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When to "stop" doing science?

T'ai Chi

Penultimate Amazing
T
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May 20, 2003
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Say the following graph (attached) represents the relationship between science and its convergence to the Truth.

For what distance between science and Truth, are we satisfied that science is describing/predicting/modelling Truth well?

That is, for what tolerance, do we feel good that

|science-Truth| < tolerance

is small enough, and how do we know that we've attained such a tolerance?
 

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I'd say there is no such tolerance number. The best hypothesis is the one that comes closest to predicting reality, of all the ones we have available. What is "best" today may not be best tomorrow.

Part of science is an acceptance that we'll never know for sure how "correct" our understanding is. All we can know is if our understanding is better today than it was yesterday. Get over it.
 
That graph makes no sense. What exactly is the difference between the science line being above truth and below?
 
I think the point of the graph is that science "converges" on truth. It's a fair point, but I believe the graph is wrong. Science converges on truth, monotonically. We don't ever throw out a working theory for a less-useful one.
 
We should never "stop" science. We should never think that science has attained "truth".

To do so would be arrogant in the extreme.
 
T'ai, that chart is one of your most hilarious contributions ever here. I am immediately reminded of the scene in Mr. Deeds comes to Town at Deeds' sanity hearing where some very Vienna-esque psychiatrist, with a pointy goatee, presents a similar chart graphing normal and abnormal, and showing how Deeds falls below the critical line.

Anyway, I think I know what you mean by "truth," untrue as your concept may be. What I don't get is how "tolerance" is in any way related to the topic.
 
As graphs go, this one's nonsensical.
One axis is Science and the other is Time.

How did you measure science? Bunches of books published in a given year? And what's the measure for time? Days? Hours? Weeks?

And then the assumption that somehow the convergence of science and time equals truth?

This reminds me of my Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Rose arguing because he was trying to describe an auto accident on the kitchen table, and was using the strawberry jam to represent the white dodge, and Aunt Rose kept insisting that a jar of strawberry jam couldn't possibly represent a white dodge. Makes about as much sense.

I don't have the popcorn smiley, so just assume it's here..... Waiting for Claus.....
 
hgc said:
T'ai, that chart is one of your most hilarious contributions ever here. I am immediately reminded of the scene in Mr. Deeds comes to Town at Deeds' sanity hearing where some very Vienna-esque psychiatrist, with a pointy goatee, presents a similar chart graphing normal and abnormal, and showing how Deeds falls below the critical line.

Anyway, I think I know what you mean by "truth," untrue as your concept may be. What I don't get is how "tolerance" is in any way related to the topic.
Click to expand...

Does the word pixielated (never saw it in writing) ring a bell?:D :D
 
If we ever "stop doing science", then I want out. What a fricken boring world that would be. Science is not the search for "truth", it is simply finding out "what is". "What is" is always fascinating. What is it that makes us see? What is it that causes us to think? What is it that will get us to another lovely rock in the universe just as beautiful as the one we are on?
 
T'ai Chi said:
That is, for what tolerance, do we feel good that

|science-Truth| < tolerance

is small enough, and how do we know that we've attained such a tolerance?
Click to expand...

What you are describing is a tolerance for ignorance, superstition and falsehoods.

Why should we tolerate that?
 
T'ai Chi said:
...how do we know that we've attained such a tolerance?
Click to expand...
We don't. It is always possible that current models are inaccurate, or not applicable under certain conditions. That's why we need to keep doing science.
 
T'ai Chi said:
Say the following graph (attached) represents the relationship between science and its convergence to the Truth.

For what distance between science and Truth, are we satisfied that science is describing/predicting/modelling Truth well?

That is, for what tolerance, do we feel good that

|science-Truth| < tolerance

is small enough, and how do we know that we've attained such a tolerance?
Click to expand...

Wow this might be the dumbest thing I have ever heard, and it has a compleatly made up graph that represents nothing to boot. HOw are you measureing science and truth? THen how are you useing this measurement to assign them numerical values.

The point is we can not measure truth, and so we don't know how close we are to it.
 
hgc said:
T'ai, that chart is one of your most hilarious contributions ever here. I am immediately reminded of the scene in Mr. Deeds comes to Town at Deeds' sanity hearing where some very Vienna-esque psychiatrist, with a pointy goatee, presents a similar chart graphing normal and abnormal, and showing how Deeds falls below the critical line.
Click to expand...

The point, another one which you may or may not understand, of the Science lines being above and below the Truth line, is that sometimes our predictions will be off above, sometimes off below, and sometimes we don't have the vantage point to say just where our science lies in relation to reality.

The general idea of convergence to some reality is what is important. This is not a peer reviewed journal, so of course the graph is not 100% accurate (nor was it ever intended to be) like some silly nitpickers desire.
 
T'ai Chi said:
The point, another one which you may or may not understand, of the Science lines being above and below the Truth line, is that sometimes our predictions will be off above, sometimes off below, and sometimes we don't have the vantage point to say just where our science lies in relation to reality.
Click to expand...
How do you define "above" and "below" in realtion to reality?
 
Eos of the Eons said:
If we ever "stop doing science", then I want out.
Click to expand...

No one seems to be seriously testing the hypothesis that a pencil, when dropped, will fall down.

We've pretty much worked that out, and while it might be true that a pencil dropped might float up, we've pretty much concluded that dropped pencils fall down.

So, we've tested it enough. The question is, when is enough enough to conclude things like this for the general case?
 
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