested. Excuse that pun.

As to the disappearing bees, thats a right muddle with many factors perhaps causing the bees immune defeciency. I am still not convinced that cell phones are innocent.
As to global warming it is NASA (http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=2659) that is now saying that the climate is going to get colder. In Russia (http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080103/94768732.html) too.



However, there is a deeper question about science, and that is how far is it really open debate. There are competing theories true, but the media tends to operate political correctness on what is considered unquestionable.

Science if it is not open and questioning, if it silences voices, we are really talking about Stalinism without the overt oppression but scientists like journalists are part of the establishment. From Marx's Grundisse.
"In all forms of society there is one specific mode of production which predominates over the rest, whose relation assigns rank and influence to others. It is a general illumination which bathes all the others colours and modifies their particularity"

Was Marx was a conspiracy "nut" too?

Science is a battleground:the question of nuetralising science is in the best interests of humanity, I cant say that Science is that at present. In my view there are ideological agendas, that take the moral high ground and muffle out other opinions.

It is in the defence of real debate that science can develop. Standing on the sidelines is not exactly revolutionary.

[mikelepore]

There many theories that are merely projections from known data that are now accepted as fact, these include “big bang” theory , “string theory” ,”alternative universe” ,and “dark matter” theories. These projections seek to answer unexplained questions that science by its temporal or natural limits is unable to cope with at present.

While the other writers gave you an argument about saying such a thing about string theory, I didn't notice anyone disputing the placement of "alternative universe" in your list.

The big bang and dark matter are, as you say, projections from data. Most scientists now consider them the best available models (tentatively, of course).

String theory and parallel universes are not projections from data. They arose from the attitude "This has nothing to do with explaining any data, but it would be so cool if this were true, so let's look for a way in which the mathematics, while not proving it, at least wouldn't preclude it, that is, such an answer would be internally consistent." Most scientists don't accept that attitude, and many are outspoken about denying that such an activity is "doing science" at all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PeaceNicked:


I just think you are a pile of your own convoluted assumptions, totally anti dialectical, if you ask me. OH! The irony.

And you are a windbag, who pontificates about things (like logic) you know nothing about.

[ecoTROTSKYIST]

Interesting thread, but comrades...chill out a little! There's no reason we can't behave in a comradely fashion. :rolleyes:

[peaccenicked]

Mikelpore, I stand corrected. I just think you kicked Schrodinger's cat. The data from a thought experiment is not data at all.

However, scientific consensus moves, but that usually takes the propagation of overwhelming evidence. If scientists sit back on recieved information nothing will change.

[mikelepore]

The problem with Schrodinger's cat is that the wave function isn't only collapsed by a human "observer". The cat is an observer just as much as the experimenter is. Anything macroscopic that gets affected will collapse the wave function. Any speck of dust is an "observer" just as much as a conscious experimenter, or the cat, is.

The wave nature of particles, the fact that one particle can go through two openings at the same time, or can vanish and reappear on the other side of a boundary, IS firmly established by experiments. Objects as massive as some molecules can do these things. Any more massive than that and it gets prohibited by statistics, that is, "It's possible, but so improbable that such a thing has probably never happened in the history of the universe."

Popular science paperback writers drive me so crazy.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The big bang theory (http://www.rense.com/general53/bbng.htm)is not so unquestionable.

And you expect me to take anything from rense.com (of all places) seriously?


It postulates a beginning to to the universe, that is everso handy for theological types.

Which is the only characteristic it shares with religious creation myths. That isn't enough for it to endorse religion. It does not state that any gods begun the universe, and relies on observations of the universe to substantiate its claims, not the "word of god". It makes no spiritual claims whatsoever.


There is always this possibility (http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/the-big-bang-wa.html).

The Big Bang doesn't preclude the possibility of the universe being cyclical.


As to 9/11. Pancake theory is hotly contested. Excuse that pun.

Contested by whom? If they aren't qualified engineers, you'd better have a damn good reason for taking them seriously.


As to the disappearing bees, thats a right muddle with many factors perhaps causing the bees immune defeciency. I am still not convinced that cell phones are innocent.

Perhaps you should wait until some real-world data comes in before jumping to conclusions.


As to global warming it is NASA (http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=2659) that is now saying that the climate is going to get colder. In Russia (http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080103/94768732.html) too.

Climate change is not simply a case of the world over getting warmer. Due to changing atmospheric currents and streams, some parts of the world may get colder. Currently, the gulf stream prevents climate conditions in the UK from being the same as Labrador, which is on the same latitude. There's the possibility that with climate change, this may no longer be the case, and that the UK will not be as warm as it is now.


However, there is a deeper question about science, and that is how far is it really open debate. There are competing theories true, but the media tends to operate political correctness on what is considered unquestionable.


Then that's the fault of the mass media, not science. Almost no journalist is trained in scientific thinking, and the media reflects this. In the scientific profession things are different.


Science if it is not open and questioning, if it silences voices, we are really talking about Stalinism without the overt oppression but scientists like journalists are part of the establishment. From Marx's Grundisse.
"In all forms of society there is one specific mode of production which predominates over the rest, whose relation assigns rank and influence to others. It is a general illumination which bathes all the others colours and modifies their particularity"

Was Marx was a conspiracy "nut" too?

I don't see how quoting Marx validate the hypothesis that today there is a global conspiracy to silence scientific dissent.


Science is a battleground:the question of nuetralising science is in the best interests of humanity, I cant say that Science is that at present. In my view there are ideological agendas, that take the moral high ground and muffle out other opinions.

Indeed, but they are fairly obvious, such as the push by the christian fundamentalists to get Intelligent Design taught in schools. And people are fighting back.

You must remember that science isn't about consensus - it's about who's right. Experiment and observations of reality are the ultimate arbiter of who is right and wrong, not the left or the right.

[ComradeRed]

bbbbbbbbb
The big bang theory (http://www.rense.com/general53/bbng.htm)is not so unquestionable. It postulates a beginning to to the universe, that is everso handy for theological types. ie it posits a creation. There is always this possibility (http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/the-big-bang-wa.html). Uh not quite. The explanation is based off of classical general relativity and observable data, the universe was in a state of a "singularity".

But truth be told, this is given the disclaimer that this is what classical general relativity tells us about phenomena where quantum theory would have a significant role.

