Do clever people outsmart themselves?

Scorpion said:
I regard all you people talking about love as nothing but brain chemistry as proof of my opening post that clever people outsmart themselves.



There may be brain chemistry involved in feelings, but I do not believe love can be so easily dismissed.



For example, it was said by men who fought in the trenches of the first world war that they loved each other more than women. So their love was not biological, but born of comradeship..



People also love their pets, and I loved a bird. I cried when she died, and it takes a lot to drag a tear out of me.
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All the anecdotes you quote do not challenge the theory you don't like.
 
Chanakya said:
You appear not to have understood me. It could be a language thing, I don't know.

(...)

But done rightly -- which probably no one ever does in practice -- absolutely, filling gasoline in your fuel tank can very well be science, no doubt of that. In this I disagree with what I understand you to have said, about this demarcation thing.
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It's possible I didn't understand you. Or the other way around.

I'll explain myself better:
The common user who's refueling isn't doing science.
I would say that person is applying practical knowledge.
However, the research team of an automobile company studying the fuel consumption of a new model is doing science.
The question is what makes the research team doing science and not the common user.
Part of the answer is that the research team controls the relevant variables and the common user does not.

Do you agree? Do you think there are other relevant differences between science and non-science?

NOTE: this practical problem reflects one of the most important of the philosophy of science: that of the demarcation of science.
 
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HansMustermann said:
Nevertheless, your claim was essentially that a short list of scientists have also done philosophy, therefore that means philosophy is important in some way. Then the EXACT same applies to alchemy, alcohol, drugs, or going to titty bars.

You haven't in any way shown that that interest in philosophy also helped in their scientific discoveries in any way. Once you do THAT, sure, THEN you can exclude alchemy for not qualifying in the same way. But until then all you demonstrate is that you make up BS double standards as you go, as usual.
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I have explained you why take drugs or make sex is not the same of writing articles on philosophy of science.

This "few" scientists that had made philosophy of science are not a handful of fool. They are the top brass of the scientific revolution in the 20th. I have quoted them to point that philosophy of science is not a rubbish. You cannot to get rid of them with silly words.

Some of them have commented that the philosophy readings helped him to carry out that scientific revolution.

I don't say that much. I say that the philosophy of science is of interest to those scientists who are concerned with understanding the meaning of what they are doing. Science can be done without worrying about the difference between science and non-science; the problem of objectivity and subjectivity of knowledge; the ethics of research with human beings; realism vs. instrumentalism; reductionism, etc. These are issues that concern and interest the people who are affected by them and, as is logical, also some scientists "in their free time".

It seems that Swahili disturb you. I repeat it in English:

Contemporary philosophy neither pretends to guide science nor supplant science nor be an alternative to science. Philosophy of science only wants to discuss what is science. And this is a subject that seems to be interesting to many scientists. Their opinion must be heard.
 
David Mo said:
...The common user who's refueling isn't doing science.
I would say that person is applying practical knowledge.
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Agreed. I said as much myself, twice.

(Which is why I'd suggested, quite literally and not as a put-down, that you may not have understood me, because your responses do not seem to show that you've understood that that's exactly what I told you myself, more than once.)

Be that as it may: okay, this much we do agree on.


However, the research team of an automobile company studying the fuel consumption of a new model is doing science.
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Agreed. Except, it could just as well be you or me, it doesn't necessarily have to be some "research team", not unless you circularly define anyone who's "doing science" as a research team.


The question is what makes the research team doing science and not the common user.
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Using the scientific method would be what makes something "doing science". This seems straightforward enough.


Part of the answer is that the research team controls the relevant variables and the common user does not.

Do you agree?
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Sure. That control is part of the scientific method.



Do you think there are other relevant differences between science and non-science?
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Obviously. All the other elements of the scientific method. Again, this is perfectly straightforward, at least in principle.


NOTE: this practical problem reflects one of the most important of the philosophy of science: that of the demarcation of science.
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What you've suggested thus far, seems to be that using the scientific method would amount to doing science, and not following it, not. Nothing particularly profound there.

If all this "demarcation" means is simply a restatement of what the scientific method is, then I think we can take it that you, me, and everyone reading this, is familiar with it. No need to go into it, if that's all there is to it.

But if there's more to this demarcation, as you call it, than this circular re-definition of what the scientific method is, then sure, I'm interested. Rather than you or me googling out links, perhaps you could, if you're familiar with this, outline it briefly here, what it's about?
 
Chanakya said:
What you've suggested thus far, seems to be that using the scientific method would amount to doing science, and not following it, not. Nothing particularly profound there.

If all this "demarcation" means is simply a restatement of what the scientific method is, then I think we can take it that you, me, and everyone reading this, is familiar with it. No need to go into it, if that's all there is to it.

But if there's more to this demarcation, as you call it, than this circular re-definition of what the scientific method is, then sure, I'm interested. Rather than you or me googling out links, perhaps you could, if you're familiar with this, outline it briefly here, what it's about?
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We agree on the essentials.
We do not agree in that this is a trivial matter. There are people in this forum who think that practical knowledge or simple induction is science. They seem to be unclear about what science really is, even though they adore it as an idol.

The problem of demarcation is not to say "science is science" because what is science is not always clear. For example, ad hoc hypotheses. Hypotheses that are invented for the sole purpose of saving an objection. In principle, an ad hoc hypothesis is unscientific. They are typical of pseudoscientific thinking. However, it has been shown that scientists often use ad hoc hypotheses in their daily work. So what makes the use of an ad hoc hypothesis legitimate? I confess that I am not clear about this. Kuhn made a big fuss by saying that in scientific revolutions science rejects ad hoc hypotheses for reasons that have nothing to do with science. I find it convincing, although I have no criteria to be sure. I need to know more about the history of science than I know.
 
