The Role of Philosophy in Science: Separating Fact from Fiction

[marlon]

All Real Scientists Unite !

This is a message to all real scientists : this extract clearly shows how the semi-scientists (also referred to as philosophers) share their view on us. We are the "mechanics" or the "technicians" and though we construct the theoretical models, we donnot know how they work, according to them phillo's...

RetiredMD, thanks for your concern. You may be right that more immediate moderator action was warranted here. If anything, I felt that letting the conversation take its course was productive.

The kind of anti-philosophy sentiment expressed in this thread seems to be somewhat common attitude among 'hard-nosed' scientist types, and as this is first and foremost a science site, I imagine there are a number of such people here. So perhaps it is of more value to let them air out their views against philosophy and then make the case for philosophy, or even in some instances point out where their conceptions are outright false, than to squash the argument before it begins. I readily acknowledge that some of marlon's ideas about philosophy are not just disparaging but outright false. However, I think that they may be common misconceptions about philosophy, especially at a site such as this. If that is the case, then Les and cogito have done a great service to battle against such ignorance of the discipline, a service which could not have been fully realized had the conversation been immediately halted. That said, I fully recognize your concerns here and fully accept the brunt of any criticisms you might have.

I apologize if it appears as if I've left Les or anyone else out to dry. I agree with you that Les is a valuable member of PF, and that our community is better off for having him. While none of the recent posters in this thread are entirely without fault in terms of how they have conducted themselves, I don't mean to give the impression that they are all equally to blame either (although I can see how it might appear that way). Les's last post in this thread has been deleted in an effort to remove any trace of marlon's unacceptable ad hominem attack more than anything else. Suffice it to say that appropriate action has been taken behind the scenes.

Any comments ?

 

[arivero]

Let me tell, philosophy has some utility when it is to be understood as a branch of science, then helping to develop the theoretical mechanism, instead of just trying to catalog and "historyze" its development.

 

[matt grime]

I'm sorry to disappoint, Marlon.
I've no real intention or wish to read that whole thread on semi-scientists in the philosophy forum. I skimmed the first and last two pages or so.

As (currently) a professional mathematician I am far nearer philosophy than solid state mechanics, and I think that there are many interesting facets of philosophy that can shed light on (meta-)mathematics. Yes, there are aspects of philosophy that I find distasteful, but then there are people similarly abusing science.

We can all agree the Sokal incident shed useful light on a misleading use of philosophy (though properly it was social science misusing mathematics, and not philosophy stating something misleading about mathematics). However, we also have the brothers Bogdanov in "our" side of the camp.

Here is a link that you may find interesting (since medals seem to be important in that discussion, shall we have a Fields Medallist involved?)

http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/philosophy.html


I believe that I read a paper/preprint by Jon Baez last year on higher dimensional algebra (n-categories) and string theory in which he called for more philosophers to think about the implications of string theory (after all, there is no empirical evidence for this, so in what sense is it a hard-science?).

Then there are subtleties such as the axioms of choice and constructibiity that lead on to some odd happenings (I will not call them paradoxes: they aren't).

I don't suspect this is the answer you wanted, but philosophy is useful and unnecessary at the same time to a mathematician, at least that is the argument Gowers proposes, and I agree in the main.

Incidentally, I'm sure that at some point someone metioned quantum entanglement, penrose and consciousness, since that seems to be a current favourite. Can I suggest that anyone who wants to say anything about this, as if Penrose agreed with them,
read, preferably, his books and papers and this interesting article

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/penrose.html

 

[marlon]

I don't suspect this is the answer you wanted, but philosophy is useful and unnecessary at the same time to a mathematician, at least that is the argument Gowers proposes, and I agree in the main.

Hi matt,
As a matter of fact it is. Thanks...

You are quite right here. Philosophy is useful and necessary at the same time. I pointed out the exact same point in the semi-scientists-thread. The problem is that there is no clear boundary that defines what philosophy really is. I think it needs to be seen as a science when it is "done" by mathematicians or physicists themselves, thinking over the results and implications of REAL scientific results. The string-theory-example is a very good point you made. Though there are no experimental results (yet), string theory is to be regarded as a real science because it is born out of QFT and Special relativity and general relativity. The development of this science is based upon checking and comparing theoretical results by real scientists all over the world. Ofcourse it is still speculative to some extent, yet some theoretical consensus is gained because QFT and GTR cannot be denied or interpreted in thousand different ways. Philosophy can, that's the point here in my opinion.