Most (all?) canonical approaches to quantum gravity have explained the "big bang" as more of a "big bounce" from when the universe was collapsing to such a small size that other forces began acting to cause a "bang".

So it's an oscillation idea rather than a "start from scratch" concept.

That's the current state of the "big bang" idea as treated by canonical approaches to quantum gravity.

[peaccenicked]

I don't see how quoting Marx validate the hypothesis that today there is a global conspiracy to silence scientific dissent.



Who manufactures consent? Was Chomsky wrong? How much of it is self censorship? Why are so called revolutionaries actinig as State representatives?

Is the word "conspiracy" an absolute blinder to the institutionalised falsehoods of the "free world" that has buried at least 4 million Afganistanis since 9/11 and more than 1 million Iraqis. Who is counting?

[mikelepore]

So it's an oscillation idea rather than a "start from scratch" concept.

That was always my understanding too, but recently the astronomers are saying that the expansion is speeding up.

[mikelepore]

Science was first attributed to the early Greeks but in truth it has a timeless element that was born in man’s first efforts to make tools.

An interesting book, if you want to see someone argue the opposite case, is Lewis Wolpert, The Unnatural Nature of Science. He argues that practical applications use intuitive knowledge, common sense, and science uses counterintuitive knowledge, dissimilar to common sense. I think he overstates his case in several places. He goes so far as to claim that there is no record of any human being ever being scientific until the day that Thales of Miletos announced his intention to explain things in terms of natural laws and avoid citing myths.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

An interesting book, if you want to see someone argue the opposite case, is Lewis Wolpert, The Unnatural Nature of Science. He argues that practical applications use intuitive knowledge, common sense, and science uses counterintuitive knowledge, dissimilar to common sense. I think he overstates his case in several places. He goes so far as to claim that there is no record of any human being ever being scientific until the day that Thales of Miletos announced his intention to explain things in terms of natural laws and avoid citing myths.

The Greeks were the first to approach science systematically. There is a considerable difference between pure empiricism, such as in the collecting natural data and recording natural phenomena, and the notion that there is an underlying principle to the universe that can be understood rationally and without the help of gods or muses. Granted their ideas were along way from what we would consider scientific today, but they layed the groundwork.

Before Thales and the rest of the pre-Socratics in the so-called Ionian Revolution nothing like this had ever occurred. And before you dismiss this as only the first thing that was 'recorded' it must be said that a scientific perspective requires writing. Empirical data must be recorded and processed by means of rationality to attempt to discern the underlying principle.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NoGodsNoMasters --In fact, if you consult Clifford Conner's 'A People History of Science' you will see that the Greeks were not the first to systematise science:

http://www.booknoise.net/sciencehistory/index.html

But they were among the first to impose idealism on it, including the belief that the universe is 'rational' (and designed by the mind of 'god'), an idea invented by the mystical Pythagoreans, and turned into an art form by that proto-fascist, Plato.

[mikelepore]

Cliff Conner includes as science a lot of discoveries that some people would consider to be technology rater than science, such as learning the medicinal properties of plants, and how to alloy metals. People who have the opposite viewpoint, like Lewis Wolpert, seem to reserve the word science for testing the most general laws of nature. I don't know how useful the distinction really is.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

Cliff Conner includes as science a lot of discoveries that some people would consider to be technology rater than science, such as learning the medicinal properties of plants, and how to alloy metals. People who have the opposite viewpoint, like Lewis Wolpert, seem to reserve the word science for testing the most general laws of nature. I don't know how useful the distinction really is.

I believe the distinction is accurate and extremely important.

I believe the fundamental problem is in the definition of science. Science is a philosophical viewpoint and a method of inquiry rather than a collection of information. Data is the product of science but not science itself.

Certainly many peoples before the Greeks made precise recordings and measurements, knew how to build, farm, and heal. However, the Greeks were the first people to see the distinction between episteme (science or knowledge) and techne (technical ability).

No one before the Greeks had attempted to create a system of inquiry that was based entirely on rationality and empiricism without need of religion and myth. So far as we know Greek philosophy is the first place we find atheism and agnosticism explicitly stated.

I am not trying to trivialize those who came before the Greeks or to put the Greeks on a pedestal, but the modern conception of science owes more to the early Greek thinkers than to any other culture.

That being said, I have not read Conner's book. When I read it I'll return to this thread and give my thoughts. If I'm wrong I'm not afraid to admit it.

It make take a little while to get the book so please cite some specific examples of pre-Greek systematization from the book. I'm very interested in this topic.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike, you are right, but the distinction is a class-motivated one, initiated by Plato, which Conner is trying to overturn (and I think dos so successfully).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NoGodsNoMasters:


Science is a philosophical viewpoint and a method of inquiry rather than a collection of information

Well, I am not sure how you are going to prove that it is a philosophical viewpoint without implicating the sort of class-motivated bias theorists like Plato introduced into western thought.

The distinction between teche and episteme is based on Plato's denigration of the contribution of the 'lower orders' (thus privileging the contribution of 'pure' thinkers like himself, who he felt were the only ones fit to rule), and it gels very badly with the Marxist emphasis of the unity of theory and practice.

And, as Martin Bernal has shown, the Greeks pinched many of their ideas from the Egyptians (among others):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bernal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Athena

And, of course, science was systematised in China long before the Greeks.

And, like you I am not trying to denigrate the Greeks, but we must be clear that their science was heavily coloured by ruling class ideology.

[mikelepore]

I haven't read Conner's book either, only the excerpts and author interviews. I asked the publicist to send me a review copy.

Let's not confuse these two separate distinctions:

* Science versus religion / myth
(I wonder how sharp the boundary really is, with even Kepler and Newton doing some astrology, and God's name being invoked in the Bohr-Einstein debate, etc.)

* Pure science versus application / technology
(Rosa, in what way is that distinction class-motivated? I don't mean Plato's world of ideal forms, but merely some specialization into theoretical and applied fields. I wonder if that specialization is largely self-assigned based on personal interests.)

[NoGodsNoMasters]

One can accept the distinction between techne and episteme without giving one or the other superiority. 'Pure knowledge' is useless. I would much rather have a farmer than a botanist with me on a deserted island.

