3 ms·

> people who claim to follow science, are actually practicing some sort of modern-day witch doctor magic. Maybe this is just phrased poorly. In that essay Feyn

by freyrs3 13y ago

> people who claim to follow science, are actually practicing some sort of modern-day witch doctor magic. Maybe this is just phrased poorly. In that essay Feynman is saying some people (namely advocates of pseudoscience) are invoking "science" to give credence to their claims but are abandoning scientific rigor, this is what he calls cargo cult science. Not all people who claim to follow science.

dnautics 13y ago
you should reread the essay. He then goes on to mention how mainstream physics experiments have failed to do basic things like "repeat an old experiment with the new apparatus" and therefore careening towards pseudoscience.
secstate 13y ago
Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time. (PLoS One) [1] Seriously? The greater issue here is modern day "scientists" or people who are interested in and consider themselves scientifically-minded, reading something like that and filing it away as new knowledge and not questioning the veracity of things. As the other child to this comment noted, the problem that Feynman outlines is that no one is doing these tests over again to re-test hypothesis under new conditions or with new devices. The results get published and suddenly it's taken as Truth with a capital T. "Because there are no facts, there is no truth Just a data to be manipulated I can get any result you like" -- Don Henley [2] If that makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you try out some form of theism. Because if tomorrow I fall through my floor when getting out of bed, all we can do is re-evaluate our knowledge based on new data. And there's probably going to be a lot of new data. 1: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007595 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.... 2: http://ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/g/garden_of_allah.txt http://ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/g/garden_of_alla...
- freyrs3 13y ago
  I don't even know what you're trying to illustrate with those links. My point was not that bad science doesn't exist, it certainly does. But Feynman did not have this nihilistic view of knowledge, he believed very firmly in the ability of science to deduce truths about the physical world and that there is objective truth.
  - secstate 13y ago
    Sorry to dwell on this, but this is not a nihilistic view, this is what's called the Pragmatic view of truth and was expounded by 20th Century Chicago School philosophers like John Dewey. Feynman was oft quoted as being a pragmatist, and a key tenet of pragmatism was embodied in one of his quotes: "We never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong." In this fashion, we never hold objective truth in the Platonic sense, rather we accumulate knowledge that explains how the world works. Does fellatio in fruit flies improve sexual reproduction? One study suggests it does. The problem we face now is that a substantial portion of people, including many very well educated folks who would claim to live scientifically-based lives, say "That's amazing!" and run and tell their friends this hilarious new "fact" they've learned. Unfortunately there are plenty of these new "facts" people learn that are much more than novelty and lead to public policy or destructive dietary changes cough fructose cough. We could all use to be a little more skeptical, pragmatic and curious in our lives.

by freyrs3 13y ago

dnautics 13y ago

you should reread the essay. He then goes on to mention how mainstream physics experiments have failed to do basic things like "repeat an old experiment with the new apparatus" and therefore careening towards pseudoscience.

secstate 13y ago

Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time. (PLoS One) [1] Seriously? The greater issue here is modern day "scientists" or people who are interested in and consider themselves scientifically-minded, reading something like that and filing it away as new knowledge and not questioning the veracity of things. As the other child to this comment noted, the problem that Feynman outlines is that no one is doing these tests over again to re-test hypothesis under new conditions or with new devices. The results get published and suddenly it's taken as Truth with a capital T. "Because there are no facts, there is no truth Just a data to be manipulated I can get any result you like" -- Don Henley [2] If that makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you try out some form of theism. Because if tomorrow I fall through my floor when getting out of bed, all we can do is re-evaluate our knowledge based on new data. And there's probably going to be a lot of new data. 1: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007595 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.... 2: http://ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/g/garden_of_allah.txt http://ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/g/garden_of_alla...

freyrs3 13y ago
I don't even know what you're trying to illustrate with those links. My point was not that bad science doesn't exist, it certainly does. But Feynman did not have this nihilistic view of knowledge, he believed very firmly in the ability of science to deduce truths about the physical world and that there is objective truth.
- secstate 13y ago
  Sorry to dwell on this, but this is not a nihilistic view, this is what's called the Pragmatic view of truth and was expounded by 20th Century Chicago School philosophers like John Dewey. Feynman was oft quoted as being a pragmatist, and a key tenet of pragmatism was embodied in one of his quotes: "We never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong." In this fashion, we never hold objective truth in the Platonic sense, rather we accumulate knowledge that explains how the world works. Does fellatio in fruit flies improve sexual reproduction? One study suggests it does. The problem we face now is that a substantial portion of people, including many very well educated folks who would claim to live scientifically-based lives, say "That's amazing!" and run and tell their friends this hilarious new "fact" they've learned. Unfortunately there are plenty of these new "facts" people learn that are much more than novelty and lead to public policy or destructive dietary changes cough fructose cough. We could all use to be a little more skeptical, pragmatic and curious in our lives.