Faith, Materialism, Evidence and Layers

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Warning

I can not bluff that I know even a tangible amount of knowledge on philosophy, faith, materialism, and quantum physics/mechanics, and the scientific method.

this post will be irrational, lacking focus, and full of irrational, illogical, and fallacious statements... forgive me

There are several things that have just recently begun to be quantified and explained using science: just to name a few for example

love
attraction
the make up of the universe
quantum physics

Apparantly these can be measured, quantified, and observed in one way or another. I can read sources and do the math (rarely) and follow the breakthroughs that are happening to understand out natural world and the universe.

I find that I have to take much of this proof, sources and measurements on faith. I do not have the instruments, tools, and lab equipment to repeat the experiments. I can not observe that which the scientists and researchers can with the sensitive, expensive instruments they have.

A lot of the natural world is being deconstructed. For example, there are "behaviours" of sub-atomic particles I have never heard about being explained. There are layers upon layers of our universe being revealed, but many of these layers I can not observe. These insights are refered to as natural explanations of the natural world. If I am to accept these explanations and measurements as evidence, I have to do so on faith, because I can not repeat the experiments and have no access to the equipment to observe the "behaviours" of, say, matter or energy on a quantum level.

I have taught elementary science, taught scientific procedure, the use of the senses to observe the natural world. All that I can, and students can observe and demonstrate, I accept as evidence to support an hypothesis. But as I have stated there are limits to the layers of the natural world we (my students and I) can observe.

I do understand that many experiments I can repeat with students today, were not repeatable with the resources available 50, or 100 years ago to laypersons and school districts.
50, 100, or 200 years ago these experiments would have revealed the layers of the natural world that could be observed with the technology available to a small group of people. The laypersons of the time would have to take the findings of this small group of people on faith.

I have seen it stated many times, that faith has no place in understanding the natural world, or in using scientific procedure to understand the natural world, but I take much on faith many times when I read and examine the results or tests done on levels that I can not observe. I have faith that science is self correcting, that scientific procedure is the best tool we have of examining the natural world.

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? I suppose it does.

I will consider many explanations about the natural world that I see in periodicals, and press releases, articles in Scientific Amercian, Popular Science, National Geographic, in physics text books. Why? I am more inclined to consider these natural explanations than supernatural explanations.
I guess I am willing to consider the natural explanations because I believe science is self-correcting, it is progressive, it is rarely stagnant, and scientists come to a temporary agreement based on evidence.

Now this may be disturbing to many, as I have chosen to accept, on faith, that science is the best tool humanity has to understand the natural world. I am a layperson that does not have the tools to observe and measure the events happening and currently being observed at the layers scientist can.

The past can not always be used to guage the future, but; as scientific break-throughs in centuries or decades past are now observable, for example with the equipment the resources of school districts permit, I have faith. I have faith that current natural events that can only be observed by a limited few and communicated to the layperson will be observable in the future by a greater number of people.

 

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

yeesh, certainly not a work of literary art ... perhaps not even coherant

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

PPG,

I find that I have to take much of this proof, sources and measurements on faith. I do not have the instruments, tools, and lab equipment to repeat the experiments. I can not observe that which the scientists and researchers can with the sensitive, expensive instruments they have.

You don't have to. Once you understand how, and why, the scientific process works, you don't have to take any of it on faith. You can reasonably accept things which have been scientifically verified, because you know that the process of scientific verification is reliable.

I have seen it stated many times, that faith has no place in understanding the natural world, or in using scientific procedure to understand the natural world, but I take much on faith many times when I read and examine the results or tests done on levels that I can not observe. I have faith that science is self correcting, that scientific procedure is the best tool we have of examining the natural world.

You don't need faith of these things. They are observable facts. Science works. The evidence is all around you.

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? I suppose it does.

It shouldn't. If you read or hear about a new scientific discovery, or research development, which you don't understand, then you should not just blindly accept it as valid. You should wait and see what happens in the verification process. Once the results have been independently verified, and the scientific community reaches a consensus, then it makes sense to accept the results, but not until then.

This applies to scientists, too. I can read papers on things like Quantum Field Theory, or General Relativity, and understand what they are claiming, but I have neither the resources nor the expertise to confirm those results myself. I withhold judgement until the results have been verified, and shown to be reliable. Faith never enters into it.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Suggestologist]

PPG,



You don't have to. Once you understand how, and why, the scientific process works, you don't have to take any of it on faith. You can reasonably accept things which have been scientifically verified, because you know that the process of scientific verification is reliable.

Is the process of scientific verification ALWAYS reliable? How do you know when you have arrived at a piece of science that you don't know enough to know whether or not it is reliable? Could there be times when you mistakenly think a piece of science is reliable, yet it may not be? As a percentage, do you ever put 100% credence in a piece of science -- because I can never be 100% sure of any of it unless I have some personal verification of it -- and even then, I may only be 99.9% sure.

