Author Topic: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore  (Read 1321 times)

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rangerrebew

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    Author: Nick Stockton. Nick Stockton   Science   Date of Publication: 05.16.17.
    05.16.17
    Time of Publication: 7:00 am.
    7:00 am

Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore

 
Apologies to Merriam, Webster, and everyone else who has ever assigned themselves the chore of cataloging how English speakers use words, but science is not a noun. I mean, yes, technically it is.1 But conversationally, most people use ‘science’ like Mark Watney did in The Martian, when he said he would “science the shit” out of the problem of growing food on Mars.

Science the verb is a process of questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, and—so, so often—being wrong. Again and again and again. Until you get it mostly right. (Because no science [n] is ever complete.) Ideally, the process is democratic: Anybody can science the shit out of anything. In reality, most people “do” science vicariously—by reading about new discoveries and having faith that the discoverers aren’t charlatans. Though it’s not quite faith: We trust them because scientists argue in public.

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/physicists-cant-agree-science-even-means-anymore/
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 01:14:57 pm by rangerrebew »

Offline Suppressed

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2017, 01:51:19 pm »
Based on the title alone: "Good."

Because "science" is much broader than physics, and physicists have tended to misdefine science for a long time, even though the broad area of "physics" includes subfields of different types of science.  For example, there are theoretical scientists, experimental scientists, and observational/historical scientists.  An astronomer is observing events of the past, not blowing up stars in an experiment, for example.

But that's not the topic of the article.

The Guth/Linde/Steinhardt idea of multiple working hypotheses not being science is ridiculous.  T.C. Chamberlin pointed out in his seminal work, The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses (1890) : "With this method the dangers of parental affection for a favorite theory can be circumvented."  Science advances every time a reasonable hypothesis is put forth, even if we aren't advancing on knocking one down or supporting another. 

And plodding through takes time.  It's great that they propose the Big Bounce, but that doesn't mean there's not something to be found between the previous hypotheses.


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Offline r9etb

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2017, 02:05:32 pm »
The Guth/Linde/Steinhardt idea of multiple working hypotheses not being science is ridiculous.

I think their point is that the hypotheses can't be disproved -- and thus in some sense are not testable.  Fitting data to a hypothesis isn't the same as testing it.

Offline Sanguine

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2017, 03:44:52 pm »
For later.

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2017, 04:40:46 am »
I think their point is that the hypotheses can't be disproved -- and thus in some sense are not testable.  Fitting data to a hypothesis isn't the same as testing it.

But that doesn't mean it isn't science.  They have an overly restrictive view.

And we have often had untestable hypotheses that later become testable.
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Offline r9etb

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2017, 02:26:10 pm »
But that doesn't mean it isn't science.  They have an overly restrictive view.

And we have often had untestable hypotheses that later become testable.

They address such questions here: http://physics.princeton.edu/~cosmo/sciam/.

The statement of note: " It all concerns the question of whether the inflationary theory makes any predictions or not, and, hence, satisfies the essential criterion of what makes a theory scientific."

The basis of "testable" depends on prediction: "if the theory is right, then we ought to be able to observe X.  We would conduct certain defined experiments to test the prediction."  The question of whether something is "currently testable," usually boils down to whether we have the techniques/technology to perform the measurements required to verify or rule out the prediction.

Their underlying complaint seems to be that the scientific method gets turned on its head in this argument -- researchers fit the data to their particular hypotheses, rather than coming up with hypotheses to explain the data, and the open-ended nature of current thinking about the inflationary theory is that they can always find some hypotheses that will fit the data.

They raise an interesting question that applies in more than just debates about cosmology.  How much of what is put forth as "science" is actually this sort of applied confirmation bias?

Offline LetsTalk

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2017, 03:07:09 pm »
I don't believe the demarcation between science and non-science will ever be solved; it's just too tricky of a problem. Even now, there's no definition of science that doesn't immediately wipe out half of what's currently viewed as credible science.

For me, it comes down to a single question: Is there sufficient evidence it's true?
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
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to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly."

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2017, 03:09:25 pm »
These days science means whatever the grant money says it means.
The Republic is lost.

Offline Sanguine

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2017, 03:21:59 pm »
These days science means whatever the grant money says it means.

No, it really doesn't.  There are a number of unscrupulous "scientists" out there who do perform badly, and then there's the anti-science fields of social science and the religion of global warming, but for the most part, scientists/researchers are ethical, hard working types who understand science and practice it.

I will agree that grant money warps discoveries in that it encourages research into certain areas and discourages/makes it impossible to study other areas of science. 

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2017, 03:32:17 pm »
No, it really doesn't.  There are a number of unscrupulous "scientists" out there who do perform badly, and then there's the anti-science fields of social science and the religion of global warming, but for the most part, scientists/researchers are ethical, hard working types who understand science and practice it.

I will agree that grant money warps discoveries in that it encourages research into certain areas and discourages/makes it impossible to study other areas of science.

Sadly, those honest scientists in the honest scientific field also don't get alot of the sea of grant money that is dumped out there. The science we should be investigating is too often ignored, like energy development.
The Republic is lost.

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2017, 03:39:05 pm »
Sadly, those honest scientists in the honest scientific field also don't get alot of the sea of grant money that is dumped out there. The science we should be investigating is too often ignored, like energy development.

I agree with that.

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Re: Physicists Can’t Agree on What Science Even Means Anymore
« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2017, 10:27:10 pm »
I don't believe the demarcation between science and non-science will ever be solved; it's just too tricky of a problem. Even now, there's no definition of science that doesn't immediately wipe out half of what's currently viewed as credible science.

For me, it comes down to a single question: Is there sufficient evidence it's true?

Of course that can be walked back even further, as in: what counts as "evidence" of something?