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For most of history, reason was the only known or accepted way to arrive at truths about the world. I disagree. Most knowledge has always come from "science".
by hugh3 16y ago
For most of history, reason was the only known or accepted way to arrive at truths about the world.
I disagree. Most knowledge has always come from "science". You know it's raining outside because you looked and it was. You know there's a snake under that rock because you looked under that rock and there was a snake there. Moreover, all human skills and crafts from fire-making to cathedral-building must have progressed through a process of trial and error, which is just a non-formalized experiment.
This wasn't as prestigious as knowledge acquired through reason, though, since it doesn't take a genius to figure things out just by looking at 'em. Only when science became formalised and difficult to understand did it start to gain prestige.
- CapitalistCartr 16y agoObservation isn't science. This is the fundamental difference between Engineering and Science. In Engineering, I want to solve this one challenge; I don't want to generalize to a whole class of examples or the whole Universe. In Science, I make a hypothesis, usually based on prior observations, I conduct controlled experiments, not just observing the World around me, and from the resulting data, I derive a theory.
- hugh3 16y agoI think mere observation does count as a form of non-formalised and occasionally unreliable science. Certainly if you're going to classify "science" and "reason" as the two ways of finding out about the world, then you have to bung "observation" in there with science. In engineering you often do want to generalize to a whole class of examples, and can hardly help doing so. If you want to nail two pieces of wood together, and it's never been done before, you can't help but discover general principles along the way that are applicable to all wood-nailing scenarios. Then one day you'll go to nail two bits of different wood together, they'll behave differently and heck, you'll have discovered some additional facts about different types of wood. Eventually you'll hit your finger with the hammer and discover that it really hurts to do so. Now I come to think of it, I would classify "hitting your finger with a hammer really hurts" as a perfect example of those true facts about the world which has nonetheless never been the subject of a proper experiment and certainly wasn't derived from reason, either.
- tel 16y agoI don't disagree, but instead seek to generalize (off topic). I think the fundamental difference between science and engineering revolves around that when engineering you work with the assumption that you know everything about how the world works and can apply that to solve a problem. With science, you work with the certainty that you know nothing true about how the world works and you apply that to see further.
- lotharbot 16y ago> "Observation isn't science." Fundamentally, science is simply this: Observe. Theorize. Repeat. Many of the observations in science take place in a controlled, repeatable laboratory setting. Many do not; astronomers can't exactly drag other galaxies into the lab.
- brudgers 16y agoFundamentally, science is simply this: Observe. Theorize. Repeat. Intervention via experiment is another fundamental part of science.
- lotharbot 16y ago"experiment" is just a formal, controlled method for gathering observations.
- brudgers 16y agoConsider an experiment which tests the effects of a chemical on mice. The scientist purposely exposes the test group to the chemical and actively controls the environment of both the test and control group. Experiment is intervention even above the quantum scale.