You don't need faith of these things. They are observable facts. Science works. The evidence is all around you.

Hmmmm.... Sounds like, "God exists, the evidence is all around you."

It shouldn't. If you read or hear about a new scientific discovery, or research development, which you don't understand, then you should not just blindly accept it as valid. You should wait and see what happens in the verification process. Once the results have been independently verified, and the scientific community reaches a consensus, then it makes sense to accept the results, but not until then.

I agree, you don't have to make a decision before you get enough evidence to make the decision. Reserve the right to not have an opinion, yet.

This applies to scientists, too. I can read papers on things like Quantum Field Theory, or General Relativity, and understand what they are claiming, but I have neither the resources nor the expertise to confirm those results myself. I withhold judgement until the results have been verified, and shown to be reliable. Faith never enters into it.


Dr. Stupid

Well, regarding reliability and scietific verifiacation: If you don't understand a subject on a first hand basis, you are in no position to know whether or not the methodology of a particular experiment was appropriate or not. For example, look at the parapsychology studies: Without a knowledgable magician as a consultant to the construction of such experiments, they produce positive results. But when you add a magician like Randi, he knows how to make the methodology more bulletproof, and with the added controls, the results are negative or inconclusive.

Can you not imagine that other fields of research may suffer from similar problems; that of not having the right kind of consultant to the experimental methodology? Perhaps "the right kind of consultant" does not even yet exist -- for some fields. I certainly have read studies in my field of expertise where I could see clear methodological inadequacies; but someone unfamiliar with the subject would never guess that such things could be problematic. Knowing the scientific method simply would not fulfill the description of valid experimentation; only having an intimate knowledge of the context does.

It is simply impossible to control for absolutely everything in any experiment; the selection of what to control, and how the experimental process should develop; must be done by someone with enough contextual first-hand experience, if the study is to verify what it claims to verify.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

You don't have to. Once you understand how, and why, the scientific process works, you don't have to take any of it on faith. You can reasonably accept things which have been scientifically verified, because you know that the process of scientific verification is reliable.
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Is the process of scientific verification ALWAYS reliable?

I don't know what that means. Reliability means that the conclusions are usually correct, and that when they are not, the mistakes are eventually found and corrected.

How do you know when you have arrived at a piece of science that you don't know enough to know whether or not it is reliable? Could there be times when you mistakenly think a piece of science is reliable, yet it may not be?

That is not what I mean by reliable. The process of science is reliable. That does not mean that every "piece of science" is true. It means that once scientific verification has been done, we can be confident that the results are accurate, and that in the case that they are not, continued application of the scientific process will discover this, and correct the error.

As a percentage, do you ever put 100% credence in a piece of science -- because I can never be 100% sure of any of it unless I have some personal verification of it -- and even then, I may only be 99.9% sure.

Of course not. 100% confidence is unrealistic and unobtainable. Science provides us with reliable evidence upon which to make our decisions and decide what to believe. It does not provide certainty of anything. Nothing can provide that, other than self-delusion.

You don't need faith of these things. They are observable facts. Science works. The evidence is all around you.
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Hmmmm.... Sounds like, "God exists, the evidence is all around you."

The difference is that I can unambiguously demonstrate that science works. Can you say the same for the existence of any God?

This applies to scientists, too. I can read papers on things like Quantum Field Theory, or General Relativity, and understand what they are claiming, but I have neither the resources nor the expertise to confirm those results myself. I withhold judgement until the results have been verified, and shown to be reliable. Faith never enters into it.

Dr. Stupid
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Well, regarding reliability and scietific verifiacation: If you don't understand a subject on a first hand basis, you are in no position to know whether or not the methodology of a particular experiment was appropriate or not.

If somebody is accepting scientific "facts" on the basis of individual experiments, then they clearly do not understand the scientific process.

For example, look at the parapsychology studies: Without a knowledgable magician as a consultant to the construction of such experiments, they produce positive results. But when you add a magician like Randi, he knows how to make the methodology more bulletproof, and with the added controls, the results are negative or inconclusive.

The results are inconclusive all on their own, due to their lack of reproducibility. All the magician does is point out the flaws in the procedure. The fact that flaws are there is clear from the erratic and unreliable nature of the results of these experiments.

Furthermore, if you understand the scientific method, then you know that the majority, if not all, of parapsychological research, is deeply flawed due to the absence of any falsifiable theories. That conclusion can be reached simply by looking at what is being claimed by the parapsychologists. No specific deep knowledge of the details of the experiment is needed.

Can you not imagine that other fields of research may suffer from similar problems; that of not having the right kind of consultant to the experimental methodology?

Other fields of science are properly employing the scientific method. This means that they catch these kinds of methodological errors on their own. Parapsychology does not enjoy the self-correcting aspect of the scientific process, because they do not properly implement the process.