I've read one volume of Bernal's Black Athena and was not conviced by his arguments. I think it is obvious that cultures are influced by what came before and contemporary cultures with which they come into contact. However, similarity does not imply "theft". Also, however long certain ideas were incubating they had to hatch at some point and the scientific viewpoint cracked the egg in ancient Greece around 700-500 BCE.

The foundation for modern science is the notion that: the world operates by regular laws and those laws can be understood by humans without recourse to gods and the supernatural. If one doesn't accept this then he or she will not even look for natural mechanisms and explanations, much less find them.

If another culture before the Greeks came up with this idea please provide the evidence.

Again, I put up this challenge not out of the impulse to prove anyone wrong but in order to learn myself. I am personally fed up with the way the mysogenistic, slave-holding Greeks are held up as ideals. I would like to have some arguments and specifics with which to shoot down those die hard Hellenophiles. Problem is, in this case, I am forced to agree with them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NoGodsNoMasters:



The foundation for modern science is the notion that: the world operates by regular laws and those laws can be understood by humans without recourse to gods and the supernatural. If one doesn't accept this then he or she will not even look for natural mechanisms and explanations, much less find them.



Unfortunately, there are only two ways of viewing such 'laws':

1) As statments of 'natural' necessity, somehow written into the fabric or reality or

2) As mere descriptions/summaries of regularities as we perceive them.

It is impossible to make sesne of 1) without attributing a cosmic will to nature, or anthropomorphising the physical world and 2) evacuates all the content usually attached to the word 'law', for one might just as well use 'description' in its place; the word' law' actually does no work.

In short, events in nature do not 'obey' laws for they have no capacity to obey anything (for they are not rational agents) -- and neither do 'laws' have any capacity to command (unless they are enforced/understood by rational agents).

Moreover, laws as descriptions have no capacity to compel either -- so this conception of 'law' cannot explain why the events in nature proceed the way they do, and not otherwise.

On this see here:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lawofnat.htm (http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lawofnat.htm)

And, of course, the original use of the word 'law' was overtly religious (based as it was on the idea of 'God's' decree/Word), and obviously ideological (in that it sought to link the laws of the state with the order of the cosmos, thus justifying the status quo). Hence it is not surprising that the Greeks largely invented this idea, and they were quite open about it, too (as were Roman jurists like Cicero).

But neither view is something that science can confirm or refute.

And the point of my referring to Bernal was not to say that everything he claims is correct, but it is undeniable that the Greeks pinched ideas from the Egyptians (they even admitted so themselves), not that they derived everything from the Egyptians.


If another culture before the Greeks came up with this idea please provide the evidence.

The idea is contained in most of the creation myths (as the world/universe is made to order according to the word of some 'god' or other), and it is certainly present in the Old Testament.

But, this is not to take anything away from the Greeks; they left an indellible mark on western thought:


"Heraclitus, along with Parmenides, is probably the most significant philosopher of ancient Greece until Socrates and Plato; in fact, Heraclitus's philosophy is perhaps even more fundamental in the formation of the European mind than any other thinker in European history, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Why? Heraclitus, like Parmenides, postulated a model of nature and the universe which created the foundation for all other speculation on physics and metaphysics. The ideas that the universe is in constant change and that there is an underlying order or reason to this change -- the Logos (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/LOGOS.HTM) -- form the essential foundation of the European world view. Every time you walk into a science, economics, or political science course, to some extent everything you do in that class originates with Heraclitus's speculations on change and the Logos....

Quoted from here (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/HERAC.HTM).

But that just underlines Marx's point: the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class.


One can accept the distinction between techne and episteme without giving one or the other superiority. 'Pure knowledge' is useless. I would much rather have a farmer than a botanist with me on a deserted island.


Absolutely, but the fact is that Plato's conception has dominated thought ever since, and that is why epiteme has been privileged over and against techne.

It is also something Marx sought to challenge.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

Again I agree with you that Greek thought and culture were influenced by other cultures. I suppose my problem with Bernal's and others' accounts is the degree to which he claims this is the case.

Thanks for posting that link, looks like an interesting article. I'll read it over then get back to you with my thoughts.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Conner has a more balanced view I think

[ComradeRed]

That was always my understanding too, but recently the astronomers are saying that the expansion is speeding up. This has been observed since the 1920s with Hubble's observations.

But the theoretical predictions from the models of a quantum big bounce actually match the observable acceleration fairly well.

There will be a point when the force it takes to continue accelerating will be less than the gravitational attraction of the objects in the universe, basically.

Then it will either oscillate (not quite crunch, but oscillate) or it will crunch and then go "bang" again...it depends on certain parameters of the model you are using (how much matter, the charge of the matter, etc. etc. etc.).

[mikelepore]

1) As statments of 'natural' necessity, somehow written into the fabric or reality or

2) As mere descriptions/summaries of regularities as we perceive them.

I think it's about making such descriptions as brief as possible while applying to as many situations as possible. Just say "conservation of momentum" and that explains a billiard ball, an ice skater, a revolving planet, and the scattering of an electron by a photon. I think it's for that generality along with brevity that they call it a "law."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike, some scientists will certainly say they use this word that way, but when it comes to applying it to nature, the older anthropomorphic meaning soon creeps back in.

You can see this when, for example, they are arguing with anyone who questions scientific knowledge and/or orthodoxy -- they will soon rely on the 'iron laws' they see in nature to answer such critics. [As they do in response to me when I question 'determinism'.]

So, if a Christian, say, appeals to miracles, practically every non-believing scientist will retort that these violate certain 'laws' of nature. Now, if such 'laws' were merely shorthand, then they cannot appeal to them to rule miracles out. If these 'laws' just describe what actually happens, then they cannot be used to tell us what must happen, or what cannot happen. If a miracle occurs, then it is surely part of 'what happens'.

On the other hand, scientists who are believers tell us 'god' can alter 'his' own laws - so for them they are not just abbreviations. If natural events can behave in any way at all, then these alleged miracles are not miracles, just rather odd natural events. So, such 'laws' must be 'iron laws' that only 'god' can countermand.

So, both believers and non-believers share the ancient view of such 'laws'.

Which is not surprising in view of what Marx told us: the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class.

[mikelepore]

Now, if such 'laws' were merely shorthand, then they cannot appeal to them to rule miracles out. If these 'laws' just describe what actually happens, then they cannot be used to tell us what must happen, or what cannot happen. If a miracle occurs, then it is surely part of 'what happens'.

