Absolute knowledge does not exist (for us). We always work with relative knowledge. — ovdtogt

That’s the same as what I said earlier: you cannot prove anything, only disprove. The fact that you can aim a cannon using Newton’s laws doesn’t prove them correct. You can’t point at cannons to show that Einstein was wrong and Newton was right instead, because both theories are consistent with that phenomenon. But Newton is inconsistent with other phenomena, so he’s technically wrong in an absolute sense. Einstein is compatible with GPSs, but GPSs don’t prove him right, because other possibilities are also compatible with GPSs (and the rest of Einstein’s successful predictions) and we don’t know if or when an observation will be made that favors one over the other. And that is perpetually true. Nothing is ever proven, just not yet disproven.

you cannot prove anything, only disprove — Pfhorrest

If A is false then non-A is true, so to disprove is to prove something...

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, ...).

Even Newton’s gravitation is not disproven by observations, it can also be saved by invoking unseen matter.

People decide when they stop working on a theory, and when they decide that they call the theory falsified, that doesn’t mean they have proven it is false, they could make it compatible with observations but they more or less arbitrarily decided to stop and to continue developing another theory.

Regarding mainstream science, it works like plenty of things work (say practicing a sport or a game until you get better). There are plenty historical examples of theories that were rejected by mainstream science, dismissed as ‘pseudoscience’ or nonsense, rejected by the peer review process, yet later turned out to be correct. We know about the examples where mainstream science changed its mind, what about all the other examples? There are potentially many profound ideas/theories that have been rejected/dismissed and which may turn out to be correct later on, but we won’t ever find that out without exploring them further. Mainstream science is far from perfect, it’s not the only thing that works, and it dismisses a lot of ideas that work or that could work, in many ways it hinders progress.

I’ll eventually post a long thread about science and pseudoscience, I’ve been working on it for a while and I want it to be as clear and thorough as possible, so that people can see why they should idolize mainstream science less and respect so-called pseudosciences more (I will show that there is no fundamental difference between science and pseudoscience).

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

I think there are 2 kinds of logic. Logic and ill-logic. You can't have 2 'truths' that are mutually exclusive.

As a growing teenager I was attracted to science AND math. I'm trying to figure out why because the same can be said of various other disciplines and there really is no reason to prefer one subject over another. Each field of study has its own appeal depending on the criteria one selects. Perhaps it's a question of personality - some are just built for a particular field.

However, as should have been the case with all fields of study being equal, as a challenge and in value, it's the sciences that are always in the limelight. Other fields do get attention of course but the focus on them is proportionate to their closeness to the sciences.

There is something about science that attracts the crowds. As I mentioned other fields get a share of the peoples' adoration based on how similar they are to the sciences. Finding out this similarity may shed light on this "mystery". In my opinion science has a method, the so-called scientific method, that is a refined form of fact-finding system that is innate, reliable and universal. This innate, reliable and universal fact-finding system is rationality. I think it's rationality, the fact that it reaches it's zenith in the sciences, that makes science such a favorite of the masses.

That would mean that all that needs to be done to make other fields equally worthy of our attention would be to inject them with the right dose of rationality. I'm not saying that this isn't the case and that everything not-science is irrational. However, non-science subjects tend to have a higher percentage of opinion rather than anything in the sense of a scientific fact. Some, who're so inclined, may actually find this a more satisfying world where their own personal opinions join those of others to form an intricate web of views that homes in on the truth.

There then is a need for assurance that science is in fact rational. I think it is here that the scientific method, by itself, is inadequate. Scientists are, after all, people and people have flaws that make them as liable to errors as the next person you meet. It's at this point that we need peer review which separates the wheat from the chaff, science from non-science or, more accurately, good science from bad science.

:joke:

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.

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

While I do agree that we could always do better, I disagree that people that do science, idolize science. 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.

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

Wishful thinking. That problem would already be solved if that system was as amazing as people claim it to be. It doesn’t get fixed because many ‘scientists’ don’t see the problem, and those who do don’t have the power to change things. Mainstream science is political, it involves prejudices, personal preferences, authorities, it isn’t the purely rational and objective endeavor that people make it out to be. Most scientists believe there is a fundamental distinction between the activities/theories labeled ‘science’ and those labeled ‘pseudoscience’ or ‘non-science’, I’m sure you believe in such a distinction too, and as long as they will believe in that the problem won’t get fixed. So sometime this month I’ll make a long thread about that and make it as clear as possible what the problem is and why it is a problem and why it isn’t fixed and how it can be fixed, how we can do much better than what we have now, and then the only thing that might prevent it from being fixed in the “foreseeable future” will be the people (scientists included) who want to keep forcing their own beliefs onto others.

Einstein is compatible with GPSs, but GPSs don’t prove him right, — Pfhorrest

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.

Because we know the earth is round does not make the flat earth theory obsolete. The flat earth theory is applied every day in construction.

"A plumb bob, or plummet, is a weight, usually with a pointed tip on the bottom, suspended from a string and used as a vertical reference line, or plumb-line. It is a precursor to the spirit level and used to establish a vertical or horizontal datum."

