{X} "constitutes a falsification of" {Y} - (good) science?

[Ken G]

How can anyone confuse science with philosophy ?

This is a deep issue, probably worthy of its own thread (several others have addressed it in some way), but I do think Warren Platts is finding a commonly made link between science and naturalism (or positivism, or materialism). To me, the instant I see an "ism" I know that the proper domain of science itself has been exited, but it would be disingenuous to deny that those links are often made. Also, scientists themselves often contribute to them, when they take their own theories so literally that they begin to sound like literal interpretations of religious texts, with many of the same pitfalls.

Science gets mistaken for religion when that happens, and it gets mistaken for philosophy when arguments are made that the universe has such-and-such an "intrinsic character" because it "makes sense", or some such thing. The problem is that we as scientists use a lot of shorthand ways of talking about the nature of things, because it gets tiresome to preface everything with "our best current theory says..." or "one useful way to think about this is...". So we just say "the electron collides with a proton...", and after a while, we can forget that it was never our purpose to espouse a philosophy about what was happening there, just a successful model that serves some purpose. Never mind that ten different scientists, depending on their fields of specialization and level of mathematical sophistication, may mean ten different things when they use the word "proton" or "electron" or "collide". This is no exaggeration, it's just the way models are used in science, for those who don't know this already.

In Dreams of a Final Theory Weinberg has written an entire chapter entitled "Against Philosopohy", and a nice piece of logical thinking it is. And I find myself in agreemeht with Cicero's statement that "There is no position so ridiculous that it has not been held by some philosopher."

No one can doubt the wit of Cicero's remark, but it's too easy to hit such a broad target with such arrows of wit. Even science itself is not immune-- witness the well-known quote by Hardy that "A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life." This dovetails with Warren Platts' confusion of science with ethics issues, but it is not the science that can be unethical, it is the choices of people empowered by science. Of course the same holds for however they are empowered; neither science, nor philosophy, has any privileged relationship with human frailties. But it can raise the stakes a few notches, that much is certainly true.

Coordinate geometry has been useful to scientists. "I think therefore I am" has really not produced much that is tangible.

Perhaps not in any direct way, but I'm not sure we can ever really trace the source of all our scientific inspirations, and it is possible that philosophy, and even music and literature and poetry, have indeed played a part in the advancement of science. Their influences may not have been restricted to the equally important issues of what we do with our scientific knowledge once we obtain it.

[Ari Jokimaki]

In terms of the unfalsifiability of "expansion of space", I think you have reached the wrong conclusion: you've concluded it is science anyway, but I would say that in fact you have put your finger on exactly why it is not real science to say that "space is expanding", that is merely one picture you can use to describe the real science.

Well, I'm just thinking that our theories contain lot of concepts similar to "space expansion" (another example of such concept from our modern cosmology is "dark energy"), and I have thought that content of theories are "science". Why should we exclude these concepts from science, when they are parts of theories that are thought to be science? It seems to me that the way you use word "science" actually is same as "quantified". I don't understand why these unknown concepts, or "placeholders" as they have been called here, which really are just names for some entity or process we don't yet understand, cannot be "science".

The real science is that distances are increasing,...

(Going quite off-topic here) Actually, I think the real science there is rather something like: most galaxies have their spectral lines shifted towards red end of the spectrum when compared to our laboratory standards, and (most of) the redshifts seem to be related to the distance of objects. Saying that distances are increasing requires so much interpretation that I would put it almost in the same line with "space expansion". Hmm... I wonder what is the level of interpretation needed for a concept to not be "science" anymore. Can that even be determined objectively?

I would call that a "pedagogy", a way to teach a theory that is not the same as the theory because it is not testable in the same way.

I'll just note that "space expansion" is used in scientific papers routinely, but whether it's use there is "pedagogic" or "scientific", I don't know.

[Len Moran]

I completely agree with your stance. But in one respect I am a bit puzzled. How can anyone confuse science with philosophy ?

I don't think I am adding anything other than what Ken G has said in response to your comment, but the role of philosophy in science does interest me so perhaps I can make a few comments.

My understanding from a text that I often refer to is that until the eighteenth century science and philosophy were hardly separate and that prominent thinkers did not shun mixing up scientific and metaphysical research. The split when it occured consisted in entrusting philosophers with problems bearing on the nature of things, and scientists with those concerning their behaviour, but in the early part of this split, the notions that underlay these behavioural observations were very familiar and seemingly of a common sense nature that could be thought of as actually existing. But in a more modern context, the concentration of the scientist on the behaviour of an entity under study involves notions such as quantum fields or curved spaces along with other similar unfamiliar notions. That these concepts need to be defined before dealing with the behavioural observations means that the scientist cannot escape the domain of philosophy in terms of the existence of these unfamiliar notions. The physical realist who on the one hand proclaims the real existence of such entities as "particles" but on the other hand dismisses the interference of philosophy is especially vulnerable here.

I think the use of philosophy as a tool kit allows physics to be carried out in a context that places theories as human representations that primarily predict observations which (in terms of limited fields) gives rise to the notion of an empirical reality that models the absolute, as opposed to the assigning of an unrealistic notion of reality being pointed to by theories. Is not the use of philosophy very important in defining the role of science, and does that not indirectly advance it? Surely defining science for what it is allows us to progress in a much more "scientific" manner.

[Disinfo Agent]

There is no "magic bullet" to choose between those, it all depends on your goals. People who think that there is some "logical way" to prove that science gives you the "right answer" are sadly mistaken-- it is illogical to imagine such a possibility could flow from logic alone.

I never claimed that the choice is a matter of pure logic.

I asked you a question, which you have not answered. Please do. Here it is again:

Here's a slightly hypothetical but not altogether implausible situation:

a) Science says that humans are causing global warming, and we'll be in trouble soon if we don't do something to counter it.

b) Some religion says that global warming is actually a test to mankind's faith, and that we'll be saved by God in the end so long as we don't try to intervene, but we'll be punished with worse things it we try to do anything about it.

c) A doomsday cult agrees that global warming will be the demise of mankind, but says we should embrace it, because it's a sign that the Rapture is at hand, and any interference will be pointless anyway.

How do you choose between these three propositions? Which one will you believe, and why?

In Dreams of a Final Theory Weinberg has written an entire chapter entitled "Against Philosopohy", and a nice piece of logical thinking it is.

The problem with such refutations of philosophy is that they are, themselves, philosophy. The funny (and troubling) thing about them is that the authors who make them usually don't even realise that they're writing philosophy, too.

[Ken G]

Well, I'm just thinking that our theories contain lot of concepts similar to "space expansion" (another example of such concept from our modern cosmology is "dark energy"), and I have thought that content of theories are "science". Why should we exclude these concepts from science, when they are parts of theories that are thought to be science?

It is not that we must "exclude" them, it's that we must recognize they are only pictures used to understand a scientific theory-- they are not the scientific theory themselves. They are a "pedagogy", which is tested by things called "final exams", whereas scientific theories are tested by experiment. Pedagogies are not unique to a theory, and indeed different practitioners of the same theory quite often use different pedagogies to accomplish that. When we mistake the pedagogy for the theory, we fall victim to mistaking problems with the pedagogy for problems with the theory. That statement pretty much sums up half the entire Q&A section of this forum.

I don't understand why these unknown concepts, or "placeholders" as they have been called here, which really are just names for some entity or process we don't yet understand, cannot be "science".

Science is defined by how it is tested, so if we test something by seeing if it successfully allows us to apply some theory, then it is a pedagogy, and if we test the predictions of the theory with an experiment, then it is science.

(Going quite off-topic here) Actually, I think the real science there is rather something like: most galaxies have their spectral lines shifted towards red end of the spectrum when compared to our laboratory standards, and (most of) the redshifts seem to be related to the distance of objects.

Saying that distances are increasing requires so much interpretation that I would put it almost in the same line with "space expansion".[/quote]Not quite, one has a measurable concept of distance and a measurable concept of time, and putting them together does give that distances are increasing without offering any particular "properties of space itself". The former is a theory because it unifies the observations in a testable way, but the latter is not testable, it's just a useful picture. How would you test that space expands?

Hmm... I wonder what is the level of interpretation needed for a concept to not be "science" anymore. Can that even be determined objectively?

Probably not, there is more "gray area" than we might care to imagine. I'm speaking more about the ideals of science.

I'll just note that "space expansion" is used in scientific papers routinely, but whether it's use there is "pedagogic" or "scientific", I don't know.

Standard pedagogies get used often in scientific papers, but we are still better served by distinguishing them from the theories we are using them to help us apply. In a sense, the theory is the car, and the pedagogy is the specific way you've learned to drive it. Everyone gets to where they need to go, but they may not be picturing the process quite the same.

[Ken G]

I asked you a question, which you have not answered. Please do.

I already did, immediately following the question. The choice you are making is not what to believe, it is what is your objective for particpating in believing.

[Warren Platts]

Right, but each of those [atheism, naturalism, materialism] is a philosophy with no direct connection to science, when one recognizes the difference between science and philosophy. That's part of the point of what we're trying to establish in this thread.

Right, and the question is whether falsification provides such a demarcation between science and philosophy. Clearly, naive falsification does not; but perhaps Popper's more sophisticated version of a falsifiability that "says that statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must [as in always?] be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations" is capable of serving as a demarcation criterion?

Because that's certainly problematic. DesCartes said "I think, therefore I am", a paradigmatic philosophical statement if there ever was one, yet philosophers no longer discuss much the nature of souls, anymore than they discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Why? Because souls and angels are not useful for anything except giving warm fuzzy feelings that we are being looked after somehow. So mere testability can't count as a demarcation criterion.

And we can't use the presence or absence of warm fuzzy feelings as a demarcation criterion either, because science generates more than its fair share of warm fuzzy feelings. And we can't make a philosophical essentialist turn either by saying that warm fuzzy feelings are not essential to science because the generation of WFZY feelings is not essential to philosophy either.

If anything it's quite the opposite since the suicide rate among philosophers seems to be higher than among scientists.

Perhaps you'll say that it is the purpose[s?] of science that distinguishes it from other human endeavors. But what purposes are those? Because you've already said that understanding nature can't be a purpose of science--that's philosophy because it involves the nature of nature, and that's metaphysics.

Surely, you wouldn't say that the purpose of science is the systematic search for better means to produce evermore fancy widgets--even though that would actually be a good demarcation criterion.

Personally, the best I can come up with is that science has something to do with certain kinds of observations; but that's certainly not a hard and fast distinction, because philosophers also pay attention to observations, and some science predictions can't be observed because we don't have the technology. But the basic idea behind science is that true knowledge comes from certain kinds of observations--namely those that come from our outer sense organs (it's fine with me if we leave aside the question of observations of what?).

Which brings me to my next point:

Sorry, that doesn't sound like any science I know.