Perhaps "the right kind of consultant" does not even yet exist -- for some fields. I certainly have read studies in my field of expertise where I could see clear methodological inadequacies; but someone unfamiliar with the subject would never guess that such things could be problematic. Knowing the scientific method simply would not fulfill the description of valid experimentation; only having an intimate knowledge of the context does.

In normal fields of research, the review and replication process eventually catches these errors. In normal fields of scientific research, results are not accepted as reliable until they have been reproduced independently and under a variety of different experimental conditions. Furthermore, this process of verification never stops.

It is simply impossible to control for absolutely everything in any experiment; the selection of what to control, and how the experimental process should develop; must be done by someone with enough contextual first-hand experience, if the study is to verify what it claims to verify.

Of course. The individual studies need to be reviewed, and reproduced, by experts in that field. What I am saying is that once this process has been done, and the results have been generally accepted by the scientific community as being reliable, a layman can reasonably accept those results as being reliable. This is not because he has "faith" in the system, but simply because he knows how and why the system works.

 

[Suggestologist]

I don't know what that means. Reliability means that the conclusions are usually correct, and that when they are not, the mistakes are eventually found and corrected.

How long is "eventually"?

If somebody is accepting scientific "facts" on the basis of individual experiments, then they clearly do not understand the scientific process.

I completely disagree. A single experiment, anecdotal as those who disparage them call them, can prove more than statistical manipulation of data.

Does the moonlanding, an anecdote, not prove that humans can land on the moon? Does flying in an early Wright-Brothers plane not prove that people can fly safely (and unsafely)?

Anecdotal evidence can show what is possible, and may require no reproduction whatsoever. There is also the related, but anecdotal, thing called a "case study" that can show much the same.

The results are inconclusive all on their own, due to their lack of reproducibility. All the magician does is point out the flaws in the procedure. The fact that flaws are there is clear from the erratic and unreliable nature of the results of these experiments.

Furthermore, if you understand the scientific method, then you know that the majority, if not all, of parapsychological research, is deeply flawed due to the absence of any falsifiable theories. That conclusion can be reached simply by looking at what is being claimed by the parapsychologists. No specific deep knowledge of the details of the experiment is needed.

Anything is falsifiable as long a claim is made; and an opposite claim is possible. I am familiar with the hairy issue of "magnetizing" water, where they claim that if they magnetize one bottle of water, then any bottles near them will become magnetized.. blah blah blah... But there are other claims which are clear cut; the type that the Randi Challenge would test, and poor methodology in that type of test -- if reproduced, would show repeated "verification" of parapsychological crapola.

Other fields of science are properly employing the scientific method. This means that they catch these kinds of methodological errors on their own. Parapsychology does not enjoy the self-correcting aspect of the scientific process, because they do not properly implement the process.

Proper implementation requires adequate controls, and methodology that verifies what it claims to verify. I've already pointed out that you can't control for everything, someone has to decide what should be controlled, and what won't be controlled. And someone has to decide what steps the methodology will include; again, they have to include the necessary steps and experimental content (i.e. Do we need H2O or H30 for this experiment?), and not use that which won't verify what the experiment is supposed to verify.

In normal fields of research, the review and replication process eventually catches these errors. In normal fields of scientific research, results are not accepted as reliable until they have been reproduced independently and under a variety of different experimental conditions. Furthermore, this process of verification never stops.

Ok, was it realiable that people could fly, once you see a Wright Brother flying? Or did we need independant reproduction, because it could be claimed that he was using magic tricks to look like he was flying?

Of course. The individual studies need to be reviewed, and reproduced, by experts in that field. What I am saying is that once this process has been done, and the results have been generally accepted by the scientific community as being reliable, a layman can reasonably accept those results as being reliable. This is not because he has "faith" in the system, but simply because he knows how and why the system works.

General acceptance by the scientific community? That is relying on hear-say, or see-say; it's not evidence of anything other than that a community has agreed on something. To believe in what they have agreed on, without personal verification, is nothing other than faith and conjecture -- coming to a conclusion without gathering evidence.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

I don't know what that means. Reliability means that the conclusions are usually correct, and that when they are not, the mistakes are eventually found and corrected.
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How long is "eventually"?

It varies. Most mistakes are found in the process of writing up the study. Most of the remaining errors are found in the review process, and almost all of the remaining errors are found in the first few attempts to replicate the results.

Some errors can occasionally remain for a long time. I never said the process was perfect. That doesn't mean it isn't reliable. If it did, nothing in the real world could ever be said to be "reliable", because nothing works perfectly.

If somebody is accepting scientific "facts" on the basis of individual experiments, then they clearly do not understand the scientific process.
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I completely disagree. A single experiment, anecdotal as those who disparage them call them, can prove more than statistical manipulation of data.

Who said anything about statistical manipulation of data? And just for the record, a single experiment is not an anecdote. An anecdote is a claim of an event which cannot be confirmed. An experiment is a group of observations made under controlled conditions.