Don't mind that you did not read the entire semi-scientist-thread,... it is a useless sequence of insulting posts...

regards
marlon

 

[marlon]

Let me tell, philosophy has some utility when it is to be understood as a branch of science, then helping to develop the theoretical mechanism, instead of just trying to catalog and "historyze" its development.

Indeed you are right arrivero, thanks for the reply...

Philosophy belongs to the physicsts and mathematicians and all other real scientists. It is no science on itself...

marlon

 

[jcsd]

The problem is that many, probably most philosophers do not know enough about science to offer any insight on it, the bets people to talk about the philosophical implications of science are scientists otherwise you not only risk highly subjective statements but statements that are objectively wrong.

The question is can you name one person whose sole domain is philsophy (i.e. not a physicist or mathematician) who has made any contribution of note to modern physics (i.e. quantum physics and relativity)?

I don't object to philsophy in genral, what i do object to is modern academic philsophy. There are some worethwile parts such as the study of symbolic logic which can help us to understand physical and mathematical theories, but in the main the moden academic subject of philosophy contians very little of value. This is as many valuable subjects that were formally in the domain of philosophy have now become academic subjects in their own right leaving the modern philospher to pick over the scraps.

 

[matt grime]

There are philosophers who have made useful contributions to mathematics in the meta- sense. However if any philosopher were to prove a usefultheorem in mathematics surely we'd regard them as a mathematician, and their sole domain of philosophy would no longer be sole? The foundations of mathematics benefit greatly from philosophy.

Besides, why do you pick modern physics?

Prof J. Mayberry has just published a book about the foundations of maths for instance. He is a philosopher in a mathematics department, or a mathematician in a philosophy department. Either, or both, or neither? Is Russell and Whitehead mathematics or philosophy. What about the mathematical arguments in Wittgenstein?

 

[jcsd]

Okay I suppose in some sense I was being to limting as Russell was trained as a philospher and logican rather than an out-and-out mathematician, but still these days it is a real rarity for someone with who is the sole product of a philosphical background to contribute to mathmatics. Interestingly Wittgenstein had a mathematics-haevy engineering background.


Howver this is really about the natural sciences rather than matehmatics, I picked modern physics as this is one of the areas that philosophers (that is philsophers in the snese of those direct;ly involved in the acadmeic subject) seem to make the most noise about, yet fail to produce any work of substance.

 

[Aquamarine]

Not only physics or mathematics are "real" sciences but also biology/psychology/economics. But the traditional scientific method doesn't work very well for some of these important sciences. For example, in macro economics it is impossible to construct controlled experiments in order to evaluate socialism, effects of increasing the money supply or different patent rights. One can only look at the effects of many uncontrolled historical examples and the "beauty" of the theory proposed. One can dislike the inexactness of this, but the theories guide extremely important real-world decisions that must be made. So here the questions asked today in the philosophy of science are extremely important. To quote cogito,

And, again, please learn to read closely. I didn't say that philosophers constructed current scientific theories, I claimed that philosophers of science and epistemologists understand better than you (and, in general, better than practicing scientists) how scientific theories are confirmed. I bet you don't know the first thing about inferences to best explanation, or the debates about the purported criteria for justified inferences to the best explanations (i.e., simiplicity, elegance, explanatory depth, predictions, fecundity, coherence with established theory, etc.). So, what do you know about the different models of scientific theory confirmation? What's the hypothetico-deductive model, and what its criticisms? What is the deductive-nomological account of scientific explanation? You don't know a damn thing about the normative dimension of scientific practice; about how it justifies belief, and how theories are themselves confirmed. This is why you are nothing more than a glorified mechanic. Perhaps you should spend a day researching what philosophers actually do, and what the areas of expertise are for philosophers of science, before you toss off your allegations concerning something of which you know not what.

Also, it seems that in string theory, physicists have also abandoned the traditional scientific method of testable, falsifiable, controlled predictions. And instead are arguing on the grounds of elegance and the other factors mentioned above.