I'm afraid it must--especially for your brand of science that wants to avoid observations of reality: Therefore, what else could an observation consist of if not the firing of outer layers of nerve cells? Well I guess you could opt for sense impressions sensu simpliciter and just skip the nerve fibers. OK, but that's also going to involve you in various ism's--like strict empiricism or logical positivism or instrumentalism or Cartesian dualism, and you've said repeatedly that you certainly don't want that.

Sorry, once again not the science I've ever heard of. You are mistaking unethical things done in the name of a misguided idea of what science is. Ethics are completely different from science-- science is moot on the issue. It is not what science is for.

If science is not for the betterment of humankind, then perhaps we should rethink the number of tax dollars that are spent on it!

So please tell us: What is the exact essential purpose of science? And how does the satisfaction of this purpose distinguish science from philosophy in a noncircular manner? Because the impression I gather from you is the purpose of science is to build models, but the models aren't models of any thing, so a theory can't be judged by how well it corresponds to reality, but it should be testable by observation, but observation also involves models (I prefer nerve ending models of observation, but apparently you do not), so we judge our models on how well they model which in turn depends on other models that are judged on how well they model, and so on ad infinitum, so your whole theory of science comes across as rather circular.

Albeit, your brand at least has the virtue that science is self-contained, and therefore sure to generate the warm fuzzy feelings that come from that pristine aloofness from both the mundane world of reality as well as the mysterious nether-regions of philosophy.

Which would involve you in yet another "ism": scientism: the doctrine that sees science as the only justifiably warranted access to truth.

Me personally, because of the above considerations, I don't find the science/philosophy distinction to be useful for anything whatever. I'll go along with Quine, who said that science and philosophy seamlessly intergrade with each other. Thus it's not surprising that philosophers often do publish in science journals, and vice versa.

Neither. It [the Titius-Bode Law] is not even a law, it is just numerology. Efforts to explain it would be the road to a law. Science does not simply notice patterns, it attempts to find a reason for them.

Ghargh! OK, for the sake of not getting embroiled in the philosophical definition of 'scientific law', I'll grant you that it's not a law, and I promise to write TBSP (for Titius-Bode Spacing Pattern) from now on. That way we can just worry about whether the TBSP is a real pattern or not.

Oops! I just said "real". OK, let me rephrase: "real pattern" is just a shorthand used to say whether the TBSP qua mathematical model of spacing patterns does it's job well or not. I would say a correlation coefficient of 0.997 is the sign of a good model (Platts 2007, Poveda & Lara 2008), and I'm sure you do as well, but you would like it to go further and interface with other models, like celestial mechanics or planetary formation theory. Don't worry, there's a surfeit of those: my favorite is that the TBSP does indeed preserve information from the origin of the solar system, but because of Type II migration, each planet is roughly at where the next innermost planet originally formed (e.g., the proto-Jupiter core first formed about where Saturn is now, proto-Earth formed about where Mars is now). I have the differential equations in my back pocket if you really want to see them.

I am not aware of it ever being used to predict the location of any planet.

Those would be Ceres, Uranus, Neptune, Vulcan, and more recently, 55 Cancri g was predicted to be found at about 2 AU from its primary (Platts 2007, Poveda & Lara 2008). In other words, like most scientific models, the TBSP has had a checkered history involving both successes and failures and redoes, and it may or may not generate more successes in the future. It just goes to show that science is a catch-as-catch-can enterprise, and there is no finite set of rules that can define the scientific method nor is there a clearcut demarcation between science and other human enterprises--like philosophy.

[Warren Platts]

The problem with such refutations of philosophy is that they are, themselves, philosophy. The funny (and troubling) thing about them is that the authors who make them usually don't even realise that they're writing philosophy, too.

Exactly!

[Warren Platts]

Science is defined by how it is tested, so if we test something by seeing if it successfully allows us to apply some theory, then it is a pedagogy, and if we test the predictions of the theory with an experiment, then it is science.

Ah, here's an answer to the demarcation problem, if not the purpose-of-science problem. Only one problem: I have this theory that the hardness of egg-yolks is a function of cooking time which is turn a function of altitude, when boiling eggs. Thus, when I moved to Vermont, I predicted I would have to ease up on the cooking time in order to get the yolks where I want them. Sure enough, I had to reduce the cooking time from seven minutes to five minutes. But we don't want to call that science.

Or do we???

Because if we do, that would be very uncool. That would imply that there's nothing special about science; scientists would be reduced to merely glorified recipe tweakers! People psychologically invested in the superiority of science will be in danger of losing out on warm fuzzy feelings!

Very uncool. . . .

Probably not, there is more "gray area" than we might care to imagine. I'm speaking more about the ideals of science.

Oh no. . . . Now you sound like you're agreeing with me! And you've stepped into the philosophical quicksand of ethics, since you imply that you're more concerned with how science ought to be done, than with how science is actually done!

Allow me to save you from yourself: try this definition of science on for size: science is just what scientists get paid to do, and scientists are just those guys who get to wear the white lab coats (except for field scientists--they get to wear blue jeans and flannel shirts) and have the expensive, custom-made technology, and who inhabit university science departments or the R&D departments of big corporations and government agencies, and who publish articles in science journals and books that fill the science shelves in bookstores, and who get to burn gallons and gallons of jet fuel traveling the world to collect scientific data and to attend scientific conferences.

My definition has the virtue that it clearly demarcates science from philosophy. To the extent that philosophers write the occasional science journal articles, such interlopers are not being true philosophers. Nor does my definition of science depend on mushy philosophical "ideals"--whatever they are. . . .

And my definition also excludes dudes tweaking their marijuana cookie recipes.

Yet, most important of all, my definition preserves the coolness of science, and hence the warm fuzzy feelings of science lovers everywhere. Because the purpose of science now is to compete for the credit and approbation of one's peers--that is, the purpose of science is the creation of scientific rock stars! And what's more excellent than that!

Google hits for "The Beatles": 31,600,000
Google hits for "Einstein": 62,400,000
Google hits for "Britney Spears": 98,400,000

So Einstein is right up there with the best of them. You can't beat that with a stick!

[Ken G]

Clearly, naive falsification does not; but perhaps Popper's more sophisticated version of a falsifiability that "says that statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must [as in always?] be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations" is capable of serving as a demarcation criterion?

I do think this is an important criterion. The way I think of it is, "in science you are not allowed to know the answer before asking nature via direct observation". In other words "no shortcuts, no magic bullets". As usual, Feynman said it best with words along the lines that science is a prescription for not fooling yourself, given that you are the easiest person for you to fool.

Because souls and angels are not useful for anything except giving warm fuzzy feelings that we are being looked after somehow. So mere testability can't count as a demarcation criterion.

I was with you up until the last sentence. How does that follow? It seems to me that testability is a crucial failing of the "warm fuzzy feeling" approach to truth.

And we can't use the presence or absence of warm fuzzy feelings as a demarcation criterion either, because science generates more than its fair share of warm fuzzy feelings.

Indeed, it is our goals as human to achieve such feelings from any quarter that can accomplish it-- what separates science is that it must dovetail with other criteria as well, to the point that sometimes scientists have to (and have) let go of particularly fuzzy feelings to accept the actual reality.

And we can't make a philosophical essentialist turn either by saying that warm fuzzy feelings are not essential to science because the generation of WFZY feelings is not essential to philosophy either. If anything it's quite the opposite since the suicide rate among philosophers seems to be higher than among scientists.

The absence or presence of WFZY feelings is never part of the definition of an endeavor (even drama, poetry, and art allow for painful or negative emotions), I merely used that as an example of a way to choose beliefs, based on a particular goal for how you want those beliefs to make you feel. The real point I'm making is that we can either choose our beliefs or our prescription for arriving at beliefs, but not both, not in the same context anyway. Ergo the philosopher suicide rate.

Perhaps you'll say that it is the purpose[s?] of science that distinguishes it from other human endeavors.

No, the purpose of science is what informs the choices of prescription. It is the prescription itself that defines science. The prescription is called "the scientific method", and is well described in places like Wikipedia.

Because you've already said that understanding nature can't be a purpose of science--that's philosophy because it involves the nature of nature, and that's metaphysics.

I did not say that. You are choosing a philosophical meaning for the term "understand", and following the circular argument that anything that tries to understand is therefore philosophy. To use "understand" the way science does, you simply need to use science's definition of the term (unifying and organizing experimental data against a framework of testable outcomes). It is sophistry to embed science in philosophy simply by asserting that the rules of science are a type of philosophy of their own. Meaningless tautology will never help you understand what science is and what it isn't.

Surely, you're not going to say that the purpose of science is the systematic search for better means to produce evermore fancy widgets--even though that would actually be a good demarcation criterion.

That is certainly one of the purposes of science, but not by virtue of the "fanciness of the widgets", but rather by virtue of the empowerment that scientific understanding affords us. Of course that empowerment is one of the crucial demarcation criteria, not insofar as it is separate from, but insofar as it is part of the broader issue of testability.

So the best I can come up with is that science has something to do with certain kinds of observations; but that's certainly not a hard and fast distinction, because philosophers also pay attention to observations, and some science predictions can't be observed because we don't have the technology.

If nothing has led you to understand the differences between science and philosophy, then perhaps you simply don't understand either. How would you falsify that hypothesis?

But the basic idea behind science is that true knowledge comes from certain kinds of observations--namely those that come from our outer sense organs (it's fine with me if we leave aside the question of observations of what?).

You think the "basic idea" of science has to do with "true knowledge"? Where did you get that idea? More confusion of science and philosophy, I wager. And I have to say I'm completely missing the distinction between "outer" and "inner" sense organs-- one can certainly do science on the observations of inner sense organs (cognitive psychology, for example, albeit a bit soft because of the difficulties of accessing the apparatus), and one can certainly do things that are not science by using "outer" sense organs. But I digress.

I'm afraid it must--especially for your brand of science that wants to avoid observations of reality:

Huh? Where did you get that idea?

Therefore, what else could an observation consist of if not the firing of outer layers of nerve cells?

We'll have to go a little deeper into what science is to field this one. First of all, a point I've made a lot in the past, and doubt I am unique in recognizing, is that one of the core elements of the scientific prescription is to begin with a knowingly false demarcation between what is "objective" and what is "subjective". We know there is no such hard and fast line, but we also know that we do quite well to imagine there is, and indeed we learn to recognize that advantage when we are still babies. Once we have that artificial but crucial organizing principle in place, we then begin to categorize what we can "objectively observe", which essentially means subjective interactions with our environment that have a certain quality we can get away with calling objective. Were that not a useful thing to do, there would be no science at all.

So the distinction you are trying to draw, between "outer sense organs" and everything else, is a useless distinction. Once we have firmly established the usefulness of the make-believe concept of objectivity, we no longer care if an instrument is registering a result, if our eyes are seeing it, if our hands are feeling a dial, or if we are hearing some sounds. In any of those cases, we can detect the foul odor of a useless distinction, and get back to the process of doing useful science regardless of the mode of conveyance of the objective information we are organizing and unifying.

