S: Does science self correct?

4,277 Views | 61 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by kurt vonnegut
Solo Tetherball Champ
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Quote:

But that process you described doesn't match the process in the flow chart. As you note, the process you describe doesn't include any experiments.

Nor does it come to many solid conclusions. Rather, the weight of evidence starts piling up on one side or another until the majority of scientists/scholars agree with that side. But the same could be said of history, and few would call that science.

In short, what you've described is the universal search for truth, nothing that's unique to science.
No? You can still apply that same methodology without an experiment. They asked a question, came up with an idea, examined the evidence, and drew conclusions based upon the evidence. I'm sure John Ostrom (discoverer of Deinonychus) set out to dig with the expectation that he was going to find slothful, lizardlike dinosaurs instead of the quick, agile, and birdlike dinosaurs that he actually found. Today, people experiment to confirm those findings by looking for enzymes and proteins common to endotherms in fossilized tissue. Is that not an experiment?

You asked about fields that are difficult to experiment in and I provided examples of how of how those fields actually experienced dramatic paradigm shifts without experiments. Not everything is as experimental as chemistry.
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kurt vonnegut
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JJMt said:

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Any fault of science to reach correctness is the fault of human beings and not the process itself.
Two points:

1. Human beings are part of the process. You can't separate them from the process.

2. What "process"? There is no single "process" that encompasses all of science.


1. Science is a tool. A hammer cannot hit a nail by itself. If I use a hammer to hit a nail and the nails bends, I probably misused the tool. You can argue that science is an imperfect tool, that's fine, when you invent a better one please let us all know.

2. You're really grasping here, bud. The way in which we swing a hammer depends on whether your driving in a 4" nail into a wood deck or a 3/4" finishing nail into a piece of crown molding. The nature of the action is similar and I don't see what pointing to subtlety in differences proves other than a need for the process to be flexible.
Zobel
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I was never taught that. I'm not sure why math is inherently more or less reliable than any other model.

Models, all models, are underpinned by reaffirming or recalcitrant experiences.

A quote from Quine:
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...total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

...the conceptual scheme of science [is] a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.

...Science is a continuation of common sense, and it continues the common-sense expedient of swelling ontology to simplify theory.

...the abstract entities which are the substance of mathematics -- ultimately classes and classes of classes and so on up -- are another posit in the same spirit. Epistemologically these are myths on the same footing with physical objects and gods, neither better nor worse except for differences in the degree to which they expedite our dealings with sense experiences.
So it isn't that science is particularly special, or personal experience. Or that some models (math) are more generally useful than others (behavior psychology).

All models are evaluated only on their usefulness for predicting future events in light of past experiences. Whether that is history (on the grounds of, if my historical model says x, y, z, will it align or be contradicted by future historical discoveries?) or physics (if my model says p, d, q, will it align or be contradicted by future experimental data?).

In this regard we are faced with two axioms:
- There's no such thing as bad data, only improper assumptions resulting in recalcitrant experiences.
- All models are wrong, some are useful.

This can be expanded to the present discussion rather easily, because we all choose our own models and realities to some extent or another. It is up to us then to determine whether the posits we choose to import into our reality as the basis to test our models are useful or not. It is quite useful for me to "believe" in this keyboard as a solid object, even though I "know" it isn't. Personally, I find it quite useful for me to have faith in God; my model has not presented me with recalcitrant experiences. I'm not so lucky as booboo to have what I would call an epistemologically reaffirming experience with regard to the Love of God, but my model in this regard doesn't require such an experience to be useful at the boundary limits of my experience.
kurt vonnegut
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JJMt said:

Can you define the scientific method? Richard Feynman said that his professor of the philosophy of science claimed that it's impossible to define science, and Feynman seemed to agree with his prof.

My guess is that any definition that you come up with will exclude something that most people would consider to be science.
.