 

[ZapperZ]

I did not want to participate in this orgy anymore (notice I have stopped responding in the thread in question in the philosophy section). However, a couple of your points require to be addressed. I will start with the last point you made:

Also, it seems that in string theory, physicists have also abandoned the traditional scientific method of testable, falsifiable, controlled predictions. And instead are arguing on the grounds of elegance and the other factors mentioned above.

I will not disguise my uneasiness about String theory and its variatons. And I'm not the only one either. Robert Reardon, in his op-ed piece in Physics today a few months ago, reflected a similar sentiments. Even in Brian Greene's fabulous TV documentary on The Elegant Universe, you would have heard several times the caution that if String theory cannot produce measurable consequences, it isn't physics, but rather a philosophy. So I have no defense to counter all the attacks against String theory since I have been known to be on the offensive myself.

Secondly, I will need to address the quote you attributed to cogito:

And, again, please learn to read closely. I didn't say that philosophers constructed current scientific theories, I claimed that philosophers of science and epistemologists understand better than you (and, in general, better than practicing scientists) how scientific theories are confirmed. I bet you don't know the first thing about inferences to best explanation, or the debates about the purported criteria for justified inferences to the best explanations (i.e., simiplicity, elegance, explanatory depth, predictions, fecundity, coherence with established theory, etc.). So, what do you know about the different models of scientific theory confirmation? What's the hypothetico-deductive model, and what its criticisms? What is the deductive-nomological account of scientific explanation? You don't know a damn thing about the normative dimension of scientific practice; about how it justifies belief, and how theories are themselves confirmed. This is why you are nothing more than a glorified mechanic. Perhaps you should spend a day researching what philosophers actually do, and what the areas of expertise are for philosophers of science, before you toss off your allegations concerning something of which you know not what.

If this is true, then these philosphers should not want any of us "practicing physicists" from participating in their discussions, since we are nothing more than a "glorified mechanic". We have no clue on the "criteria for justified inferences...", and we have no idea on how scientific ideas are confirmed.

If all of these are true, then it is certainly an amazing venture we physicists are doing. We meander through our work like zombies, discovering new things, expanding the boundaries of our current knowledge, without actually needing to know how these things are finally accepted to be valid. Are we actually working just on auto-pilot, where we go on confirming this and that, without actually bothering to philosophize why such things actually occur? More importantly, does that mean philosophizing about such things are really not necessary, since we can still do physics without understanding them? After all, we really don't ".. know about the different models of scientific theory confirmation", and yet, we do continue to confirm and disprove theories all the time. How are we able to do all that, and yet still be ignorant of all the epistemiology associated with it?

Strangely enough, the last part of cogito's quote reflects the sentiment that I have always stressed upon : how is one able to analyze and criticize something without knowing clearly what it is? Is it sufficient to have simply a superficial idea of something to make one able to make judgement calls out of it? I have taken a couple of philosophy of science classes as an undergraduate. Does that make me competent to make judgments about philosphical issues? Is someone who majored in philosophy of physics and has taken several physics classes can be considered competent enough to know about physics to make an accurate analysis of it?

It all boils down to the "distrust" of philosophers analyzing physics and physics practice, and physicists espousing philosophical issues. I am not competent enough, nor do I pretend to know much about philosophy. Thus, based on cogito's argument, I have decided that my "lack of understanding" of the complex "epistemiology" of my profession isn't welcome there, and that's why I have withdrawn my participation from the philosophy section.

Zz.

 

[Aquamarine]

First, I do not have an advanced understanding of the philosophy of science like cogito. But it is my understanding that there have recently been a revolution in this area with many new insights. Many people seems to think that the field died with Popper and his followers, while in reality today his ideas have lost most influence. Today it seems to associate quite closely with mathematics in areas like Bayesian probability and algorithmic information theory.

My point regarding string theory is not to criticize it. It is that the best way to find support for it and decide which variant is correct may be in questions now discussed in philosophy of science. It may never be possible to prove it using the traditional criteria, but maybe with new criteria like improved versions of Ockham's razor.