Sure, if there were any indication of the miracles being real. It's not the claim of chanagabity in patterns that makes the claim of miracles into nonsense; it's the lack of evidence. If science acted the way religion does with miracles, not providing any indications, claiming that the evidence for conservation of momentum was last observed in ancient times, as described on an old papyrus, but it isn't reproducible now, but should be believed anyway, then the efforts of the scientist would be as phony as religion.

[mikelepore]

If you challenge a currently accepted scientific model and someone brushes you off by citing "iron laws", it's not science that did that -- it's an individual. And I don't see where they're being anthropomorphic about reference to laws, they're just exaggerating the degree of verification that has been done for the idea that you challenge.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:



Sure, if there were any indication of the miracles being real. It's not the claim of chanagabity in patterns that makes the claim of miracles into nonsense; it's the lack of evidence. If science acted the way religion does with miracles, not providing any indications, claiming that the evidence for conservation of momentum was last observed in ancient times, as described on an old papyrus, but it isn't reproducible now, but should be believed anyway, then the efforts of the scientist would be as phony as religion.


Not so, there is nads of evidence for the existence of miracles.

[I hasten to add I do not believe in them!]

And you are clerarly unaware of the modern argument against miracles; it's not so much the lack of evidence, but the fact that they violate natural law -- for believers and sceptics alike, as I pointed out.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


If you challenge a currently accepted scientific model and someone brushes you off by citing "iron laws", it's not science that did that -- it's an individual. And I don't see where they're being anthropomorphic about reference to laws, they're just exaggerating the degree of verification that has been done for the idea that you challenge.


I agree its not science; that is why I said science can validate neither this voew of 'laws', nor its opposite.

But it is an argument that scientists do in fact use (since it is based on a ruling-class view of reality).

In short they argue ideologically, as Marx indicated.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

This is quite an interesting argument. I think we have gotten a little off topic though from the issue of the Greeks.

Rosa - Are you arguing that there was a notion of science as I (and many other philosophers define it) prior to the Greeks, or that this vision of science was created first by the Greeks but that it is not a valid definition of science? Or both?

Obviously the definitions of reality come from the ruling class. However, please explain how [ancient definitions of episteme (mind work) versus techne (body work) aside] the definition that I provided of science serves an inherently oppressive function. After all it was under this guiding principle of science that Marx himself worked. He was very much a product of the Western philosophical tradition.

Doesn't the law of dialectical materialism and the relationship of the working to ruling class stand as a sort of meta-reality. Is it not considered a "natural law" or does it only hold under specific circumstances? Is it a "mere description/summary of regularities as we percieve them" or is it a "natural necessity, somehow written into the fabric of reality"?

It seems that any critique of ruling class ontology, particularly one that is relativistic, necessarily implies an ontologically absolutist platform from which that critque can be launched. I could be wrong though. What are your thoughts?

BTW - Mike and Rosa, I don't believe in miracles either. However, if my above caffeine-fueled ramblings make any sense to anyone but me, I may have to reconsider that view though.

:confused:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NGNM:



Rosa - Are you arguing that there was a notion of science as I (and many other philosophers define it) prior to the Greeks, or that this vision of science was created first by the Greeks but that it is not a valid definition of science? Or both?



Well, the word and the concept are quite recent (unless we identify what we might mean by 'science' and certain words used by the Greeks).

So, not even the Greeks had a notion of science.

But as Connner shows, civilisations before the Greeks had systematic bodies of knowledge -- they left little written reords (or few have survived), but the indirect evidence is quite convincing.


Doesn't the law of dialectical materialism and the relationship of the working to ruling class stand as a sort of meta-reality. Is it not considered a "natural law" or does it only hold under specific circumstances? Is it a "mere description/summary of regularities as we percieve them" or is it a "natural necessity, somehow written into the fabric of reality"?


Well, I am not sure about that, but I am one of the few Marxists here who does not accept dialectical materialism; indeed, I set my site up to demolish it (links below, in my signature).


It seems that any critique of ruling class ontology, particularly one that is relativistic, necessarily implies an ontologically absolutist platform from which that critque can be launched. I could be wrong though. What are your thoughts?

I have no 'ontology', and do not want one. So, I am not perhaps the right person to answer this.

[mikelepore]

Anyone know of experiments to test hypotheses conducted in the old days? When Aristarchus used lengths of shadows to calculate the circumference of the earth, I don't see a hypothesis there. After Archimedes stated his conclusions about the lever arm and his eureka moment in the bathtub and so forth, did he quantitatively check them? Rightly or wrongly, I often hear it said that it was Galileo who contributed the idea that you can't just contemplate it, you have to check it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike, I am not too sure of the relevance of your last post. :confused:

[NoGodsNoMasters]

NGNM:



Well, the word and the concept are quite recent (unless we identify what we might mean by 'science' and certain words used by the Greeks).

So, not even the Greeks had a notion of science.

But as Connner shows, civilisations before the Greeks had systematic bodies of knowledge -- they left little written reords (or few have survived), but the indirect evidence is quite convincing.



Well, I am not sure about that, but I am one of the few Marxists here who does not accept dialectical materialism; indeed, I set my site up to demolish it (links below, in my signature).



I have no 'ontology', and do not want one. So, I am not perhaps the right person to answer this.

The idea that Greeks had science is arguable. I personally don't believe that they had science in the modern sense either. Just that they were the first to lay the philosophical groundwork for the science as a rationalistic method of inquiry that was distinct from religion.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about whether or not a systematic body of knowledge constitutes true scientific achievement.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, the Greeks certainly introduced an ideological element into science, connected with the dominance of theory (even in Aristotle's work) which has heavily baised science ever since.

The more practical side of science (which Conner brings out really well, associated with engineers, mechanics, midwives, experimentalists and ordinary workers) developed independently of, and prior to, this.

It is arguable that this has contributed more to science than the Platonic/theoretical side. That sees this divide as a class-based rift, which is how Conner represents it -- and I think rightly.

And the theoretical side of science has been misrepresented for 2400 years, but I will not go into that here.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

I realize this could be a rather long discussion. I plan to get the book by Conner but are there any other essays, books, or sites that go into the this discussion of science as a class based phenomenon? I'd like to read up on this idea.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, the next best book is by Martin Bernal's father, JD Bernal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Desmond_Bernal

It's called: Science in History

As far as I know there is very little on the web; there will be later this year when I publish a lengthy essay on this topic.

