Borek said:Remember: library first, wiki/google second, ask on forums third!
wikipedia = no code of science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=code+of+science&fulltext=Search
Creating a Code of Science Ethics
Integrity remains the foundation of all DOI science: impartiality, honesty in all
aspects of scientific enterprise, and a commitment to ensure that information
is used to benefit the public as a whole.
The Department is committed to common standards for its scientific methods,
experiments, and research. Departmental standards and practices, developed
through an exercise in the 4Cs among Interior’s scientists, were introduced as
a draft “Code of Science Ethic” in FY 2003 with new commonly agreed-upon
guidelines on information quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity. Coordinated
through the Department’s human resources leadership, and vetted throughout
the Department and within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the
Code will help guide the conduct of employees, contractors, and consultants
engaged in science-based projects. It will also help employees meet the
Secretary’s directive to make decisions based on the best science available.
The Code was drafted by Department scientists in partnership with a panel
of ethicists and scientists from premiere scientific organizations. Created in
response to internal Interior Office of the Inspector General recommendations
and a new Federal policy published by the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy, the Code will become a permanent part of the Depart-
ment’s policies and ethical standards by the beginning of calendar year 2004.
The Code is similar to the codes of conduct of many scientific organizations,
including the Wildlife Society, American Fisheries Society, and Ecological
Society of America, to which many Interior scientists belong. All scientific
activities conducted or funded by the Department are covered by the Code.
These involve inventory, monitoring, study, research, adaptive management or
assessments that are conducted in a manner specified by standard proto-
cols and procedures. The Code defines research misconduct as fabrication,
falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or
in reporting research results.
Any allegations brought under the Code will be handled in accordance with
Interior personnel policies, with the Department’s Handbook on Charges and
Penalty Selection for Disciplinary and Adverse Actions serving as a guide. The
new policy includes safeguards for subjects of allegations, including timeli-
ness, objectivity, and confidentiality.
“It is vitally important that any organization that does as much scientific
research and analysis as the Interior Department have a well-founded code
of scientific conduct that governs the full range of scientific activities,” said Dr.
Deborah Brosnan, president of the nonprofit Sustainable Ecosystems Institute
and head of the independent review panel. “Our panel felt that this was a
strong code that meets three key goals of building trust between science and
the public, giving guidance, and providing support for scientists.”
The case for open source data visualization
by Michael E. Driscoll | July 24, 2008
When I was in graduate school, the most closely studied part of the scientific publications we read was not the results, but the methods sections. (It was also, incidentally, often the hardest section to write for one’s own publications.) Methods sections are wonderful because they allow you to verify that someone else’s work is correct — by reproducing it yourself. But more importantly, methods sections allow you to build upon the work of others. They are the open source code of science.
Unfortunately, for all but a small fraction of data visualizations on the web, there are no methods sections being published. This is a shame, because it slows the free flow of ideas and prevents the creative extension of other people’s work.
Three conditions must be met for a data visualization to be considered open and reproducible.
* Open Tools — The software tool used for the visualization must be freely available. Thankfully, many of the most powerful visualization software tools, languages, and frameworks are now open source, such as Processing, Prefuse, Actionscript, and R.
* Open Code (or Methods) — The actual code, script, and/or series of steps taken to generate the visualization must be published. (For example, Lee Byron released his code for a walkability heatmap of San Francisco.)
* Open Data — The data which is visualized should also be available in the same washed and scrubbed format that was used for the visualization. Ideally any code used to clean up the data might also be shared.
Theosophy is "divine" or "god-wisdom." Therefore, it must be the life-blood of that system (philosophy) which is defined as "the science of things divine and human and the causes in which they are contained" (Sir W. Hamilton), Theosophy alone possessing the keys to those "causes." Bearing in mind simply its most elementary division, we find that philosophy is the love of, and search after, wisdom, "the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws." (Encyclopedia.) When applied to god or gods, it became in every country theology; when to material nature, it was called physics and natural history; concerned with man, it appeared as anthropology and psychology; and when raised to the higher regions it becomes known as metaphysics. Such is philosophy - "the science of effects by their causes" - the very spirit of the doctrine of Karma, the most important teaching under various names of every religious philosophy, and a theosophical tenet that belongs to no one religion bu explains them all. Philosophy is also called "the science of things possible, inasmuch as they are possible." This applies directly to theosophical doctrines, inasmuch as they reject miracles; but it can hardly apply to theology or any dogmatic religion, every one of which enforces belief in things impossible; nor to the modern philosophical systems of the materialists who reject even the "possible," whenever the latter contradicts their assertions.
Theosophy claims to explain and to reconcile religion with science. We find G.H. Lewis stating that "Philosophy, detaching its widest conceptions from both (Theology and Science), furnishes a doctrine which contains an explanation of the world and human destiny." (1) "The office of Philosophy is the systematization of the conceptions furnished by Science ... Science furnishes the knowledge, and Philosophy the doctrine" (loc. cit.). The latter can become complete only on condition of having that "knowledge" and that "doctrine" passed through the sieve of Divine Wisdom, or Theosophy. ...
Ueberweg (A History of Philosophy) defines Philosophy as "the Science of Principles," which, as all our members know, is the claim of Theosophy in its branch-sciences of Alchemy, Astrology, and the occult sciences generally.
Hegel regards it as "the contemplation of the self-development of the Absolute," or in other words as "the representation of the Idea" (Darstellung der Idee).