For some examples of the current discussion in the philosophy of science, look at "understandable papers" on the homepage of Chaitin:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/#UnderstandablePapers

 

[marlon]

I don't object to philsophy in genral, what i do object to is modern academic philsophy. There are some worethwile parts such as the study of symbolic logic which can help us to understand physical and mathematical theories, but in the main the moden academic subject of philosophy contians very little of value. This is as many valuable subjects that were formally in the domain of philosophy have now become academic subjects in their own right leaving the modern philospher to pick over the scraps.

I totally agree with your words on this one,...It seems quite the truth to me because every time you speak these words of wisdom to a "real philosopher", you will get the most angry words back as a reply...Seems to me you are then touching some sensitive "part" in the philisopher's "constellation"...

regards
marlon, and thanks for the reply...

 

[ZapperZ]

My point regarding string theory is not to criticize it. It is that the best way to find support for it and decide which variant is correct may be in questions now discussed in philosophy of science. It may never be possible to prove it using the traditional criteria, but maybe with new criteria like improved versions of Ockham's razor.

I guess this is where you and I disagree. If what you meant by "traditional criteria" is experimental verification, then I do not see any substitution for that (or maybe I'm just protecting my job?) :)

I think this is what makes physics different than many other "non-physical science" field of studies.

Zz.

 

[RetiredMD]

I will just put in my little opinion and then leave everyone to their own thoughts. I am an MD and hold a PhD in sociology. I have always been a proud and intellectually demanding man. In my field I was a genius, or so I thought. I was head of the psychiatry department at a med school and taught sociology at the same time (“Science and Society” was my theme). I was a “successful” man.

Then I would go home. It is not easy for me to admit that there I gave my hapless children anxieties and wore out three wives with my insistence on cerebral perfection. Was I still successful or a genius?

It is a shame that it took a stroke and the face of death to wake me up. I survived but it turned me into an invalid and stole some of my brain power. Typing this post took most of the morning and a great deal of pain.

Here is something I have learned. When we go home to our families we are not physicists or biologists or doctors or university professors. Actually the truth is bigger even than that: we are NEVER what we “do.” We are always human first. But if we let what we do give us our identity or puff up our egos or be such intellects we can’t feel, then we’ve subordinated our humanity to our talents.

There is no reason to be against philosophy as it is practiced here. Let it represent our humanity. By not recognizing other fields and other peoples accomplishments, all it will do is disillusion the public with science, and confirm the negative stereotypes many people already have of scientists (as you probably know doctors aren't faring too well in the reputation department either).

If society is going to prosper, there has to be a blending of the different areas of understanding just as LWSleeth has been suggesting. Don’t try to make everything science or mathematics because everything isn’t. Bring your understanding to all discussions but be just as willing to listen to that which you know nothing about as you are eager to contribute what you know. I do not believe I am being overly sentimental to put forward the idea that intellectual charity and mutual respect can help us all work together to make the world a better place.



Thank you and have a good day.
Morris

 

[arildno]

My personal view is that:
1)By forcing yourself to express your ideas in quantifiable/mathematical form enable others to pick out (possibly subtle) logical flaws in your arguments/pet theory.
2) By forcing yourself to express your ideas as experimentally falsifiable predictions allows nature to kick your butt occasionally, no matter how elegant and appealing your theory might be.

Physics is perhaps the only human endeavour in which we try to achieve both of these goals.
(Maths, as such, try to satisfy 1) whereas sciences like chemistry/biology/medicine strive to achieve 2) ( 1) being hopelessly out of reach, due to the complicated subject matter))

 

[marlon]

Hi Morris,

Thanks for the reply but there is nothing wrong with discussing our visions on the "usefulness" and "definition" of philosophy and all that comes with it. Every real scientist like a physicist or mathematician or biologist or MD will recognize the fact that not everything in live is science and facts. Nobody here is denying the major influence that "emotions" can have on human behavior and even on an entire society. However this has little to do with a comparative study of real exact science and philosophy. I agree with statements like "though psychology may not work like math, it is a real science". Nobody is going to say that the study of human behavior isn't a science...the point is philosophy isn't a science for many reasons that already have been quoted here and in other threads.

regards and many thanks for your input
marlon

 

[marlon]

My personal view is that:
1)By forcing yourself to express your ideas in quantifiable/mathematical form enable others to pick out (possibly subtle) logical flaws in your arguments/pet theory.
2) By forcing yourself to express your ideas as experimentally falsifiable predictions allows nature to kick your butt occasionally, no matter how elegant and appealing your theory might be.

