Real World Philospohy

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by spoon:
That's because science has a great track record at solving problems. You call it a "faith statement", I call it betting with the odds on favorite.

They have a great track record for stuff that can be locally checked, and repeatedly done (physics, electronics, chemestry, et cetera). On things that happened in the distant past, science has a track record of primarily agreeing with popular politics of the day and place.

Originally posted by spoon:
Of course, the statement should have a conditional in there, like, "...they will LIKELY answer all objections, or provide a new model that does."

Such an alteration fits under the heading of "something like...".

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack Simth:

2) An as-yet unrecognized force to overpower the super-gravity at such an event, such as "dark energy"
- "dark energy" is a cop-out; it's an unobserved something (reason for the "dark" in the name) thrown in as a correction factor to fix the problem; it's only thought to exist because the universe hasn't collapsed in on itself over the timeframe the universe is thought to have been around. This energy is unobserved; it is required to make certain models work, so it is assumed. Few suggest that there may be a more fundamental flaw in the model. Such a force is also an act of faith.

Isn't that the way physics works? The theoretician makes some theory which has some unobservable element. Then the applied physicists design experiments to attempt to observe those elements thus proving the theory.

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To an extent - but you can't properly experiment on the universe to test things.

Also (this is just nit-picking on language use, feel free to ignore): Technically, no theory is ever "proven by" observation or experimentation - only "supported by" or "contradicted by".

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

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Few suggest that there may be a more fundamental flaw in the model.

Thus implying there may be no better theory.

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Not when there is a loosly organized power structure which pretty much controls what gets funding/equipment access for research and publishing space in credited journals that has much work invested in specific theories. Anything too terribly contradictory to those theories gets quietly suppressed; papers/textbooks don't get published (they don't fit with what the review board "knows" is right, so they are deemed "wrong" and left unpublished), grants aren't granted (again, they don't fit with what the review board "knows" is right, so it is deemed a waste of money to research), with the net effect being that there are extreme difficulties involved in researching anything which might threaten the status quo, which in turn means it is neigh impossible to flesh out any potentially better theory to the point where they can be tested against each other (not that one can properly test anything about the distant past in any event).

Sure, that is the peer review system, and it does filter a fair amount of bull - but an amount of bull still makes it through, and it is functionally impossible to determine how much non-bull it also filters, and difficult to tell exactly how much bull successfully masquerades as non-bull.

Originally posted by DavidG:
if like religion a large majority had different theories then you would have to question it much more.

As compared to the current state of the larger scientific community where any creditable voice that dissents too much or too loudly on certain topics is discredited and left out of the conversation?
If you were in, say, one of the early North American puritan settlements, and those voicing different beliefs were exiled, you'd almost never hear an argument (much less a coherent, well-reasoned one) against that particular settlement's belief system, regardless of how reasonable or outlandish that particular belief system was. By your implied theory count method of the reasonableness of questioning something, it would not be reasonable to question that belief system under such circumstances, and hence unreasonable to construct an alternative.

[ November 10, 2003, 23:20: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Fyron]

Such an alteration fits under the heading of "something like...".

Not very well. Your statement had a totally different effect than what Spoon proposed...

[spoon]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
They have a great track record for stuff that can be locally checked, and repeatedly done (physics, electronics, chemestry, et cetera). On things that happened in the distant past, science has a track record of primarily agreeing with popular politics of the day and place.

That is simply untrue. Science has a track record of proposing theories that are uncheckable at the time, and then prove out to be true when the means to check them becomes available. And when those theories don't match the observed data, they are modified or replaced with better ones. Popular politics does not even figure into it, except to create a degree of inertia for new ideas to overcome before they are taken seriously.

Originally posted by spoon:
Of course, the statement should have a conditional in there, like, "...they will LIKELY answer all objections, or provide a new model that does."

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
Such an alteration fits under the heading of "something like...".

Just wanted to make sure your straw man was properly stuffed...

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by spoon:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack Simth:
They have a great track record for stuff that can be locally checked, and repeatedly done (physics, electronics, chemestry, et cetera). On things that happened in the distant past, science has a track record of primarily agreeing with popular politics of the day and place.