My guess is that any definition for any idea or thing you can come up with will exclude something that some people would consider part of that idea or thing. The meaning of the word 'science' is a human construct and subject to individual interpretation and only useful in the sense that most people generally understand the word to mean the same thing. Failure for people to reach a magical definition of science that perfectly appeases everyone is not the fault of the word 'science'. Its failure of mankind to universally agree on what a two syllable word means.
kurt vonnegut
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"Trying to rebut the argument that science is self-correcting, and that is apparent from the scientific process, is patently incorrect. If one cannot even define science or the process that ensures that it is self-correcting, then the argument is fatally flawed from the outset. The faith that many of you on this board have in the infallibility of science is interesting."

Who said science is infallible. Be a man and admit no one said that and you're presenting a strawman argument.

I think we are talking past each other partly because I don't know what you consider 'self-correcting'. Is there an example of something that is self correcting? Is there something that science can do to become self correcting? Is there an arbitrary number of peer reviews by arbitrarily qualified and arbitrarily unbiased specialists that is needed? Again, I object strongly to this use of 'correct'. Science will never be correct. Never! Ever ever! It simply builds models of reality. Those models get better in the sense that they are closer to reality or more useful or otherwise of some increased utility in our understandings.
kurt vonnegut
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Here is the thing I don't get about the jjmt's and AGCs: everyone you turn on your computer or phone, you are validating some of the most insanely complicated and abstract and counter intuitive "knowledge" man has gained through science. I'm not saying bow down and worship science - I'm saying show some appreciation for the process that gives you technology, modern medicine, cars, planes, television, GPS, computers, phones, buildings, electricity, air conditioning, plumbing, manufactured goods, and a million other things you take for granted. At what point does it become hypocritical to enjoy the fruits of science while simultaneously degrading it as guesswork by frauds.
Zobel
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kurt vonnegut said:

Science will never be correct. Never! Ever ever! It simply builds models of reality. Those models get better in the sense that they are closer to reality or more useful or otherwise of some increased utility in our understandings.
Aggrad08
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Kurt nailed it. Science is models all the way up and all the way down. As an engineer the imperfections and oversimplifications required for our puny brains to handle the math is of little issue provided the predicted behavior and actual behavior are in close accordance.

There are no levels of models. You can have a ****ty qm model and a great weather model. A bad physics model and a good economics model. Good or bad are just statements of predictive power.

When it comes to the models developed by science they are unparalleled by any other method. I'm happy to hear what superior modeling method science deniers would have us utilize.
unimboti nkum
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Aggrad08 said:

I'm happy to hear what superior modeling method science deniers would have us utilize.
AGC
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kurt vonnegut said:

Here is the thing I don't get about the jjmt's and AGCs: everyone you turn on your computer or phone, you are validating some of the most insanely complicated and abstract and counter intuitive "knowledge" man has gained through science. I'm not saying bow down and worship science - I'm saying show some appreciation for the process that gives you technology, modern medicine, cars, planes, television, GPS, computers, phones, buildings, electricity, air conditioning, plumbing, manufactured goods, and a million other things you take for granted. At what point does it become hypocritical to enjoy the fruits of science while simultaneously degrading it as guesswork by frauds.


Hypocritical? Degrading it? I simply linked an article to explore the idea that 'science' is infallible, that everything that has gone through it's methodology is, in fact, correct and true. The answer is no one knows. We don't know the rate of fraud. No one has time to replicate everything that is published, so simply publishing or following the method is not good enough for inclusion into the field.

You responded that it's simply a tool but now you've strayed back into the concept of it being a religion (though you tried to deflect that with your comment about bowing down). Only those who worship can go to heaven? Is that not more or less what you just said? Why would it concern you if we reap the fruits if it's simply a tool?

And look at aggrad's response. If science is simply a tool like a hammer, what sense does it make to call someone a 'hammer denier'? No one's denying the hammer, simply that you hit the right nail, or that you're building according to the instructions, or that you achieved the end result you were looking for.