You might try this:

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj79/bookwatc.htm

Phil Gasper knows his stuff, and regularly writes for this journal:

http://www.isreview.org/index.shtml

You can search for his articles there.

He also helps run a website (which is largely left wing):

http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/04/kitcher.html

[NoGodsNoMasters]

Thanks! Looks like some good reading.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

No probs!

[mikelepore]

Mike, I am not too sure of the relevance of your last post.

It's only when you test a hypothesis with an experiment that you have asked nature to reveal its fundamental laws. [Even if the word 'laws' is unpreferred, you know what I mean.] Only then is your result expressible in a general form. If you know a wrench the way a carpenter knows it, you probably don't say that torque is vector R cross vector F, so you have technology and not science. Society makes great progress when people realize that they have to make the general statement and test it. The way I have used the word 'science' above is one of things that Conner disputes. He sometimes calls it science if you know how to use something but you don't know why it works. Inoculation is one of Conner's examples. To know how to perform inoculation but not why it works, is 'scinece' the best word for that?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

But, when it comes to anything you care to mention in science, when you get down to it, we do not know why anything at all happens.

This is not to denigrate science, but to point out that it is not metaphysics (thank goodness).

Sure, scientists refer us to 'laws', but as we have seen, at best these are merely summaries of past events, and so cannot explain why things had to go the way they did.

Scientists just know more and more details about nature, how it has performed in general in the past. That does not show that what has happened had to happen, or why it will continue to happen.

Now we do have the wherewithal in ordinary language to explain why, say, wrenches work, but as soon as you try to get into the scientific details, all you emerge with are more descriptions, but no fundamental explanations.

This is not surprising, since ordinary language grew as a result of collective labour, and becasue of our interface with material reality and with one another. Scientific language has to go beyond this, and as soon as it does, it begins to function rather badly, when it comes to explanations as opposed to describing yet more detail. And when it tries to explain, it has to fall back on ordinary language to help it out.

And that is just one reason why people turm to metaphysics: to try to find these underlying 'reasons'.

But, in doing that, they have to anthropomorphise nature...

And that is why Conner is 100% correct.

[mikelepore]

Why did a couple writers in this topic quote Marx about the ruling ideas being the ideas of the ruling class? I would say that's true about, for example, notions of justice and freedom. Why was this quoted in reference to science?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I quoted it, for one, since science from the beginning has had ruling class ideology plastered all over it.

[mikelepore]

You just rephrased the assertion. I meant to ask why you believe that. What does science claim that is untrue, and ruling class ideology?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


I meant to ask why you believe that. What does science claim that is untrue, and ruling class ideology?

Well, in a class society how could it avoid the influence of ruling-class ideology?

In the middle ages, the universe was seen as hierarchical; in bourgeois society as free but somehow structured. The universe was made of discrete atoms, but which all seemed to be able to obey 'the law' (an anthropomorphic projection of the State, with its law-abiding bourgeois individuals).

These days evolutionary psychology (the dominant theory) sees biology as destiny -- sexism is 'natural', etc.

There are scores of examples.

Marx was right, in every age, the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling-class.

[Sure, he mentioned justice, but that was just an illustrative example.]

[mikelepore]

But when scientists list their conclusions, they don't say things like biology is destiny, or sexism is natural. They say things like genes made of nucleotides determine the assembly of proteins from amino acids. They say things that are either true, if they didn't make an error, or false, if they made an error and didn't yet fix it. I don't see any ideology being involved. Ideology does, however, affect whether the investigation was done at all. If people had been taught that they'd go to hell for investigating the subject, or if the wealth to obtain the laboratory equipment wasn't allocated, etc., then the facts might go undiscovered for a long time. But the facts, once eventually discovered, are nature's own language that is being gradually decoded, independent of all historical conditions.

What's that about atoms? People thought that matter was made of atoms because they lived under class and political hierarchy? Isn't the belief simply true in itself, except, of course, that they lived before the later improvements such as knowledge of the elementary particles?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I am afraid, far too many evolutionary biologists do talk this way, Mike.

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/200004/0012.html

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:LfNicsbOtsoJ:www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep03392401.pdf+Adapting+Minds+Human+Nature+Ambitio n&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk



What's that about atoms? People thought that matter was made of atoms because they lived under class and political hierarchy?


This should not be news to you, Mike; Marxists have been arguing this for years. Atomic theory meshes rather well with possessive individualism.

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:jNw55zRH5PwJ:www.alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/Individualism_Chinese_preface.pdf+Atoms+possessive +individualism&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk

Just as the old hierarchical universe reflected medieval class relations and priorities.

Even Marx noted the Darwin saw in nature bourgeois competitveness.

More examples in these books:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Our-Genes-Biology-Ideology/dp/0140135251/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203151176&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Ideology-Comparative-Technology-Medicine/dp/0415279992

You only have to recall how the Nazis used science in order to see the hand of the state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik

And, there are plenty of examples from Stalin's USSR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory_%28linguistics%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory_%28linguistics%29)

http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4209%20%20

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:L6j8X4LBm5gJ:anikov.myweb.uga.edu/intel/freire.pdf+Quantum+Mechanics+and+Stalinist+science&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=uk

There are scores of other examples.

[mikelepore]

I know that people who participate in science have ideologies. But they divide their time. Sometimes they are doing science, and sometime they are doing ideology. Someone may walk out of the science lab and declare they believe in class rule because the world in made of atoms, but that fallacy is no reflection on the fact that they actually determined that the world is made of atoms. It only means that, after they correctly determined that, they went on to make false analogies between what they really learned and something else that they believed it to imply. Your examples of occasions when science has been cited as an excuse for something else: I don't deny that it happens. What I deny is that it's the science. On the contrary, science was what was temporarily left behind.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

But, the world is not made of atoms; it is made of quarks and other interconnected 'particles' (or it is until scientists change their minds again).

And, you are not suggesting, I hope, that all the ideologies I listed above, and their associated scientific theories, are correct are you?

