Philisophical contradiction of science

[Zantra]

Something occurred to me, and it has in the past, but I couldn't isolate it enough to vocalize the idea, but I believe I have.

Science is founded on the belief that a theory or hypothesis is formulated, tested, and proved or disproved, correct? But I quite frequently see attitudes which contradict this. Of course they always revolve around contraversial "science fiction" ideals, such as UFO's and time travel. The gut reaction of most people is that ideas such as these are fiction and made up, but when examined from a scientific perspective they are "inconclusive". But I've witnessed people who claim to examine things from a purely scientific perspective as "garbage" without precursory examination of the evidence, or any type of investigation. I'm now singling anyone person or even topic out, and I realize that every "story" or "theory" that pops up can't be investigated to the fullest due to time limitations. But have been so inundated as a society by radical idealology and "pop culture" that even science has taken on a jaded, skeptical point of view on anything not considered mainstream? It just seems to be the prevailing attitude from what I've observed. Any insights into this?

 

[hypnagogue]

There is a distinction to be made between people who judge by the letter of science and people who judge by the spirit of science. Many of the supposedly scientifically enlightened are so tied down to their current paradigm that they become biased and ultimately blind, and thus lose the true scientific spirit.

For instance, Robert Millikan won a Nobel Prize in 1923 for experimentally verifying Einstein's photoelectric effect with great precision. But he was such a hard-headed classical physicist that he couldn't accept the theoretical framework behind it, even though the photoelectric effect is clearly logically inconsistent with the notion of light as a wave and indicates that light must be quantized (despite what Newton might say). From http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/millikan.html :

In an earlier paper (January 1916) in the same volume, Millikan writes in the very first sentence that "Einstein's photoelectric equation... cannot in my judgment be looked upon at present as resting upon any sort of a satisfactory theoretical foundation," even though "it actually represents very accurately the behavior" of photoelectricity. Indeed, Millikan's paper on Planck's constant shows clearly that he is emphatically distancing himself throughout from Einstein's 1905 attempt to couple photo effects with a form of quantum theory. What we now call the photon was, in Millikan's view, "[the] bold, not to say the reckless, hypothesis" - reckless because it was contrary to such classical concepts as light being a wave propagation phenomenon. So Millikan's paper is not at all, as we would now expect, an experimental proof of the quantum theory of light.

In 1912 Millikan gave a lecture at the Cleveland meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, meeting jointly with the American Physical Society, in which he clearly regarded himself as the proper presenter of Planck's theory of radiation. With his usual self-confidence, Millikan confessed that a corpuscular theory of light was for him "quite unthinkable," unreconcilable, as he saw it, with the phenomena of diffraction and interference. In short, Millikan's classic 1916 paper was purely intended to be the verification of Einstein's equation for the photoelectric effect and the determination of h, without accepting any of the "radical" implications which today seem so natural.

When Millikan's Nobel Prize came to pass, his Nobel address contained passages that showed his continuing struggle with the meaning of his own achievement: "This work resulted, contrary to my own expectation, in the first direct experimental proof... of the Einstein equation and the first direct photo-electric determination of Planck's h." Yet it is difficult to find any published basis in Millikan's experimental papers of that struggle with his own expectations. His internal conflict was of a somewhat different sort; while Millikan conceded that Einstein's photoelectric equation was "experimentally established... the conception of localized light-quanta out of which Einstein got his equation must still be regarded as far from being established." Ironically, it had been Millikan's experiment which convinced the experimentalist-inclined committee in Stockholm to admit Einstein to that select circle in 1922.

See what I mean? Millikan was a textbook scientist, the kind you are validly complaining about, whereas Einstein was the true scientist.

