How do you deal with the 'science is a religion' crap?

[athon]

Such as?

Ok - falsify the claim that every metal has a melting point. When you can't do that, then tell me the claim that every metal has a melting point is not scientific.

Athon

 

[AvalonXQ]

Ok - falsify the claim that every metal has a melting point

The claim would be falsified if we encountered a metal substance that, when exposed to all available temperatures, remained solid. As such, the claim is a scientific one.
We continue to believe that claim because, when working with a new metal, we observe that it melts at a defined temperature.

 

[athon]

How can you say there is no scientific process just because some people might quibble over the best methodology?

Let's start with 'how do you state there is a scientific process simply because you think there is one?' I'm stating that I disagree with your assertion. I can't see how a process is the scientific one, especially given so much of what has contributed to our understanding of the universe has come about through different processes.

I didn't realize you don't recognize the difference between religion and science or rational world vs irrational and so on.

This sentence doesn't make sense. Care to clarify?

Let's start there. Science successfully provides descriptions of the Universe. Religion, superstition, god beliefs and so on consistently fail to describe the Universe. Thus, for example, medical science finds cures for disease where prayers do not. There is a huge demonstrable difference.

I never argued that science wasn't pragmatically more useful than religion. I never argued that there weren't different. I'm arguing that science isn't a single process, but a set of values that describe a methodology.

Athon

 

[Tubbythin]

Ok - falsify the claim that every metal has a melting point. When you can't do that, then tell me the claim that every metal has a melting point is not scientific.

Athon

Its not about whether a theory has been falsified. Its about whether a theory is, in principle, falsifiable.

 

[athon]

The claim would be falsified if we encountered a metal substance that, when exposed to all available temperatures, remained solid. As such, the claim is a scientific one.

All available temperatures? Come back to me when we can devise an experiment that can accomplish that.

We don't accept the claim because it can be falsified. It's a purely induced theory that is robust because a number of accepted theories support our belief in it.

If you don't like that one we can use any one number of induced claims.

But lets look at it from a slightly different perspective. What would it mean to say 'it's not science' if it can't be falsified. Now, stating it can't be falsified is purely contextual, relying on current understanding. Many theories, from relativity to Darwin's ideas on natural selection, couldn't be falsified until a broader understanding of the concept was developed. So if they weren't science initially, should they be ignored? I think few people would argue that. Yet what good would it do to exclude these ideas from being called science until they can be falsified? How useful is such a categorisation?

These are the problems that lie at the heart of demarcation. People try to draw the line somewhere, yet science isn't a simple system. Its worth lies within the debate and the values we use, not in arbitrary boundaries.

Athon

 

[Tubbythin]

All available temperatures? Come back to me when we can devise an experiment that can accomplish that.

We don't accept the claim because it can be falsified. It's a purely induced theory that is robust because a number of accepted theories support our belief in it.

So it can be falsified if one or more of the supporting theories is falsified.

If you don't like that one we can use any one number of induced claims.

But lets look at it from a slightly different perspective. What would it mean to say 'it's not science' if it can't be falsified. Now, stating it can't be falsified is purely contextual, relying on current understanding. Many theories, from relativity to Darwin's ideas on natural selection, couldn't be falsified until a broader understanding of the concept was developed. So if they weren't science initially, should they be ignored? I think few people would argue that. Yet what good would it do to exclude these ideas from being called science until they can be falsified? How useful is such a categorisation?

Evolution and relativity could always have been falsified in principle if not in practice. The same cannot be said, for example, for "Goddidit" or "Last Thursdayism".

 

[athon]

Its not about whether a theory has been falsified. Its about whether a theory is, in principle, falsifiable.

Ok, pretending that you're right (never read much Popper, hey?), what good would that do? If you claim all objects in the universe of a certain mass undergo fusion, it's technically falsifiable according to you. But practically it's not something that can be tested yet. Perhaps in the future, but not currently. Hence at the moment it is beyond testability, which was the main thrust of Popper's argument (and a focus of criticism against his work).