The Earth at the centre of a hierachical universe? No evolution (a la Aristotle)? The universe written in mathemics by 'God' (a al Galileo, and early modern Platonist scientists, like Newton). Deterministsic Physics (a la Laplace)? Nazi 'anthroplogy'? Lysenkoist biology? Preformationist genetics?

And I know you deny some of this is science, but then you are simply making what you say true by definition, in that science is always something that is pure and unsullied.

But real science is not like that.

And, it is possible to show that the view you have of science is ideological too.

[mikelepore]

simply making what you say true by definition, in that science is always something that is pure and unsullied

Not because I want it to be pure, but because the scientists all over the world -- Canadian, Chinese, Tanzanian, and everywhere - have already found that they must use the same rules, such as proper formation of the hypothesis, handling of numerical precision, independence of experimental outcome from desire, repeated verification by peers, etc. It was a long upward climb, to expel the magical thinking, but everyone finally knows what the truth-revealing method is. It doesn't answer all questions, but, for those questions that it can answer, the whole world agrees on how to proceed to work on them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


Not because I want it to be pure, but because the scientists all over the world -- Canadian, Chinese, Tanzanian, and everywhere - have already found that they must use the same rules, such as proper formation of the hypothesis, handling of numerical precision, independence of experimental outcome from desire, repeated verification by peers, etc. It was a long upward climb, to expel the magical thinking, but everyone finally knows what the truth-revealing method is. It doesn't answer all questions, but, for those questions that it can answer, the whole world agrees on how to proceed to work on them.

Well, this is what the brochure will tell you, but scientific investigation of science shows that this is not the case.

Scientists are human beings, and as such are subject to the same social forces as the rest of us.

And their methods are also socially-conditioned and policed.

And that is what allowed them to swear blind that the earth was at the centre of the universe one minute, and then, a hundred years later that it wasn't, and then a few hundred years after that, that it did not not matter whether is was or it wasn't:

On this, Robert Mills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mills_(physicist)) had this comment to make:



"Another way of stating the principle of equivalence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle), a way that better reflects its name, is to say that all reference frames, including accelerated reference frames, are equivalent, that the laws of Physics take the same form in any reference frame…. And it is also correct to say that the Copernican view (with the sun at the centre) and the Ptolemaic view (with the earth at the centre) are equally valid and equally consistent!" [Mills (1994), pp.182-83. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

novice.]

And this is what Fred Hoyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle) had to say:



"Instead of adding further support to the heliocentric picture of the planetary motions the Einstein theory goes in the opposite direction, giving increased respectability to the geocentric picture. The relation of the two pictures is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view....

"Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is 'right' and the Ptolemaic theory 'wrong' in any meaningful physical sense...." [Hoyle (1973), pp.78-79.]



"We now know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance. But such an understanding had to await Einstein's theory of gravitation in order to be fully clarified." [Hoyle (1975), p.416.]

Similarly, Max Born (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Born) commented:



"Thus from Einstein's point of view Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right. What point of view is chosen is a matter of expediency. For the mechanics of the planetary system the view of Copernicus is certainly the more convenient. But it is meaningless to call the gravitational fields that occur when a different system of reference is chosen 'fictitious' in contrast with the 'real' fields produced by near masses: it is just as meaningless as the question of the 'real' length of a rod...in the special theory of relativity. A gravitational field is neither 'real' nor 'fictitious' in itself. It has no meaning at all independent of the choice of coordinates, just as in the case of the length of a rod." [Born (1965), p.345. I owe this reference to Rosser (1967).]

Of course, it could always be claimed that Copernican theory is simpler than the Ptolemaic system, but until we receive a clear sign that nature works according to our notion of simplicity (or cares a fig about it), that argument won't wash.


That was an excerpt from one of my Essays; references here:


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2003_02.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2003_02.htm)

No doubt they will change their minds again, one day -- that is one thing that the history of science has taught us: scientists cannot make up their minds.

[mikelepore]

What you documented with those considerations of reference frames is: Scientists always readjust their models, and sometime they even reverse themselves. That's not "the ideology of the ruling class."

[mikelepore]

But, the world is not made of atoms; it is made of quarks and other interconnected 'particles' (or it is until scientists change their minds again).

Just because some parts contain smaller parts, that doesn't mean atoms aren't real. Some atomic bonds are stable enough to hold together for billions of years. The difference between diamond and graphite is not a mere figure of speech or a way of looking at things.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


Just because some parts contain smaller parts, that doesn't mean atoms aren't real. Some atomic bonds are stable enough to hold together for billions of years. The difference between diamond and graphite is not a mere figure of speech or a way of looking at things.

Well, they are 'real' only for as long as scientists still believe in them, and since they change their minds every generation or so, I'd not pin too much on this temporary fact.

The point is that the classical atoms of the 17th, 18th and 19th century share nothing with 20th century atoms other than their name.

And the point about quarks (etc) is that they are probably not 'particles', and whatever it is that they are, they are all interlinked with one another.

The classical atoms, which do not and never have existed fitted the early modern bourgeois individualist model. The reversion to a continuous view of reality (albeit with a quantum mesh overlaid upon it) fits more modern, beauraucrtic statist ideologies.

And when that model is abandoned (which the history of science strongly suggests it will be -- when, say, the Higgs Boson fails to turn up) I am sure we will be told that whatever replaces it is really real, as opposed to just plain ordinary real.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


What you documented with those considerations of reference frames is: Scientists always readjust their models, and sometime they even reverse themselves. That's not "the ideology of the ruling class."


The change from the Ptolemaic universe to that of Newton was not a change of 'reference frame'.

And, are you denying the obvious fact that the universe was pictured hierarchically by, say, medieval scientists, and that that was an ideological view reflecting on the class structure of the day?

If it applied then, why can't it apply today?

[mikelepore]

That's right, the medieval image of the universe was imposed by ideology. We can't know whether it was really necessary for the preservation of economic and political power to have the church adopt all those details about the concentric spheres in the sky, but the church leaders believed it was necessary.


If it applied then, why can't it apply today?

Because back then they just made it up. Their first loyalty was to invent a story that sounded nice to them, and agreed with Psalms, then to say, since we like the sound if it, it must be true. That's what has changed. Today people allow the telescope and the spectroscope to tell them what's out there. They don't require that the answer correspond to a story that was already decided on. It's realized today that no one's economic or political power relies on a cosmological view. No one worried that the finding of the Kuiper belt would upset the social system.