Does the moonlanding, an anecdote, not prove that humans can land on the moon? Does flying in an early Wright-Brothers plane not prove that people can fly safely (and unsafely)?

Neither of those events are anecdotal. What proves that humans can land on the moon, or that people can fly, is the fact that those events are verifiable.

If, as you seem to be suggesting, we only had unverifiable anecdotal accounts of those events, then we would not be able to draw either of those conclusions.

Anecdotal evidence can show what is possible, and may require no reproduction whatsoever. There is also the related, but anecdotal, thing called a "case study" that can show much the same.

Once again, that is not anecdotal.

Furthermore, if you understand the scientific method, then you know that the majority, if not all, of parapsychological research, is deeply flawed due to the absence of any falsifiable theories. That conclusion can be reached simply by looking at what is being claimed by the parapsychologists. No specific deep knowledge of the details of the experiment is needed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anything is falsifiable as long a claim is made; and an opposite claim is possible. I am familiar with the hairy issue of "magnetizing" water, where they claim that if they magnetize one bottle of water, then any bottles near them will become magnetized.. blah blah blah... But there are other claims which are clear cut; the type that the Randi Challenge would test, and poor methodology in that type of test -- if reproduced, would show repeated "verification" of parapsychological crapola.

Most parapsychological research does not have any such theories.

Other fields of science are properly employing the scientific method. This means that they catch these kinds of methodological errors on their own. Parapsychology does not enjoy the self-correcting aspect of the scientific process, because they do not properly implement the process.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proper implementation requires adequate controls, and methodology that verifies what it claims to verify. I've already pointed out that you can't control for everything, someone has to decide what should be controlled, and what won't be controlled. And someone has to decide what steps the methodology will include; again, they have to include the necessary steps and experimental content (i.e. Do we need H2O or H30 for this experiment?), and not use that which won't verify what the experiment is supposed to verify.

What does this have to do with what I said? All this means is that, as I already said, the theory must be tested under many different conditions before it can be accepted as valid.

In normal fields of research, the review and replication process eventually catches these errors. In normal fields of scientific research, results are not accepted as reliable until they have been reproduced independently and under a variety of different experimental conditions. Furthermore, this process of verification never stops.
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Ok, was it realiable that people could fly, once you see a Wright Brother flying? Or did we need independant reproduction, because it could be claimed that he was using magic tricks to look like he was flying?

That is just silly. If you are going to try to come up with counterexamples to what I am saying, at least go to the effort of coming up with ones that aren't trivial like this.

Of course. The individual studies need to be reviewed, and reproduced, by experts in that field. What I am saying is that once this process has been done, and the results have been generally accepted by the scientific community as being reliable, a layman can reasonably accept those results as being reliable. This is not because he has "faith" in the system, but simply because he knows how and why the system works.
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General acceptance by the scientific community? That is relying on hear-say, or see-say; it's not evidence of anything other than that a community has agreed on something. To believe in what they have agreed on, without personal verification, is nothing other than faith and conjecture -- coming to a conclusion without gathering evidence.

You are acting like the scientific community is some sort of secret society, which gathers in dark halls to discuss their wizardry, and then makes proclamations to the world.

Like I said, you have to actually understand how, and why, the scientific process works. You clearly either do not, or are pretending not to for some reason I cannot fathom. No wonder to you it all seems like smoke and mirrors.


Dr. Stupid

 

[T'ai Chi]

A lot of the natural world is being deconstructed. For example, there are "behaviours" of sub-atomic particles I have never heard about being explained.

Science can always break things up to understand them, but can never quite manage to understand the whole. On one hand it does great things like understand sub atomic particles. On the other hand, it uses that information specifically to develop bombs that have killed millions of people. Go figure.

Science, because it is a human endeavor, can be manipulated by the power hungry and etc. It can be some peoples' faith too, that no matter what happens, science and its technology will be here to bail us out from our mistakes. I'd personally rather not make any mistakes. I think a lot of people need to reassess science, and what we as a race desire to learn from it.

I guess I am willing to consider the natural explanations because I believe science is self-correcting, it is progressive, it is rarely stagnant, and scientists come to a temporary agreement based on evidence.

I would argue that "natural explanations" and "science" are not necessarily the same thing. One can come to a natural explanation without relying on science, and sometimes explanations gleaned from science are far from natural.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Science, because it is a human endeavor, can be manipulated by the power hungry and etc

Thank goodness no one has thought of using religion to manipulate people

 

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Re: Re: Faith, Materialism, Evidence and Layers

I would argue that "natural explanations" and "science" are not necessarily the same thing. One can come to a natural explanation without relying on science, and sometimes explanations gleaned from science are far from natural.

oh?

can you give examples?

 

[Dancing David]

You can be wary of any all all psychological research, it is very important to know the methodology, the sample size and the controls that are in place before assuming anything is true in psych research. (Exclusive of the neuro-biology)

And it is true it takes faith that people are doing the replication and getting the same results, but people love to feert out a hoax.