Well I guess you could opt for sense impressions sensu simpliciter and just skip the nerve fibers. OK, but that's also going to involve you in various ism's--like strict empiricism or logical positivism or instrumentalism or Cartesian dualism...

Nope, that speculation is contradicted by reality. For I do science just fine, and organize and unify the required information, without any of those things. How do I manage that if your claim is correct that I must be "involved" in them? In truth, they are irrelevant to the process of carrying out science, indeed I view them as dead weight clinging to theories that are better set free from them.

If science is not for the betterment of mankind, then perhaps we should rethink the number of tax dollars that are spent on it!

Who said science isn't for the betterment of mankind? Our discussion is entirely limited to what the betterment is, how its form constrains what science needs to be, and what our responsibilities are to recognize how to insure achieving that betterment, rather than false conclusions based in misguided philosophical entanglements.

So please tell us: What is the exact essential purpose of science?

I've said it many times already. The essential purpose of science is to organize and unify the results of objectively repeatable observations, so that we can obtain a working understanding of the various phenomena we are studying. That working understanding is judged by how it empowers us to make effective predictions and obtain some control over those phenomena, as well as how it enables our simplistic minds to see simplicity out of complexity. The former is a pretty good definition of "usefulness", and the latter a pretty good definition of "knowledge". I should have thought all that was perfectly obvious from even a cursory examination of science. Perhaps you are trying too hard?

And how does the satisfaction of this purpose distinguish science from philosophy in a noncircular manner?

Very simply, because the above is not the purpose of philosophy. I will allow the philosophers to proffer that definition, but I'm going to guess that "objectively repeatable experiments" is not going to be in it. This is really so difficult?

Because the impression I gather from you is the purpose of science is to build models, but the models aren't models of any thing, so a theory can't be judged by how well it corresponds to reality, but it should be testable by observation, but observation also involves models (I prefer nerve ending models of observation, but apparently you do not), so we judge our models on how well they model which in turn depends on other models that are judged on how well they model, and so on ad infinitum, so your whole theory of science comes across as rather circular.

Models are models, what else do they need to be? I don't understand what you want from them. And the fact that modeling has a complex self-referential character strikes you as being "circular" and therefore invalid? You need to ponder "I think therefore I am" a bit more. Recognizing flawed logic is indeed something that philosophy can be helpful with, I'll just tell you that modeling cannot be "circular" because it was never intended to be a self-standing logical system, it was intended to be what it is: modeling.

Albeit, your brand at least has the virtue that science is self-contained, and therefore sure to generate the warm fuzzy feelings that come from that pristine aloofness from both the mundane world of reality as well as the mysterious nether-regions of philosophy.

Now that's just pure baloney. I get so tired of the "scientists are aloof because they can actually pay attention to what they are actually doing" argument, as if being a self-contained endeavor was somehow a bad thing that only stuck-up intellectuals would ever attempt. Lame to the max.

Which would involve you in yet another "ism": scientism: the doctrine that sees science as the only justifiably warranted access to truth.

And where did you get the idea I promote or adhere to such a view? I can only repeat: I do not see any "ism", including "scientism" as you define it, as having anything at all to do with science. All "isms" reflect certain axioms, and the whole point of science is to let nature inform the axioms, and it may inform different axioms in different ways-- it never needs to "choose". It reminds me of something a woman I know said when she was poking fun at some "line" she was handed by a potential suitor. He said "we can be lovers, or we can be friends." To which she thought with a scornful internal laugh "how about neither one?"

When I think about philosophical "isms", I personally never ask "which one is right", I just notice what each has to say, and look for the tradeoffs that each imply. Science doesn't need any of them, it is its own pursuit.

Me personally, because of the above considerations, I don't find the science/philosophy distinction to be useful for anything whatever. I'll go along with Quine, who said that science and philosophy seamlessly intergrade with each other.

Then perhaps it would be useful for you to cite the scientific breakthroughs of Quine, or indeed of any scientist who was relying on the "seamless integration" of philosophy and science. Problem is, I will happily supply countless examples of scientists being led badly astray by trying to integrate their science and their philosophy-- that's as easy as falling off a log. And you "don't find the science/philosophy distinction to be useful"? Find a history book.

Thus it's not surprising that philosophers often do publish in science journals, and vice versa.

I would actually point to the contrary fact that this is remarkably uncommon. For example I have never seen even a single primarily philosophical offering in all my years of reading the Astrophysical Journal (not that I claim to have read every abstract).

"real pattern" is just a shorthand used to say whether the TBSP qua mathematical model of spacing patterns does it's job well or not.

Obviously that is how I took your meaning. Recognizing that you are using shorthand is not the same as requiring that you not do it-- surely you can see that, yes? But I will defer any discussion of the TBSP to that ATM thread you linked to, it would be quite counterproductive to a discussion of how science defines itself to bring in issues that are not currently accepted as part of the body of science.

It just goes to show that science is a catch-as-catch-can enterprise, and there is no finite set of rules that can define the scientific method nor is there a clearcut demarcation between science and other human enterprises--like philosophy.

That is a "motherhood remark" with little actual useful meaning. What has usefulness is noticing how science is kept effective by separating it from other human endeavors, even though there is no such thing as a "clearcut demarcation" in anything I've ever seen in my life.

[Ken G]

Only one problem: I have this theory that the hardness of egg-yolks is a function of cooking time which is turn a function of altitude, when boiling eggs. Thus, when I moved to Vermont, I predicted I would have to ease up on the cooking time in order to get the yolks where I want them. Sure enough, I had to reduce the cooking time from seven minutes to five minutes. But we don't want to call that science.

We don't? I'm not following, sorry.

That would imply that there's nothing special about science; scientists would be reduced to merely glorified recipe tweakers! People psychologically invested in the superiority of science will be in danger of losing out on warm fuzzy feelings!

Back to the land of baloney, I fear. You think any of this discussion has anything to do with "superiority of science"? That's your own issue, you'll have to grapple with that chip yourself. The others on this thread and I only care about what science is, and what it is useful for.

Oh no. . . . Now you sound like you're agreeing with me! And you've stepped into the philosophical quicksand of ethics, since you imply that you're more concerned with how science ought to be done, than with how science is actually done!

This may come as a shock to you, but I realize that the blackboard is never perfectly black, nor the chalk perfectly white-- yet the objective is to read the writing anyway. And while I'm trying to read that writing, you seem to be saying "but look, see where a little bit of whiteness has bled over onto the blackboard? And there, a small black smudge, right in the middle of that chalk line. Clearly there's no difference between the board and the chalk, see?" No, I see how crucial it is to differentiate the white and black regions or we cannot read, even if that "clearcut demarcation" is a product of our own conceptualization (it is, of course, that tells me nothing).

Allow me to save you from yourself: try this definition of science on for size: science is just what scientists get paid to do, and scientists are just those guys who get to wear the white lab coats (except for field scientists--they get to wear blue jeans and flannel shirts) and have the expensive, custom-made technology, and who inhabit university science departments or the R&D departments of big corporations and government agencies, and who publish articles in science journals and books that fill the science shelves in bookstores, and who get to burn gallons and gallons of jet fuel traveling the world to collect scientific data and to attend scientific conferences.

I think your chip is showing again, and although I've seen that insightless definition in other places, I find it sadly lacking. It is so easy to disprove as a useful way to define science. All we have to do is to look at a baby and the development of its mind. Funny thing-- it starts using scientific thinking and experimentation long before it has ever seen a white coat or read a journal article. So what will you call the prescription used by a child to organize and unify objectively repeatable observations? And what are the scientists doing that is so different, that only happens when they put on lab coats and get papers published? And what was the key step, can they just publish without the lab coat, or what if they wear the coat and give seminars but don't publish? It's a perfectly silly definition, and it is only ever used for convenience when it's just too hard to explain what science really is to people who are not willing to open their minds to it and want a "magic bullet" instead (like in a courtroom, for example).

But fortunately, the two definitions are more or less the same in practice, so if that's the definition you want to use, knock yourself out. I'll choose to simply continue to know what I'm actually doing, on the days I forget to wear either a lab coat or blue jeans.

[DrRocket]

I don't think I am adding anything other than what Ken G has said in response to your comment, but the role of philosophy in science does interest me so perhaps I can make a few comments.

...The physical realist who on the one hand proclaims the real existence of such entities as "particles" but on the other hand dismisses the interference of philosophy is especially vulnerable here.

I think the use of philosophy as a tool kit allows physics to be carried out in a context that places theories as human representations that primarily predict observations which (in terms of limited fields) gives rise to the notion of an empirical reality that models the absolute, as opposed to the assigning of an unrealistic notion of reality being pointed to by theories. Is not the use of philosophy very important in defining the role of science, and does that not indirectly advance it? Surely defining science for what it is allows us to progress in a much more "scientific" manner.

To be a bit blunt, the next advance in science that is attributable to the musings of philosophers will be the first one. An no, the use of philosophy in defining the role of science is not only not important but rather has no measurable effect whatever. It does not advance science at all, and fortunately does not impede it either.

Defining science for what it allow us to progress is not only not scientific, it is not even accurate. If anything, it is closer to a definition of engineering than of science, and it begs the definition of "progress".

With a fair number of years of experience I can honestly say that I have never heard a single discussion among scientists, mathematicians, or engineers as to the philosophical basis of science. Not once in a faculty lounge, in a colloquium, over dinner, or in a meeting. Not ever outside of forums such as this. I have heard lots of topics discussed against blackboards and over gallons of coffee, but never a discussion of the role of philosophy or any application of philosophy to research.

Weinberg, as earlier noted, devoted an entire chapter to the uselessness of philosophy to physics. Feynman also notes the basic uselessness of formal philosophy, for instance in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

Here is another quote to go along with that of Cicero, perhaps not as witty.
"If you laid all of the philosophers on the planet end to end they would not reach a conclusion." -- DrRocket

[Disinfo Agent]

I asked you a question, which you have not answered. Please do.

I already did, immediately following the question. The choice you are making is not what to believe, it is what is your objective for particpating in believing.

Changing the question is not answering it. Clearly, you are unwilling/unable to give a straight answer.

[Warren Platts]

I've said it many times already. The essential purpose of science is to organize and unify the results of objectively repeatable observations, so that we can obtain a working understanding of the various phenomena we are studying. That working understanding is judged by how it empowers us to make effective predictions and obtain some control over those phenomena, as well as how it enables our simplistic minds to see simplicity out of complexity. The former is a pretty good definition of "usefulness", and the latter a pretty good definition of "knowledge". I should have thought all that was perfectly obvious from even a cursory examination of science. Perhaps you are trying too hard?

Thank you! I couldn't have said it better myself: science is the formal systematization of observations. I agree with you fully 100%.

What I disagree with you is that this definition of science furnishes a hard and fast demarcation criterion between science and philosophy.