--

Daniel De Leon, in a letter to a correspondent, Charles H. Chase, 1913:

"Lecture rooms on mineralogy, on astronomy, on the differential calculus, on law, on electricity, on anatomy, on all of these and similar subjects, are not liable to become centers from which mental corruption radiates. True, there may be, as there often is, corruption in the appointment of the professors in these, as in all other, branches - but the corruption ends there. The reason is obvious. There is no motive for misdirecting instruction. There may be lack-of-uptodateness; there may be even ignorance; a set purpose to corrupt and mislead is not likely. It is otherwise with regard to the social sciences. Some indirectly, most of them directly, bear upon the class struggle. Indeed, it would go hard to pick out one branch of the social sciences that is not begotten of the palpitations of the class struggle. Where the class struggle palpitates, material interests are at stake. It is an established principle that the material interests of a ruling class, in part, promote immorality. To promote incapacity to reason upon the domain of sociology is one of the corrupt practices of ruling class material interests."

[mikelepore]

The change from the Ptolemaic universe to that of Newton was not a change of 'reference frame'.

You trying to drive me to drink? :o) It was you who quoted three writers at length, and they said that the difference between earth-centered and sun-centered is choice of reference frame, and then I only referred to your post.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:



Because back then they just made it up. Their first loyalty was to invent a story that sounded nice to them, and agreed with Psalms, then to say, since we like the sound if it, it must be true. That's what has changed. Today people allow the telescope and the spectroscope to tell them what's out there. They don't require that the answer correspond to a story that was already decided on. It's realized today that no one's economic or political power relies on a cosmological view. No one worried that the finding of the Kuiper belt would upset the social system.



That's an odd view of social being; it seems that you are committed to the view that it only determines 'consciousness' now and then, but the process stopped at around about 1610. Do you really believe that? [Recall, that the Bible was also used to justify the change in worldview in the 17th century.]

And, how we interpret what we see through telescopes (etc.) is not a given; it is in fact mediated by some pretty sophisticated theory. So, when we use instruments to view things beyond the normal range of our senses, we have to rely solely on theory to make sense of what we 'see'.

This means that if theory has an ideological component, you cannot therefore appeal to instruments to break out of the circle.

And, De Leon is wrong; corruption is not only widespread in science, it is not the main problem.



You trying to drive me to drink? :o) It was you who quoted three writers at length, and they said that the difference between earth-centered and sun-centered is choice of reference frame, and then I only referred to your post.


I quoted those authors to show what the modern view is.

But, when I referred to the change from the Ptolemaic to the Newtonian system, I was referring to the actual switch in the 17th century. And that was not just a change of reference frame.

Hence, there is no conflict in what I said -- so, you can put the Jack Daniels away, now.

[Remember, I am not questioning the truth of science; just putting what scientists tell us (about highly theoretical areas of study) in a social context, and noting that what they believe one minute, fifty years later they consign to the bin.]

[mikelepore]

Perhaps we should review the evidence that reality is objective, i.e., independent of whether we know about it or what we think about it. The primary evidence is that we can be surprised by reality. I may be convinced that no train is coming, but then a train runs me over. I may believe a weapon is unloaded, and then I accidentally shoot myself. This indicates that the truth is objective and independent of being known or thought about. Given that principle, now consider some of the things that science has done. The Cassini-Huygens space probe was launched in 1997 to a place in the sky where there was nothing in particular at that time, but where Saturn would later be, in 2005, by the time the probe got there. Six and a half years later the two objects intersected. Or consider a much more unhappy event, the two atomic bombs used in 1945. The design of the plutonium bomb had been previously tested, but the uranium bomb was untested prior to this use. In these experiences, if the scientists had been using incorrect formulas, objective reality would have been surprised them in the form of their devices failing to operate. The functionality of the devices means that their formulas corresponded to laws of nature. We must conclude that the derivation of those formulas was a case of the mind learning about what makes the universe go. To put it another way, the mind is something that the universe does; a piece of the universe attains consciousness and looks at itself, and after some time discovers the laws that regulate itself. Intelligent life is a case of some of the matter in the universe acquiring awareness of itself, with an additional tendency to make a decreasing number of errors and an achieve increasing accuracy, which tendency is called science.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike, your prosaic examples cannot have any bearing on the alleged 'objectivity' of scientific theory.

And I am not questioning the ability of scientists to manipulate the world, but for every scientific fact there are a potentially infinite numbers of ways it can be explained, and/or predicted.

So, the fact that they predict things successfully does not show that their theories are 'objective'.

And, the history of science shows time and time again that what former generations of scientists swore blind was 'objective' was later abandoned as incorrect.

[mikelepore]

what former generations of scientists swore blind was 'objective' was later abandoned as incorrect

That shows that they are doing something that is self-correcting. Those zigzags are to be expected from a process that finds its own mistakes.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


That shows that they are doing something that is self-correcting. Those zigzags are to be expected from a process that finds its own mistakes.

This only works if you accept Convergent Realism, and there is good reason not to:



Again, it could be objected that modern scientific theories are remarkably successful, which must mean that they are closer to the truth, and that is why they work.

This doctrine has recently been called "Convergent Realism". I will discuss this theory in more detail in a later Essay. In the meantime, the reader is referred to Laudan (1981, 1984). See also here (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001943/01/PMI_and_Two_Fallacies.pdf). [This is a PDF.] In addition, cf., Stanford (2000, 2001, 2003, 2006).

Independently of all this, it is worth pointing out that a theory's success does not imply it is 'nearer the truth'. This is because:

(1) We have already seen that success does not imply truth anyway.

(2) Theories not only have to survive rigorous testing, they evolve over time. But, the fact that certain theories remain viable is down to the additional obvious fact that they have so far survived. But, just because of that, it does not mean that they are 'closer to the truth' -- no more than the fact that an organism survives in nature means that it is 'closer to the truth'.

For example, there is no such thing as the true form of a cat that all cats are evolving toward. Cats just survive. Truth does not enter into it. So successful cats do not prove cats are true. Moreover, cats, like theories, could become extinct one day, no matter how well they once survived, or 'worked'. Indeed, most organisms are now extinct; does that mean that they were unsuccessful when they were around? Hardly. And did that guarantee they would always remain so? Clearly not. And the same goes for any and all theories.