Popper's hypothetico-deductive method was a follow-on from the problems found with logical positivism, and hence for its time was a large step forward in science philosophy. To deal with the issues regarding metaphysics, he proposed an idea could only be regarded as robust if it could not only be empirically tested (as per LP), but if the idea could be expressed in a way that could be demonstrated practically to be false. It was a means of gambling with theories - clear out those that are shown wrong and you've reduced it down to those that are likely to be right. Hence it was pragmatic.

Note that Popper himself stressed (especially in later years) that it wasn't a black-and-white situation, and science included a great deal of pure inductive reasoning.

My point is that while falsification is useful, it is not a demarcation in and of itself. It does not determine what is and what is not science.

Athon

 

[Tubbythin]

Ok, pretending that you're right (never read much Popper, hey?),

Nope.

what good would that do? If you claim all objects in the universe of a certain mass undergo fusion,

Why would I claim that?

it's technically falsifiable according to you. But practically it's not something that can be tested yet. Perhaps in the future, but not currently. Hence at the moment it is beyond testability, which was the main thrust of Popper's argument (and a focus of criticism against his work).

Popper's hypothetico-deductive method was a follow-on from the problems found with logical positivism, and hence for its time was a large step forward in science philosophy. To deal with the issues regarding metaphysics, he proposed an idea could only be regarded as robust if it could not only be empirically tested (as per LP), but if the idea could be expressed in a way that could be demonstrated practically to be false. It was a means of gambling with theories - clear out those that are shown wrong and you've reduced it down to those that are likely to be right. Hence it was pragmatic.

Note that Popper himself stressed (especially in later years) that it wasn't a black-and-white situation, and science included a great deal of pure inductive reasoning.

I don't understand most of that.

My point is that while falsification is useful, it is not a demarcation in and of itself. It does not determine what is and what is not science.

Athon

Well its certainly true that just because a theory is falsifiable in practice doesn't make it a scientific theory. But then I never claimed that. Perhaps I should have said "Which nicely illustrates a difference between science (eg the LCDM) and religion"

 

[athon]

Nope.

Might be a good place to start if you want to discuss falsification.

Why would I claim that?

Umm...it was a hypothetical 'you'. Replace it with 'if it were claimed' if it confuses you.

I don't understand most of that.

It was a bit of historical background to the very principle you're arguing in favour of. I thought since you're making the argument, you might want to know where it originally stemmed from.

Seriously, I have no problem with people who try to argue the philosophy of science. But as I said earlier, it's frustrating when somebody does so without any idea of what it is they are discussing.

Well its certainly true that just because a theory is falsifiable in practice doesn't make it a scientific theory. But then I never claimed that. Perhaps I should have said "Which nicely illustrates a difference between science (eg the LCDM) and religion"

That would be a better way to distinguish the two, however still has significant problems. Now you've stumbled into the same demarcation problem for religion. You're stating that if it can be falsified, it is not religious. Yet another no true Scotsman fallacy is born.

I'm not saying that science and religion are equivalent. I'm just saying that this very discussion of demarcation is problematic, and always has been. We can't draw the line using simple words and bold terms like 'falsification'.

Athon

 

[Beth]

I'm arguing that science isn't a single process, but a set of values that describe a methodology.

Athon

Thanks. I haven't thought of science that way before. It's an interesting idea for me to chew on. Could you list some of the values you feel describe the methodology of science?

 

[athon]

Thanks. I haven't thought of science that way before. It's an interesting idea for me to chew on. Could you list some of the values you feel describe the methodology of science?

Good question, but not one I could do full justice in a simple post, I'm afraid. I'm currently working on a book covering it in principle (gratuitous plug ), and even that I'm finding hard to distill into a few thousand words.

Science isn't something that emerged fully formed one morning, but evolved from good old ancient philosophy and progressed over the centuries (and will undoubtedly continue to change as we continue to argue).