It seems to me that this philosophy of science business may have been very useful, once, in giving us the scientific method. After all it did not simply come to us through revelation, it had to be thought up, and finessed, by philosophers and scientists alike.

But that was then. Today anyone who has a mind to can check out what the scientific method is. All that remains, it seems to me, is to apply the scientific method and actually "do science" -- and, as lay individuals, to 'do skepticism' and to incorporate this scientific worldview into our lives.

Is there any finessing still left to do, that any scientist, or even any lay person, cannot do, without first having to educate himself not only about the scientific method but, specifically, about the philosophy of science, with its demarcation and other issues? In other words: Is the philosophy of science of any interest today, other than in an historical and purely academic sense?

I would think not, but I'm open to chaging my mind if you can think of concrete examples (of what someone with a detailed knowledge of the philosophy of science can contribute to real issues, that someone who only knows what the scientific method is, but none of this philosophy of science and all of that history, cannot also work out for himself).
 
Chanakya said:
It seems to me that this philosophy of science business may have been very useful, once, in giving us the scientific method. After all it did not simply come to us through revelation, it had to be thought up, and finessed, by philosophers and scientists alike.

But that was then. Today anyone who has a mind to can check out what the scientific method is. All that remains, it seems to me, is to apply the scientific method and actually "do science" -- and, as lay individuals, to 'do skepticism' and to incorporate this scientific worldview into our lives.

Is there any finessing still left to do, that any scientist, or even any lay person, cannot do, without first having to educate himself not only about the scientific method but, specifically, about the philosophy of science, with its demarcation and other issues? In other words: Is the philosophy of science of any interest today, other than in an historical and purely academic sense?

I would think not, but I'm open to chaging my mind if you can think of concrete examples (of what someone with a detailed knowledge of the philosophy of science can contribute to real issues, that someone who only knows what the scientific method is, but none of this philosophy of science and all of that history, cannot also work out for himself).
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Anyone can know what the scientific method is if he has been well informed. How is he well informed? Going to two websites? With a funny youtuber? If you want to be well informed you will have to read something more serious. For example, on the problem of ad hoc hypotheses that I told you. Where are you going to get informed?

It depends on what you mean by usefulness or interest. There are immediate utilities that result in the production of consumer goods and there are cultural utilities that result in the interest of knowledge itself. Each one at its own time. But both are valid. And sometimes they touch each other.

Do you think discussing moral problems is useful? In what sense?
 
Okay, I ask for a concrete example, and you present a generic example. No problem, let's go with that -- unless you'd care to present a concrete example of ad hoc hypotheses now? Either way works for me.

So go ahead, then, show me how learning about what the philosophy of science can help us decide whether ad hypotheses are scientific, any more than simply discussing this basis the scioentific method itself, and nothing more, can.


Here's my (layman's) view: in general, we can treat ad hoc hypotheses the same as any other hypothesis. That is, we subject them, in general, to the same process that we would any other. True, they bring some doubt to the original hypothesis; but we cannot dismiss all ad hoc hypotheses for that reason.

When it comes to some specific ad hoc hypotheses, then a more specific view can be had basis the opinion not of some philosophers of science, but of practitioners, scientists, working in and familiar with that particular field. They -- or we ourselves, if we can familiarize ourselves sfficiently with that field -- decide if some specific ad hoc hypotheses are worthy of consideration at all.


That's my view. Go ahead, show me how learning about the philosophy of science can help me decide if ad hoc hypotheses in general, or some specific ad hoc hypotheses, can be thought of as "doing science".


eta:
As more morality, et cetera, let's not go down that rabbit hole for now, and focus instead, for now, on these ad hoc hypotheses, that you've yourself brought up, and how the philosophy of science can contribute towards dealing with them, any better than simply knowing about the scientific method, as well as expertise specific to the relevant branch of science, can.
 
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Chanakya said:
So go ahead, then, show me how learning about what the philosophy of science can help us decide whether ad hypotheses are scientific, any more than simply discussing this basis the scioentific method itself, and nothing more, can.


Here's my (layman's) view: in general, we can treat ad hoc hypotheses the same as any other hypothesis. That is, we subject them, in general, to the same process that we would any other. True, they bring some doubt to the original hypothesis; but we cannot dismiss all ad hoc hypotheses for that reason.
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Do you mean that the practical scientist rejects or admits a hypothesis without knowing why? Is it a matter of intuition? Or does he have any criteria?

I see only two possibilities:
Either the scientist has a demarcation criterion or he does not.
If he has a criterion he enters into the "philosophical" problem of ad hoc hypotheses.
If he does not have a criterion, a pseudoscientist has every right to make as many ad hoc hypotheses as he wants. So there is no difference between science and pseudoscience.

This is my profane opinion.
I have put "philosophical" into quotation marks because those who have participated in this debate are often scientists who have switched to philosophy. Popper, Russell, Kuhn, Lakatos, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Piaget, Husserl, Bunge, etc. But we can call this "philosophy" in order to avoid complicate things.
 
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David Mo said:
What evidence are you talking about? You're out of control.
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I will ignore the insult and simply observe the correctness of the quote. You care not for truth, only your juvenile truth.

Absolutism will not smooth your way in the world, it will only make it more difficult.
 
JesseCuster said:
I asked the question. It wasn't rhetorical.

What will happen if we don't listen to the opinions of these scientists whose opinions you think must be heard?
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The question is now well drafted.

According some of them, they could not have carried forward the scientific revolution of the 20th century. I don't know enough science to evaluate this.

What I know is that at least an important part of today's culture would have been lost: the culture that cares about the meaning of science and pseudoscientific activities. For example, in order to demystify the so-called "syndonology" it is necessary to know why it is not science, even though it has been defended by scientists.
 
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