Physics is perhaps the only human endeavour in which we try to achieve both of these goals.
(Maths, as such, try to satisfy 1) whereas sciences like chemistry/biology/medicine strive to achieve 2) ( 1) being hopelessly out of reach, due to the complicated subject matter))

arildno,

AMEN TO THAT

thanks for your reply...

marlon

 

[arildno]

Morris:
I completely agree with you reply; humans are never, ever, reducible to a single activity they might pursue, or, for that matter, ideals they uphold/cherish.

In fact, this shows to me the need for something which "overarches" our particular disciplines, points of view which to some extent enables us to integrate our various personas/pursuits.
In particular, something which cannot be said to be science, but valuable nonetheless.

In my humble opinion, though, this is basically the area of the arts&writers; I find more of personal value in a good novel than in a philosophical essay.

 

[marlon]

In my humble opinion, though, this is basically the area of the arts&writers; I find more of personal value in a good novel than in a philosophical essay.

Sorry for jumping in again, but once again AMEN TO THAT.

I find personal value in classical music...especially the many beautiful "opere grandi" of W A Mozart. Like Die Zauberflöte or Don Giovanni for example...just my personal opinion and taste...

marlon

 

[RetiredMD]

...the point is philosophy isn't a science for many reasons that already have been quoted here and in other threads.

This is the last thing I will say on the subject because I don’t have the ability to keep up with the young lions. Why do you keep insisting philosophy has to be science? It is not science. Science is science and philosophy is philosophy. Each does things differently.

The entire point of my former post was the importance of learning to appreciate domains for what they are, and not to look at them in comparison to science. It seems like you are trying to make a competition between two disciplines which have distinctly different approaches. It is a disservice to philosophy or any other human endeavor to maintain that usefulness be judged only by what science achieves.

Enjoy your science! If you so desire, enjoy philosophy! If you are not inclined philosophically, then it doesn’t mean you must demean philosophy to fully take pleasure in science.

Thank you and good day,
Morris

 

[marlon]

Why do you keep insisting philosophy has to be science? It is not science. Science is science and philosophy is philosophy. Thank you and good day,
Morris

This is the point i am trying to make, that's all...

thanks again for taking the effort to reply here, much appreciated

marlon

 

[Aquamarine]

Some interesting philosophy for physicists:

"The search for a `Theory of Everything' is the quest for an ultimate compression of the world. Interestingly, Chaitin's proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem using the concepts of complexity and compression reveals that Gödel's theorem is equivalent to the fact that one cannot prove a sequence to be incompressible. We can never prove a compression to be the ultimate one; there might be a yet deeper and simpler unification waiting to be found."
—John Barrow, essay on "Theories of Everything" in Cornwell, Nature's Imagination, 1995, reprinted in Barrow, Between Inner Space and Outer Space, 1999

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/bonn.html

In fact, this shows to me the need for something which "overarches" our particular disciplines, points of view which to some extent enables us to integrate our various personas/pursuits.
In particular, something which cannot be said to be science, but valuable nonetheless.

In my humble opinion, though, this is basically the area of the arts&writers; I find more of personal value in a good novel than in a philosophical essay.

It will be hard to find something valuable that cannot be studied scientifically. The arts and beauty, it can be studied. A beautiful face very symmetrical. The great painters and architects were very careful to follow the golden ratio. Identical twins reared apart often have remarkably similar tastes in art. Religious experiences can be induced by stimulating the temporal cortex. Economics is the study of how to maximize value with scarce resources. The biochemical and anatomical pathways of pleasure and reward can certainly be studied.

 

[hypnagogue]

This is a message to all real scientists : this extract clearly shows how the semi-scientists (also referred to as philosophers) share their view on us. We are the "mechanics" or the "technicians" and though we construct the theoretical models, we donnot know how they work, according to them phillo's...