Any reseach showing parapsychology is generaly lacking in scientific method, so question every thing, believe nothing and use what works.

 

[Suggestologist]

Suggestologist,
Who said anything about statistical manipulation of data? And just for the record, a single experiment is not an anecdote. An anecdote is a claim of an event which cannot be confirmed. An experiment is a group of observations made under controlled conditions.

OK, then how is seeing the moon landing on TV not an anecdote? What can you do to confirm it? My knowledge of lasers doesn't allow me to bounce one off of the alleged moon mirrors, does yours?

[/B]
Neither of those events are anecdotal. What proves that humans can land on the moon, or that people can fly, is the fact that those events are verifiable.

I disagree. Events don't have to be verifiable to point to possibilities. Case studies where humans are involved are usually unrepeatable; you can never find a person with the exact same set of attributes. But you may be able to learn from them, and find possibilities for future controlled experiments.

What does this have to do with what I said? All this means is that, as I already said, the theory must be tested under many different conditions before it can be accepted as valid.

How many? There may be a control that nobody ever thinks to use, that makes the difference.

You are acting like the scientific community is some sort of secret society, which gathers in dark halls to discuss their wizardry, and then makes proclamations to the world.

Like I said, you have to actually understand how, and why, the scientific process works. You clearly either do not, or are pretending not to for some reason I cannot fathom. No wonder to you it all seems like smoke and mirrors.


Dr. Stupid

I'm not acting like the scientific community is a secret society, in many respects it is; they speak gobbledygook to eachother that those outside the society will not understand without being initiated into the field -- usually by lots of study. Eventually much of it gets translated into what normals can understand and even test, or test by using a product that incorporates the new manifestations and incantations of these wizards.

Understanding how and why the scientific process works has little to do with understanding a particular scientific experiment. In order to understand what is appropriate for an experiment you have to have first-hand contextual knowledge of what is being studied. That's probably why they have young students do simple chemistry experiments, before they're allowed to do the more potentially hazardous sort.

As I said in a previous thread, those with no first-hand knowledge make claims about walking on hot coals as such: "the coals are cold, people are just in such a hyper mood, that they think the coals are hot, since everybody is acting as if they are hot, they go along with it" -- this I refered to as the "cold-coal hypothesis". If you've ever walked on hot coals, you'll know that the coals are actually hot, you can bake potatoes and cook steaks on them -- temperature is not the trick to walking on hot coals. But those who have no first hand experience of a subject are very likely to make "cold coal hypotheses" -- which may bias an experiment to either positive or negative results.

And such a hypothesis may or may not be the one tested, it may be a hidden presupposition of the experimenter that biases the results of the experiment's particular formal hypothesis.

For any field, there may be no person who can provide the first-hand knowledge necessary to avoid such difficulties.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

OK, then how is seeing the moon landing on TV not an anecdote?

If the only evidence that you have for the moon landing is that you saw it on TV, then you are correct to be skeptical of it. But unless you are completely unwilling to do any research into the matter at all, this simply isn't the case.

What can you do to confirm it? My knowledge of lasers doesn't allow me to bounce one off of the alleged moon mirrors, does yours?

This is silly. You are completely ignoring a central principle of science, which is to find the most parsimonious explanation for the data you have. The hypothesis that all of the evidence about the moon landing was faked, would require a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, involving thousands of scientists from differing parts of the worlds.

You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?

Neither of those events are anecdotal. What proves that humans can land on the moon, or that people can fly, is the fact that those events are verifiable.

I disagree. Events don't have to be verifiable to point to possibilities. Case studies where humans are involved are usually unrepeatable; you can never find a person with the exact same set of attributes. But you may be able to learn from them, and find possibilities for future controlled experiments.

What are you talking about? I am unable to see what connection your response has to my statement.

What does this have to do with what I said? All this means is that, as I already said, the theory must be tested under many different conditions before it can be accepted as valid.

How many? There may be a control that nobody ever thinks to use, that makes the difference.

You are looking at it like there is some threshold, where everything below the threshold is rejected as "unproven", and everything above it is accepted as 100% confident.

The fact is that there is no end to process of independent confirmation. The more confirming tests that are done, the more confident we can be in the results. But there is always the possibility that at some point a flaw will be discovered. Once again, this does not mean that the process is not reliable. It just means that it is not perfect.

You are acting like the scientific community is some sort of secret society, which gathers in dark halls to discuss their wizardry, and then makes proclamations to the world.

Like I said, you have to actually understand how, and why, the scientific process works. You clearly either do not, or are pretending not to for some reason I cannot fathom. No wonder to you it all seems like smoke and mirrors.

Dr. Stupid

I'm not acting like the scientific community is a secret society, in many respects it is; they speak gobbledygook to each other that those outside the society will not understand without being initiated into the field -- usually by lots of study. Eventually much of it gets translated into what normals can understand and even test, or test by using a product that incorporates the new manifestations and incantations of these wizards.