I think this is just a natural human trait; we all have some kind of 'inertia' to our belief systems. Some people are just overly 'inertial,' too cozy believing what they want to believe to consider things from a truly rational perspective. This is a charge commonly leveled against people with strong religious convictions, but it holds equally well for those who think science as it stands today has all or most of the answers.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
This is a charge commonly leveled against people with strong religious convictions, but it holds equally well for those who think science as it stands today has all or most of the answers.

I feel that many people use science to fulfill the need for a religion.

 

[Zero]

I feel that people use religion because it requires much less intellectual effort than science.

Seriously, though...I feel that I am completely open-minded to examining new evidence. Any new idea that comes along that contradicts observed data gets lumped into the 'bogus' category until evidence supports it. And, of course, there are some ideas that have been debunked so many times that we can be confident in NEVER thinking about it again.

 

[hypnagogue]

Negative.

Negative, as in "no, that's not the case," precisely because you can't prove a negative, as in "For all X, P(X) is false." Not to mention confounding of data-- because of non-obvious subtleties, the evidence that rejects proposition Y may also seem to reject proposition Z, but it may not strictly be the case that Y is the same phenomenon as Z even if it appears that way superficially; thus, you risk rejecting Z out of hand due to a poor understanding of it. In fact, if you are of the attitude that Z can instantly be hand-waved away, then it is almost certain that you haven't examined it closely enough to have anything greater than a poor understanding of it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by Zero
I feel that people use religion because it requires much less intellectual effort than science.

Seriously, though...I feel that I am completely open-minded to examining new evidence. Any new idea that comes along that contradicts observed data gets lumped into the 'bogus' category until evidence supports it. And, of course, there are some ideas that have been debunked so many times that we can be confident in NEVER thinking about it again.

That's completely fair. Not everyone is so open minded. I would be interested though in your definition of debunked. Can you give some examples?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by Zero
I feel that people use religion because it requires much less intellectual effort than science.

Obviously you never tried to keep the commandments during puberty. This is no small challenge...especially in LA in 1975

 

[Zantra]

Excellent post hypna- That's exactly what I was trying to say- you just said it a little more eloquently Some people do tend to take it to the extreme- I can't lie- I've been guilty of going to that extreme (even recently) to justify my position on something. Perhaps it's more a psychosematic function or defense mechanism of the human mind to simply seek the highest ground in a flood.

I also have to say that some people do almost take science as a religion. They hold it up against any other argument refusing to believe it's false. Yet science is not static, and is constantly changing, just like everything else in this world. It has rules, but what some peopele forget is that those rules change, and we must change with them, or be left behind. Science is sort like the constitution. It's a set of guidlines for us to follow. But those guidelines change over time dependin on your interpretation of them. The creators of the US constituion realized this when they made it. If only everyone knew this about science.

re·li·gion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-ljn)
n.
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Obviously you never tried to keep the commandments during puberty. This is no small challenge...especially in LA in 1975

thanks for making me feel better- I was born in 75. And here I was starting to feel old

 

[wuliheron]

Probably the best distinction I've heard made on this issue is the difference between a scientist and an engineer. Scientists are interested in discovering the new and unknown, while engineers apply the known. People who promote scientific discoveries as the only meaningful expression of the truth are engineers whether they have the official title of scientist or not. They have replaced their objectivity with the pragmatic bias of an engineer.

As far as UFOs and science fiction go, these are increasingly based on the gaps in scientific theories and knowledge. Time travel, warp drive, etc. are all theoretically possible according to Relativity, but we just don't know if they really can be achieved. Thus you have both extremes in scientific circles, from extremist skepticism to wild speculation.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
That's completely fair. Not everyone is so open minded. I would be interested though in your definition of debunked. Can you give some examples?

Well, for an instance, how many more times should scientists look into Loch Ness to see if they can find Nessie? We know that pyramids don't sharpen knives or keep food fresh. And we know that every 'famous' psychic is a fraud. Do we need to continuously keep an open mind, in the face of that much evidence against those things, and others?