I don't see anything in my post implying that scientists are 'just mechanics.' You happened to extract what was, to you, the most offensive argument made in that thread, and somehow presented my rather general post as if I were endorsing that specific claim. This is what a philosopher would call an 'invalid inference.'

For the record, I wouldn't go as far as cogito did to say that scientists are 'just' mechanics; they obviously have some idea of what constitutes epistemic justification of theory creation and so on. However, I would venture to say that a philosopher whose sole purpose is to study the epistemic issues involved in science would have a deeper understanding of all the issues involved than the 'average' scientist himself. The average scientist, perhaps, knows all that he needs to know in a practial sense in order to shape the trajectory of his work within the bounds of what is accepted to be good science. But perhaps the average scientist does not understand exactly what makes it good science-- what really justifies an inductive claim, what counterarguments and such exist and why they ultimately do not win the day, and so on-- to the extent that a philosopher of science does. This need not be taken as an insult to scientists in general, nor as a claim of intellectual superiority on the part of philosophers.

As for the issue of philosophy being a science, I would straightforwardly claim that it is not a science (and likewise for mathematics), because it is primarily not about empiricism (although it may have a rich and even indispensable interdisciplinary 'conversation' with the sciences and other empirical methods). And although not all philosophy proceeds this way, it is not uncommon to see a rigorous argument put forth in terms of clearly stated axioms and derivations of further statements using well-defined logical laws (eg modus ponens). To the extent that philosophy must be scripted in natural language it is unavoidably going to be at least somewhat 'fuzzy,' but there are rigorous methods for logical inference not unlike those of mathematics. Contrary to what some might believe, rigorous rules of inference are not the sole property of mathematics.

 

[arildno]

Some interesting philosophy for physicists:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/bonn.html


It will be hard to find something valuable that cannot be studied scientifically. The arts and beauty, it can be studied. A beautiful face very symmetrical. The great painters and architects were very careful to follow the golden ratio. Identical twins reared apart often have remarkably similar tastes in art. Religious experiences can be induced by stimulating the temporal cortex. Economics is the study of how to maximize value with scarce resources. The biochemical and anatomical pathways of pleasure and reward can certainly be studied.

Studied, yes; scientifically..hmm.
First off, this being the scepticism forum, it exist serious doubts whether ANY so-called "identical twins reared apart"-experiments can be regarded as science at all.
1) How MANY such twin pairs is born each year?
2) How have the researchers ENSURED that their objects of study fit that category, for example by:
3) How did the so-called scientists gain access to confidential adoption papers?

Unless solid facts&numbers on these issues are provided by the scientists, their "results" should better be regarded as sheer fabrication of data (which HAS been proven to be the case, in several instances).

 

[Aquamarine]

Studied, yes; scientifically..hmm.
First off, this being the scepticism forum, it exist serious doubts whether ANY so-called "identical twins reared apart"-experiments can be regarded as science at all.
1) How MANY such twin pairs is born each year?
2) How have the researchers ENSURED that their objects of study fit that category, for example by:
3) How did the so-called scientists gain access to confidential adoption papers?

Unless solid facts&numbers on these issues are provided by the scientists, their "results" should better be regarded as sheer fabrication of data (which HAS been proven to be the case, in several instances).

In essence you are accusing all the twin researchers of fraud. There may have been individual cases of fraud, as in other sciences. This doesn't mean that all the research done is invalidated.

Regarding your questions, from one twin register:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s892403.htm

 

[ZapperZ]

Some interesting philosophy for physicists:

"The search for a `Theory of Everything' is the quest for an ultimate compression of the world. Interestingly, Chaitin's proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem using the concepts of complexity and compression reveals that Gödel's theorem is equivalent to the fact that one cannot prove a sequence to be incompressible. We can never prove a compression to be the ultimate one; there might be a yet deeper and simpler unification waiting to be found."
—John Barrow, essay on "Theories of Everything" in Cornwell, Nature's Imagination, 1995, reprinted in Barrow, Between Inner Space and Outer Space, 1999

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/bonn.html

First of all, I think you may need to do a bit of background info on my stand on the fallacy of "TOE". If you care to waste a few minutes, you may want to read one of my Journal entries titled "The Theory of Everything?". I discuss the connection that many condensed matter physicists make of "TOE" with "Reductionism". Now talk about philosophizing there! :)

It will be hard to find something valuable that cannot be studied scientifically. The arts and beauty, it can be studied. A beautiful face very symmetrical. The great painters and architects were very careful to follow the golden ratio. Identical twins reared apart often have remarkably similar tastes in art. Religious experiences can be induced by stimulating the temporal cortex. Economics is the study of how to maximize value with scarce resources. The biochemical and anatomical pathways of pleasure and reward can certainly be studied.