The whole of the Secret Doctrine - of which the work bearing that name is but an atom - is such a contemplation and record, as far as finite language and limited thought can record the processes of the Infinite.
Thus it becomes evident that Theosophy cannot be a "religion," still less "a sect," but it is indeed the quintessence of the highest philosophy in all and every one of its aspects. Having shown that it falls under, and answers fully, every description of philosophy, we may add to the above a few more of Sir W. Hamilton's definitions, and prove our statement by showing the pursuit of the same in Theosophical literature. This is a task easy enough, indeed. For, does not "Theosophy" include "the science of things evidently deduced from first principles" as well as "the sciences of truths sensible and abstract"? Does it not preach "the application of reason to its legitimate objects," and make it one of its "legitimate objects" - to enquire into "the science of the original form of the Ego, or mental self," as also teach the secret of "the absolute indifference of the ideal and real"? All of which proves that according to every definition - old or new - of philosophy, he who studies Theosophy, studies the highest transcendental philosophy.
[p. 437 ...] Theosophy is no national property, no religion, but only the universal code of science and the most transcendental ethics that was ever known; that it lies at the root of every moral philosophy and religion; and that neither Theosophy per se, nor yet its humble unworthy vehicle, the Theosophical Society, has anything whatever to do with any personality or personalities! To identify it with these is to show oneself sadly defective in logic and even common sense. To reject the teaching and its philosophy under the pretext that its leaders, or rather one of its Founders, lies under various accusations (so far unproven) is silly, illogical and absurd. It is, in truth, as ridiculous as it would have been in the days of the Alexandrian school of Neo-Platonism, which was in its essence Theosophy, to reject its teachings, because it came to Plato from Socrates, and because the sage of Athens, besides his pug-nose and bald head, was accused of "blasphemy and of corrupting the youth."
Nabeshin said:It seems to me that "science" is pretty rigorously defined to be the use of the scientific method to test hypotheses about the observable universe. Anything that doesn't fulfill this requirement cannot be science.
This question makes no sense to me. Are you looking for some kind of a contract created by Galileo or someone as to how science MUST be conducted?
Bob K said:Q1: Is there a code of science, a set of requirements or guidelines for scientific research?
A1: _____ (?)
Q2: If so, what is the code of science?
A2: _____ (?)
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.")
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability
That's only one of the functions of science. Developing predictive (mathematical) models, which describe quantitatively how something works, is another part.Andre said:Science is about falsification
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12192 (3rd Ed, not yet available)NAP; On Being a Scientist - p. 6 said:VALUES IN SCIENCE
Scientists bring more than just a toolbox of techniques to their work. Scientist must also make complex decisions about the interpretation of data, about which problems to pursue, and about when to conclude an experiment. They have to decide the best ways to work with others and exchange information. Taken together, these matters of judgment contribute greatly to the craft of science, and the character of a person's individual decisions helps determine that person's scientific style (as well as, on occasion, the impact of that person's work).
Much of the knowledge and skill needed to make good decisions in science is learned through personal experience and interactions with other scientists. But some of this ability is hard to teach or even describe. Many of the intangible influences on scientific discovery—curiosity, intuition, creativity—largely defy rational analysis, yet they are among the tools that scientists bring to their work.
When judgment is recognized as a scientific tool, it is easier to see how science can be influenced by values. Consider, for example, the way people judge between competing hypotheses. In a given area of science, several different explanations may account for the available facts equally well, with each suggesting an alternate route for further research. How do researchers pick among them?
Scientists and philosophers have proposed several criteria by which promising scientific hypotheses can be distinguished from less fruitful ones. Hypotheses should be internally consistent so that they do not generate contradictory conclusions. Their ability to provide accurate experimental predictions, sometimes in areas far removed from the original domain of the hypothesis, is viewed with great favor. With disciplines in which experimentation is less straightforward, such as geology, astronomy, or many of the social sciences, good hypotheses should be able to unify disparate observations. Also highly prized are simplicity and its more refined cousin, elegance.
. . . .
Bob K said:Q1: Is there a code of science, a set of requirements or guidelines for scientific research?
A1: _____ (?)
Q2: If so, what is the code of science?
A2: _____ (?)
malawi_glenn said:But also recall Kuhns argument against popper...
Phrak said:Bob K. What class is this for?
Bob K said:No class: personal edification.
A code of science is a set of principles and guidelines that govern the conduct and practices of scientists. It outlines the ethical and professional standards that scientists must adhere to in order to ensure the integrity and reliability of their work.
A code of science is important because it promotes ethical behavior, ensures the accuracy and validity of scientific research, and maintains the trust of the public in the scientific community. It also helps to prevent unethical or fraudulent practices that can undermine the credibility of science as a whole.
The code of science is typically created and enforced by professional organizations and governing bodies, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) or the National Science Foundation (NSF). These organizations work together to develop and update the code of science in order to keep up with the evolving nature of scientific research.
Some common principles included in the code of science are honesty, objectivity, integrity, confidentiality, and responsible publication and communication. Scientists are expected to accurately report their findings, avoid conflicts of interest, and respect the work and ideas of others.
Yes, there can be consequences for violating the code of science. Depending on the severity of the violation, consequences may include loss of funding, loss of professional credibility, and even legal action. It is important for scientists to understand and adhere to the code of science in order to maintain the integrity of their work and the scientific community as a whole.