That is simply untrue. Science has a track record of proposing theories that are uncheckable at the time, and then prove out to be true when the means to check them becomes available. And when those theories don't match the observed data, they are modified or replaced with better ones. Popular politics does not even figure into it, except to create a degree of inertia for new ideas to overcome before they are taken seriously.

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On repeatable, locally checkable stuff (a few decades of tech lag doesn't preclude the currently unspecified definition of local I'm using), they do have a good track record. I'm not contradicting orbital mechanics, relativity, or quantum theory here; I'm referring to extrapolations into the distant past. For those, the ones considered credible do pretty much correspond to the politicical winds; one example:

From http://www.evolution-facts.org/3evlch29b.htm
LYSENKO—Trofim D. Lysenko (1893-1976) rose to power in the 1930s in the U.S.S.R. by convincing the government he could create a State Science that combined Darwinian evolutionary theory with Marxist theory. With *Stalin's hearty backing, Lysenko became responsible for the death of thousands. Many of the best Russian scientists were put to death.

Long after Lamarckian inheritance had been abandoned elsewhere, Russia retained this belief. Refusing to accept that each generation must be educated anew, Marxism felt that Marxist revolution principles would enter the genes and transform society into thorough-going Communism! Under Lysenko's dominance of Soviet science, "Mendelist" genetics was a forbidden doctrine, a bourgeois heresy. Lysenko was finally ousted in 1965 when his theories produced agricultural disaster for the nation. (He claimed to be able to change winter wheat into spring wheat through temperature change, and wheat into rye in one generation.)

The russian regeme needed a quick change theory, and so accepted the guy on the spot - it wasn't until he caused a famine with his experimentation, and hence his theories became politically untenable, that he was finally thrown out.

Originally posted by spoon:

quote:

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Originally posted by spoon:
Of course, the statement should have a conditional in there, like, "...they will LIKELY answer all objections, or provide a new model that does."

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
Such an alteration fits under the heading of "something like...".

Just wanted to make sure your straw man was properly stuffed...

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Not exactly a straw man, as the clauses I didn't include weren't in the post I had been half-refering to when I listed the faith statement earlier:

Originally Posted by Imperator Fyron (Member # 1794) on March 17, 2003 08:15 in a long-dead thread

[...]
Once all of the evidence can be taken into account, the theory will be adjusted to fit.
[...]

There were no clauses in there about "likely", nor replacement, as your Version would have it include.

[deccan]

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
Possibly, but this is also the fellow who said "If there is a God, how could I bear not to be one?" Also, his whole argument was similar to what is seen here - religion was a human construct which allowed the 'slave' caste to gain the upper hand over the 'masters'. Even the very existence of God would undermine his whole project.

Few people would probably try to argue that Nietzsche doesn't contradict himself on various points at different times in his life. Nietzsche even kept diaries of private writings that differ markedly from his published writings and have academics scratching their heads ever since over which Version represented the true Nietzsche, if there ever was one.

I would also agree that anybody who reads Nietzsche for the purpose of formulating a rational argument against organized religion is looking in the wrong place. In fact, much of Nietzsche's work appears to disparage the rational, or Apollonian, approach to life in favor of the emotional, or Dionysian approach, though I would say that after his relationship with Wagner soured, Nietzsche started to shift in the opposite direction.

Nietzsche's strength was never in appealing to the intellect but in appealing to intuitions and emotions. This is emphasized by his approach in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" which imitated the style and lyrical prose of the Bible for Nietzsche's anti-Christian agenda. Of course, the fact is that for many people, Christian parables and lessons appeal to the emotions and the intuitions as well, and being very aware of that, Nietzsche probably did it consciously.

So to sum up, I agree that Nietzsche would be an atrocious example of a detached starting point, but only the unintiated would even expect Nietzsche to be one.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
I'm referring to extrapolations into the distant past. For those, the ones considered credible do pretty much correspond to the politicical winds

So what are the political winds behind evolution and the big bang? The example you cited seemed more anecdotal than anything else. The fact that a dictator was pushing a doctrine doesn't discredit science, it discredits the dictator.

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
Not exactly a straw man, as the clauses I didn't include weren't in the post I had been half-refering to when I listed the faith statement earlier:
...

