6 ms·

Doesn't this apply to all of science? I mean we don't actually know why anything really works, but we have some models which fit the observations at the moment

by meaty 14y ago

Doesn't this apply to all of science? I mean we don't actually know why anything really works, but we have some models which fit the observations at the moment. This is just a very shallow model i.e. "we poked it and it worked".

raverbashing 14y ago
Exactly! We know very little. The same goes for the atomic model and a lot of other things. Electrons, protons, quarks? That's our model. We know the equations, we know how to predict a lot of stuff. This guarantees nothing. Maybe tomorrow someone comes up with a different theory that explains things better but doesn't say anything about waves or particles. Who knows. Quick example: what's a magnetic field? It is a measurable quantity, there are theories about how forces are exchanged between charged particles, but essentially it is more a mathematical aid than anything else. And physics is the most 'hard' science. Easily reproducible, the same everywhere in the universe (as far as we know), experiments can be reproduced as many times as you want without interference. Now if you go to more specific sciences (biology, medicine, etc) it gets worse. They are only valid on planet Earth for a short period of time, for a start. Test subjects all have differences and experimenting on them affects the results.
- jibbirish 14y ago
  This is the very core of our scientific method (critical rationalism, Karl Popper [1]), theoretical models can only be used in science when they can be falsified. That is why we call them hypothesis (from the Greek word for assumption [2]). Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive. For example, we can observe a thousand white swans in the world, and hypothesize that all swans are white. That is until we encounter that one black swan, and our hypothesis has been falsified. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis
  - meaty 14y ago
    Elegantly described!
  - DougWebb 14y ago
    No, the black swan is a figment of your imagination. It wasn't a swan. You didn't know what you were looking at. You made it up. I don't care that lots of people saw it, you're all delusional. You're crackpots. The problem with the scientific method is that scientists become very attached to their hypotheses, and the longer a hypothesis stands the more attached scientists get. This causes them to reject contradictory evidence, often going to ridiculous lengths to do so. A change of the hypotheses, a scientific revolution, only happens on the fringes of science when a maverick persists in examining evidence that most scientists reject.
    - meaty 14y ago
      Prime example: climate change. We have precisely fuck all idea what is going on regardless of the models. Proof of this can be found by examining all the climate change news articles based on scientific papers going back to the impending ice age in 1972 (people have a short memory for climatology theories).
      - luser001 14y ago
        Relevant Asimov's classic article: http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm YMMV.
      - robotresearcher 14y ago
        News articles can not be relied on to present science and the views of scientists accurately. Controversy is news, consensus is not. Very few publications care enough to get their science reporting right, and it's expensive to have people on staff who are capable of doing it.
      - illuminate 14y ago
        "Proof of this can be found by examining all the climate change news articles based on scientific papers going back to the impending ice age in 1972 (people have a short memory for climatology theories)." While it makes a good talking point, it was not the case. http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s...
- aMoniker 14y ago
  Can the universe be described by a formal system, or will doing so always result in a model? If such a system exists, are the number of rules finite?
- Confusion 14y ago
  This guarantees nothing. It guarantees a whole lot of things. When necessary, you bet your life on these mere 'models'. These 'models' cause you to trust stepping into an airplane and stepping out of the trajectory of a falling rock. We know very little. We know a lot about these models. We investigate where they hold and where they don't. We don't just know they are valid on planet Earth for a short period of time: we investigate whether they also hold elsewhere and held in the past and have every reason to believe they did and do. To move on to some philosophical background behind your assertion: the idea that there is some 'real', 'objective', 'true' reality that is modeled by these models, is a pre-Kantian point of view. A post-Kantian point of view is that these models of how the universe works are our reality. They are the only thing we can possibly have knowledge of: the models we use to categorize and structure our observations. Most of them only exist in our brains. They got there by nature and nurture, without us usually spelling them out. They govern our daily behavior. We've tried to formalize the more complex ones in language that is independent of individual humans. Sometimes observations are not consistent with a model, so we revise the model. Still we only know the new version of the model, which describes what we expect to observe.