Humans are by nature mythopoeic creatures. We've evolved as social organisms whose brains naturally exchange personal information in order to strengthen the social group. It's how our brains evolved - to deal with a social landscape. The stories we tell never had to explain reality in a pragmatic light, but rather a social one.

There were several things that changed this social landscape and precipitated the need for different values of information exchange. Trade, historical records (writing) and coinage were three huge factors that seemed to be essential. Trade broke down the strict social boundaries, allowing people to diversify their cultural influences. Coinage made it possible for wealth to accumulate away from the centre of a social group, and for individuals to find time to pursue academia. And obviously written records broke down the temporal lines between cultures, and not just spacial ones.

With this, people could now contrast those social ideas. Without the values of needing to subscribe to a particular social belief for fear of the repercussions of ostracism, it was possible for people to argue, using observations as the mediator rather than one's own cultural background. Empiricism was one of the first values that formed that we could call 'scientific' as opposed to 'mythopoeic'.

From there, various individuals have argued the merits of different values. Aristotle opposed experimentation, for instance, primarily because of his way of describing the world according to formal causes. Yet rhetoric - the act of discussion according to logic - was prized, and has been maintained as a backbone of science ever since.

The aim of all of this was to explain an impersonal and consistent universe. The driving reason behind it was that different cultures had different stories explaining the same observations. Freed from social constraints, it was determined that there were factors that seemed consistent regardless of your background, such as logic and symmetry (the fact that given the same circumstances, the same things seem to happen regardless of space and time).

Sorry if I haven't given a more detailed answer. Again, drawing a line and stating emphatically that there are set scientific values and there are set religious ones is tricky to do. I could offer some I believe represent them, but they are no more universal and objective than any another person might offer.

Science doesn't progress in spite of our inability to agree - it progresses because we are unable to agree.

Athon

 

[Beth]

Thanks. That's was interesting. I'll try to get of copy of your book when it's available!

 

[Dorian Gray]

The true answer to the OP is: Why bother? How many times are you going to encounter a fence-sitter who will be swayed by one of your arguments, however well thought out it is?

 

[Perpetual Student]

athon:

There is no evidence that Aristotle "opposed" experimentation. It can be said that he did not value it or understand its power. It is true that, unlike Archimedes who was an avid experimenter, he valued logic over experimentation. Let's not forget that, although he got some things wrong, he was also an active observer of nature.

I certainly hope you don't include such inaccuracies in your book.

 

[athon]

athon:

There is no evidence that Aristotle "opposed" experimentation.

It can be said that he did not value it or understand its power. It is true that, unlike Archimedes who was an avid experimenter, he valued logic over experimentation. Let's not forget that, although he got some things wrong, he was also an active observer of nature.

I agree 'opposed' was too strong a word - he personally never wrote on experimentation as we currently understand it and never suggested it shouldn't be used. My position stems from Posterior Analytics, where he states that demonstration of any sort only ever shows that a phenomena occurs, and not 'how'.

I do appreciate the correction, however. It forced me to look back through my notes as to where I got that from - I indeed should have been a little more critical of the source's use of language.

I certainly hope you don't include such inaccuracies in your book.

See, the first part was useful. Your correction made me think twice about my choice of words, and encouraged me to reconsider what I knew. This, however, simply makes it seem less like you were correcting me to be helpful, and more like you're trolling.

Athon

 

[Tubbythin]

Might be a good place to start if you want to discuss falsification.

Perhaps.

Umm...it was a hypothetical 'you'. Replace it with 'if it were claimed' if it confuses you.

I realised that. That's why my response was a hypothetical "I". As in, why would anyone make that claim?

It was a bit of historical background to the very principle you're arguing in favour of. I thought since you're making the argument, you might want to know where it originally stemmed from.

Seriously, I have no problem with people who try to argue the philosophy of science. But as I said earlier, it's frustrating when somebody does so without any idea of what it is they are discussing.

