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When to "stop" doing science?

T'ai Chi said:
And the question is, when do you know when enough testing is enough?
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The answer is as obvious as dirt.

You know you've tested it enough when it works.

If it doesn't work, then you need to keep doing science.

You know, exactly like how you know when to stop testing your theory on why the car doesn't work

Doh.

Why are all of Tai Chi's questions the kind that can be solved by resorting to car mechanics as an example?
 
Yahzi said:
The answer is as obvious as dirt.

You know you've tested it enough when it works.

If it doesn't work, then you need to keep doing science.
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In other words, if you find an observation that doesn't fit the theory...

This thread is getting kind of repetetive, isn't it. And we're only on page 2.
 
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?
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The problem with the example graph is that you have truth already laid out there, whereas, we never have that. If we had the finished product up in front of us and *knew* how close the scientific model was to reality, we wouldn't need to do any more experiments.

What it looks more like is the graph without the horizontal lines. A converging blur, but who knows how close the convergence comes to an underlying reality?

There is an old saying: science stops when there are no more questions.
 
We've visited this territory before.

"Truth" == fact. Facts are things that have already happened. Science not only explains things that have already happened, and in many cases, why they happened, it also describes things that have not yet happened; as a result, it cannot be "truth," because nothing that has not already happened is certain. It can predict the probability that a certain thing will happen, and even assign probabilities to various contingencies, but it cannot predict with 100% certainty what will happen.

Anything that claims to be able to do better is either a lie or a delusion.

'Nuff said.
 
If you're looking for a bright line, T'ai Chi, you won't get it, any more than you'll get one for questions like "Where precisely does the atmosphere end?" or "When exactly do 2 dialects become 2 languages?"

But that doesn't mean there aren't clear cases. Obviously, my house is inside the Earth's atmosphere, and the moon is not. Obviously, my coworker from New Jersey and I speak different dialects of the same language, and your average Chinese farmer and I speak different languages.

So in the case of questions like "Is the Earth round or flat?" or "Does the sun revolve around the Earth?" or "Do maggots spontaneously generate from rotting meat?", we can "stop doing science".

For questions like "What forms of life occupy the deepest parts of the ocean?" or "What was the very early universe like?", we're nowhere near a full understanding.

But if you're looking for some generic formula, some ruler you can put up against a scientific question to answer "Are we there yet?", there ain't one.
 
Yahzi said:
You know you've tested it enough when it works.

If it doesn't work, then you need to keep doing science.
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So if a pill makes a person get better, you'd just stop after n = 1?

How do you know it wasn't a fluke?
 
Don't be obtuse T'ai, you know precisely what Yahzi meant!
 
Your graph is stupid. The 'science' frequently goes above the 'truth' line.
How can it be more right than the truth?
 
In other words, I'm asking to be more specific with "it works".

|science-Truth| < tolerance

For what tolerance do you start to believe "it works" ?
 
Dazed said:
Your graph is stupid. The 'science' frequently goes above the 'truth' line.
How can it be more right than the truth?
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"Dazed", you really must read previous posts. This was already brought up, and addressed in full.
 
Justin - Your graph is still stupid. Your subsequent posts haven't done anything to improve the situation.

You really don't have a clue what science is about, do you?
 
T'ai Chi said:
In other words, I'm asking to be more specific with "it works".

|science-Truth| < tolerance

For what tolerance do you start to believe "it works" ?
Click to expand...

It isn't a question of believing. It's a question of knowing.
 
I stop doing science at about 4:30PM on Friday.

Of course, I start again on Monday, but if we assume that time is cyclical over seven days then I only did science once and really did stop on Friday, even though it seems, from my position inside the box, that I am still doing it, I am really just travelling through the same week over and over again. Or is that just how everyone feels about work? :p
 
ponderingturtle said:
Wrong, you fail. YOu can not describe something like this with out units
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Correct. We need to define the science-truth unit. I propose that it be an SI unit. Whoever comes up with a proper definition for the science-truth unit will get to name it. I hope it is the 'Colbert.'

While we are at it, we need to define a faith unit. So when someone says they have faith in something we can measure it. "Wow, that dude has 11.4 Falwells of faith."
 
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