First of all, if science is anything, it's a type of epistemology, and as you learn in the first day of class in PL100, epistemology is one of the three or four main branches of philosophy. So practically by definition, science is a subset of philosophy. Indeed, before the word 'science' was coined in the 14th century, they used to just call it 'natural philosophy'. The "Ph" in your Ph.D. doesn't stand for "physics".

But that's just a trivial truth.

The more important reason that science and philosophy intergrade is: (a) science, if taken seriously by philosophers, places huge constraints on what metaphysics can be like; and (b) the metaphysics intimated by science, if taken seriously by science, informs what future scientific hypotheses can possibly be like. Souls are no longer in fashion in philosophy because souls are no longer fashionable in science like they used to be back in the 18th and 19th centuries. The overall historical trend is that materialism looks more and more like it's true whereas idealisms and dualisms don't. So the implication for science is that any new hypothesis that gets proposed will not pass even an initial plausibility test if it's inconsistent with materialism. That is, spooky entities and processes like souls and soul-like consciousnesses, telepathy, actions at a distance, and such are to be avoided at all costs.

When I think about philosophical "isms", I personally never ask "which one is right", I just notice what each has to say, and look for the tradeoffs that each imply. Science doesn't need any of them, it is its own pursuit.

A person doesn't have to believe in the truth of Judaism in order to keep kosher. I suspect you are a secular materialist when it comes to your theories of physics (if not cognitive science); if you choose not to give lip service to materialism, that is your right; but that doesn't change the fact that everything you do as a physicist is fully consistent with scientific materialism, the metaphysical system.

Then perhaps it would be useful for you to cite the scientific breakthroughs of Quine, or indeed of any scientist who was relying on the "seamless integration" of philosophy and science. Problem is, I will happily supply countless examples of scientists being led badly astray by trying to integrate their science and their philosophy-- that's as easy as falling off a log. And you "don't find the science/philosophy distinction to be useful"? Find a history book.

What? Roger Bacon wasn't a philosopher? OK. No problem. . . .

I would actually point to the contrary fact that this is remarkably uncommon [philosophers publishing in science journals]. For example I have never seen even a single primarily philosophical offering in all my years of reading the Astrophysical Journal (not that I claim to have read every abstract).

Well, the philosophy of physics has been kind of passé for decades now since it was beat to death in the first half of the twentieth century, and nothing much has happened in physics since then to change that. (But you can thank me for working hard to change that situation from the philosophy end!) However, I think Quine's work on the indeterminacy of translation has influenced both anthropology (e.g., Hallan and Sodipo, 1986) and evolutionary biology (cf. Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Perhaps people employed by philosophy departments don't publish much in Astrophysical Journal much (and I'm sure that that's not because the editors of ApJ throw out any manuscript without reading it if one of the authors has "Department of Philosophy" attached to his or her name.) But in journals like Behavioral and Brain Sciences there are lots of hard science articles written by professional philosophers. And scientists publish articles in Philosophy of Science. And there's nothing wrong with that. What could possibly be wrong with scientists and philosophers collaborating for mutual benefit????

That is a "motherhood remark" with little actual useful meaning. What has usefulness is noticing how science is kept effective by separating it from other human endeavors, even though there is no such thing as a "clearcut demarcation" in anything I've ever seen in my life.

Huh? What's a "motherhood remark". I've never heard of those before. But I still don't see how keeping science separated from other human endeavors keeps science effective. You've offered an outstanding philosophical definition of science. But by insisting that science remain aloof from philosophy merely drives the philosophy underground. Better that it's out in the open where it can be discussed.

[Warren Platts]

Allow me to save you from yourself: try this definition of science on for size: science is just what scientists get paid to do, and scientists are just those guys who get to wear the white lab coats (except for field scientists--they get to wear blue jeans and flannel shirts) and have the expensive, custom-made technology, and who inhabit university science departments or the R&D departments of big corporations and government agencies, and who publish articles in science journals and books that fill the science shelves in bookstores, and who get to burn gallons and gallons of jet fuel traveling the world to collect scientific data and to attend scientific conferences.

I think your chip is showing again[], and although I've seen that insightless definition in other places, I find it sadly lacking.

Of course it's a silly definition. But if you insist that a definition of science must clearly separate it from philosophy, you can't do that with a philosophical definition. You're better off with the sociological definition, since at least it's a definition that comes from science itself (if you count sociology as a science). Otherwise, a "scientific definition of science" is a contradiction in terms.

All we have to do is to look at a baby and the development of its mind. Funny thing-- it starts using scientific thinking and experimentation long before it has ever seen a white coat or read a journal article. So what will you call the prescription used by a child to organize and unify objectively repeatable observations? And what are the scientists doing that is so different, that only happens when they put on lab coats and get papers published?

Wow! You really are a Quinean in your philosophy of science! Because that's exactly what he says! I'm impressed and my heart is gladdened, but if you are going to paraphrase someone, it's considered considerate to cite them. So on the off chance you've just reinvented the wheel, I highly recommend Quine's Pursuit of Truth. You'll find a kindred spirit. Written during the last stages of his life, it's super concise and clear. Only 129 pages @ $7.94.

But speaking of chips, I can't help suspecting that you had a bad experience in a philosophy class somewhere in your education. Do you tell your graduate students that taking a philosophy of science course would be a waste of their time?

[Warren Platts]

To be a bit blunt, the next advance in science that is attributable to the musings of philosophers will be the first one. An no, the use of philosophy in defining the role of science is not only not important but rather has no measurable effect whatever. It does not advance science at all, and fortunately does not impede it either.

Oh yeah? What about Democritus? Surely you consider the atomic theory of matter to be a scientific advancement over earlier theories that thought stuff could be cut up ad infinitum without changing their properties.

With a fair number of years of experience I can honestly say that I have never heard a single discussion among scientists, mathematicians, or engineers as to the philosophical basis of science. Not once in a faculty lounge, in a colloquium, over dinner, or in a meeting. Not ever outside of forums such as this. I have heard lots of topics discussed against blackboards and over gallons of coffee, but never a discussion of the role of philosophy or any application of philosophy to research.

Nice anecdote, but my own experience at the Department Fishery and Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University (the best hook and bullet department in the nation, and therefore the world) was that philosophy often came up (esp. Popper to my dismay--I like to dig a little deeper), and several of the graduate students would take classes in the philosophy of science or environmental ethics. Didn't seem to hurt the department's standing.

Weinberg, as earlier noted, devoted an entire chapter to the uselessness of philosophy to physics.

Which is ironic, because Weinberg"s deconstruction of philosophy is an example of philosophy as Disinfo Agent noted.

Feynman also notes the basic uselessness of formal philosophy, for instance in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

That's ironic as well. I saw somewhere when Feynman was asked if all scientific knowledge was wiped out at a stroke, and he was allowed to pass on one single sentence in a time capsule for future generations, he replied that he would write down that matter was composed of tiny little atoms--exactly what Democritus the ancient Greek philosopher said.

Here is another quote to go along with that of Cicero, perhaps not as witty.
"If you laid all of the philosophers on the planet end to end they would not reach a conclusion." -- DrRocket

You're right. It's not as witty.

[Len Moran]

...Defining science for what it allow us to progress is not only not scientific, it is not even accurate. If anything, it is closer to a definition of engineering than of science, and it begs the definition of "progress".

...With a fair number of years of experience I can honestly say that I have never heard a single discussion among scientists, mathematicians, or engineers as to the philosophical basis of science. Not once in a faculty lounge, in a colloquium, over dinner, or in a meeting. Not ever outside of forums such as this. I have heard lots of topics discussed against blackboards and over gallons of coffee, but never a discussion of the role of philosophy or any application of philosophy to research.

Well Bernard d'Espagnat who is firstly a Professor Emeritus of Physics at the university of Paris and was director of the Theoretical physics and Elementary Particles laboratory and secondly a philosopher has written several books on the nature of absolute reality. In his latest book (on Physics and Philosophy) he looks at the role of physics and philosophy as a means of establishing a notion of mind independent reality and within this book he especially attacks the notion of physical realism. I personally learn a lot from practicing, recognized physicists like d'Espagnat who are prepared to discuss the nature of reality, including a few on this forum. And just to balance the books I would like to give you a quote from d'Espagnat:

"Hence, just as the philosopher who takes interest in the problem of reality may hardly ignore what the physicist has to say, similarly the physicist aiming at being more than a technician in physics nowadays can hardly escape having to cope with philosophical questions."

I'm not sure here, perhaps you are not so much concerned with notions of reality as I am, so maybe you have taken my comments out of context. For me, science needs to rest on a solid foundation of what it can and cannot say about the real, and to acknowledge its limitations requires that physicists cope with philosophical questions in the manner described by d'Espagnat. But then perhaps you don't consider these limitations to be of any concern to the nuts and bolts of working models, and I wouldn't disagree with you there on the basis that scientists recognize the limitations of the scientific method. If the models are taken too seriously however, and no regard is given to the domains of scientific validity derived through facing up to philosophical questions, is there not a danger that such a stance can impede the course of science? I mean we have had one very informative thread by Ken G not so long ago on magical thinking in physics where the valid domains of physics were discussed and the dangers inherent when such boundaries were ignored. So just to be clear again, my main thrust here is that a notion of absolute reality cannot be divorced from philosophical thought, and I consider that an understanding of this notion of reality (and it's inaccessibility) to be very important to practicing scientists. I assume that you would not consider such an understanding and acknowledgement of this notion and the domains of validity it invokes to have any importance to the progress of science.

[Nereid]

Shameless bump of a post of mine ...

This points to another aspect that we have touched on but not explored much in this thread: scope.

Do hypotheses get to be falsified? theories? ideas? concepts? models? laws?

An experiment or observation may be quite clear-cut: Mercury's perihelion moves in this way (with stated uncertainties/error bars), the atomic clocks aboard the planes differed by this many seconds when they got back home, the A, B, C and D images of the distant quasar varied over time in this way, and so on. But how do these clear-cut results relate to GR (for example), or CDM?

I think a good example is the Pioneer anomaly: analysis of the tracking data shows an unmodeled acceleration of {value and direction; uncertainties}.

So something is a bit off, or odd ... but what?

Enter hypotheses, which are very specific, quite narrow in scope, and as fully quantitative as we can make them - they provide clear guidance, or pointers, on what to do on Monday when we get to the lab, because they are eminently testable (albeit sometimes more in principle than in practice).

As a general rule, the things to be tested first are what's in textbooks - on Monday you build models using standard physics.

Suppose you've done that, written papers, chatted over coffee (or something else) at meetings, etc, etc, etc, and the day comes when models built on standard physics have all been ruled out; what then? Time to sketch some ideas for new physics? which will be severely tested in the crucible of your colleagues sharp minds (and, often, tongues) ... modify, re-state, get the idea torn to ribbons again, repeat. Maybe one day a theory emerges ... what then?

Can we say that "neutrinos" were such a theory, from the 1930s? or is that too grand a word?

Certainly neutrino flavours/oscillations were a theory long before 2001!