You cannot scientifically study something that has no clear definition. You may say something "beautiful" as being "symmetric", but is this the ONLY criteria for something to be beautiful? If you can narrow down a set of properties that are universally agreed upon, then I'd say you have a valid starting point to study it scientifically. In fact, once you have that starting point, the definition of what it is may even expand as you understand that thing even more, or even discover other things that are "beautiful" but yet, do not share the same set of attributes.

I am hesitant to want to call other aspects of study in fields such as "economics", etc. as being 'scientific'. I know you do. To me, it has to be more than just "stamp-collecting". The resemblence of a "scientifically sound method" does not make it a science, because science is more than just a collection of data or facts.

Zz.

 

[selfAdjoint]

There are philosophers who have made useful contributions to mathematics in the meta- sense. However if any philosopher were to prove a usefultheorem in mathematics surely we'd regard them as a mathematician, and their sole domain of philosophy would no longer be sole? The foundations of mathematics benefit greatly from philosophy.

Liebniz is the great example of someone who made important contributions to both mathematics and philosophy.

 

[arildno]

In essence you are accusing all the twin researchers of fraud. There may have been individual cases of fraud, as in other sciences. This doesn't mean that all the research done is invalidated.

Regarding your questions, from one twin register:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s892403.htm

The article merely substantiates my suspicions:
1) All in all, it is only about 450 couples which might come into consideration.
2) As is clearly stated, the way in which this "separation" occurred, was that an uncle or aunt took them in, that is a RELATIVE.
3)At the time when such "adoptions" happened, families/relatives tended to live in much closer proximity to each other than what is the case today.
4) By 2)+3), we really have no basis for claims that these twins grew up in ISOLATION from each other; that is, in situations where similar environmental influences can be neglected.
5) But ISOLATION from each other, is a CRUCIAL component in any argument whick seeks to determinethe "purely genetic" component.
When this isolation factor cannot be regarded as securely established, twin studies of this kind is basically WORTHLESS.

 

[Clausius2]

Errr...To add my ingnorance to the pool, I have something to say:

In former ages Philosophy was beyond Physics and Mathematics. The orientation of the science targets were established by famous philosophers. One only has to remind Aristoteles and the concept of "Physis" or Nature (have I written that right?), Pitagoras, Platon, Zenon, Socrates...etc.

Nowadays, the Philosophy runs behind Physics and Mathematics. Philosophers want to understand physical processes and explain it. But the majority of modern philosophers do not have the technological and scientific knowledge to be able to do that. In fact, no physicist, mathematician or engineer asks to a philosopher what is his opinion about some technological dealing, because surely his words are unpractical and far away from actual scientific thinkings.

The age of Philosophy has ended. The age of the Philosophy of Sciences has just started.

 

[jcsd]

Some interesting philosophy for physicists:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/bonn.html

Actually the notion that Goedel has no TOEs is quite controversial, but John Barrow is a physicist anyway...

 

[Aquamarine]

The article merely substantiates my suspicions:
1) All in all, it is only about 450 couples which might come into consideration.
2) As is clearly stated, the way in which this "separation" occurred, was that an uncle or aunt took them in, that is a RELATIVE.
3)At the time when such "adoptions" happened, families/relatives tended to live in much closer proximity to each other than what is the case today.
4) By 2)+3), we really have no basis for claims that these twins grew up in ISOLATION from each other; that is, in situations where similar environmental influences can be neglected.
5) But ISOLATION from each other, is a CRUCIAL component in any argument whick seeks to determinethe "purely genetic" component.
When this isolation factor cannot be regarded as securely established, twin studies of this kind is basically WORTHLESS.

