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The arrogance I mentioned is directed towards the people who think of themselves as appropriate to speak for the century-long success story of science itself wh

The arrogance I mentioned is directed towards the people who think of themselves as appropriate to speak for the century-long success story of science itself while not really addressing (and understanding) how science emerged. Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science.

lisper 2y ago
Ah. FYI, I have a whole series of unpublished chapters about the (very messy) history of science. I decided to take this different approach because I thought it would be a more effective way of reaching my target audience. > Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science. That's not true. There is one box you cannot get out of without destroying the process: any hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected (and as a corollary to that, unfalsifiable hypotheses must be rejected). But yeah, beyond that pretty much anything goes.
- 6510 2y ago
  I'd fill that last bit under unnecessary and undesirable processing. Things are what they are(!) A hypothesis inconsistent with experiments is a hypothesis inconsistent with experiments. It is a mistake to attempt to make more or less from it. You get nothing extra or beneficial out of the effort of rejection. A failed experiment is a failed experiment. There are lots of ways to fail. Faulty materials, defective equipment, outside influences, incompetent experimenters, poor design, POLITICS etc etc A repeatedly failed experiment sounds just as bad as it should.
  - lisper 2y ago
    > repeatedly failed experiment That is an oxymoron. A repeatedly "failed" experiment is a valid scientific result. There is even a classic example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...
- raskelll 2y ago
  Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. Regarding your second statement, out of curiosity, I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons.
  - lisper 2y ago
    > Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. You can find them here: https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ Note that they are quite drafty. That was the result of a previous effort to tackle this project of writing about the scientific method for a general audience that I ultimately abandoned in favor of this current approach. The history part starts in chapter 5. These were based on a series of lectures I gave a few years ago. I can dig up those links too if you're interested. > I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons. I'm not sure what you expect me to say. The results have not been reproduced, so whatever happened in 1989 it was almost certainly not cold fusion.
    - maxnoe 2y ago
      This is easily solved by adding the well known quote (Sagan): "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." An older quote, addressing this case more directly would be (Eddington): "The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — *well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes.* But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
      - mikhailfranco 2y ago
        No, the 2nd Law is just a statistical property relating macrostates to microstates. It can never be the foundation of physics for the underlying system. Life does a pretty good job of evading it, locally, for lifetimes. Civilizations overcome it for longer, perhaps indefinitely, as long as there are stars/blackholes in the sky, or uranium/hydrogen nuclear fuel to be scavenged. Wolfram recently tried to explain the 2nd Law, as a consequence of time-coherent computationally-bounded observers. As always with him, it is fascinating and infuriatingly in equal measure: https://www.wolfram-media.com/products/the-second-law-resolving-the-mystery-of-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/ https://www.wolfram-media.com/products/the-second-law-resolv... Those subsystems that evade it (life) also need explanation. Friston, Levin, Lane, England and others are starting to give plausible models and explanations.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  I'm with you that, if you don't close the loop via experiment, you don't have science. But you have to be careful that you not go too far, and say that science is the only way we can know truth. Logical positivism is dead for a reason. (Actually, for several reasons.)
  - lisper 2y ago
    > science is the only way we can know truth You need to read the third installment in my series: https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/04/three-myths-about-scientific-method.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/04/three-myths-about-scient... and in particular Myth #3.
    - jfengel 2y ago
      I don't disagree with Myth #3, but I had a hard time getting to it after reading Myth #2: The scientific method assumes naturalism/materialism/atheism... This is false. The scientific method contains no assumptions whatsoever. The scientific method is simply that: a method. I don't think that's a good way to put it. There is an assumption that this method is a valid, useful, good thing to do. A souffle recipe presupposes that you want a souffle, or you wouldn't be reading it. The scientific method hints ambiguously at epistemological commitments, and that ambiguity is not a point in its favor. Different people make those assumptions tacitly and don't realize that they disagree with each other, and don't even apply them consistently to themselves. I also happen to agree that the scientific method has some kind of epistemic benefit, especially as compared to the potential alternatives. But those benefits prove maddeningly difficult to nail down. The epistemic commitments always turn out to be too loose (admitting pseudosciences) or too strict (rejecting sciences that resist the kinds of experiments you'd like to do).
      - lisper 2y ago
        > There is an assumption that this method is a valid, useful, good thing to do. No, that is not an assumption. That is an observation. The scientific method produces theories with predictive power, and it does this better than any other known method. That is an empirical fact, not an assumption. This is the reason science is a thing.
- fastasucan 2y ago
  >hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected Not really, this is a conclusion that is drawn only by looking at the big names and highlights throughout the scientific history. In practice the experiments in themselves is flawed, so if the hypothesis is not confirmed through experiments the experiment design need to be fixed. Other times they are confirmed where the experiments also was flawed. Also there are a lot of hypothesis we cannot reject, but we still build scientific work upon them.
  - lisper 2y ago
    > In practice the experiments in themselves is flawed Yes, of course. Experimental error is always a possibilities, but that is just another hypothesis that needs to be considered along with all the other possibilities. > Also there are a lot of hypothesis we cannot reject, but we still build scientific work upon them. Like what?
anuraj 2y ago
J D Bernal already addressed it through his magnum opus - Science in History.

lisper 2y ago

Ah. FYI, I have a whole series of unpublished chapters about the (very messy) history of science. I decided to take this different approach because I thought it would be a more effective way of reaching my target audience. > Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science. That's not true. There is one box you cannot get out of without destroying the process: any hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected (and as a corollary to that, unfalsifiable hypotheses must be rejected). But yeah, beyond that pretty much anything goes.