Is MOND a theory?

Is CDM a theory (non-baryonic CDM, whether collisionless or not)?

Are 'gap fillers', or 'place holders' in some kind of limbo, neither hypotheses nor theories? extremely useful but not really falsifiable? They are undoubtedly convenient as shorthands, if nothing else!
[..]

Before this thread wanders off to become yet another interminable debate about philosophy and science, I hereby declare that I am going to try to drag it back to the general topic that I am interested in.

Other than Ari Jokimaki (thanks Ari), and to some extent dgruss23 (thanks dg)*, no one has tried to answer the questions I asked, either directly or indirectly, either specifically or generally.

Do none of you reading this have anything on this that you want to share?

It seems to me to be pretty darn important!

Take neutrinos and the law of conservation of energy and the period 1930s to 1957. I'm sure you all agree (don't you? if not, say so!) that the relevant beta decays most certainly showed, in any number of repeated experiments, that energy was not being conserved (nor was momentum), and nothing has changed since - if you do the experiments today, in your own labs, energy appears to be not conserved (nor does momentum). Yet few, if any, working physicists^ seriously regarded the law of conservation of energy as not universally true/applicable/valid/{insert your own word here}.

But why?

The experimental results were completely convincing - in terms of what was known at the time, 'conservation of energy' could be ruled out at {insert some very large number here} sigmas, period.

Were all these physicists "primarily motivated by the ambition to propose and confirm theories that they themselves believe[d] to be true, not falsify theories suggested by others" (per the quote in one of dgruss23's posts)?

Did the development of the law of conservation of energy (or momentum) "require intense mental effort, so that it comes as no surprise that [all the] scientist[s] may be so emotionally attached to [the law] that occasional or even frequent falsifications will not shake [them] from [their] belief[s] in the correctness of the theory." (ditto)?

And let's not overlook the sociology ... while the laws had a very long history and an illustrious pedigree, I suspect that many physicists were strongly attached to them because of the work of a German Jewish woman (Emmy Noether).

Now 1957 came quite soon after ~the 1930s ... but suppose the landmark experiment took 50 years to be done? or 1,000?

Back to CDM and MOND: these are both, clearly, the intellectual descendants of "the neutrino" (until 1957), gap fillers**, used as proxies or shorthands for a (serious?) hole in the unified edifice of physics (built, dare one say, on conservation laws and symmetries?).

So, perhaps in physics not all theories are created equal? And the truth of this inequality is self-evident?

* and, as always, Ken G.

^ I don't know about philosophers - did some rub their hands with glee? what did Popper have to say in this period, about this?

** if you don't know why, please ask

[DrRocket]

...

I'm not sure here, perhaps you are not so much concerned with notions of reality as I am, so maybe you have taken my comments out of context. For me, science needs to rest on a solid foundation of what it can and cannot say about the real, and to acknowledge its limitations requires that physicists cope with philosophical questions in the manner described by d'Espagnat. But then perhaps you don't consider these limitations to be of any concern to the nuts and bolts of working models, and I wouldn't disagree with you there on the basis that scientists recognize the limitations of the scientific method. If the models are taken too seriously however, and no regard is given to the domains of scientific validity derived through facing up to philosophical questions, is there not a danger that such a stance can impede the course of science?....

Perhaps our disagreement is not great. I totally agree that scientists need to understand the domain of validity of their theories. Science has no absolute knowledge and proceeds as a series of successive approximations. Unless one recognizes the limits of the approximations that are the "laws" of physics (or any other science) then one cannot effectively apply them. I do not view this as a subject benefits much from the sort of formal debate that philosophers tend to create around the topic. To me there is no real debate, one either understands an approximation or one does not. If one does not one might be a philosopher (doubt it) but one is most certainly not a scientist.

My basic objection is with philosophers who wish to engage in endless debate as to what it means to exist, or whether mathematicians discover new mathematics or create it. Those debates serve no useful purpose in science. I have proved some new theorems. Whether I created them or discovered them makes no difference to me whatever.

To get back to the original topic of the thread. The notion of falsification in science is an important one. And there has been some good discussion in this thread. But if one starts to dissect the notion microscopically by questioning what it means for a principle to be "real" or the nature of "truth" and "falsehood" beyond what has already been described earlier, then real science comes to a halt why we contemplate our navels.

It is kind of like the post claiming great scientific benefit from Democritus, and ignoring my earlier statement regarding fact that in the not-so-distant past people were able to profitably engage in both science and philosophy and some of those people, acting as scientists, did make contributions. If you go all the way back to the ancient Greeks then nearly anyone who had any serious thoughts at all was part of some philosophical school. Simply binging up that point to defend philosophy is an example of why modern philosophers are largely irrelevant to science.

Instead of debating what is means to be "true" or to be "false" one's time is better spent gathering and analyzing the data to actually reach a conclusion.

[Warren Platts]

Before this thread wanders off to become yet another interminable debate about philosophy and science, I hereby declare that I am going to try to drag it back to the general topic that I am interested in.

. . .

Do none of you reading this have anything on this that you want to share?

It seems to me to be pretty darn important!

Take neutrinos and the law of conservation of energy and the period 1930s to 1957. I'm sure you all agree (don't you? if not, say so!) that the relevant beta decays most certainly showed, in any number of repeated experiments, that energy was not being conserved (nor was momentum), and nothing has changed since - if you do the experiments today, in your own labs, energy appears to be not conserved (nor does momentum). Yet few, if any, working physicists seriously regarded the law of conservation of energy as not universally true/applicable/valid/{insert your own word here}.

But why?

The way naive falsification is supposed to work is the logically valid argument form also known as "modus tollens". If it's the case that hypothesis H theoretically entails that a certain predicted observation O will be observed in a particular experiment, then if O is not observed, that is supposed to logically entail that H must be false.

H --->O
~O
----------
:. ~H

Thus falsification was thought to be privileged over mere confirmation because getting the observation that the theory predicts does not entail that the hypothesis must be true, because other, alternative hypotheses could have predicted the same observation. To reason thusly:

H --->O
O
-------
:. H

is technically to commit a logical fallacy: the fallacy of affirming the antecedent.

The only problem is that in the real world, more than just a particular hypothesis is being tested. There are also other auxiliary assumptions A_i in play. So what is really falsified by not getting the predicted observation is the conjunction of the hypothesis and the auxiliary assumptions (H ^ A_i).

So to return to the first example, the schematic of the argument really should be:

(H ^ A₁) ---> O
~O
-----------
:. ~(H ^ A₁)
:. ~H v ~A₁

Of course if one knows ahead of time that A₁ is true, then one might possibly be assured that H is therefore false:

~H v ~A₁
A₁
----------
:. ~H

Only problem with that is there could still be yet other auxiliary assumptions that are not being taken into account.

So to return to your concrete example, Nereid, the beta decay experiments seemingly violated the conservation of energy principle. So you're tempted to say that conservation of energy was falsified. But obviously, with 20-20 hindsight, we know that at least one other auxiliary assumption was in play: namely that the list of exotic particles was complete. So what was really falsified by the beta decay experiments was the dual conjunction of {(conservation of energy) AND (list of exotic particles is complete)}. And since the principle of conservation of energy is one of those basic ideas that rank right up there with logic and math themselves and is therefore not to be given up lightly, then the correct thing to do was to reject the auxiliary assumption that the list of exotic particles was complete, and thus posit the existence of a new particle, the neutrino.

And so to answer your other question, the principle of conservation of energy was never falsified, and even if to this day neutrinos had not been detected, the correct stance would be to continue to believe that there exist neutrinos while maintaining the truth of conservation of energy.

The above description is also known as the Quine-Duhem thesis (both philosophers BTW--ignore them at your own peril!)

[Ken G]

Changing the question is not answering it. Clearly, you are unwilling/unable to give a straight answer.

The question does not have a straight answer, that's the point. Your question was meaningless, and I said why. That is the correct answer.

[Ken G]

First of all, if science is anything, it's a type of epistemology, and as you learn in the first day of class in PL100, epistemology is one of the three or four main branches of philosophy.

That proves nothing, it is completely circular. Epistemology is about ways of knowing, and philosophy chooses to study ways of knowing. So you claim, that means everything we can know is philosophy. That's like saying everything is indistinguishable from chemistry, because any act involving our senses or our minds involves chemistry. Doesn't follow.

So practically by definition, science is a subset of philosophy.

Exactly my point-- the "by definition" part. That should be your clue you are engaging in sophistry.

Indeed, before the word 'science' was coined in the 14th century, they used to just call it 'natural philosophy'. The "Ph" in your Ph.D. doesn't stand for "physics".

And this is a point I have made many times-- what was the state of science in the 14th century anyway? What is its state now? A large reason behind the explosion of modern science was the break with natural philosophy. That was what I meant when I pointed out that any history book can tell you why distinguishing science from philosophy is a wise idea.

The more important reason that science and philosophy intergrade is: (a) science, if taken seriously by philosophers, places huge constraints on what metaphysics can be like;

But that point is irrelevant to our discussion-- metaphysics is philosophy, and it is not science. That does not make it irrelevant to science-- I have never argued that. I have said it is clearly distinguishable from science. Metaphysics is just what it sounds like-- it is the reasons we do physics and how we structure physics to be true to those reasons. Physics picks up where metaphysics leaves off-- as clearcut as any such demarcations can ever actually be.

The overall historical trend is that materialism looks more and more like it's true whereas idealisms and dualisms don't.

What does that really mean, though? Just another swing of the pendulum, obviously. Why should anyone pay any attention to the current fads? Scientists don't, except for a few that are straddling the line with philosophy (and they are doing modern science no favors, in my view).

So the implication for science is that any new hypothesis that gets proposed will not pass even an initial plausibility test if it's inconsistent with materialism.

That simply isn't true. Two words: dark energy.

That is, spooky entities and processes like souls and soul-like consciousnesses, telepathy, actions at a distance, and such are to be avoided at all costs.

That is all perfectly true within science, it has nothing to do with "materialism". Those are all dead-weight ideas, not one shred of usefulness has ever been exacted from the lot of them. Science knows what to do with dead weight, philosophy has nothing to do with it. Indeed, philosophy was responsible for their presence in the first place, and science lost a lot of time and energy purging itself of such scientifically useless concepts.

I suspect you are a secular materialist when it comes to your theories of physics (if not cognitive science);

No, you are not hearing me-- I subscribe to no "ism" whatsoever, I view them all with equal bemusement. I do think each corresponds to some interesting idea, and I am glad to be exposed to them all. Same as for religions, by the way. But I in no way see any of them as being (a) true, or (b) preferentially relevant to science.

if you choose not to give lip service to materialism, that is your right; but that doesn't change the fact that everything you do as a physicist is fully consistent with scientific materialism, the metaphysical system.

Again that has nothing to do with philosophy, it has to do with what science is good at. I've said the same many times. Your argument is exactly the same as saying that Roger Federer subscribes to a "tennisist" philosophy that tennis is the truest and purist sport, simply because everything he excels at involves tennis.