It only took two pages for the exact attitudes and beliefs that should be challenged to emerge and declare themselves the victors.
oldarmy1
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Whoops

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444668/whistle-blower-scientist-exposes-shoddy-climate-science-noaa
Sapper Redux
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oldarmy1 said:

Whoops

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444668/whistle-blower-scientist-exposes-shoddy-climate-science-noaa


National Review, huh? Source checks out.

And before you respond, I've seen the thread on the Politics board. There are plenty of responses from actual scientists who are sick of their work being taken out of context.
oldarmy1
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Out of "context" = gaming the system. Correct
AGC
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Dr. Watson said:

oldarmy1 said:

Whoops

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444668/whistle-blower-scientist-exposes-shoddy-climate-science-noaa


National Review, huh? Source checks out.

And before you respond, I've seen the thread on the Politics board. There are plenty of responses from actual scientists who are sick of their work being taken out of context.


Ad hominem, huh?
Aggrad08
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It's more model denying than hammer denying. But the thing is these models are constructed built and founded by this method, using this hammer if you will. There is nothing unique about the science deniers deny other than it conflicts with their religion. To say these models are unfounded is to say our model for gravity is. If they were uniquely poor that would be different, they aren't.

And no one is saying not to be skeptical or curious. No one. No one has or desires a blind attitude but the deniers among us who's mind cannot be bent by evidence. The people on this board that love science are also among its most skeptical and curious. Science is a skeptical man's dream tool as its made to build models that withstand skepticism.

On every thread the science deniers start, has there ever been one instance where their arguments haven't been addressed in detail? There are very many to choose from.

Science deniers don't hold more skepticism or curiosity, they are simply moon landing conspirators, flat earthers, 9/11 truthers. Being anti Vax, or denying the age of the earth is no different.

There is no want for incredulity among the scientifically educated. Not sure what you think the issue is.
Sapper Redux
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oldarmy1 said:

Out of "context" = gaming the system. Correct


No. It means people with an agenda cherry-pick what they want to cherry-pick.
kurt vonnegut
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AGC said:

It only took two pages for the exact attitudes and beliefs that should be challenged to emerge and declare themselves the victors.


I wish you'd read my whole posts rather than selectively grabbing onto the pieces you think reinforce your disdain for those of us who think science is the best tool we have for understanding reality. I feel like your entire post was a counter argument to nothing I said. I don't know how to respond. Sorry.
oldarmy1
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Dr. Watson said:

oldarmy1 said:

Out of "context" = gaming the system. Correct


No. It means people with an agenda cherry-pick what they want to cherry-pick.
Pot meets kettle. Soupy
Sapper Redux
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oldarmy1 said:

Dr. Watson said:

oldarmy1 said:

Out of "context" = gaming the system. Correct


No. It means people with an agenda cherry-pick what they want to cherry-pick.
Pot meets kettle. Soupy


This relates to the entire discussion about science. You're referencing a partisan column, written in response to another partisan column published in a British tabloid with known anti-AGW leanings. A column that mischaracterized the research and publication process. To you, this is of equal value to the actual peer-reviewed study. A study, by the way, that is under discussion and debate within the scientific community. But that discussion is based on the actual evidence presented and the methods, rather than a vapid hit-job.
Solo Tetherball Champ
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Meh, you had me until you labeled the competition as deniers.

Aggrad08
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How is it an unfair characterization? Is a flat Earther a denier? Are you saying you wouldn't use that term for those people? Where do you draw the line?
AGC
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kurt vonnegut said:

AGC said:

It only took two pages for the exact attitudes and beliefs that should be challenged to emerge and declare themselves the victors.


I wish you'd read my whole posts rather than selectively grabbing onto the pieces you think reinforce your disdain for those of us who think science is the best tool we have for understanding reality. I feel like your entire post was a counter argument to nothing I said. I don't know how to respond. Sorry.