It only seems like gobbledygook to those who are not willing to exert the effort necessary to understand it. There is no "initiation". Anybody who wants to can learn it, and most scientists are more than happy to try to help explain it.

Understanding how and why the scientific process works has little to do with understanding a particular scientific experiment. In order to understand what is appropriate for an experiment you have to have first-hand contextual knowledge of what is being studied. That's probably why they have young students do simple chemistry experiments, before they're allowed to do the more potentially hazardous sort.

And as I already said, if you understand how and why the process works, then you don't have to be able to understand the specific experiments in order to reasonably conclude that the results obtained by the scientific process are reliable.

As I said in a previous thread, those with no first-hand knowledge make claims about walking on hot coals as such: "the coals are cold, people are just in such a hyper mood, that they think the coals are hot, since everybody is acting as if they are hot, they go along with it" -- this I refered to as the "cold-coal hypothesis". If you've ever walked on hot coals, you'll know that the coals are actually hot, you can bake potatoes and cook steaks on them -- temperature is not the trick to walking on hot coals. But those who have no first hand experience of a subject are very likely to make "cold coal hypotheses" -- which may bias an experiment to either positive or negative results.

And such a hypothesis may or may not be the one tested, it may be a hidden presupposition of the experimenter that biases the results of the experiment's particular formal hypothesis.

For any field, there may be no person who can provide the first-hand knowledge necessary to avoid such difficulties.

I have already addressed this issue. Like I said, the process is not perfect, nor is it infallible. It is just reliable, and self-correcting.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Suggestologist]

Suggestologist,
This is silly. You are completely ignoring a central principle of science, which is to find the most parsimonious explanation for the data you have. The hypothesis that all of the evidence about the moon landing was faked, would require a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, involving thousands of scientists from differing parts of the worlds.

I don't know how many people it would require.

The most parsimonious explanation is more often wrong than right. Part of a parsimonious explanation for alcoholism was that once an alcoholic, you can never return to normal social drinking. The truth, was more complex. In fact, it is documented that some alcoholics have returned to normal social drinking. Such return to normal drinking were called flukes, or misdiagnoses; but the truth is that at least some alcoholics can return to normal drinking -- and accepting the parsimonious hypothesis that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, led to erronious conclusions. And the scientific studies basically created a self-fulfilling prophesy on the matter -- the more that scientists invested in proving that alcoholism was non-reversible, the more they were unwilling to consider the idea that those who did reverse were not just flukes or misdiagnoses, but perhaps an area in need of development.

You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?

Of course I do. Faith is believing in something without evidence. I have no evidence of anyone landing on the moon. All I have are video recordings and various writings. Ok, that's a little bit of evidence; but not enough to believe in it as fully as I could. I would wager that even you would find your belief in people landing on the moon increase a great deal, if you yourself were to arrive there on a future space-shuttle.

People say they believe things, but they really don't believe things, not really, not completely, not totally, until they actually experience it. And for that matter, they don't really disbelieve things until they experience them (or attempt to), either.

What are you talking about? I am unable to see what connection your response has to my statement.



You are looking at it like there is some threshold, where everything below the threshold is rejected as "unproven", and everything above it is accepted as 100% confident.

The fact is that there is no end to process of independent confirmation. The more confirming tests that are done, the more confident we can be in the results. But there is always the possibility that at some point a flaw will be discovered. Once again, this does not mean that the process is not reliable. It just means that it is not perfect.

It only seems like gobbledygook to those who are not willing to exert the effort necessary to understand it. There is no "initiation". Anybody who wants to can learn it, and most scientists are more than happy to try to help explain it.

And as I already said, if you understand how and why the process works, then you don't have to be able to understand the specific experiments in order to reasonably conclude that the results obtained by the scientific process are reliable.

I have already addressed this issue. Like I said, the process is not perfect, nor is it infallible. It is just reliable, and self-correcting.

Dr. Stupid

You cannot reasonably conclude anything about something you don't understand. That includes experiments you have no first-hand contextual knowledge of. How and why the process "works" has little bearing on how and why a particular experiment works or not. You seem to think that I don't understand how the process works; I think that I do understand how the process works. It is not self-correcting, it is mode-locking.

What specifically do you think I'm missing?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Well, regarding reliability and scietific verifiacation: If you don't understand a subject on a first hand basis, you are in no position to know whether or not the methodology of a particular experiment was appropriate or not. For example, look at the parapsychology studies: Without a knowledgable magician as a consultant to the construction of such experiments, they produce positive results. But when you add a magician like Randi, he knows how to make the methodology more bulletproof, and with the added controls, the results are negative or inconclusive.

I think you would need to supply appropriate references here. I am not aware of any properly conducted scientific research in parapsychology where the experimental protocol appears sound and positive results are produced, and which disappears when a magician suggests amendments to this experimental protocol.