I disagree that everything either is or is not science - there are degrees of how scientific something is. — Qmeri

Of course.

Let me put it this way: there is the intent to use the scientific method to get an objective answer. How well a person or a group of researchers succeed in this is another matter. Also the intent to be objective is important: that the agenda is to know more about reality, not to push some other agenda. It happens quite often, very unfortunately, that people push an ideology, a normative idea or something that is inherently subjective as "simply being a scientific fact". Or vice versa, scientific facts are depicted to be just social constructs and totally subjective opinions.

Do you know the balls in the jar challenge?

Ask 100 people how many balls there are in a jar and you will get give or take 80 different answers. If you want to know the most accurate answer, add these 100 answers and divide by 100.
Take all scientific opinions on a subject and find their common denominator and you will be pretty close to the truth.

Well, I guess we disagree about the degree mainstream science is corrupt. 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. Not because it's even near perfect, but because every other large source of information does things so much worse.

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

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....

Most of the sources of information that represent themselves as alternatives to mainstream science are all about creating a community and marketing. And most of their marketing is simply about "How mainstream science is so bad" and "how there is so much more beyond that" instead of actually creating reliable anti-mistake and anti-corruption systems to themselves to make themselves more reliable.

And what happens to the alternative sources of information that actually start creating anti-error and anti-corruption systems to themselves? They become like science and eventually they become part of the mainstream science.

Mainstream science has given all the stuff we like having. If we (in the West) are still not happy, is because we don't realize how well off we are. Boredom and loneliness are also a great problem in modern societies.

If A is false then non-A is true, so to disprove is to prove something... — leo

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.

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

That depends on what you mean by "the theory" I guess. 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.

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

Ask any working physicist and they will tell you that both GR and QM are incomplete, and will some day be supplanted by a better theory. When such a better theory comes along, you can't point at a GPS and say that that proves GR right after all (and the new theory wrong). The new theory also has to explain why your GPS works, of course, but the fact that the GPS works doesn’t decide between the infinitely many theories that are compatible with that observation. Just like, as I said, cannons don’t prove that Newton was right and anyone who disagrees, like Einstein, is wrong; it just puts a constraint on which theories are still possible, by ruling out those that are inconsistent with cannons working.

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

Venerating science? I don't venerate science but the word "venerate" is a big hint as to what science is NOT, a religion and unlike religion, which is simply book after book of argumentum ad baculum, science encourages free thought, is aligned with our innate curiosity, is open to well-reasoned criticism, and is always about knowledge and not about how closely we regard a particular belief. Granted that there are unscrupulous scientists but, given the the stringent requirements for belief in science, it is easier to discover dishonesty in the sciences than in any other field.

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?

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

Actually sometimes he worked with math and thought experiments and only decades later what he worked out in his mind and on paper was verified empirically. Data came late as confirmation.

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

I disagree, yes there is plenty of reliable information that comes from mainstream science, but also plenty of unreliable information. Plenty of published peer reviewed papers with logical/methodological mistakes, experimental results accepted as true while no one attempts to reproduce the experiment, and then a long time later someone decides to do the experiment again and gets contradictory results which don’t get published for various reasons (“I must have made a mistake”, or peer review considers that the original result is established science and so that there must have been a mistake, ...).

People look to mainstream science to get answers about the nature of existence, about what we are, where we come from, where we are going, yet mainstream science only focuses on a small part of existence. As I said in another thread, there is no evidence that a living being is made solely of elementary particles, yet mainstream fundamental physics arbitrarily assumes that this is the case and then famous physicists tell as many people as possible that this is what we are, a bunch of particles, that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction, that there is nothing after death, and this message gets spread in books, news articles and so on to the whole of society, people are told that this is settled science, and those who want to believe differently or who have personal evidence that contradicts these conclusions are ridiculed, dismissed as cranks.

Any conclusion stems from assumptions, and there are plenty of conclusions in mainstream science that stem from assumptions that haven’t been tested at all, I just gave one example, the assumption “a living being is made solely of elementary particles” hasn’t been tested experimentally, it’s a belief, and so the conclusions derived from it are not reliable information, they are beliefs, which are spread under the pretense that they are reliable and well-tested information and that anyone who disagrees doesn’t understand science or is a crackpot. See the problem? And that’s barely scratching the surface of the problem.

When scientists themselves are not aware of which untested assumptions their conclusions are based on, they believe their results are more universal or certain than they are, and that’s when they feel justified to force society to believe like them. Sure not all scientists are like that, but many are, and especially the more vocal ones who spread their beliefs through all media under the guise of Science as if that conferred more validity to their beliefs than other beliefs. Anyone can pick different assumptions and reach completely different beliefs that are compatible with the exact same empirical evidence.

There are plenty of beliefs in mainstream science, which aren’t reliable information, and when most scientists themselves can’t tell what is belief and what isn’t we have a problem, a big problem. In order to find out you have to critically analyze research papers to uncover their implicit assumptions, because they’re not doing it themselves. If you don’t do that, well you can’t tell if you’re dealing with reliable information or with beliefs based on untested assumptions. That’s why it’s dangerous to blindly trust the ‘experts’.