Your accusations of fraud have failed. Regarding how the study is done, it is of course impossible to have totally separated pair. For exampel, all people in the same nation are affected similarly by the overall culture. Twin studies usually have a controll group reared together to solve this problem. The only difference will between the groups will be that the twins reared apart will have a greater environmental difference than the twins reared toghether. In this way, any difference will be due to the environment.

For example,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12603642&dopt=Abstract

 

[marlon]

I don't see anything in my post implying that scientists are 'just mechanics.' You happened to extract what was, to you, the most offensive argument made in that thread, and somehow presented my rather general post as if I were endorsing that specific claim. This is what a philosopher would call an 'invalid inference.'

My dear friend, i think you have become the victim of your own "posh" vocabularium. I never said that the term "just mechanics" was derived out of your post. I meant it as a reference to the words of cogito (i believe that's his name). This is what a real scientist would call a 'false statement' or a 'lie'

I also don't think you can compare math with philosophy just because they are not constructed following empirical rules. Though this is true i think every one here will agree that math is NOT constructed in the same way as philosophy and math has a lot more value to other sciences then philosophy will ever have...Math is a language, the language of physics and so on...

Your statement about "average" scientists not knowing what makes good science is a real insult. In the semi-scientists-thread i posted a text on how real exact sciences work. I suggest you check it out, i think you will find it most revealing. Basically the mechanism of real sciences is really easy and there ain't much to philosophy about. If any considerations on constructing science were to be made (which is ofcourse the case) then they will be done by real scientists and real scientists alone, because they have the knowledge and thus the justification to do so. No philosopher can really philosophy on physics are math because they do not have the knowledge of these fields of study, at least not as thorough as a real scientist. The argument (not made by you btw but by cogito and the other one) that we only construct theories but we donnot know how they work the the best joke i heard this week. I would like to thank my two philosophical friends for giving me such a nice time...

regards
marlon

 

[Aquamarine]

You cannot scientifically study something that has no clear definition. You may say something "beautiful" as being "symmetric", but is this the ONLY criteria for something to be beautiful? If you can narrow down a set of properties that are universally agreed upon, then I'd say you have a valid starting point to study it scientifically. In fact, once you have that starting point, the definition of what it is may even expand as you understand that thing even more, or even discover other things that are "beautiful" but yet, do not share the same set of attributes.

I am hesitant to want to call other aspects of study in fields such as "economics", etc. as being 'scientific'. I know you do. To me, it has to be more than just "stamp-collecting". The resemblence of a "scientifically sound method" does not make it a science, because science is more than just a collection of data or facts.

Regarding beauty, I have only to let people rate faces with different symmetry for beauty. If my prediction is right, there will be a correlation between beauty and symmetry. If the correlation is very strong, it is unlikely that studying other factors not correlated with the first will be useful.

And why should not economics be science? Let restrict ourselves to macro economics, since controlled experiments are difficult here. Still, it has theory, correlations and causality. Much more than a collection of facts. If you think otherwise, what is wrong with these studies (you can find most of them on the author's homepage using google):
http://www.freetheworld.com/papers.html

Billions of people will suffer if wrong decisions are made. How should decisions be made regarding economics if there is no science?

 

[arildno]

Your accusations of fraud have failed. Regarding how the study is done, it is of course impossible to have totally separated pair. For exampel, all people in the same nation are affected similarly by the overall culture. Twin studies usually have a controll group reared together to solve this problem. The only difference will between the groups will be that the twins reared apart will have a greater environmental difference than the twins reared toghether. In this way, any difference will be due to the environment.

For example,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12603642&dopt=Abstract

Nonsense.
There is simply not sufficient degree of separation if the kids run to and fro their parents' and aunties' house.

 

[Aquamarine]

Since some physicists here are the outstanding authorities on the scientific method, I have some questions:
What is the answer to the problem of induction?
Is Popper's rule of falsifiability the correct criterion for science? How do you respond to the common objections?
What is your view on coherentism versus foundationalism? The regress argument?
What is the role of Ockham's razor in science? What role do you see for algorithmic information theory?
Do you claim that there is no contradictory evidence at all against the major theories today? How do you explain away minor contradictions? When do they become large enough for the theory fail?
What your view on Bayesian inference? Quasi-empirical methods?