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Are you being intentionally facetious? How could science defy "reasoning"? Is science some mystery cult that is shrouded in obscurantism and lack of intelligibi

Are you being intentionally facetious? How could science defy "reasoning"? Is science some mystery cult that is shrouded in obscurantism and lack of intelligibility? Or poor choice of word perhaps? Science is most definitely about reasoning and reasoning properly. You must realize that proof and empirical result are never a replacement for common or good sense. The very attitude that proof is self-sustaining is as silly as the idea of being able to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I encourage you to read Duhem's "German Science" in which he describes exactly the silliness of "science" when it is divorced from common sense. It's not magic, my friend. A man of little good sense will lack a sound place to begin reasoning from. Indeed, a man completely devoid of common sense can only begin by reasoning from arbitrary postulates. However, no amount of rigor can ever make up for the initially poorly chosen postulates. Theorems are only as true as their axioms. As Pascal once said, principles are intuited, propositions inferred. Common sense is not infallible, of course, and certainly science can help us refine it. But common sense is the necessary starting point of all science (the ancient Greeks talk about doxa and endoxa). Without it, there would be no starting material for your empirical science or your proofs. There would be no interpreting of the results of your experiment or any understanding of what the experiment should consist of in the first place. Of course, you must also be careful to understand that not everyone possesses a good deal of common sense even though they may appeal to it. Common sense is not the same as popular opinion. Science isn't a magical thing that is somehow divorced from "everyday reality" or some gnostic religion that tells you how it really is without being somehow derived from experience.

calibraxis 12y ago
To be fair, science does gain its (narrow, but useful) power from defying common sense. (For instance, people like Aristotle IIRC explained why things fall to the ground: they go back to their natural places. Ok, that's common sense; it makes sense to enough people until they let themselves get puzzled by it. Galileo's one person who explored the weirdnesses it entails; and Newton couldn't really accept gravity's occult non-mechanical properties that the evidence pointed at.) But I agree that's one thing, and the geek-culture's uncritical fascination with the scientific enterprise is yet another. (Which probably has a bad effect on who gets to become scientists.) Thanks for pointing out Duhem's book; will try to look at it.
spinlock 12y ago
> Are you being intentionally facetious? How could science defy "reasoning"? Science often defies reasoning. Think about the history of our understanding of gravity. Newton was ridiculed when he proposed his model of gravity. And, Einstein was considered a quack for years until people understood what he was talking about.
- SnacksOnAPlane 12y ago
  There's a crucial difference between defying common belief, which great scientific breakthroughs do, and defying reasoning, which they don't do. Reasoning is what shows that the old theory did not have the explanatory power of the new theory.

calibraxis 12y ago

To be fair, science does gain its (narrow, but useful) power from defying common sense. (For instance, people like Aristotle IIRC explained why things fall to the ground: they go back to their natural places. Ok, that's common sense; it makes sense to enough people until they let themselves get puzzled by it. Galileo's one person who explored the weirdnesses it entails; and Newton couldn't really accept gravity's occult non-mechanical properties that the evidence pointed at.) But I agree that's one thing, and the geek-culture's uncritical fascination with the scientific enterprise is yet another. (Which probably has a bad effect on who gets to become scientists.) Thanks for pointing out Duhem's book; will try to look at it.

spinlock 12y ago

> Are you being intentionally facetious? How could science defy "reasoning"? Science often defies reasoning. Think about the history of our understanding of gravity. Newton was ridiculed when he proposed his model of gravity. And, Einstein was considered a quack for years until people understood what he was talking about.

SnacksOnAPlane 12y ago
There's a crucial difference between defying common belief, which great scientific breakthroughs do, and defying reasoning, which they don't do. Reasoning is what shows that the old theory did not have the explanatory power of the new theory.