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Salvaging Science

Ladewig said:
Science as a field has reached the end of its usefulness, unlike the field of archdruidry which has given us.... wait, what has the field of archdruidry given us?
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Men in bedsheets,black socks and sensible shoes parading around Stonehenge now and again.
 
Wowbagger said:
There is still a lot to be learned about how the human mind evolved, and how consciousness emerges from it. And, it is unlikely to require billion-dollar machines to do it, near as I can tell.
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Yes, and there is a lot to learn about the behavior of all the members of the animal kingdom, and a lot of psychological science can be accomplished with relatively inexpensive equipment.
 
W.D.Clinger said:
I know it’s utter heresy even to hint at this, but I’d like to suggest that grand archdruidry, like alchemy and astrology before it, has gotten pretty close to its natural limits as a method of knowledge. In Wentworth’s time, a century and a half ago, it was still possible to invent worldshaking myths using ideas that would now be considered hopelessly inadequate for even a minor shamanic conference; there was still a lot of low hanging fruit to be picked off the tree of spiritualism. At this point, however, the next round of professional advances in cult standing depends on co-opting a major political party or minor government. Doubtless there will still be surprises in store, but truly revolutionary dogmas are few and far between these days.
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A beautiful and amusing post that works on more than one level. A tip of the hat to W.D. Clinger.
 
Let's not forget the contributions to science from fields OTHER than biology and physics. Astronomy, chemistry, geology, paleontology. A lot of major advancements in geology are made using nothing more advanced than a compas, a piece of paper, a pencil, a notebook, and a camelback. Some don't even us that much advanced equipment--a microscope, some paper, and some pencils lead to the complete re-writing of the animal family tree, not 50 years ago! There's TONNES of fossil and geologic material in museums, waiting to be picked through. We recently learned a great deal about avian history by standard, centuries-old fieldwork practices, and given the prodigeous output of China in this area I certainly expect more to come.

And Galaxy Zoo demonstrate the stupidity of assuming that ametures can't do science. Sure, it's not (usually) cutting-edge stuff, but it's the dull, monotonous work that makes up 99% of any scientist's life.

Also, I'd like to point out that peopel have been saying that science has found everything (or is close to finding it all) since science started. They've all been specatacularly wrong before. They'll continue being wrong. And people who know little about science works.
 
So some whackjob with no qualifications or experience in science is saying it's dead? Why is anyone bothering to listen to him? :confused:

PixyMisa said:
What can be salvaged is the science.

What can't be salvaged is John Greer.
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Exactly.
 
Can planetary exploration be salvaged? It used to be that an amateur could learn something about Jupiter by looking at it through a $100 telescope. Now, a cadre of professional 'astronomers' has to spend billions of dollars to send up space probes. That must mean that we've nearly exhausted what we can learn about Jupiter.

Can the film industry be salvaged? In the old days, important movies like 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' had a crew of ten people, and the special effects were made of pasteboard and paint. Nowadays it takes a team of 2000 computer programmers and a server farm to render orc armies and morphing robot trucks. This is obviously a failure. We have to figure out how to make films on cardboard again. If we don't choose to, the world will force us to.

Can my lawn be salvaged? When I was younger I could entertain myself for hours staring at an anthill. Nowadays these snot-nosed kids are running around with skate-boards and Walk-men and high-tech telephones with only one button. This is obviously not sustainable. It took only 76.3 years for telephones to go from ten buttons to one button. A simple extrapolation shows that in 2032 telephones will need to have a negative number of buttons, so some sort of global crash must halt all forward progress before we reach such a contradiction. It's ... Hey! Kid! Git offa my lawn. I got a whole box of rock salt and a twelve-gauge. Sorry. As I was saying, it's logically inevitable.
 
Anyone familiar with the Forgotten realms fiction? Namely the Cleric Quintet?

This druid is a Pikel if there ever was one, unfortunately he lacked the pragmatic brother Ivan in his early years, to slap him upside the head when he gets a little too silly. And this is the result.
 
****, looks like I chose a wrong time to do my dissertation, nope just checked bags of cement and aggregate are still cheap.

Some science is expensive some is cheap.
 
Dave Rogers said:
These are cases of scientific fraud that were detected, right? That's rather my point; fraud is possible in the short term, but in the end it'll be found out. In the physical sciences, where data is inherently more physical and less statistical, it's even harder to maintain a fraud for long.

Dave
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By the nature of the thing, current statistics almost certainly underestimate the prevalence of scientific fraud -- these are only the ones who were clumsy enough to get caught, remember -- and it's also crucial not to underrate the importance of fraud, studies-for-hire, and the like, in driving the spreading backlash against science.
 
Foster Zygote said:
There is a lot to be learned about genetics and biochemistry as well. It may not be possible to do such research with 18th century laboratory equipment, it certainly isn't prohibitively expensive either. In fact, when we consider the benefits that may result from such research it is clearly worth the relatively small cost.

And it is worth mentioning that the laboratory equipment used by 18th century scientists was very expensive in its day.
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No doubt some discoveries are still in the works, but I think you're overestimating the territory still open to science on the large scale. Have you read David Lindley's The End of Physics, by any chance? Worth a look.
 
Ladewig said:
Ah, yes, spiritual growth. Now there's a field that will be growing by leaps and bounds. There are all sorts of new frontiers to approach in that field.

...................
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I'm sorry you hate on spirituality so much.

Ladewig said:
What exactly is the goal of starting threads with quotes from the Grand Archdruid (snicker) who has no understanding of twenty-first century energy generation or of the history and applications of science.
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Well I can't answer that because he does indeed have a great understanding of twenty first century energy generation and the history and application of "science".

Ladewig said:
Mountains of evidence have been compiled showing that the world is not weeks or months away from a collapse of civilization. Yet you ignore each fact presented.
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What have I ignored? You cornecopians have ignored quite a bit from folks like me, and undercoverelephant. Perhaps you should take time to peruse this thread. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214970

Ladewig said:
What is your goal in using the technology of the internet to make posts on a skeptic board about things which no skeptic puts credence in?
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To open people's minds and prepare them for the upcoming collapse.
 
Dinwar said:
And Galaxy Zoo demonstrate the stupidity of assuming that ametures can't do science. Sure, it's not (usually) cutting-edge stuff, but it's the dull, monotonous work that makes up 99% of any scientist's life.
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Yeppers as a former member of the http://www.aavso.org/visionmission

In astronomy amateurs have a very proud traditon, and one freely acknowledged by professionals.

And paleontology, amateurs have their place. I personally found potentially the largest mosasurus yet recovered in the United States. The bit I dont mention is I tripped over it and the eagle eyed semi pro who was with us pushed my prone battered body out of the way to better study what I was laying on lol
 
Dinwar said:
And Galaxy Zoo demonstrate the stupidity of assuming that ametures can't do science. Sure, it's not (usually) cutting-edge stuff, but it's the dull, monotonous work that makes up 99% of any scientist's life.
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I don't know why you're bringing this up, Greer (and I) clearly state amateurs were the frontiers of science until "science" became a profession. With the unwinding of the industrial society we'll likely see amateurs become the frontier again.
 
TFian said:
By the nature of the thing, current statistics almost certainly underestimate the prevalence of scientific fraud -- these are only the ones who were clumsy enough to get caught, remember -- and it's also crucial not to underrate the importance of fraud, studies-for-hire, and the like, in driving the spreading backlash against science.
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Got any evidence to back up this assertion?
 
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