6510 2y ago
I'd fill that last bit under unnecessary and undesirable processing. Things are what they are(!) A hypothesis inconsistent with experiments is a hypothesis inconsistent with experiments. It is a mistake to attempt to make more or less from it. You get nothing extra or beneficial out of the effort of rejection. A failed experiment is a failed experiment. There are lots of ways to fail. Faulty materials, defective equipment, outside influences, incompetent experimenters, poor design, POLITICS etc etc A repeatedly failed experiment sounds just as bad as it should.
- lisper 2y ago
  > repeatedly failed experiment That is an oxymoron. A repeatedly "failed" experiment is a valid scientific result. There is even a classic example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...
raskelll 2y ago
Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. Regarding your second statement, out of curiosity, I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons.
- lisper 2y ago
  > Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. You can find them here: https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ Note that they are quite drafty. That was the result of a previous effort to tackle this project of writing about the scientific method for a general audience that I ultimately abandoned in favor of this current approach. The history part starts in chapter 5. These were based on a series of lectures I gave a few years ago. I can dig up those links too if you're interested. > I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons. I'm not sure what you expect me to say. The results have not been reproduced, so whatever happened in 1989 it was almost certainly not cold fusion.
  - maxnoe 2y ago
    This is easily solved by adding the well known quote (Sagan): "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." An older quote, addressing this case more directly would be (Eddington): "The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — *well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes.* But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
    - mikhailfranco 2y ago
      No, the 2nd Law is just a statistical property relating macrostates to microstates. It can never be the foundation of physics for the underlying system. Life does a pretty good job of evading it, locally, for lifetimes. Civilizations overcome it for longer, perhaps indefinitely, as long as there are stars/blackholes in the sky, or uranium/hydrogen nuclear fuel to be scavenged. Wolfram recently tried to explain the 2nd Law, as a consequence of time-coherent computationally-bounded observers. As always with him, it is fascinating and infuriatingly in equal measure: https://www.wolfram-media.com/products/the-second-law-resolving-the-mystery-of-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/ https://www.wolfram-media.com/products/the-second-law-resolv... Those subsystems that evade it (life) also need explanation. Friston, Levin, Lane, England and others are starting to give plausible models and explanations.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
I'm with you that, if you don't close the loop via experiment, you don't have science. But you have to be careful that you not go too far, and say that science is the only way we can know truth. Logical positivism is dead for a reason. (Actually, for several reasons.)
- lisper 2y ago
  > science is the only way we can know truth You need to read the third installment in my series: https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/04/three-myths-about-scientific-method.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/04/three-myths-about-scient... and in particular Myth #3.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    I don't disagree with Myth #3, but I had a hard time getting to it after reading Myth #2: The scientific method assumes naturalism/materialism/atheism... This is false. The scientific method contains no assumptions whatsoever. The scientific method is simply that: a method. I don't think that's a good way to put it. There is an assumption that this method is a valid, useful, good thing to do. A souffle recipe presupposes that you want a souffle, or you wouldn't be reading it. The scientific method hints ambiguously at epistemological commitments, and that ambiguity is not a point in its favor. Different people make those assumptions tacitly and don't realize that they disagree with each other, and don't even apply them consistently to themselves. I also happen to agree that the scientific method has some kind of epistemic benefit, especially as compared to the potential alternatives. But those benefits prove maddeningly difficult to nail down. The epistemic commitments always turn out to be too loose (admitting pseudosciences) or too strict (rejecting sciences that resist the kinds of experiments you'd like to do).
    - lisper 2y ago
      > There is an assumption that this method is a valid, useful, good thing to do. No, that is not an assumption. That is an observation. The scientific method produces theories with predictive power, and it does this better than any other known method. That is an empirical fact, not an assumption. This is the reason science is a thing.
fastasucan 2y ago
>hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected Not really, this is a conclusion that is drawn only by looking at the big names and highlights throughout the scientific history. In practice the experiments in themselves is flawed, so if the hypothesis is not confirmed through experiments the experiment design need to be fixed. Other times they are confirmed where the experiments also was flawed. Also there are a lot of hypothesis we cannot reject, but we still build scientific work upon them.
- lisper 2y ago
  > In practice the experiments in themselves is flawed Yes, of course. Experimental error is always a possibilities, but that is just another hypothesis that needs to be considered along with all the other possibilities. > Also there are a lot of hypothesis we cannot reject, but we still build scientific work upon them. Like what?

anuraj 2y ago

J D Bernal already addressed it through his magnum opus - Science in History.