Oh, you were just taking a jab at Fyron, refering to some long dead post that nobody remembered. Gotcha. Keep up the good work.

But with the qualifiaction in there, you agree with the statement, or no?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by spoon:
So what are the political winds behind evolution and the big bang? The example you cited seemed more anecdotal than anything else. The fact that a dictator was pushing a doctrine doesn't discredit science, it discredits the dictator.

That particular one is a relatively recent, specific case where actual documents fairly clearly lay out what happened. For other such cases, it isn't usually laid out in documents from the time, but it is possible to make reasonable inferences based on things they were immediately used to justify, that had been happening beforehand anyway. Whether or not those inferences are accurate is a different matter, but a correlation is there.

For example, racism was happening before evolution became popularized; once evolution became popularized, the racists then had a fairly straightforward justification: they aren't evolved as much as we are; they are naturally stupid. As such, they could be considered less than human; animals for test subjects:

copied from A web page (Am I legally allowed to do this? There doesn't appear to be any note on the site about it one way or the other....)
Tragically, there is evidence that Australian Aborigines may have been killed for use as specimens. Consider these notes:

"A death bed memoir from Korah Wills, who became mayor of Bowen, Queensland, in 1866, graphically describes how he killed and dismembered a local tribesman in 1865 to provide a scientific specimen".

Edward Ramsey, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney (1874-1894) published a museum booklet that appeared to describe Aborigines as "Australian animals". It also gave instructions on how to rob graves and plug bullet wounds in freshly killed "specimens". He complained in the 1880s that a Queensland law to stop slaughtering Aborigines was affecting his supply.

Amalie Dietrich, a German evolutionist (nicknamed the 'Angel of Black Death') came to Australia and asked that Aborigines be shot for specimens, so their skin could be stuffed and mounted. "Although evicted from at least one property, she shortly returned home with her specimens."

"A new South Wales missionary was a horrified witness to the slaughter by mounted police of a group of Aboriginal men, women and children. Forty-five heads were then boiled down and the best 10 skulls were packed off for overseas."

For more modern political reasons, consider what a lack of a Creator would mean:
Without God, you can't really have a universal standard of behavior resting on any foundation beyond temporal power.
No divine authority to make rules for you to follow pretty strongly implies you can do anything you can get away with, as there won't ultimately be consequences for it (GW mentioned something about that as well, as I recall). This leaves you free to lie, cheat on your spouse, steal, murder, rape, or what have you, as long as you don't get caught (and the sad fact is, most don't unless they make a career out of it, and even then, it may well take thirty or forty years to catch up with them). Those running sleazy megacorps are free to make sleazy practices, as they won't really suffer for it any time soon and it helps them personally in the short run. Those in office can do the same. There's no real accountability. Strong incentive for anyone thirsting for power, and most of those in power anymore thirst for it to some degree.

The Big Bang is possibly a consequence of those in power needing lots of time for evolution, combined with the observation of a near universal redshift of distant stellar objects and Einstien's theory of relativity, which predicted that objects moving away from each other would cause a redshift. Putting those together, it becomes reasonably clear that the universe is expanding (unless another reason for the redshift is postulated, as some do). Well, if it is expanding, and it has been around long enough, then unless the expansion is a recent phenomina things must have come from a point. Getting out of that point required some driving force, and hence the Big Bang theory was born.

There's lots of problems with BB theory and evolutionary theory as a method of describing how we got where we are today, but those are usually either not brought up, quietly kept out of journals usually considered credible, dismissed as minor, or brushed off with "the re-evaluation of the theory is still on-going" with the implication being that all will be answered if it is just given enough time.

Originally posted by spoon:

But with the qualifiaction in there, you agree with the statement, or no?

For the stuff that can be tested locally (chemistry, physics, electronics, et cetera), sure they do, as I've mentioned a number of times.

For stuff about the distant past, which by definition usually involves unrepeatable, happened once phenomina, they tend to argue details, mechanisms, order, specific path, and the like, but they don't dispute the basic thesises (that doesn't look right; what's the plural of thesis?); at least, not in the standard set of journals usually considered credible. Those that do don't usually get research grants or published in the journals usually considered credible.