What is science

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In article <1134247691.578503.301...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
lamoore0...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Not at all.  Scientists assume reality has an independent existence. The term "science" refers to our UNDERSTANDING of reality, based on the best available evidence.  Our understanding changes as new evidence is developed.  But the rules of science are that one must look at the evidence with a skeptical eye, always considering alternative explanations, and one must seek independent, EXPERIMENTAL CONFIRMATION of all claims.  You can't just sit back and "figure things out in your head", or wait for "God's revealed wisdom" to pop into it.

Sometimes, for brief periods, scientists disagree about the evidence, e.g.,, people get different results in different labs, and each group thinks the other one is doing the experiment wrong.  But with time, and further work, they eventually figure things out.  I have personally witnessed this in my work on rat brains.

Religion, in the modern world, has become limited to claims about things that CANNOT be investigated experimentally.

That is exactly right.  People can blather all they want about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and science has nothing to say about it — unless they make claims about being able observe some physical result of all this dancing.  Then some impertinent scientist will go off and actually do the experiment, which ruins everything.

First of all, nobody claims that people are robots whose behavior is fully predetermined by their genetic makeup.  But putting that aside, our understanding circa 2005 of the genetic components of personality might be proved wrong someday, but it would not be "bullshit", because the conclusions that are reached today are based on the best available evidence.  That doesn't mean they're right, it just means they're well-founded.  And the more evidence we accumulate, the less likely it is that our conclusions will be overturned by later experiments.

For a few hundred years people be recognized today as eminent scientists believed that space was flat.  Einstein said that space was curved, and made TESTABLE PREDICTIONS.  People went off and did the experiments, one of which involved observing starlight being bent during an eclipse, and they found that Einstein's predictions were correct, and his theory was the best explanation for the data.  That is how science progresses.  If you come up with some radical new theory, you have to show how it can be tested by people who think you're wrong, and the tests have to come out in your favor.  Then people will start to believe you.

That's sort of right.  If your theory doesn't make any testable predictions at all, then it's not false, it's just religious twaddle. If it does make predictions, e.g., "holy water cures epilepsy", then it can be tested, and if it repeatedly fails the test, and you still believe it, then your beliefs are bullshit.As I said before, reality has an independent existence.  Science offers us a path toward understanding the nature of reality.  As evidence accumulates, our best guess can change, but it should always be based on the best available evidence, not on persuasive bullshit, revealed wisdom, or wishful thinking.A flat earth was the best theory until the Greek's figured out that the earth was round.  The Christian church ignored the evidence because it conflicted with their theology.  Their belief was bullshit because it was based on a literal interpretation of the bible, ignoring the contradictions revealed by observation and reasoning.At all times, we live with our best guess as to the nature of reality. We should always be willing to entertain new hypotheses, but as James Randi likes to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.I disagree.  As our understanding advances, a lot of stuff attributed to "God" (or "gods", demons, ghosts, the cosmic ether, phlogiston, etc.)  has been explained away by natural mechanisms that are reliably, experimentally testable.  There's little room left for God in the natural world.  Religion has been left talking about pure intangibles like "grace" which by their very definition have no practical meaning and cannot be measured or tested.Nope.  Reality just is.  Science is our best method for trying to know reality.  It is very effective.  As it advances, religion retreats.Most people who talk about "quantum mechanics" have no understanding of the subject.  They just use it as a metaphor for "spooky stuff".  I am endeavoring to learn a bit of quantum mechanics in my spare time.  I don't claim to understand the equations yet, but I can say that I find studying the subject far more rewarding than listening to bullshit about it spouted by people who haven't mastered basic algebra and lack even the faintest idea of how to run a properly controlled experiment.

This is not a dig at you personally; I have no idea who you are or what you're like.  But I'm not done making fun of JP yet.

-- Dave