Well, the philosophy of physics has been kind of passé for decades now since it was beat to death in the first half of the twentieth century, and nothing much has happened in physics since then to change that.

Again, none of that is relevant to the current discussion. Of course there's a philosophy of physics. There's also a psychology of mathematics. Does the latter mean one cannot distinguish psychology from mathematics?

(But you can thank me for working hard to change that situation from the philosophy end!)

I see no problem with working hard to reinvigorate a philosophy of physics. One of the most valuable things that could accomplish is helping physics to understand its limits and not backtrack into reinvolving philosophy.

However, I think Quine's work on the indeterminacy of translation has influenced both anthropology (e.g., Hallan and Sodipo, 1986) and evolutionary biology (cf. Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Indeterminacy of translation is a linguistic concept, which is the scientific deconstruction of language and grammar. It's not philosophy at all, far closer to mathematics actually. Why not just mention that Einstein was influenced by Mach? The point is, Einstein might also have been inspired by Mozart for all we know, does that make classical music indistinguishable from science?

But in journals like Behavioral and Brain Sciences there are lots of hard science articles written by professional philosophers. And scientists publish articles in Philosophy of Science.

That also proves nothing. The issue is whether or not they were doing science, or philosophy, when they wrote the articles. Bo Jackson played 4 years of professional football, but he didn't wear shoulder pads when he played professional baseball.

And there's nothing wrong with that. What could possibly be wrong with scientists and philosophers collaborating for mutual benefit????

Nothing, if they are doing science at the time. Everything, if they are doing philosophy. Again, history has been amply clear on this matter.

Huh? What's a "motherhood remark".

It's any phrase so generally true to the point of not really saying anything at all. No offense to mothers, but such remarks are essentially cheerleading.

But I still don't see how keeping science separated from other human endeavors keeps science effective.

How could it not? The difference is crucial. Look what happens when you let religion inform religion-- it's the same issue with using philosophy or poetry or anything that is outside the scientific method to inform science. This is very simple: science comes from the scientific method, and putting in anything else only weakens it.

You've offered an outstanding philosophical definition of science. But by insisting that science remain aloof from philosophy merely drives the philosophy underground. Better that it's out in the open where it can be discussed.

I do not require that philosophers hide their faces, or their pursuits-- it merely needs to be viewed as separate from science. Simply saying that anything that is analytical is philosophy doesn't really justify returning to the "dark ages" of scientific thought.

[Ari Jokimaki]

It is not that we must "exclude" them, it's that we must recognize they are only pictures used to understand a scientific theory-- they are not the scientific theory themselves. They are a "pedagogy", which is tested by things called "final exams", whereas scientific theories are tested by experiment. Pedagogies are not unique to a theory, and indeed different practitioners of the same theory quite often use different pedagogies to accomplish that. When we mistake the pedagogy for the theory, we fall victim to mistaking problems with the pedagogy for problems with the theory. That statement pretty much sums up half the entire Q&A section of this forum.

Ok. There is just a strange situation with these concepts; some scientific theories are depending on them. For example, the whole science of the first seconds of the universe depends on the assumption that concept of space expansion (which you say is not scientific) is true. Well, I guess a theory can be scientific even if it depends on unscientific concepts. But actually, are the theories that deal with first seconds of the universe really scientific in your definition of "science"? We can't test these theories directly, so in that sense they are not directly falsifiable. On the other hand, we can test some aspects of them in our labs, so they would be indirectly falsifiable in that sense.

Science is defined by how it is tested, so if we test something by seeing if it successfully allows us to apply some theory, then it is a pedagogy, and if we test the predictions of the theory with an experiment, then it is science.

Yesterday I looked up some definitions of "science", and none of them seemed to clearly say that these "pedagogies" are not science. Here are some definitions. The first definition in the linked page says something similar than you say:

1. the systematic observation of natural events and conditions in order to discover facts about them and to formulate laws and principles based on these facts. 2. the organized body of knowledge that is derived from such observations and that can be verified or tested by further investigation. 3. any specific branch of this general body of knowledge, such as biology, physics, geology, or astronomy.

If we still think about "space expansion", doesn't it fit to the "organized body of knowledge that is derived from such observations"? I guess you could argue that it is not "knowledge".

But at any case, if we assume that you are indeed correct that "pedagogies" are not "science", then what do you call these entities (Big Bang theory for example) that are a mixture of science and pedagogies? To use your subsequent example, if theory is a car, and pedagogy is specific driving method, then what is traffic?

Not quite, one has a measurable concept of distance and a measurable concept of time, and putting them together does give that distances are increasing without offering any particular "properties of space itself". The former is a theory because it unifies the observations in a testable way, but the latter is not testable, it's just a useful picture. How would you test that space expands?

Ah, yes, good point. There indeed seems to be a fundamental difference between these two concepts.

[DrRocket]

[QUOTE=Ken G;1290162]That proves nothing, it is completely circular. Epistemology is about ways of knowing, and philosophy chooses to study ways of knowing. So you claim, that means everything we can know is philosophy. That's like saying everything is indistinguishable from chemistry, because any act involving our senses or our minds involves chemistry. Doesn't follow.

Exactly my point-- the "by definition" part. That should be your clue you are engaging in sophistry
And this is a point I have made many times-- what was the state of science in the 14th century anyway? What is its state now? A large reason behind the explosion of modern science was the break with natural philosophy. That was what I meant when I pointed out that any history book can tell you why distinguishing science from philosophy is a wise idea.....[Quote]


It seems to me that a major problem in discussions on the subject of the value of modern philosophy to science, when philosophers are involved in the discussioin, is the tendancy of the philosophers to want to justify their existence by showing some value that they add to work of the research scientist. The basic problem is that there simply is no meaningful role played by philosopohers in the development of modern science. Nearly all research scientists, when engaged in scientific research, ignore philosophers.
They do this not because of an ignorance of philosophy, but because it contributes nothing to their research.

Scientists feel quite secure and satisfied in pursuing their craft without consulting philosophers, and without consulting engineers to see if their results will be turned into a consumer product. Mathematicians most assuredly are of like mind, and generally are not concerned with any immediate (or even distant) applications of mathematics to science, although they are keenly interested in any new and interesting mathematical questions that might be suggested by science. If philosophers felt equally comfortable pursuing philosophy without regard to an application to science perhaps there would not be a controversy. But those that believe that science is a lower tier endeavor that is beholden to philosophy must feel quite frustrated when that sub-discipline simply ignores them with no adverse consequences, and actually flourishes despite that disregard.

[Ken G]

Now 1957 came quite soon after ~the 1930s ... but suppose the landmark experiment took 50 years to be done? or 1,000?

I think this is the key issue. The problem, as I see it, is the idea that at any moment in time physicists have to "affiliate" with a particular theory. I remember once I was asked in a public talk if I "believed in" dark matter. It just struck me as such an unnecessary question. I said "if you are asking if I think it is our best current approach for understanding what we still need to learn, then I'd say yes, but I don't see a reason to form any further opinion on it."

Now, if someone offered me a small wager, I might bet money that dark matter will one day be isolated, like the neutrino. But that would be a financial decision, not a scientific one. Perhaps being an astronomer gives me a better chance of winning bets of that type, but I certainly have to take off my scientist hat before I enter into such a wager. What else could science have to do with it? Is there some testable theory for assessing the likelihood of any particular untested hypothesis being correct?

[Ken G]

For example, the whole science of the first seconds of the universe depends on the assumption that concept of space expansion (which you say is not scientific) is true.

I would say it depends on the idea that the number of atoms you can lay end to end to bridge the distance between atoms increases with time in comoving coordinates, but it does not depend on space expanding. Space is just a picture, and says more about the chosen coordinates than about anything testably real.

Well, I guess a theory can be scientific even if it depends on unscientific concepts. But actually, are the theories that deal with first seconds of the universe really scientific in your definition of "science"? We can't test these theories directly, so in that sense they are not directly falsifiable. On the other hand, we can test some aspects of them in our labs, so they would be indirectly falsifiable in that sense.

Falsifiability is a complex concept, and admits both direct and indirect versions under the heading of science. It's just that, the more indirect (i.e., the more model-dependent), the greater the chance we are not falsifying what we think we are falsifying.

Yesterday I looked up some definitions of "science", and none of them seemed to clearly say that these "pedagogies" are not science.

I would put in under meaning (2), where it requires that the "organized body" be testable. The litmus test of a pedagogy is that the only way to test it is to see if students, taught in that pedagogy, can successfully apply the theory the pedagogy is intended to help understand. But the theory itself is tested by experiment on nature, and that is what item (2) is talking about.

But at any case, if we assume that you are indeed correct that "pedagogies" are not "science", then what do you call these entities (Big Bang theory for example) that are a mixture of science and pedagogies? To use your subsequent example, if theory is a car, and pedagogy is specific driving method, then what is traffic?

I agree that pedagogies are required in science-- we have to have some way to picture what we are doing. But they do not have to be unique-- the same theory under a different pedagogy is not a different theory because it cannot be tested differently. So when I say pedagogies are different from science, I am really just drawing a line between what is a true dialog with nature, and what is actually just an internal dialog we have in our minds to help us translate the dialog with nature. They are both part of the process, but they are very different parts. I view the more central part to be the dialog with nature, but I should not overlook the fact that a good pedagogy can be a real help in understanding that dialog. Still, two different people can prefer different ways of picturing that, so what is purely a matter of personal opinion should not really be counted as objective science.

The crucial reason for making that distinction is, when we confuse the two, we bog the Q&A section down with questions like "what happened before the Big Bang" or "what is outside the universe". These questions, and the answers we often give, stem from taking pedagogical aspects of the Big Bang (time and space began with the Big Bang, etc.) too seriously, mistaking them for aspects of the actual theory. But all aspects of the actual theory must be testable by experiment. How shall we test that time began with the Big Bang via an experiment? I would say fully half the questions in Q&A are of the untestable type, yet we try to answer them anyway, thinking we are being scientific but in fact we are merely proselytizing in some pedagogy.

[Disinfo Agent]

The question does not have a straight answer, that's the point. Your question was meaningless, and I said why. That is the correct answer.

"Your question is meaningless" is the reply of the intellectually lazy. You can use it to dismiss just about any objection that you happen to find inconvenient. For example, I could say that your argument that my question is meaningless is what is meaningless. But I won't; I have little appreciation for such cheap tricks.

Clearly, though, you do not wish to answer my question. Not in a straightforward manner. That's alright. I've been accused in the past of being "manipulative" with my questions (not by you), and even in American court dramas the defendants have the right to refuse to answer a question "on the grounds that it may incriminate them", so I won't push it.