As far as things that need to be taken case by case, I subscribe to the notion that the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, mostly from sheer practicality. If it works, then prove it! Things that have never been displayed to work do not get the benefit of the doubt. If I tell you, for instance, that a banana peel on your head cures lung cancer, it is for me to prove, not for you to disprove.

 

[Royce]

I think what your describing is the natural human trait to maintain the status quo and our vested interest in what we have learned and accepted as true in the past. This is nothing new and has been going on since the beginning of science itself before it was Science.
Acording to John Gobbins, Millikan spent 10 years trying to prove Einstein wrong and won the Nobel prize for proving him right.
J. J. Thomson saw his son, George Thomson get the Nobel prize in 1937 for proving that electons are waves. In 1903 J.J. had received it for proving electrons are particles. (John Gibbins, The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry and the Theory of Everything; 1998). This was not really in the same category as both are true and an example of the weirdness of QM. But it does show how much and how rapidly thing in science changes.
A scientist may spend 8 - 10 years getting his PHD and as many or more studying one particular phenomena and just as he gets is ready to publish some other group comes along and proves that his field of study is no long relavent or wrong. No wonder they don't let go so easily and fight it so hard. This IMO is both good and bad. We should not be in a hurry to accept every new theory or hypothesis but we should not try to hauld progress either.

 

[amadeus]

I think the philosophical contradiction of science lies in the fact that scientists tend to hide the fact that science is not about truth. For instance, you see on one hand physicists saying "the universe started with a big bang", and on the other hand saying "physics is not about truth, it's about models that make good predictions". It's really hard to understand what the sentence "the universe started with a big bang" means in the context of "the big bang is just a theoretical model and therefore not known to be true".

If scientists were humble enough to admit that they are in the business of getting things done rather than the pursuit of truth, then the philosophical contradiction would vanish. But as it happens, if they say that out loud they will lose funding for a lot of research that doesn't get things done - cosmology, for instance.

At least we must concede that, among all the dishonest people in the world, scientists tend to be the less dishonest.

 

[selfAdjoint]

There are darn few things that are completely impossible in terms of modern science. Consider perpetual motion (first type). This is said to be impossible because it violates the law of consevation of energy.

But conservation of energy is only locally true in General Relativity. If you get on a large enough scale, there is no conservation of energy law. So on that scale you might have a valid way to get perpetual motion. Of course the history of the universe might supervene, but nothing inherent would slow down your gadget.

 

[Mentat]

A few - very important - distinctions have been made so far, but the one that I thought of immediately hasn't been direcly mentioned. amadeus hints at it though, two posts above this one: The distinction between Science and scientists. A scientist is a human. Therefore, human tendencies (seeking of fame, pursuit of money, religious inclinations, etc...) can partially "crowd out" pure Science. Science itself is, as some of the posters have said, open-minded and ready to tackle any idea that falls within its realm (obviously "why" questions are "out of the question" (if you'll pardon the weak pun ), but it's capable of handling most other types of questions), but humans are incapable of sticking to completely pure Science.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Negative.

Negative, as in "no, that's not the case," precisely because you can't prove a negative, as in "For all X, P(X) is false."

For all X, X = X+1 is false.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
For all X, X = X+1 is false.

Bah. OK, you can't prove a phenomenal negative: thing X does not exist anywhere in the universe.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by Zantra
thanks for making me feel better- I was born in 75. And here I was starting to feel old

You are old. I was lying.

 

[DrChinese]

A point to be made for science and scientists:

There are a great many paths examined which lead nowhere. These are often documented in arcane scientific references, and get little further attention. But because the good stuff is carefully checked and doubled checked over the years, much of the writing about science comes out as glib pronouncements of fact without any apparent consideration for alternate perspectives.

In reality, these perspectives have been addressed by someone, somewhere, in a very serious manner previously. But you may not be aware of such cases. But as a whole, there is a lot of creative thinking going on - a lot of thinking "outside the box" by scientists.

