Science provides the best way to understand the world and are the best explanation as to how the physical world works. Being the best explanation doesn’t mean it is the only possible thing it could be however if there is another method you’re free to subscribe to it (there is by the way, its called belief and there are various religions based on beliefs you can buy into).
I don’t think scientists ought to be proclaiming absolute knowledge in any field they are discussing; often times this may get twisted to mean scientists think they know more than what they can actually know and buy into their own methodology as if it were a religion, but this is a false understanding of what science actually is. Please note some sources describing science below, key points in bold, declaring science as not how we scientific knowledge and understanding is an absolute.
What is science?
Science [b]is the concerted human effort to understand[/b], or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding1. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural processes under controlled conditions. (There are, of course, more definitions of science.)
The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Science is ongoing. Science is continually refining and expanding our knowledge of the universe, and as it does, it leads to new questions for future investigation. Science will never be “finished.”
Science does however, provides us with knowledge of the universe. It is important to understand what in science is knowledge and what is still being “refined” or can be refined. Technically, anything can be refined. If there is anything that can be tested to show any of the fundamental known facts of science now are wrong, we can go ahead and change that. Until then, there is no valid reason to think we don’t have knowledge on many things, through science.
Science (from Latin: scientia meaning “knowledge”) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.
Yes well as I alluded to it some scientists don’t convey science correctly. We’re all human and I think we can see how they can easily get wrapped up in their undertakings and lose touch with what their method is, yes? But what is there to complain about? Do we see in the media how science and scientists are portrayed as providing absolutes? I do. Is that science? No that’s journalism. Science often gets a bum wrap due to this lack of understanding, because we often hear about scientific works not from reading scientific journals, but from the media who may read them and translate them.
Is there a problem with how science is done as to the proper method of science these days?
there is no need to defend science or the scientific method for understanding the nature of things…
many people do not understand what goes on wth science and are threatened by it…but they dont take the time to really learn about it…
What is it specifically that you’re having trouble with? Does your position really depend so heavily on its opposite that you cannot even explicate it without an understanding first of what you disagree with?
It’s both. I believe we purveyors of a new science are both dissatisfied with the current methodology and violently recoiling against its tyrannical rule.
I believe it to be a science that both recognizes its value-ladenness and embraces it. However, note the following:
“The necessity of reform mustn’t be allowed to become a form of blackmail serving to limit, reduce, or halt the exercise of criticism. Under no circumstances should one pay attention to those who tell one: “Don’t criticize, since you’re not capable of carrying out a reform.” That’s ministerial cabinet talk. Critique doesn’t have to be the premise of a deduction that concludes, “this, then, is what needs to be done.” It should be an instrument for those who fight, those who resist and refuse what is. Its use should be in processes of conflict and confrontation, essays in refusal. It doesn’t have to lay down the law for the law. It isn’t a stage in a programming. It is a challenge directed to what is.”
[Foucalt, The Essential Foucault].
oh no music…i do not know what your position is.
how can i agree or disagree…
this would help me----how are you defining ontology and tyranny…please state it here…
These two comments taken together make for an interesting dialectic. If I didn’t have some idea of what you’re after, I might think they said the same thing.
Sure. If you are doing an agricultural study then you are not going to go to the local mall and get data on the spending habits of teenagers. But you have to collect data which potentially disproves your theory. The researcher is asking what data proves the theory but he/she also has to be asking what data disproves the theory. If both sides are not considered then the researcher is working with tunnel vision. I think that a value-laden approach encourages that narrow vision. That’s why I think that a diverse scientific community is important in every step of the process. At every point from getting funding, gathering data, analyzing data, and writing the report , the researcher should have access to peers who limit bias. Ideally you would frame a hypothesis so that the research is discovering something rather than proving something. I realize that it is probably easier to get funding from someone who shares your bias. None the less, an organization which funds research should the challenging potential bias from the outset. During the data gathering stage, there has to be contact between scientists. This is where the community is extremely important. For example, if you have a study on the male and female influence on an agricultural process, ideally a male sexist is working with a feminist and each has to justify the inclusion or exclusion of data to the other. If such combined research is not taking place, at least the researcher has to be working within a community of diverse views and is actively discussing the research. If the scientist is working withing a community with the same values, then there will only be mutual enhancement of the bias. The same argument applies at the analysis stage - there has to be someone around willing to say ‘Does that interpretation of the data make sense?’.
Once the paper is submitted for publication, is it being reviewed by people with the same values, opposite values or mixed values? Again I think that mixed values will reduce bias and produce a better result. Acceptance or rejection of a paper in the other two cases will be attributed to politics.
Science doesn’t create useful things. Science discovers. The only statement it makes about usefulness is that greater knowledge and understanding is useful in and of it itself. Engineering creates useful things for a customer who is willing to pay for them. Evaluation of usefulness is left up to philosophy, theology and politics.
There is much to the discourse that I’m fine with. What I take issue with specifically, are those “rules” (i.e., restrictions, boundaries, mechanisms of legitimation) derived from the afore-described ontology, an ontology with, I think, no place in the contemporary scientific practice.
Gentlemen, may I suggest a pause in the discussion while some of us try to get caught up? A lot of people think ontology is a search for evidence of a god concept through an examination of either empirical , as-is-shown-using-the-scientific-method-to-be-the-most-probable evidence, or through logical/rational thought. Is this no longer the philosopher’s definition? Iow, has the god concept been removed from ontology? If searching for a god-concept gave rise to ontology, I can understand why it could then be called a ‘tyranny.’ All ‘scientific’ searches would have to lead to a god-concept, if that’s what the philosopher has set out to do.
On the other hand, if the search is for the really-real, and the god-concept has been removed from ontology, the so-called ‘soft sciences’, such as anthropology, archeology, sociology, et al, will still be burdened by an expectation of the end result in much the same way as ontology is driven to show ‘proof’ of the existence of a god-concept. I think most people would agree that the soft sciences are ‘tyrannized’ by the thoughts and biases of the scientists who gather and interpret the data. After all, what they have to start with is an interpretation of life as they assume it to be today. If the scientists believe the world is now, as always has been, male dominated (and how has history shown otherwise,) that male-dominance would be reflected in their interpretation of data, even though it’s intuitively highly improbable.
If I’m incorrect in my interpretation of the thread so far, please let me know.
If I’m correct, then I’d like to know what GS 344 has to do with the thread. A GS rating indicates how a person’s background and knowledge fits into a Government Service job description, doesn’t it? In this particular case, GS 344 has to do with computer technology. ( An MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) code (much like the GS codes) would be very similar.) I don’t understand the correlation between that and the OP.
As I’ve said, I come here to learn. Learning involves correction when the student flat out simply doesn’t understand. I’m trying to understand and would very much like to be corrected. That’s the only way I know of to further my education.
The Pause is now over. Feel free to continue your discussion–and thank you.