 

[Suggestologist]

I think you would need to supply appropriate references here. I am not aware of any properly conducted scientific research in parapsychology where the experimental protocol appears sound and positive results are produced, and which disappears when a magician suggests amendments to this experimental protocol.

I'm obviously thinking about the very anecdotal appearance of Uri Gellar on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by PygmyPlaidGiraffe

Does this put me in danger of being credulous of every new claim, outcome and test result that is forwarded that I as a lay person may read about? I suppose it does.

Yes, I'm afraid so.

Originally posted by Suggestologist

Is the process of scientific verification ALWAYS reliable? How do you know when you have arrived at a piece of science that you don't know enough to know whether or not it is reliable?

Because of the ongoing and dedicated efforts of people like you who question everything, and especially when those people do know enough to know whether or not it is reliable.

General acceptance by the scientific community? That is relying on hear-say, or see-say; it's not evidence of anything other than that a community has agreed on something. To believe in what they have agreed on, without personal verification, is nothing other than faith and conjecture -- coming to a conclusion without gathering evidence.

As Stimpy made reference to, this view does not reflect a thorough grasp of the way ideas become widely accepted by the scientific community.

Science is a cooperative endeavor, many individuals contributing to a common knowledge base. It is also as vicious, ruthless, and cutthroat an arena as anything humanity has to offer. Scientific knowledge is gained through work; hard work. The most significant contributions are often made by driven individuals, and often one of the things driving them is a desire to make someone else look bad. In public. The ideas that remain standing are the ones that the best efforts of their authors' enemies were unable to defeat. When Dawkins and Gould were going for each others' throats, I felt like a little kid lying in bed listening to his parents fight.

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

It only seems like gobbledygook to those who are not willing to exert the effort necessary to understand it. There is no "initiation". Anybody who wants to can learn it, and most scientists are more than happy to try to help explain it.

I think that's less true today than in the past. In some fields, decades of study are required just to come up to speed, and ongoing study to stay there. The opportunities to break new ground are more dependent than ever before on early education and longevity. We are heading into areas where no one person can be expected to have a thorough grasp of all the relevant details; we have no choice but to rely more and more on specialists, current knowledge becoming more and more a collective experience. 'Exerting the effort' is going to be more about choosing one thing to learn.

 

[Silicon]

Suggestologist,

Are you just moving the goalposts around? Do you have a point, or are you just picking random sentences of Stimpson and coming up with new analogies?

I can't even fathom how your mind works. Stick with one analogy, don't keep evading.

Actually state what you think. Do you think the moon landing is faked? Do you think that's reasonable? Is the fact that you can't bounce lasers off the moon really the only reason why you refuse to believe it?

Or is it just cool and sexy and just so friggin X-files FUN to believe in a vast conspiracy? Most moon-conspiracists I've met were smarter people than that, but they seemed to try and make themselves stupider than they usually were when we discussed the issue. As if it was all so entertaining to them that they couldn't look at the mountain of documentation. They'd talk about how the astronauts would burn up from the heat of the sunlight! It's like, you couldn't talk to them about vacuum insulation. How stupid do you have to be to not understand the concept of a Thermos Bottle? And these were computer programmers!

Do you think that science is really a secret cabal? Do you think that there is any field of science that dead-ends with a secret society of folks who made it all up, and there's no way to do verifyable research?

If that's what you think, say it. Stop being such a wishy washy arguer. Have the courage of your convictions. Stop doing this dance.

State your evidence for your position.


Are you really equating science with faith, because nobody can possibly do every science experiment themself, then you must take it on faith?

That's ludicrous. We live in a society. We make accomplishments as a society. One of the accomplishments is science. It doesn't take faith to eat at a restaurant, hoping that the mushrooms aren't poison. It doesn't take faith to get in an airplane that wasn't built by my own two hands.

It takes a certain degree of acceptance of the reliability of things like safety codes, and the fact that these things tend to work out, because other people, people expert in those fields, have done the work.

I don't need to check every rivet on an airplane with my own expert before I'll get on one. I don't know about you. I do know that if Aviation mechanics was my chosen field, there wouldn't be some secret cabal making it all up.

I also don't have some self-deluded notion of uber-skepticism saying "how do I KNOW that airplanes fly? It could be a conspiracy! It could be really a train, with movies of clouds projected on the windows! After all, I'm not an aeronautical expert, and those guys seem to talk in their own gobledygook".


Anyway. Say what you mean. Do you actually think that science is somehow different than ANY shared human endeavor? Do you really think the only experience that counts for anything is YOUR personal observation, and everything else be damned?

And if that's the case, how the hell is it that we wiped out Polio without your help? How is it that Science works, whether or not you believe it?

Or do you think that the existence of polio was a conspiracy?

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Suggestologist,

This is silly. You are completely ignoring a central principle of science, which is to find the most parsimonious explanation for the data you have. The hypothesis that all of the evidence about the moon landing was faked, would require a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, involving thousands of scientists from differing parts of the worlds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know how many people it would require.