Examples: the many worlds interpretation of QM, which has had a lot of time and effort invested in it to date. Ditto string theory, which is promising but so far yielded little concrete relative to the traditional canon. Even ESP, UFOs and other ideas have been studied at great length before concluding there is nothing much to them.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by DrChinese
A point to be made for science and scientists:

There are a great many paths examined which lead nowhere. These are often documented in arcane scientific references, and get little further attention. But because the good stuff is carefully checked and doubled checked over the years, much of the writing about science comes out as glib pronouncements of fact without any apparent consideration for alternate perspectives.

In reality, these perspectives have been addressed by someone, somewhere, in a very serious manner previously. But you may not be aware of such cases. But as a whole, there is a lot of creative thinking going on - a lot of thinking "outside the box" by scientists.

Examples: the many worlds interpretation of QM, which has had a lot of time and effort invested in it to date. Ditto string theory, which is promising but so far yielded little concrete relative to the traditional canon. Even ESP, UFOs and other ideas have been studied at great length before concluding there is nothing much to them.

One area where you see this played out is in the so called complementary/alternative 'medicine'. Basically, 95% is complete nonsense, but every time a study fails to show a link, it is labled 'inconclusive' by CAM supporters. Basically, the only conclusions that they will accept are supportive ones, which so far don't exist.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Zantra
But I've witnessed people who claim to examine things from a purely scientific perspective as "garbage" without precursory examination of the evidence, or any type of investigation. I'm now[sic] singling anyone person or even topic out, and I realize that every "story" or "theory" that pops up can't be investigated to the fullest due to time limitations. But have been so inundated as a society by radical idealology and "pop culture" that even science has taken on a jaded, skeptical point of view on anything not considered mainstream?

I fall into this category. Short answer: yes.

We are so bombarded by garbage, the gut reaction is to assume some things are garbage without even looking at them. And that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you've read 99 claims of perpetual motion machines, there is no point in reading number 100. I said this in another thread: burden of proof is a b!tch. Burden of proof gets tougher and tougher with each failure.

Example: perpetual motion. Due to the volume of such claims, the US Patent and Trademark office made it official policy 80 years ago that no patent application claiming perpetual motion will even be reviewed unless a working model is submitted to the office a year in advance. If its still running at the end of the year, the application will be reviewed. They were recently sued and the rule was upheld.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by DrChinese
Even...UFOs and other ideas have been studied at great length before concluding there is nothing much to them.

Actually you have just proven the opposite to your premise. This is not [edit: does not tend to be] the conclusion among the scientists who study the subject. This is [tends to be] the opinion of people who have not studied the subject; but who use science to promote their own opinion.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When Prof. Peter Sturrock, a prominent Stanford University plasma physicist, conducted a survey of the membership of the American Astronomical Society he found that astronomers who spent time reading up on the UFO phenomenon developed more interest in it. If there were nothing to it, you would expect the opposite."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Bernard Haisch, Ph.D.,
Director of the California Institute For Physics and Astrophysics

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I fall into this category. Short answer: yes.

We are so bombarded by garbage, the gut reaction is to assume some things are garbage without even looking at them. And that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you've read 99 claims of perpetual motion machines, there is no point in reading number 100. I said this in another thread: burden of proof is a b!tch. Burden of proof gets tougher and tougher with each failure.

Example: perpetual motion. Due to the volume of such claims, the US Patent and Trademark office made it official policy 80 years ago that no patent application claiming perpetual motion will even be reviewed unless a working model is submitted to the office a year in advance. If its still running at the end of the year, the application will be reviewed. They were recently sued and the rule was upheld.

Which is exactly why we need the Russ's in the world...no matter how wrong they may be.

 

[wuliheron]

Originally posted by Zero
One area where you see this played out is in the so called complementary/alternative 'medicine'. Basically, 95% is complete nonsense, but every time a study fails to show a link, it is labled 'inconclusive' by CAM supporters. Basically, the only conclusions that they will accept are supportive ones, which so far don't exist.