Please allow me, instead, to return to what you had said earlier:

It has nothing to do with the "logic" of science, I can tell you that! We know they are wrong when they say that because that is not what science is, they may as well be saying that an elephant is a kind of fish. The key difference between science and a "dead weight" theory like ID is that ID is not useful for anything, except giving a warm fuzzy feeling that we are being looked after somehow. Science must always do more than convey a warm fuzzy feeling, it's successes are testable. That's part of its purpose, not it's "logic".

ID is not useful?! It's been pretty useful to creationists in the US! You might want to rethink that.

That's a more sophisticated way to say "falsification", and I really don't see what is so profound or difficult about it that it requires the machinery of philosophy to ascertain. Nor does it sound at all like religion.

I never said that it required philosophy. This objection has come up a couple of times in this thread, from others as well as from you, so let me make myself perfectly clear:

1. I am not claiming that scientists should be forced to study philosophy in order to be certified scientists, or that scientific theories should need to be approved by committees of philosophers, or anything of that sort. I am all for the independence of science with respect to philosophy, religion, and everything else, and vice-versa.
   
2. I am also not claiming that scientists secretively use complex philosophical systems in their everyday work, and then lie about it out of spite for philosophers (though I do think there is plenty of spite in particular individuals, and, to be fair, sometimes not without justification).

What I do believe is that the separation between the scientific form of reasoning and the philosophical form of reasoning is not as black and white as many scientists like to believe. I would never claim that every human being is a statistician, but I am persuaded that most, if not all human beings, use statistical reasoning to make decisions in their everyday lives. I would never claim that every citizen is as competent in scientific matters as a professional scientist, but I do believe that each of us uses scientific principles in our everyday lives, even when we don't explicitly realise that we're applying the scientific method to solve small, simple problems (like, say, to find out why your car suddenly won't start).

In the same manner, I am not here claiming that scientists are closeted philosophers, or that they need to learn complex philosophical systems like those of Plato, Descartes, or Popper, in order to do their job. However, I am persuaded that scientists sometimes use rudimentary philosophical reasoning in their work without realising it. Once more, by this I do not mean to imply that they need to learn more philosophy. I think that most scientists learn all the philosophy they need in a very hands-on way, from their own scientific work and the problems it raises, or has raised in the past.

[...] science uses logic, but is not justified by logic. The proof is in the pudding, when it comes to science-- it is justified by how it accomplishes its purposes. [...]

The point I was making is that science is judged by the accomplishment of scientific purposes, not just any purpose. I thought I was quite clear that simply providing a feeling of comfort was not sufficient to be considered a purpose of science.

Your initial reaction was the correct one-- the latter reading would be more along the lines of what it sounded like you were saying Popper was saying. We cannot judge science by its techniques, because we define science by its techniques, and you have to judge something differently than you define it or it is a tautology. We set goals for science, and then judge how it measures up-- and it has different goals than religion. The goals of science are to unify, simplify, understand, and predict, as quantitatively as necessary to accomplish some useful purpose, the outcomes of experiments and observations that are objective and repeatable. The experiments and observations are the interface with nature that is the ultimate judge and jury of scientific theories.

Let me summarise what we have here, to make sure I've understood your position.

To the question: "What makes science valid?", your answer is basically "Science is valid because it achieves scientific purposes".

If that is roughly your position, then my reaction, and I believe that of many laymen, can only be: "Is that all? What a disappointment!" Because that sounds awfully circular.

Science is a valid means of inquiry because it attains its (scientific) goals. That's great, but many disciplines could make similar claims. Philosophy must then be equally valid, since it attains its own, philosophical goals. And all religions are equally valid amongst themselves, and just as valid as science, since they, too, achieve their own goals. As do doomsday cults and astrology.

It seems to me that taking your stand eventually (though unwittingly) leads us back to the mantra of the enemies of science:

"Science is just a belief system, as (in)valid as any other. It's purely a matter of opinion which one we accept."

[dgruss23]

I think the issue there is that most of us would rather discuss science in general, with applications to all aspects of it, rather than some specific application like CDM. Quite frankly, there are no aspects of CDM that give me a personal issue, though it certainly could be due to lack of knowledge of the observations on galactic scales that you refer to. However, I do have great issues with the way the process of science is often framed in various places.

The account above by Ben-Ari does nothing to alleviate my disquiet. He stresses two personal aspects of doing science, both centered on a kind of mental comfort or allegiance of some kind, as experienced by human scientists in the act of doing science. While those are both valid human limitations at doing good science that are worth pointing out, it is ill-advised to discuss them as if they defined the process, or represented it at its best. Instead, they are more like pitfalls to watch out for in the act of doing good science.

But that is the problem. I presented evidence from the research literature for observational results that contradict the expectations for CDM on galaxy scales. And that was the conclusion of the authors not myself (at least for those authors that were so bold as to take it to its conclusion). Instead of discussing the quality of that evidence and whether or not such evidence is in fact a falsification of CDM on galaxy scales - the discussion spiraled into a philosophical debate about falsification - with an apparent conclusion that falsification is not how science works.

I gave 3 scenarios in my last post before this one:

1. Confirm the expectations of the hypothesis (hypothesis X says Y should happen and Z should not happen. Observations show that Y happens and Z did not happen.)
2. Fail to allow a determination of the expectations of the hypothesis (Y might have happened but we cannot be sure and/or Z might not have happened but we cannot be sure).
3. Contradict the expectations of the hypothesis (Y did not happen, and/or phenomenon Z that should not happen actually did happen).

I suggested that the papers I presented are under the 3rd category. If they are under that category - which was where I expected to focus the energies of the discussion - then that is a problem for CDM.

So they leave unanswered the real question of what defines good science, and why has it been so successful to this point. I don't think either of the red highlights even touch on those issues. But one thing is abundantly clear-- a central and dominant role for the unbiased and openminded interpretation of the "voice of nature" is the crucial underlying theme in all good science. Whether that is framed in terms of "falsification" or "confirmation" or "mental effort" is all fairly irrelevant, compared to simply asking : does the primary motivation for some model or theory come from the way it helps us unify and comprehend in a useful way how things actually are, rather than how we'd like to imagine them or what will make a better press conference or what generates less cognitive dissonance to think about?

And that is my issue with this whole philosophical exchange. If you come up with a model (in this case CDM as an explanation for mass discrepancies) and the predictions of that model are not verified by observations, even worse contradicted by observations - then the model is not a very good description of "how things actually are" and then the model is certainly not very useful scientifically.

I presented evidence right from the literature that CDM expectations are contradicted on galaxy scales. I suggested that this contradiction essentially falsifies CDM on galaxy scales. In return for that this philosophical analysis has ensued in which thinking of the type I expressed has been characterized as a naive understanding of science.

In the meantime, people involved in this discussion have apparently not read the articles, and admit that perhaps their knowledge of the problems on galaxy scales may be incomplete.

From my point of view - having read ~100 articles or more on galaxy dynamics over the last 5 years, it is very difficult for me to view CDM as a viable explanation of the dynamics of individual galaxies.

But the problem here is look at how many articles I read. Researchers that focus on galaxy cluster scales have much more success and thus don't pay attention to the smaller scale problems.

There is no "magic bullet", no failsafe recipe, for answering that question, we simply have to step back and be as objective and clear-minded as possible and do our best to answer it. But the core question involves usefulness of a theory, not correctness(which is too black-and-white of a notion), and that is the main flaw in "naive falsification".

But I think you're leaving out an important part of this - incorrectness. Scientists should understand that they are trying to come up with models that attempt to model reality - though those models are not the actual universe. While a model may never be treated as "correct", it can be shown to be "incorrect" and thus falsified. If not then apparently science doesn't actually exist.

[Ken G]

"Your question is meaningless" is the reply of the intellectually lazy.

Of course that would be your position. But I say it is your question that is intellectually lazy, and is not a useful way to investigate science because it requires leaving science to address.

You can use it to dismiss just about any objection that you happen to find inconvenient.

That would have been true if all I had done was label it as meaningless, but "argument by labeling" is your approach here ("intellectually lazy"). I, on the other hand, explained quite clearly the reason why the question was not an appropriate one for science to try and answer. That is the part you are not attempting with your "lazy" comment, but the fallacies are easily exposed.

For example, I could say that your argument that my question is meaningless is what is meaningless. But I won't; I have little appreciation for such cheap tricks.

Here the fallacy is, again, pure argument by labeling ("cheap trick"). Do you have an actual argument to mention, that can support the meaningfulness of the question you asked? Perhaps by providing a scientific answer to it yourself?

ID is not useful?! It's been pretty useful to creationists in the US! You might want to rethink that.

Once again, it appears I must preface all my remarks with the fact that I am talking exclusively about science. It wasn't clear I was not talking about the uses of religion, or art, or poetry? Well, I wasn't. You may assume that if I used the words "useful" or "unifying" or "empowering", that I am referring to the scientific aspects of these words, defined in terms of the purposes of science (a fact I have many times mentioned, but apparently not often enough).

What I do believe is that the separation between the scientific form of reasoning and the philosophical form of reasoning is not as black and white as many scientists like to believe.

The only "form of reasoning" I can think of that either use is logic. Why would anyone thing either pursuit uses some different "form of reasoning"? An opera singer and an interpreter for the UN both use only their voices. Does it follow therefore that there is no important distinctions between what opera singers are good at doing and what interpreters do? You must be using one of those "other forms of reasoning" right now.

I would never claim that every human being is a statistician, but I am persuaded that most, if not all human beings, use statistical reasoning to make decisions in their everyday lives.

I'm certain that they also use scientific thinking in their lives also. So what? That's supposed to surprise me in some way?

However, I am persuaded that scientists sometimes use rudimentary philosophical reasoning in their work without realising it.

We also use rudimentary skills of an opera singer whenever we speak. I'm sorry, I'm really missing why this argues that there are no crucially important distinctions between science and philosophy. Perhaps you are having a different discussion-- what is the thesis you are supporting here? Note that all I've claimed is that it is quite important for science to recognize the crucial ways that it differs from philosophy, and pure mathematics for that matter.

Once more, by this I do not mean to imply that they need to learn more philosophy. I think that most scientists learn all the philosophy they need in a very hands-on way, from their own scientific work and the problems it raises, or has raised in the past.

Actually, I think it could hardly hurt them to go ahead and learn more philosophy. They might do better at recognizing the differences and stray across the boundary less often!

To the question: "What makes science valid?", your answer is basically "Science is valid because it achieves scientific purposes". If that is roughly your position, then my reaction, and I believe that of many laymen, can only be: "Is that all? What a disappointment!" Because that sounds awfully circular.

It only seems circular if you don't understand it. It is no different for someone who doesn't "get" opera saying that it is "circular" for anyone to claim that I am a bad opera singer and Pavarotti is a good one, on the basis that he sings opera better than I do. Opera singing defines its purposes, and so does science.

That's great, but many disciplines could make similar claims.

And quite rightly, like opera music.

Philosophy must then be equally valid, since it attains its own, philosophical goals.

