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Modern science is just barely science alas, I cannot back this up with any data but note that backing my assertion up with references is not sufficient to mak

Modern science is just barely science alas, I cannot back this up with any data but note that backing my assertion up with references is not sufficient to make my statment scientific. but I can add some resasoning to my claim: modern science seems to be performed with a goal in mind (often funding of some sort). it is no longer a free-form pursuit. So then, does science have to be a free-form aimless pursuit? (maybe?)

pdonis 6y ago
> Modern science is just barely science This is way too pessimistic without being more specific than just "modern science". Modern science is accurate enough to produce technology that allows your phone to tell you where you are to within a meter or so, to communicate with a space probe that has exited the solar system (not to mention launching the probe in the first place and having it go where it was intended to go, visiting multiple planets and moons over several decades), to produce the global networking system that we are having this conversation on, and so on for many, many more examples. There are particular areas that are called part of "modern science" but are just barely sciences (or really not even sciences yet). But there are also areas of modern science that emphatically are sciences, and not "barely" either. > modern science seems to be performed with a goal in mind (often funding of some sort) Modern science now mostly does, but that hasn't always been the case. The research that originally led to relativity and quantum mechanics was not. It was done out of intellectual and scientific curiosity. If your question is whether doing science for those reasons is better than doing it to pursue funding, I would say yes.
- naringas 6y ago
  > Modern science is accurate enough to produce technology I would argue that this is better called "engineering" rather than science. In this sense engineering is a design discipline which applies science-made theories to create technology and tools. And so engenireeng is not strictly creative (it does not create novel ideas) but refines and pushes the practice (of the theories) to more sophisticated levels. In any case engineering does create novel technology which then can push science forward by providing better and more dieverse empirical data for science to continue.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > I would argue that this is better called "engineering" rather than science. You can't do engineering to that level of accuracy if you don't have a solid base of science to build on.

pdonis 6y ago

> Modern science is just barely science This is way too pessimistic without being more specific than just "modern science". Modern science is accurate enough to produce technology that allows your phone to tell you where you are to within a meter or so, to communicate with a space probe that has exited the solar system (not to mention launching the probe in the first place and having it go where it was intended to go, visiting multiple planets and moons over several decades), to produce the global networking system that we are having this conversation on, and so on for many, many more examples. There are particular areas that are called part of "modern science" but are just barely sciences (or really not even sciences yet). But there are also areas of modern science that emphatically are sciences, and not "barely" either. > modern science seems to be performed with a goal in mind (often funding of some sort) Modern science now mostly does, but that hasn't always been the case. The research that originally led to relativity and quantum mechanics was not. It was done out of intellectual and scientific curiosity. If your question is whether doing science for those reasons is better than doing it to pursue funding, I would say yes.

naringas 6y ago
> Modern science is accurate enough to produce technology I would argue that this is better called "engineering" rather than science. In this sense engineering is a design discipline which applies science-made theories to create technology and tools. And so engenireeng is not strictly creative (it does not create novel ideas) but refines and pushes the practice (of the theories) to more sophisticated levels. In any case engineering does create novel technology which then can push science forward by providing better and more dieverse empirical data for science to continue.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > I would argue that this is better called "engineering" rather than science. You can't do engineering to that level of accuracy if you don't have a solid base of science to build on.