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    Of course, I don't mean 'guarantees nothing' in the sense of "planes won't fly" or things like this. These are the results that are verified. The math What we don't know about is if our model (and not the math or the results) has anything to do with "reality" (and that may not even be possible) Take the particle/wave duality for example. We're talking about an electron being 'a particle' but sometimes 'a wave'. Of course, we can predict things about the behaviour of this electron, but the story behind it, of particles, waves, may not be accurate, and this may be replaced by something that completely does away with electrons (difficult to imagine since electrons have mass) but comes with similar predictions.
    - akiselev 14y ago
      For all we know, we may never "describe" reality with mathematics, but it's purpose is nevertheless to estimate and predict to a certain degree of precision an event within its boundary conditions. In this sense, science and mathematics are not one and the same. The scientific method is designed to push these mathematical models past their limits so that we may get closer to discovering what this "reality" really is. These models are how we know when something doesn't fit with our scientific understanding, it is nothing more than a feedback loop. Edit: hnhg: You're right, rephrased properly :)
- tcgv 14y ago
  I agree with you. When ever someone argues that we know a lot about the world and how it works, the following quote comes to my mind: "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine" J. B. S. Haldane
hakaaaaak 14y ago
Watch it. Next thing you know you'll admit that we don't really "know" anything and get into the realm of metaphysics! But, I agree. In fact, the fallibility of science should be something taught in elementary school along with the scientific principle. It is already taught that science helped us get from "the sun revolves around the earth" to "the earth revolves around the sun", but we are not taught about differences in outcomes of valid scientific studies proving AND disproving global warming and what that really means, which is that science is biased, flawed, and does NOT elucidate truth, but it is helpful and practical in many ways and produces what is currently accepted as "fact". It is important to have a critical mind when it comes to science and understand that faith doesn't just reside in religion- atheists and those that claim that science have the answer to everything often truly believe that science is a constant or that it "evolves" as some sort of mystical truth that will lead us to enlightenment, but, practically speaking, science is always incorrect. We don't have all of the answers and we never will. Don't get me wrong- science has made huge advancements in our civilization and almost everything we interact with has been produced in part or has been affected by science, often in a good way but not always. However, science is not and never should be a religion. You can use scientific principles and "facts", but if you call it science, do not be beholden to those "facts". This does not mean that we should give up exploration or research at all. But by accepting the wonder that is everything we don't and will never completely understand, we are all scientists.
- illuminate 14y ago
  The fallibility of thought and observation should be taught over "science", because otherwise we'll have even more obnoxious pseudoskeptics than we do today, who think that yeah, what does "science" know anyway? Then proceed on with their folksy but ungrounded, still harmful beliefs.
  - hakaaaaak 14y ago
    But people associate "the results of the study on..." with science and fact (truth), rather that is possibly evidence-based but may be wrong because it is biased, misguided, or incomplete. People assume that there is such a thing as fact produced by science, and when they learn this fact from a teacher, friend, the media, etc., then they believe these things are true, and that they will not change. That is not science. Using unhelpful skepticism as a reason for hiding the fallibility of science will produce more generations of people that believe whatever the scientists tell them, which at times will be wrong and yet accepted by almost everyone as truth.
shardling 14y ago
If you think that, you've missed the point of the article. We know how almost everything we use works -- in that we can connect the initial "shallow" models to more fundamental models of physics. Apparently this one has eluded us so far.
- olleicua 14y ago
  This is a philosophical stance that goes beyond the article's point. We have very good models for most of technology but we don't know enough about how Lithium batteries fit into those models. It's kind of tangential though. The point of the article seems to be that we ought to pay more attention to tangible things that we don't understand (like how to design more efficient batteries that would improve people's lives in real ways) then on pointless interpretations of string theory. I tend to think there is value in keeping in mind that we can't actually be certain of things because the alternatives seems quite pompous to me.
guard-of-terra 14y ago
I think his point was that we don't even have a model for Li-Pol battery.