(3) There are other reasons for arguing that no scientific theory could be true, even if they made true predictions. This is not because they are all false, or of indeterminate truth-value, but because they operate more like rules, and thus they are not the sort of thing that could be true or false. This idea will also be spelt-out in more detail in another Essay

However, in response to item (2) above, it could be objected that theories are not like cats, or dogs, or any other species; they are either (partially-) true or they are not. Species cannot be characterised thus way in any meaningful sense.

Maybe not, but the reason why some theories survive and others do not is analogous to the way certain species do in fact survive. There are all sorts of historical, social and ideological pressures on theories, which, like the environmental impact on organisms, filter out those suited to that environment.

In that case, the fact that a theory survives/works does not imply it is true. Now, a case for the obverse inference might well be made (i.e., that a 'true' theory will work/survive -- we have already seen that this too is doubtful), but not this. Unless we know on independent grounds that a theory is 'true', its survival cannot be used to infer its 'truth'. And, as we have seen, practice itself cannot discriminate the 'good' from the 'bad'.

If all this is so, then the emphasis revolutionaries place on practice as a guide to truth is misguided at best.


References can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20010_01.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20010_01.htm)

[mikelepore]

There's too much philosophy about what is really very simple. You can use a match to set kerocene on fire: true. You can use a match to set water on fire: false. Therefore, there's such a thing as one claim being true and another claim being false. People who believe the claim that's true are called the people who are right, and people who believe the claim that's false are called the people who are wrong. None of that is affected even if we later find that we have misidentified them, and had mistakenly said that the person who was right was wrong, or had said that the person who was wrong was right.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


There's too much philosophy about what is really very simple. You can use a match to set kerocene on fire: true. You can use a match to set water on fire: false. Therefore, there's such a thing as one claim being true and another claim being false. People who believe the claim that's true are called the people who are right, and people who believe the claim that's false are called the people who are wrong. None of that is affected even if we later find that we have misidentified them, and had mistakenly said that the person who was right was wrong, or had said that the person who was wrong was right.


Trite observations about empirical matters of fact are not relevant; the questions raised here concern theory, and since scientists change their minds with the weather on this score, we are in need of plenty of philosophy to help us sort this out.

[mikelepore]

From the Communist Manifesto: "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."

From The German Ideology: "The ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas; i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control, at the same time, over the means of mental production, so that, thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it."

* * *

What they wrote is certainly true about morality, history, economics, and other descriptions of human society.

I'm still waiting to hear a convincing reason why the scientific investigation of nature is included in that.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


I'm still waiting to hear a convincing reason why the scientific investigation of nature is included in that.

Read his words again and ask yourself how science could avoid having its ideas ruled by the ruling class.

I have even given you several examples.

What more do you need?

[mikelepore]

I think I understand now. It seems I was only disputing the meaning of a word.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok; fair enough.

Sorry I did not make myself clearer to begin with.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

I just bought Conner's "A People's History of Science" and can't wait to get into it. Once I get through the book I'll have more to discuss on this thread. Thanks for the recommendation!

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Scientists create models of the universe based on observations of said universe. An example is Newton's Laws of Motion. These models are incomplete however - while they may be accurate to a large degree, they are not a completely accurate description of the universe; for example, Newtonian mechanics are not applicable for velocities close to the speed of light of light - for that you need Relativity, which is not a replacement for Newtonian mechanics - NASA still use Newtonian calculations for their rockets, because Relativity is a refinement for velocities approaching lightspeed, velocities that NASA vehicles are nowhere near reaching. While it is perfectly possible to use relativistic mechanics for "rocket science", there is no need as you get the same results using simpler mathematics when you use Newtonian mechanics.

Politicising science is the job of hacks who know nothing about how actual science is conducted. The Big Bang theory isn't creationism in disguise. Relativity doesn't justify the existance of a ruling class.

[Dystisis]

It doesn't take too long a look at the history of mankind to realize that science and philosophy always has, and continues today, to be affected or in some cases dominated by powerful institutions in specific and the ruling class in general. Most of what we know today stems from what was named Heretic by the catholic church (and would be named heretic on this forum :)).

In my opinion science avoids some subjects and delves into others, while in reality what they should be looking at is the whole picture to create a synthesis. I guess it stems from the very beginning of our education, we label and categorize fields when what we should be looking at is a unification.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

Scientists create models of the universe based on observations of said universe. An example is Newton's Laws of Motion. These models are incomplete however - while they may be accurate to a large degree, they are not a completely accurate description of the universe; for example, Newtonian mechanics are not applicable for velocities close to the speed of light of light - for that you need Relativity, which is not a replacement for Newtonian mechanics - NASA still use Newtonian calculations for their rockets, because Relativity is a refinement for velocities approaching lightspeed, velocities that NASA vehicles are nowhere near reaching. While it is perfectly possible to use relativistic mechanics for "rocket science", there is no need as you get the same results using simpler mathematics when you use Newtonian mechanics.

Politicising science is the job of hacks who know nothing about how actual science is conducted. The Big Bang theory isn't creationism in disguise. Relativity doesn't justify the existance of a ruling class.

I'm inclined to agree here.

Science is far from entirely value-free. It is influenced by political concerns in many ways - education, taboo topics of research, publication/non-publication of results, and the ends to which results are employed. However, I believe that science in some way must stand above politics.

Consider the cases of Trofim Lysenko and Josef Mengele. They demonstrate the folly of politicizing science.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'm inclined to agree here.

Science is far from entirely value-free. It is influenced by political concerns in many ways - education, taboo topics of research, publication/non-publication of results, and the ends to which results are employed. However, I believe that science in some way must stand above politics.

Consider the cases of Trofim Lysenko and Josef Mengele. They demonstrate the folly of politicizing science.

Also, note that when science is politicised, the controversy is blindingly obvious - Nobody but the Christian fundamentalists seriously believes that pushing creationism/trying to edge out evolution from classrooms is about anything other than proslytising, and Lysenkoism and racial "science" can be seen as flawed even with only a cursory knowledge of the fields they cover.

With science, it's difficult to pass off one's political/religious/whatever dogma as scientific fact because their will always be scientists who want to test one's conclusions, and in science disproving stuff earns one plaudits just as much, if not more so, than proving stuff.