Absolute knowledge does not exist (for us). We always work with relative knowledge. — ovdtogt
you cannot prove anything, only disprove — Pfhorrest
Then I know the kind of reply I’ll get, “it’s the best thing we have” or “the best we can do”, no it’s not, these flaws could be fixed if only people cared to listen more and idolize Science less. So I’ll make a thread about that, until then I should probably stop replying to these kinds of posts venerating Science. — leo
Not that this has been studied, but all scientists and potential scientists I know are fully aware of the flaws in the system and they consider it a high priority to solve them. Removing corruption completely is just a very hard thing to do. Scientists are working hard on it all the time and that's why mainstream science gets better all the time and that's why it is the best we have and will continue to be the best we have for the foreseeable future. — Qmeri
Einstein is compatible with GPSs, but GPSs don’t prove him right, — Pfhorrest
Of course.I disagree that everything either is or is not science - there are degrees of how scientific something is. — Qmeri
Definitely truth in that. The more science reveals the more the mystery deepens. Dark matter/energy is what...95% of all known stuff? Thats a lot of unknown forces out there....Our linear logic got us to where we are now, but nonlinear eastern logic could pick up the ball and maybe leave us in the dust? — Athena
Technically correct, but beside the point. If you have a model of the world that says it works exactly some way, observations can prove that it works some other way or another, but cannot prove that it works any particular specific way. It can rule out some segment of the possibility space, and prove that the correct model is somewhere in the remaining part, but never pin it down to one particular possibility.If A is false then non-A is true, so to disprove is to prove something... — leo
Falsifying a theory doesn’t mean proving it is false, almost any theory can be saved from falsification by invoking new phenomena when observations do not match the theory (dark matter, dark energy, ...). — leo
They do prove him right. His hypothesis/theory was that time sped up in a lower gravitational field. The fact that we have to compensate for that aberration shows his hypothesis was correct. He also predicted gravitational waves. This year we have detected them proving that his hypothesis was correct. — ovdtogt
There is no such thing as “the scientific method”.
http://rkc.org/bridgman.html
”In short, science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists.”
There are plenty of opinions in ‘science’. Considering that countless theories can be made compatible with a given set of observations (see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/), picking any of these theories as the “more correct” one and as the one to develop is a matter of opinion based on subjective criteria, such as ‘simplicity’, ‘beauty’, ‘appeal to authority’, ...
There are plenty of problems with peer review, it lets through many papers with logical and methodological flaws when their results agree with the consensus, and it blocks many papers without such flaws simply because they go against the consensus. The problem isn’t the process itself but the reviewers and more generally the lack of critical thinking about the whole scientific enterprise.
Meanwhile activities or ideas that are labeled ‘pseudoscience’ or ‘non-science’ can have more rationality in them than other ones labeled ‘science’.
Then I know the kind of reply I’ll get, “it’s the best thing we have” or “the best we can do”, no it’s not, these flaws could be fixed if only people cared to listen more and idolize Science less. So I’ll make a thread about that, until then I should probably stop replying to these kinds of posts venerating Science. — leo
You say there is no such thing as a scientific method? Did Einstein not have data and then did he not formulate a theory and did that theory not get tested? — TheMadFool
But from the practical point of view where the important question is: "What is the most reliable source of information available for a non-expert?" - the mainstream science wins hands down. — Qmeri
You're basically invoking confirmation holism, and I'm totally on board with that, but "invoking new phenomena" is still changing your model of the world. If you think planets orbit the Earth in circles, observation will prove you wrong, and you can either abandon that for heliocentric ellipses, or save geocentrism by invoking epicycles, but you've still made a change to your model either way. — Pfhorrest
See my last reply to Qmeri regarding beliefs in mainstream science.
Regarding scientific method, I’m not saying that mainstream scientists do not think, that they do not make observations and that they do not make experiments, but all people do that. We all think, we all make observations, we all make experiments. Practicing any activity is an experiment, through practice we see what works and what doesn’t work and that’s how we get better at whatever we focus on. Thinking, observation, experiment is carried out by all people, not just by mainstream scientists. If you say that this is the scientific method then we are all scientists. If you try to formulate a scientific method more precisely, you will realize that plenty of mainstream scientists do not follow that method, as Percy Bridgman said, there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists.
The truth is we are all scientists, mainstream science is simply a community of people who mostly erroneously believe that only them can advance towards truth, and who erroneously believe that their conclusions are free of beliefs. — leo
After all this method is maxed out in the scientific method. — TheMadFool
I see all lives where the individuals have any choice at all as constant trial and error. They may not deal with the data the way we would wish or consider rational and they may not — Coben
1) people often want things that make them unhappy 2) if they weren't choosing from a variety the companies would slowly choose to give them less of one, since it costs them money.In today's supermarkets people are overloaded with choice because the merchant believes that is what the consumer wants. Apparently research has shown this only make people unhappy. — ovdtogt
Which is a choice. And it means one's life becomes an experiment - for those who are like you describe - where they have habits of purchasing. And this choice, this experiment, will have certain results. And they may or may not be what the people choosing and experimenting in this way hope for.People don't like superfluous choice and end up going for the same item over and over again ignoring all other choices. — ovdtogt
I think that's way too general. People get habits and then they have goals which they will attack via trial and error, limited of course by their creativity. Yes, people do try to streamline and tend not to SHORT-TERM! experiement with trial and error in the sense of trying a whole bunch of methods (note, not products). But where it seems to them their method is nto working and they care, they will try other things. To get jobs, to win over a particular romantic interest whatever. Most people have already experimented, in the specific sense you mean, and now have a pattern -w hich is the same for scientists, both in their personal lives and their professional lives (for example, heuristics for advancing within an organization). In the specific area where they do research, yes, they may use trial and error, though not necessarily at all. They may pursue one method to solve pulmonary embolism quick testing. Then when their hypothesis fails, try to find a less expensive pap smear. Rather than spending 10 years dealing with every possible method for a quick pulmonary embolism test.Trial and error is something we want to avoid psychologically. — ovdtogt
Which, for those who choose it, is a choice. And it is an experiment with their quality of life in the balance.Thankfully we have advertising that makes the choice for us. — ovdtogt
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