You started to engage in a debate over how much of a hypocrite I am based on my tech use and accused me of considering science to be guesswork by frauds (something I didn't say). I considered that to be an attack on my character and it seemed emblematic of the general pro-science as religion crowd. It was very far from your science as a tool posts.
kurt vonnegut
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I was careful only infer a possible level of hypocrisy.

Best I can tell from your posts, you wish to call attention to the fact that fraud does occur in science and that because some studies are not properly reviewed, we should be skeptical of them. I don't think anyone here objects to that in the slightest. that skepticism must, however, be based on something other than the fact that we may not like the results.

You then go on to accuse Watson and others of holding science as infallible which I feel is simply dishonest. If Watson has said this or believes this, then I'm in the wrong here. Prove me wrong.

I don't know what level of hypocrisy you inhabit - we all inhabit some level. This is a rhetorical question: what scientific conclusions do you tend to be skeptical of? Are you a rebulican that is skeptical of climate change? A Christian who believes that evolution is false or that biology is irreducibility complex? A Christian that things that ancient archeological findings prove Biblical stories? No answer to these question makes you a hypocrite - we should all consider why we are skeptical of certain findings. Skepticism is good. Skepticism founded in bias is prejudiced.
TexAgs91
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> Does science self correct?

Yes, in theory
AGC
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We'll take one example: climate change. The question wouldn't have to be asked if people didn't just delete webpages with outrageous claims that never came true (such as those about millions of climate refugees in 2014 or 2010 on the UN website). Is that correction? When the model and predictions don't come true but the claims remain, it's a relevant question. It's worth asking given how little of our history we have climate measures for, and how little total environmental data we can adequately capture and measure in the equations. Can science claim to be self correcting when it makes unfalsifiable claims?
kurt vonnegut
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AGC said:

We'll take one example: climate change. The question wouldn't have to be asked if people didn't just delete webpages with outrageous claims that never came true (such as those about millions of climate refugees in 2014 or 2010 on the UN website). Is that correction? When the model and predictions don't come true but the claims remain, it's a relevant question. It's worth asking given how little of our history we have climate measures for, and how little total environmental data we can adequately capture and measure in the equations. Can science claim to be self correcting when it makes unfalsifiable claims?

I'm not familiar with the UN webpage in question, but if the claim had to do with the number of climate change refugees. . . . it feels like a geopolitical claim more than anything else.

In order for science to be 'self-correcting', I think you need to define what you mean? Are you asking about whether or not scientific process (if you'll allow the term) allows for or includes a mechanism for refining previous conclusions or results? Are you asking about whether or not scientific data is intentionally skewed by people of bias for political means? If so, can we agree that there this intentional skewing is not in the spirit of what science is supposed to be? Or is the suggesting that a failure of scientists to reach universal and absolute objective truth is grounds for not labeling science as self correcting? I don't know quite how to respond, because I don't know where you are setting the goal posts.

With respect to climate change, I think its fair to question conclusions based on lack of historical data. There is data in the form of several hundred thousand years of carbon level readings in ice cores, geological evidence, paleontological evidence, evidence in the form of measuring ratios of isotopes affected by climate in fossils. . . .but the task of understanding Earth's climate history is a 4.5 billion year question. Science attempts to use what is known and run the model in reverse. You aren't going to get objective, 100% bona-fide, absolute, infallible truth. If that is your expectation, you misunderstand science at its very core.


All science can do with respect to climate change is make models, gather data, make projections, and test those projections so that the model can be refined. Hopefully you get enough honest people looking at the models and data that can poke legitimate holes in the theory so that . . . .again. . . .the model can be refined. There are dishonest scientists. I blame their dishonest scientific claims on being dishonest people and not on science itself.

What unfalsifiable claims does science make? You've not identified any. Man made climate change is falsifiable. Whether people accept falsification when it is presented is an entirely different story - the answer has to with human psychology and motive and not a flaw of science.
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