7 ms·
Yeah, I'm all for investigating this line of thinking further, but all sorts of weird coincidences come up in numerology that no serious person would consider "
by hvs 3y ago
Yeah, I'm all for investigating this line of thinking further, but all sorts of weird coincidences come up in numerology that no serious person would consider "science".
- irrational 3y agoIs this science? This is a human made up calendar, not how many protons are in a gold atom.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoScience doesn't have some super clear, strict, reductive definition like the "scientific method" you may have been taught in school. The idea that all science must make or test predictions is just based on an old misinterpretation of the philosophy of Karl Popper, mainly by physicists. The only real general requirement I think you can make is that all science involves some level of interrogation and study of the physical world. Anthropology qualifies in abudance. Whether it's good science is beside the point.
- voz_ 3y agoThis is a nonsense definition. Science absolutely must follow the scientific method. What you are talking about is natural philosophy and protosciences - its the difference between alchemy and chemistry - which is all the difference in the world.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoAnd what is the scientific method, in your mind, exactly?
- voz_ 3y agoI am not taking your bait, because to quote you: > Science doesn't have some super clear, strict, reductive definition like the "scientific method" you may have been taught in school. This is peak anti-intellectualism, this is the exact kind of school bashing that Isaac Asimov warned us about. There is no definition of it "in my mind", this is not about opinion vs opinion here, friend.
- trinsic2 3y agoThis is anti-intellectualism in the sense that the world is unbalanced when the focus is solely on the intellect. Reason is important, but its not the only facility that matters in this world. The reason why there is so much negativity towards intellectualism is that our world has been shaped in a horrific way due to this imbalance.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoSo I'm supposed to divine what you're thinking because you think it's bait? I ask, because usually, when I hear people say "hurr durr scientific method", the defition that comes out of their mouth excludes almost all of science except 2 or 3 fields. And I'm not interested in having a discussion with a silly disagreement in terminology at the core. I'm not sure where you're getting all your veiled insults from. I'm not an anti-intellectual, and I'm not bashing school. But yes, kids get taught straight up incorrect things in school all the time. That doesn't mean I think school is bad, in fact I encourage it. It's just a fundamental consequence of the fact that information is never perfect, and neither are the teachers or authors communicating it. Try to examine your own biases and figure out why you're placing me in some kinda crackpot category just because I think anthropology is a valid field of science.
- otabdeveloper4 3y agoWell, yes, biology is not a science, for example. (But linguistics definitely is.) We also have things like computer "science", library "science" and military "science". Just because it's a "science" in common parlance doesn't mean it actually is.
- yadingus 3y ago> There is no definition of it "in my mind" Where do you think definitions reside?
- voz_ 3y agoAsk Plato
- waboremo 3y agoThe difference you are describing aren't that great and haven't been established that long even within the confines of modern history.
- trinsic2 3y agoThere are different scientific methods and different senses that need to be used for abstract topics like Alchemy. Just because most of the worlds population lost the ability to use these other senses to understand the science behind Alchemy does not make it any less important. What you are referring to in your one-size-fits-all "Scientific Method" is called Scientism. A belief, just like religion, that the only method that matters is the accepted method.
- kortilla 3y agoIf there aren’t testable explanations or predictions, it’s not science. Otherwise the word carries no meaning.
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoThen why does the word science predate the scientific method? Clearly it used to carry meaning, even if you find it now meaningless in your zeal for the scientific method.
- kortilla 3y agoBecause people used to have far weaker vocabulary. Science before “the scientific method” was roughly some very vague “thinking about the world logically”. It was too open ended to be useful and it wasn’t until the scientific method brought some rigor that it became useful.
- smolder 3y agoAre you actually on HN arguing that alchemy is some kind of real thing, a skill that we lost? Different senses? Is this a joke? My understanding of alchemy is that its practitioners tried to transmute matter from one kind to another, e.g. lead to gold, because they didn't know enough about how matter worked to know they'd always fail.
- trinsic2 3y agoYes It really was and is a thing. There are lots of people on Hacker News that are not in the place of dismissing things they don't understand. And yes it was a skill that was lost. The only joke is the fact that people lost touch with a lot of ancient knowledge and think everything revolves around this so called accepted "Scientific Method" belief that has dominated our world for way too long.
- rcxdude 3y agoI promise you actual scientists spend far less time thinking about the scientific method and the philosophy of science than their cheerleaders do.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoWe're too busy cleaning up data and wondering if the flow cytometer is clogged for the third time this week. That and grants/reports/meetings.
- jonahbenton 3y agoMaybe. What becomes clear when visiting the archeological sites of Mayans and even predecessors to the Mayans is how absolutely serious they were about the calendar, the seasons, the pathways and timings of the sun and moon, the comings and goings of the animals in accordance with the calendar, etc. I wouldn't call the hypothesis in that paper numerology. It's entirely in line with what they devoted incredible amounts of energy to. Circumstantial, sure, but a bit more than coincidental.
- hackernewds 3y agoTrue. 20 and 45 just happen to be round whole numbers.
- wkearney99 3y agoEvery time I see a mention of numerology I get a chuckle thinking back to Umberto Eco's book "Foucault's Pendulum" and the measuring of shop kiosks.