by meaty 14y ago

raverbashing 14y ago

Exactly! We know very little. The same goes for the atomic model and a lot of other things. Electrons, protons, quarks? That's our model. We know the equations, we know how to predict a lot of stuff. This guarantees nothing. Maybe tomorrow someone comes up with a different theory that explains things better but doesn't say anything about waves or particles. Who knows. Quick example: what's a magnetic field? It is a measurable quantity, there are theories about how forces are exchanged between charged particles, but essentially it is more a mathematical aid than anything else. And physics is the most 'hard' science. Easily reproducible, the same everywhere in the universe (as far as we know), experiments can be reproduced as many times as you want without interference. Now if you go to more specific sciences (biology, medicine, etc) it gets worse. They are only valid on planet Earth for a short period of time, for a start. Test subjects all have differences and experimenting on them affects the results.

jibbirish 14y ago
This is the very core of our scientific method (critical rationalism, Karl Popper [1]), theoretical models can only be used in science when they can be falsified. That is why we call them hypothesis (from the Greek word for assumption [2]). Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive. For example, we can observe a thousand white swans in the world, and hypothesize that all swans are white. That is until we encounter that one black swan, and our hypothesis has been falsified. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis
- meaty 14y ago
  Elegantly described!
- DougWebb 14y ago
  No, the black swan is a figment of your imagination. It wasn't a swan. You didn't know what you were looking at. You made it up. I don't care that lots of people saw it, you're all delusional. You're crackpots. The problem with the scientific method is that scientists become very attached to their hypotheses, and the longer a hypothesis stands the more attached scientists get. This causes them to reject contradictory evidence, often going to ridiculous lengths to do so. A change of the hypotheses, a scientific revolution, only happens on the fringes of science when a maverick persists in examining evidence that most scientists reject.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Prime example: climate change. We have precisely fuck all idea what is going on regardless of the models. Proof of this can be found by examining all the climate change news articles based on scientific papers going back to the impending ice age in 1972 (people have a short memory for climatology theories).
    - luser001 14y ago
      Relevant Asimov's classic article: http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm YMMV.
    - robotresearcher 14y ago
      News articles can not be relied on to present science and the views of scientists accurately. Controversy is news, consensus is not. Very few publications care enough to get their science reporting right, and it's expensive to have people on staff who are capable of doing it.
    - illuminate 14y ago
      "Proof of this can be found by examining all the climate change news articles based on scientific papers going back to the impending ice age in 1972 (people have a short memory for climatology theories)." While it makes a good talking point, it was not the case. http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s...
aMoniker 14y ago
Can the universe be described by a formal system, or will doing so always result in a model? If such a system exists, are the number of rules finite?
Confusion 14y ago
This guarantees nothing. It guarantees a whole lot of things. When necessary, you bet your life on these mere 'models'. These 'models' cause you to trust stepping into an airplane and stepping out of the trajectory of a falling rock. We know very little. We know a lot about these models. We investigate where they hold and where they don't. We don't just know they are valid on planet Earth for a short period of time: we investigate whether they also hold elsewhere and held in the past and have every reason to believe they did and do. To move on to some philosophical background behind your assertion: the idea that there is some 'real', 'objective', 'true' reality that is modeled by these models, is a pre-Kantian point of view. A post-Kantian point of view is that these models of how the universe works are our reality. They are the only thing we can possibly have knowledge of: the models we use to categorize and structure our observations. Most of them only exist in our brains. They got there by nature and nurture, without us usually spelling them out. They govern our daily behavior. We've tried to formalize the more complex ones in language that is independent of individual humans. Sometimes observations are not consistent with a model, so we revise the model. Still we only know the new version of the model, which describes what we expect to observe.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  Of course, I don't mean 'guarantees nothing' in the sense of "planes won't fly" or things like this. These are the results that are verified. The math What we don't know about is if our model (and not the math or the results) has anything to do with "reality" (and that may not even be possible) Take the particle/wave duality for example. We're talking about an electron being 'a particle' but sometimes 'a wave'. Of course, we can predict things about the behaviour of this electron, but the story behind it, of particles, waves, may not be accurate, and this may be replaced by something that completely does away with electrons (difficult to imagine since electrons have mass) but comes with similar predictions.
  - akiselev 14y ago
    For all we know, we may never "describe" reality with mathematics, but it's purpose is nevertheless to estimate and predict to a certain degree of precision an event within its boundary conditions. In this sense, science and mathematics are not one and the same. The scientific method is designed to push these mathematical models past their limits so that we may get closer to discovering what this "reality" really is. These models are how we know when something doesn't fit with our scientific understanding, it is nothing more than a feedback loop. Edit: hnhg: You're right, rephrased properly :)
tcgv 14y ago
I agree with you. When ever someone argues that we know a lot about the world and how it works, the following quote comes to my mind: "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine" J. B. S. Haldane