It may certainly judge its own validity. If you want to ask a different question, "why do science", then it brings in the advantages that science gives us. Did you not mention the scientific thinking we use in our daily lives? I have myself on many occasions pointed out how little babies begin to use scientific thinking. Why do you suppose we all do that? Is this is a difficult question?

It seems to me that taking your stand eventually (though unwittingly) leads us back to the mantra of the enemies of science:

"Science is just a belief system, as (in)valid as any other. It's purely a matter of opinion which one we accept."

No, it doesn't lead to that at all, not if by "lead" you mean "via a logical argument". I have always taken pains to establish that science was never intended to be "all things to all people". It has its goals, what it is useful for, what it is good at-- and what defines it. Why a human would choose to use it is an entirely different question, but equally obvious.

[Warren Platts]

And this is a point I have made many times-- what was the state of science in the 14th century anyway? What is its state now? A large reason behind the explosion of modern science was the break with natural philosophy. That was what I meant when I pointed out that any history book can tell you why distinguishing science from philosophy is a wise idea.

I'm going to call you on this one: Which history book(s) are you referring to (title and author, please, so I can read them myself)? The last one I read on the Korean War didn't mention a philosophy/science split.

But that point is irrelevant to our discussion-- metaphysics is philosophy, and it is not science. That does not make it irrelevant to science-- I have never argued that. I have said it is clearly distinguishable from science. Metaphysics is just what it sounds like-- it is the reasons we do physics and how we structure physics to be true to those reasons. Physics picks up where metaphysics leaves off-- as clearcut as any such demarcations can ever actually be.

Yeah, about as clearcut and arbitrary as the boundary of the Solar System!

The overall historical trend is that materialism looks more and more like it's true whereas idealisms and dualisms [and theisms] don't.

What does that really mean, though? Just another swing of the pendulum, obviously. Why should anyone pay any attention to the current fads? Scientists don't, except for a few that are straddling the line with philosophy (and they are doing modern science no favors, in my view).

Right, they are doing modern science, with its commitment to a sui generis status of human consciousness no favors. But that's a good thing in my view. Whether materialism turns out to be a passing fashion will be determined by future history. I doubt it will though. 3,000 years of history are all pointing in one direction.

So the implication for science is that any new hypothesis that gets proposed will not pass even an initial plausibility test if it's inconsistent with materialism.

That simply isn't true. Two words: dark energy.

Ah, quintessence, the mysterious 5th element, that's substantially different from the Earth, Wind, Fire, and Rain that Empedocles was content with and that ultimately governs the music of the spheres as well as forming the basis for human consciousness itself! Aristotle was right all along!

That is, spooky entities and processes like souls and soul-like consciousnesses, telepathy, actions at a distance, and such are to be avoided at all costs.

That is all perfectly true within science, it has nothing to do with "materialism". Those are all dead-weight ideas, not one shred of usefulness has ever been exacted from the lot of them. Science knows what to do with dead weight, philosophy has nothing to do with it.

Actually not. A metaphysically uniformed science would never be able to make an a priori judgement as to initial plausibility when confronted with a brand new situation. For example, a metaphysically uninformed science might determine that humans do not have souls, but if an alien race were ever discovered that could somehow communicate without talking or gesturing, the metaphysically uninformed science would have to say that maybe aliens really do have souls, even if humans don't, and that that could explain how they communicate. A science informed by materialism, on the other hand, will rule out souls as an a priori impossibility. That is, a metaphysically informed science will look at every conceivable material explanation--and even if all of these fail initially, the metaphysically informed science will say, I don't know how these aliens communicate without talking, but I'm still pretty sure that it's not because aliens have souls.

Indeed, philosophy was responsible for their presence in the first place, and science lost a lot of time and energy purging itself of such scientifically useless concepts.

Total straw man: materialism <> all of philosophy.

No, you are not hearing me-- I subscribe to no "ism" whatsoever, I view them all with equal bemusement. I do think each corresponds to some interesting idea, and I am glad to be exposed to them all. Same as for religions, by the way. But I in no way see any of them as being (a) true, or (b) preferentially relevant to science.

I hear you just fine, but as a scientist you know as well as I do that anything under the sun can be categorized, including the belief systems of scientists themselves. I've got news for you: (a) your philosophy of science is scientism, because you believe that science can remain aloof in its ivory tower from the rest of human endeavors and that science is indeed poisened by impure nonscientific thoughts; (b) your metaphysics is Cartesian dualism, because I've read your views about consciousness, and now you apparently hope that quintessence will somehow interface with your theory of consciousness (I don't blame you for not talking about it much, though, because it sure is kooky); and (c) your actual practice when you show up at the coalface on Monday morning is methodolgical materialism, because if you didn't follow methodological materialism, you would be out of a job. So without even going into your politics, there's at least three "isms" you partake in. Sorry!

if you choose not to give lip service to materialism, that is your right; but that doesn't change the fact that everything you do as a physicist is fully consistent with scientific materialism, the metaphysical system.

Again that has nothing to do with philosophy, it has to do with what science is good at. I've said the same many times. Your argument is exactly the same as saying that Roger Federer subscribes to a "tennisist" philosophy that tennis is the truest and purist sport, simply because everything he excels at involves tennis.

No my point is that Roger Federer could have any philosophy of sports whatever, but as long as he follows his coach's advice when he shows up for practice on Monday morning, and is in practice a methodological tennisist, then he will be a successful tennis player regardless of his personal philosophies on Sunday morning (he might actually believe that American football is the truest and purest sport on Sunday mornings).

Again, none of that is relevant to the current discussion. Of course there's a philosophy of physics. There's also a psychology of mathematics. Does the latter mean one cannot distinguish psychology from mathematics? I see no problem with working hard to reinvigorate a philosophy of physics. One of the most valuable things that could accomplish is helping physics to understand its limits and not backtrack into reinvolving philosophy.

"Psychology of mathematics"???? I have a hard time even imagining what that would be like. I guess maybe it would involve how some mathematicians claim to have direct psychological access to Platonic Forms. Were such an animal to exist, however, it would seriously affect the autonomy of mathematics. One would even be tempted to say that mathematics could be reduced to psychology! Wouldn't want that, would we? Maybe we should ask DrRocket?

However, I think Quine's work on the indeterminacy of translation has influenced both anthropology and evolutionary biology.

Indeterminacy of translation is a linguistic concept, which is the scientific deconstruction of language and grammar. It's not philosophy at all, far closer to mathematics actually. Why not just mention that Einstein was influenced by Mach?

Thanks for making my own point better than I could myself, once again. Here's Quine, a Harvard philosopher who takes science totally seriously, and he actually does important scientific work as he does his philosophy; and then there's Einstein, a Princeton scientist, who takes philosophy seriously enough to self-conciously allow it to influence the practice of his science and that in turn has had profound influences on philosophy. Where does the philosophy stop and the science begin? There's no telling. And you sure haven't yet provided such a criterion.

But in journals like Behavioral and Brain Sciences there are lots of hard science articles written by professional philosophers. And scientists publish articles in Philosophy of Science.

That also proves nothing. The issue is whether or not they were doing science, or philosophy, when they wrote the articles. Bo Jackson played 4 years of professional football, but he didn't wear shoulder pads when he played professional baseball.

Bad analogy. My whole point is that science and philosophy--when done correctly--follow the same rules. That is, they are both in the business of systematizing observations--are they not?

I think of philosophy as a sort of an umbrella, generalized science. The individual sciences are like the blind men feeling up the elephant; whereas philosophy provides a "god's eye" perspective that can take in the whole scene at once and arrive at an overall understanding of the nature of nature. No one other scientific discipline can do that--yet it is a necessary function that must be fulfilled by someone. If not philosophy, then who else?

You probably think that physics could serve the function of providing an overall perspective of all the individual sciences based on the conceit that everything under the sun can be reduced to the laws of physics. In this you have plenty of company among many of your fellow physicists who will pontificate about anything under the sun. But that will never work because emergent properties are real, and each discipline has its own autonomy. The overall perspective cannot be achieved on the cheap by learning how to solve tensors.

What could possibly be wrong with scientists and philosophers collaborating for mutual benefit???? []

Nothing, if they are doing science at the time. Everything, if they are doing philosophy. Again, history has been amply clear on this matter.

Ken, when you make these sweeping generalizations you need to start citing chapter and verse. I have no idea what or whose history you are referring to.

Huh? What's a "motherhood remark".

It's any phrase so generally true to the point of not really saying anything at all. No offense to mothers, but such remarks are essentially cheerleading.

You know, I googled "motherhood remark", and I got one, uno, single hit, that led to a screed against Thomas Kuhn by a guy who not only admitted that he had not read Kuhn's books, but that he was actually proud of it, Ken. You want to make a distinction between philosophy and science, yet you don't want to resort to silly sociological definitions to do that. And yet you maintain a willful ignorance of what philosophy's all about by refusing out of a misguided concern for intellectual hygene to read even a few of the best philosophers of science. How can you claim to know that philosophy is so different from science if you refuse to read books written by philosophers?

Prove to me I'm wrong: tell me the author and title of one philosophy of science book that you have read cover-to-cover that's been published in the last twenty years.

But I still don't see how keeping science separated from other human endeavors keeps science effective.

How could it not? The difference is crucial. Look what happens when you let religion inform religion-- it's the same issue with using philosophy or poetry or anything that is outside the scientific method to inform science. This is very simple: science comes from the scientific method, and putting in anything else only weakens it.

I think you meant to write:

"Look what happens when you let religion inform science"

The problem with letting religion inform science is that theism is apparently contradicted by the observational facts. Materialism, on the other hand, only gets more and more confirmed as more facts roll in. So your bait-and-switch strawman argument doesn't work.

So could you please tell me what is wrong with scientific materialism informing science.

After all, most practising scientists are methodological materialists when they show up at the coalface on Monday mornings, even if many of them profess to be theists on Sunday morning.

That's what I like about ID theorists: they at least honestly wear their metaphysics on their sleave and aren't ashamed of it, and so they don't try to submerge it. Sure, I'm 99.8% certain that their program will never go anywhere; but who knows, maybe someday they will get the last laugh.

The methodological materialists, on the other hand, who profess that they don't believe in, have no use for, or otherwise claim to be aloof from scientific materialism strike me as disingenuous, wishy-washy types who lack the courage of their actual convictions.

Probably the reason so many methodological materialists distance themselves from the philosophy of materialism is that during their undergraduate years they ran into one or more insufferably arrogant philosophy majors at a keg party one night, and then jumped to the conclusion all philosophy must be bunk, and that if you laid all the philosophers in the world from end-to-end that they would never reach a conclusion. I know this to be true, because I was one of those who were put off by insufferably arrogant undergraduate philosophy majors and who then studiously refused to read philosophy books or take philosophy classes, and instead pursued a career in the intellectually pure sciences.

It took years of before I was able to get over my hangups and actually start to read the philosophers I thought I knew so much about that I didn't have to actually read them to debunk them.

But I did it. You can do it too!