Science is no more than a refinement of our everyday thinking everyone uses even to criticize it
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From: Acme Prognostics on 9 Jul 2010 01:38 "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Acme Prognostics wrote >> Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa(a)gmail.com> wrote >>> Immortalist wrote > >>>> Scientific inquiry is continuous with the most ordinary of everyday empirical inquiry. >>> Nope, its quite different on the rigor. >> I think he is talking about soft science. > >No he isnt. Ok. Then it's a lot harder to find charity for his assertion. <snip agrees> >>>> check how it stands up to the best evidence we can get, >>> With other than science, there is always a tradeoff between what >>> evidence is readily available and what isnt worth getting etc. Agree, and I think that's a difference in kind. >> Most hard scientists don't chase UFOs, etc. either. >True, particularly when there is another obvious explanation, >that the allegeded 'observer' is just seeing what it wants to see >etc. > >There is a reason that double blind trials were invented. Thanks for a nice example. IMO, in hard science opinions are irrelevant. Not that we don't act on them every day, but then we're not doing hard science. This might be another difference in kind. I think two other differences in kind between hard science and everyday empirical reasoning are 3) the test of facts, and 4) the default case. I don't think a default case would make much sense in most everyday reasoning. Not sure what the default case is in soft science, assuming there is one. >>>> and rather than using a uniquely rational method unavailable >>>> to other inquirers, it is continuous with the most ordinary of >>>> empirical inquiry, "nothing more than a refinement of our >>>> everyday thinking," as Einstein once put it. >>> He's just as wrong on that as with his rediculous >>> claim that god does not play dice with the universe. >> Well, it's a hell of a refinement. <g> By "our" I think he meant >> "reasoners," and by "everyday" I think he meant "practical." > >Even if he did, he 'nothing more' is just plain silly. My dictionary defines "refinement" to include "an improvement or elaboration." That seems to leave a lot of wiggle room. I think it would be hard to find a predictive methodology that Einstein couldn't stretch into some sort of improvement or elaboration on practical reasoning. So rather than argue that he's wrong, I'd argue that he isn't saying very much. But then I couldn't explain it to my grandmother, so I must not really understand it. <g> >> I think the main test of hard science v. religion is that hard >> science (incl. logic) is predictive. Soft science is usually not >> predictive, or not very, because the systems are so chaotic, >> and agenda-pushing (I think you called it "barrow pushing"). >The soft sciences that involve say the risk of smoking etc is >still predictive and there isnt any more barrow pushing than with >say vaccination etc. >Even the soft sciences involved with say upbringing, nature v >nurture etc is still predictive. My grandmother is as predictive on the soft science including naive statistical correlations, but not on the hard science of isolating why smoking causes cancer, developing antibiotics, or finding the flaws in judgment/conjecture presented as fact. |