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

Observations can’t even rule out that planets orbit the Earth in circles, because you can invoke ‘illusion’ to explain that they really orbit the Earth in circles even though they don’t appear to. The argument of illusion is routinely invoked by mainstream scientists to dismiss personal reports that don’t fit their picture of the universe. So in this example we could say that light travels in some convoluted way and this is why the orbits don’t look like circles, or we could say that the optical illusion takes place somewhere in our eyes or brain. We can save the theory “planets orbit the Earth in circles” in many ways, that’s why I said almost any theory can be saved from falsification.

I do agree that even if we save “planets orbit the Earth in circles” we’ve still made a change to the whole theory of everything (for instance we’ve changed the part of the theory regarding how light travels or how the eye works or how the brain works), but any specific part of the whole theory can be saved in countless ways. So when you said that Newton has been proven wrong in an absolute sense, that’s wrong, his theory of gravitation can be made compatible with the empirical evidence in many ways, by invoking invisible matter for instance. If you think that invoking invisible matter is far-fetched, consider that invisible matter is precisely what is invoked to save general relativity because without it the empirical evidence is inconsistent with the theory.

So in order to save general relativity they have to assume that the universe is mostly made of dark matter and dark energy, which have never been detected despite decades of experiments, there is zero evidence for them, they only say that dark matter and dark energy exist because they really want the theory to be correct or very nearly correct, because they want to save that particular theory. We could have done the same with Newton’s gravitation if we really wanted to.

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.

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

You rightly pointed out: "Thinking, observation, experiment is carried out by all people, not just by mainstream scientists.". I'm going just a little further than that by suggesting this commonality in modus operandi to gain knowledge as a reason why people have a favorable view of science. After all this method is maxed out in the scientific method.

After all this method is maxed out in the scientific method. — TheMadFool

If you define the scientific method as thinking, observation, experiment, are you saying that the people we usually call scientists have the particularity of thinking more, observing more and experimenting more than other people? But all people are constantly observing and reacting based on what they observe, learning from their past experiences, so the degree of observing and experimenting does not distinguish so-called scientists from other people. We might say that the people we usually call scientists think more than other people on average, but philosophers think a lot too and even more so than so-called scientists.

As you can see mainstream science does not have the justified authority that it purports to have. All people constantly observe and experiment, and philosophers usually think more than mainstream scientists. The separation of mainstream science from philosophy and from what all people do is not justified. Mainstream science would benefit from the thoughts of so-called philosophers (who are people who think a lot) and from the observations/experiments of all people, while philosophy would benefit from the observations/experiments of mainstream science and of all people, and more generally all people would benefit from the observations/experiments/thoughts of all other people.

We all have something to learn from one another, observations, experiments, thoughts, each of us only sees reality from one small point of view, and we need to put all that together in order to advance towards truth, we need to stop believing that the people we usually call scientists have fundamentally different abilities from other people or that they can reach truth that applies to everyone while they ignore or dismiss the observations/experiments/thoughts of countless other people. We are all scientists and philosophers, we all observe, experiment and think from our own vantage point, we all have something to bring to the table and we need to start realizing that.

We need to stop blindly believing what some people say simply because they have the label ‘scientist’, and we need to stop blindly dismissing what some other people say simply because they don’t have the label ‘scientist’. We all have that label, we all are beings who observe, experiment, and think. Some people think more than others, but they don’t see or experiment everything, they need inputs from other people, especially since the more we focus on thought the less we observe and experiment. We all need one another.

scientists have the particularity of thinking more, observing more and experimenting more than other people? — leo

Scientist do not think more. They observe and experiment more.

I would say they observe and experiment while trying as hard as they can to limit variables and repeat. I don't think they observe and experiment more. We are all experimenting all the time and we are all observing (something) all the time.

We are all experimenting all the time — Coben

Most people are following a 'comfortable' routine most of their lives. They observe rules and regulations and football on tv. Trial and error doesn't figure high on that list.

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

AS I mentioned in my previous post,

try to limit the variables and repeat exactly to draw conclusions

but they are constantly choosing (often to do the same things) and these choices will have effects. And it is an experiment, even if they think they are just following common sense or fashion.

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

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. People don't like superfluous choice and end up going for the same item over and over again ignoring all other choices. Trial and error is something we want to avoid psychologically. Thankfully we have advertising that makes the choice for us.

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

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.

People don't like superfluous choice and end up going for the same item over and over again ignoring all other choices. — 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.

It seems to me you are conflating experimentation with trying a lot of different stuff, when in fact scientists are often extremely conservative in the range of choices they build their experiments around, even over long careers.

Trial and error is something we want to avoid psychologically. — 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.

To say scientists use more that other people trial and error approaches is something I would need to see research backing up.

Thankfully we have advertising that makes the choice for us. — ovdtogt

Which, for those who choose it, is a choice. And it is an experiment with their quality of life in the balance.