The same situation existed for the Theory of Relavitity and QM. Newtonian mechanics was long established and described the vast majority of what we could observe. Understandably physicists dragged their feet and clung to what they knew despite the mounting evidence.

Along these same lines, alternative medicine is producing what every scientist dreams of, unexplainable results. Accupuncture and hypnotism, for example, are now recommended by the AMA as effective for dealing with chronic pain. How they work is still a mystery, but that it does work is not disputed.

This is the real value of such studies, if they do produce inexplicable results they can lead to fundamental changes in the way we view life, the universe, and everything. However, they can only do so if we remain objective and open minded.

 

[FZ+]

It seems to be the old battle between the Popper and Kuhn philosophies of science. Popper saw science as a gradual change, based on the criterion of "falsifiability". Kuhn saw scientists as working on small problems with individual paradrigms, until the inconsistencies become too much and we get a "paragridm shift".

Popper is perhaps the more idealistic view, of what science should aim for and what science's goals are. Kuhn sadly reflects more reality... We in some ways need crackpots - but crackpots who do not close their minds.

 

[wuliheron]

Originally posted by FZ+
It seems to be the old battle between the Popper and Kuhn philosophies of science. Popper saw science as a gradual change, based on the criterion of "falsifiability". Kuhn saw scientists as working on small problems with individual paradrigms, until the inconsistencies become too much and we get a "paragridm shift".

Popper is perhaps the more idealistic view, of what science should aim for and what science's goals are. Kuhn sadly reflects more reality... We in some ways need crackpots - but crackpots who do not close their minds.

Insightfully, it has only been in recent years that researchers have begun to study how science actually is conducted rather than just asserting the advantages of one position or the other. The results have not supported Popper's position over others no matter how popular. Evidently it is not merely crackpots, but very normal scientists who successfully use a variety of personal and social approaches to problem solving and research.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by Zero
Well, for an instance, how many more times should scientists look into Loch Ness to see if they can find Nessie?

Well, I won't be 100% convinced until the lake is "transparent" by constant sonar scans, or we drain the lake, or we find one, but all in all I agree.

We know that pyramids don't sharpen knives

Not true. If you hold your knife at just the right angle and then rub it on the stones of the pyramid you can actually sharpen the blade. I have seen this done!

And we know that every 'famous' psychic is a fraud.

Allegedly, Jean Dixon was made famous because of her emphatic warnings to Kennedy that he would be assassinated in Dallas. This is supposed to be a matter of public record. Though I have never personally done the homework on this, I would be surprised if these claims were false. It is considered a well known fact. It has just been so long that few people would now remember. I wouldn’t necessarily say all.

Do we need to continuously keep an open mind, in the face of that much evidence against those things, and others?

The question is, who's evidence? How much evidence? Some subjects are excluded from scientific inquiry due to artificial definitions. For example, any non-repeatable phenomenon cannot be studied. Does this mean that all phenomena are repeatable? This does mean that science can have no say in such matters by it's own definitions. I feel that this limitation, albeit it an understandable one, excludes some potentially genuine physical phenomena from serious mainstream consideration.

As far as things that need to be taken case by case, I subscribe to the notion that the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, mostly from sheer practicality. If it works, then prove it! Things that have never been displayed to work do not get the benefit of the doubt. If I tell you, for instance, that a banana peel on your head cures lung cancer, it is for me to prove, not for you to disprove.

Agreed...with the understanding of course that this requires that we don't consider all potentially real phenomena as a subject of science.

 

[FZ+]

The results have not supported Popper's position over others no matter how popular.

Er... can you clarify this one, because I'm kinda confused... Do you mean, no matter how popular Popper's position is, the results support the other options? Or something else?

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
You are old. I was lying.

I'm old enough to know better, and too young to care