hakaaaaak 14y ago

Watch it. Next thing you know you'll admit that we don't really "know" anything and get into the realm of metaphysics! But, I agree. In fact, the fallibility of science should be something taught in elementary school along with the scientific principle. It is already taught that science helped us get from "the sun revolves around the earth" to "the earth revolves around the sun", but we are not taught about differences in outcomes of valid scientific studies proving AND disproving global warming and what that really means, which is that science is biased, flawed, and does NOT elucidate truth, but it is helpful and practical in many ways and produces what is currently accepted as "fact". It is important to have a critical mind when it comes to science and understand that faith doesn't just reside in religion- atheists and those that claim that science have the answer to everything often truly believe that science is a constant or that it "evolves" as some sort of mystical truth that will lead us to enlightenment, but, practically speaking, science is always incorrect. We don't have all of the answers and we never will. Don't get me wrong- science has made huge advancements in our civilization and almost everything we interact with has been produced in part or has been affected by science, often in a good way but not always. However, science is not and never should be a religion. You can use scientific principles and "facts", but if you call it science, do not be beholden to those "facts". This does not mean that we should give up exploration or research at all. But by accepting the wonder that is everything we don't and will never completely understand, we are all scientists.

illuminate 14y ago
The fallibility of thought and observation should be taught over "science", because otherwise we'll have even more obnoxious pseudoskeptics than we do today, who think that yeah, what does "science" know anyway? Then proceed on with their folksy but ungrounded, still harmful beliefs.
- hakaaaaak 14y ago
  But people associate "the results of the study on..." with science and fact (truth), rather that is possibly evidence-based but may be wrong because it is biased, misguided, or incomplete. People assume that there is such a thing as fact produced by science, and when they learn this fact from a teacher, friend, the media, etc., then they believe these things are true, and that they will not change. That is not science. Using unhelpful skepticism as a reason for hiding the fallibility of science will produce more generations of people that believe whatever the scientists tell them, which at times will be wrong and yet accepted by almost everyone as truth.

shardling 14y ago

If you think that, you've missed the point of the article. We know how almost everything we use works -- in that we can connect the initial "shallow" models to more fundamental models of physics. Apparently this one has eluded us so far.

olleicua 14y ago
This is a philosophical stance that goes beyond the article's point. We have very good models for most of technology but we don't know enough about how Lithium batteries fit into those models. It's kind of tangential though. The point of the article seems to be that we ought to pay more attention to tangible things that we don't understand (like how to design more efficient batteries that would improve people's lives in real ways) then on pointless interpretations of string theory. I tend to think there is value in keeping in mind that we can't actually be certain of things because the alternatives seems quite pompous to me.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

I think his point was that we don't even have a model for Li-Pol battery.