I wasn't trying to argue the philosophy of science. I was trying to argue that there were clear differences between the approaches of science and religion - one sets itself up to be falsified the other declares itself sacrosanct and unfalsifiable. Take the origin of the Universe. LCDM could be falsified by, for example, the discovery of a 50 billion year old star. "Goddidit" cannot be assesed or tested without some kind of definition of what/who is God and what exactly he's supposed to have done.

That would be a better way to distinguish the two, however still has significant problems. Now you've stumbled into the same demarcation problem for religion. You're stating that if it can be falsified, it is not religious. Yet another no true Scotsman fallacy is born.

Am I? I have no real interest in what is and isn't religion. Just what is and isn't science.

I'm not saying that science and religion are equivalent. I'm just saying that this very discussion of demarcation is problematic, and always has been. We can't draw the line using simple words and bold terms like 'falsification'.

Neither are we going to solve it by using phrases like "Popper's hypothetico-deductive method was a follow-on from the problems found with logical positivism". That is going to the opposite extreme.

 

[not daSkeptic]

... practically it's not something that can be tested yet. Perhaps in the future, but not currently. Hence at the moment it is beyond testability, which was the main thrust of Popper's argument (and a focus of criticism against his work).

This is not at all what I took away from reading Popper. I understood falsification to be as Tubbythin described. I may be misunderstanding, but the following is from the Logic of Scientific Discovery (bolded emphasis mine):

These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation. In other words: I shall not require of a scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.

 

[alexi_drago]

We don't need faith to believe in the power of the atom bomb.

 

[athon]

This is not at all what I took away from reading Popper. I understood falsification to be as Tubbythin described. I may be misunderstanding, but the following is from the Logic of Scientific Discovery (bolded emphasis mine):

Hm, I guess I found a greater emphasis here (and elsewhere) on:

These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation. In other words: I shall not require of a scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.

However, even if you ignore that, I still ask what use it would be if a concept was only theoretically falsifiable, yet practically impossible.

Athon

 

[athon]

I wasn't trying to argue the philosophy of science.

Odd, because right off the bat you then say-

I was trying to argue that there were clear differences between the approaches of science and religion

So, you're not trying to argue the philosophy of science...you're just trying to argue the philosophy of science.

Huh.

- one sets itself up to be falsified the other declares itself sacrosanct and unfalsifiable. Take the origin of the Universe. LCDM could be falsified by, for example, the discovery of a 50 billion year old star. "Goddidit" cannot be assesed or tested without some kind of definition of what/who is God and what exactly he's supposed to have done.

I fully understand your example. And it is true - one is practically falsifiable, and the other isn't. However I was commenting on whether falsification defines science or not. It doesn't, no more than its absence might define religion.

Am I? I have no real interest in what is and isn't religion. Just what is and isn't science.

Ok, given you stated above that you weren't arguing the philosophy of science, this is really confusing. Either you're stating what science is - a philosophical argument - or you're not. Using falsification to define it (something that I've heard all too often, and is way too simplistic) won't do it, I'm afraid.

Neither are we going to solve it by using phrases like "Popper's hypothetico-deductive method was a follow-on from the problems found with logical positivism". That is going to the opposite extreme.

Ok, I'll simplify it. Popper was the guy who first came up with the whole falsification thing, right? It was part of an attempt to define science as a method called the 'hypothetico-deductive method' (although it was actually another guy who came up with this method, and he just made it popular). In really simple terms, it was all a response to the decline of an earlier attempt to define science, namely something called logical positivism.

Seeing a pattern? Yeah, the falsification thing also had problems. Fast forward to today. We're still no closer to putting science into a nice, neat box using simple terms.

Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick. Maybe when you said 'such as', I mistook the statement as you (as with Perpetual Student) finding it difficult to believe something could be considered scientific if it cannot be falsified. Correct me if I'm wrong and I'll sincerely apologise.

Athon