Well then, you should either learn at least enough about the incident to determine this, or simply not claim to know whether it happened or not.

I never said that you can reasonably accept the findings of the scientific community when you are, yourself, completely ignorant about what they are doing. I just said that you do not have to understand in detail the specifics of their work.

The most parsimonious explanation is more often wrong than right.

Actually, that is a misrepresentation of the principle of parsimony.

Part of a parsimonious explanation for alcoholism was that once an alcoholic, you can never return to normal social drinking. The truth, was more complex. In fact, it is documented that some alcoholics have returned to normal social drinking. Such return to normal drinking were called flukes, or misdiagnoses; but the truth is that at least some alcoholics can return to normal drinking -- and accepting the parsimonious hypothesis that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, led to erronious conclusions. And the scientific studies basically created a self-fulfilling prophesy on the matter -- the more that scientists invested in proving that alcoholism was non-reversible, the more they were unwilling to consider the idea that those who did reverse were not just flukes or misdiagnoses, but perhaps an area in need of development.

The very fact that we now know that the original hypothesis was an over-simplification, just verifies what I have been saying. When the original hypothesis was shown to be false, and those results were reliably reproduced by independent researchers, the old hypothesis was discarded. This very fact demonstrates that your imagined scenario of dogmatic scientists allowing their preconceptions cloud their judgement of the experimental results, is not an accurate portrayal of what actually happened.

Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them. Any scientists who were specifically looking for data to back up their hypothesis, rather than actively trying to falsify it, were not doing science, but rather pseudo-science.

You can't seriously be saying that you have to take the fact that people landed on the moon on faith, can you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course I do. Faith is believing in something without evidence. I have no evidence of anyone landing on the moon. All I have are video recordings and various writings. Ok, that's a little bit of evidence; but not enough to believe in it as fully as I could. I would wager that even you would find your belief in people landing on the moon increase a great deal, if you yourself were to arrive there on a future space-shuttle.

Absolute belief in anything is just plain stupid. The degree to which you believe something should reflect the amount of evidence in support of it. There is substantial evidence in support of the moon landing. I therefore am very confident that it occurred.

People say they believe things, but they really don't believe things, not really, not completely, not totally, until they actually experience it. And for that matter, they don't really disbelieve things until they experience them (or attempt to), either.

If you totally believe even the things you have experienced, then you are being naive.

You cannot reasonably conclude anything about something you don't understand. That includes experiments you have no first-hand contextual knowledge of. How and why the process "works" has little bearing on how and why a particular experiment works or not.

And how or why a particular experiment works or not has little bearing on whether scientific results which have been extensively tested by many independent researchers, can be accepted as reliable. All that is relevant is that you understand how and why that scientific process works.

You seem to think that I don't understand how the process works; I think that I do understand how the process works. It is not self-correcting, it is mode-locking.

I think that you a demonstrably wrong. The facts simply don't support your claim.

What specifically do you think I'm missing?

The fact that science has shown itself, time and time again, to be self-correcting. The fact that there is a very strong incentive within the scientific community to show that currently accepted theories are false, which completely destroys you "mode-locking" hypothesis. I think you are pretty much missing any understanding of how and why the scientific process actually works. As such, it comes as no surprise that you think it needs to be taken on faith.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Interesting Ian]

The very fact that we now know that the original hypothesis was an over-simplification, just verifies what I have been saying.

Bang goes parsimony. Besides if reality did somehow have the myserious propensity to always operate according to the minimum number of entities and concepts then we would scarcely have reached the present position where a bewildering number of elementary particles are invoked to explain the world. There is nothing about reality which dictates that it should be simple. You and seemingly everyone else on here misunderstand Ockham's razor. It is not some sort of immutable law stateing that the most parsimious explanation necessarily is always correct. It is a rule of thumb that if there are 2 or more theories which explain the facts then provisionally we should adopt the most parsimious theory until data suggests otherwise.

When the original hypothesis was shown to be false, and those results were reliably reproduced by independent researchers, the old hypothesis was discarded.

This sounds very implausible to me. It certainly is not the way scientists normally behave! As I have pointed out before it is very difficult to falsify theories because data can either be ignored, the observations can be called into question, or auxiliary hypotheses can be introduced (without changing the main thrust of the main hypothesis). Psychologically scientists are loathe to abandon theories even when they have been "falsified". Nor, in and of itself, is this inevitably necessarily an irrational attitude to adopt.

This very fact demonstrates that your imagined scenario of dogmatic scientists allowing their preconceptions cloud their judgement of the experimental results, is not an accurate portrayal of what actually happened.

I am highly skeptical of what you say here.

Your above statement also misrepresents the scientific process itself. Scientists do not try to prove their theories. They try to disprove them.

Now I've heard it all! Do they become disconsolate when they fail in this endeavour?? LMAO!