A problem that I have with the scientific method

[OphidiaPhile]

I believe in fact, that it is more or less hidden. The public is commonly not informed about the controversies behind certain findings. Scientific findings get presented with a somewhat authoritarian attitude - scientists "show", "proof" or whatever. In general the public representation of scientific findings is much stronger - due to scientific journalism - than the results mostly are.

Btw. science does not only not communicate this uncertain nature of its own findings towards the layperson, but also not towards its own students. The Philosopher of Science and medial scientist Ludwik Fleck called this the difference between "exoteric" and "esoteric" science. Esoteric science is controversial, but it remains rather unaccessable from the outside and is practised by a small group of experts - which Fleck called the "thought-collective". Exoteric science on the other hand is broadly accessible but presents it self as a coherent, unified bodý of knowledge. You just have to look at a standard textbook to get exactly this impression. Textbooks normally do not present the controversial nature of their own statements but instead present their statements a more or less certain body of facts.

Therefore I think his critcism is more or less correct. But his example is misleading. It is not about the sameness of conditions in the repetition of experiments. It is the inner drive of scientific theories to form collective social instituions that present and defend certain findings as fact towards outsider which in their nature are controversial. The problematic thing about this tendency is that relvant alternatives remain unseen or surpressed.

I think one has to see the two sides of science. Its ideal-type of rational inquiriy which only limits itself through experiment and its social reality with its rational-conservatism that is utterly hostile twoards innovation insofar as innovation is not absolutly necessary.

You obviously do not understand anything at all about scientists. When a hypothesis is tested and proven it is then turned over to peer review at which point other scientists are going to do everything they can to disprove the hypothesis so that they ultimately get the recognition. If the hypothesis is repeatable time and again the evidence is published in peer reviewed journals to allow for dissenting opinion, but the dissenting opinion must be backed up with empirical evidence. If is not or cannot that just goes to further prove the original hypothesis. Once it gets to the point of being accepted without evidence to the contrary it is elevated to the status of theory.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

Almost every reply in this thread seems to confirm what I said in the first place: an experiment is never really repeated.

Scientists--both in the hard sciences and the social sciences--should just say so.

You are concerning yourself with things that do not count as variables since a vacuum is a vacuum regardless of time of day, temperature or what color socks you are wearing.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

Well, that is not my fault.

I just go by what scientists tell me in academic settings and through the media.

If science and its aims are distorted in the way that they are presented to the general public then the scientific community needs to speak up and set the record straight.

But I do not really think that anything is being distorted. I think that scientists either do not care what the general public thinks (and judging from the tone of many of the responses in this thread, that is apparently the case) or they communicate poorly with the general public.

It is not my responsibility to know what scientists really mean when they say that an experiment has been "repeated". It is their responsibility to communicate to me what they really mean.

This is a philosophy forum. Therefore, I brought up a philosophical problem that I have with science as it is presented to me.

The burden of proof is on the people who are making a claim, not on the people who are being presented a claim.

If experiments are never really "repeated" in the conventional sense of the word then scientists should simply say so.

If I am repeating an experiment my goal is to disprove the originator of said hypothesis and if I do so then he/she goes back to the drawing board and creates a hypothesis using the new model or disproves it through testing.


And as a scientist I do not care if the public understands it or not. I am not good at putting things into speak that is understandable to the layperson just as I do not remotely understand most sports but I do not care to either.

The "claim" as you put it does not have to be proven to your understanding but only to those that understand the field of science in question.

 

[Jackinbox78]

The issue raised by the OP is only a sementic one. What's the meaning of "same" in "same experiment". Words meaning is contextual. Words have many definitions but we don't feel the need to define each of the words we use before saying a sentence. If I say "I ate the same thing every morning" people will understand that I mean that I ate the same kind of food every morning. Should I be more precise because some people might think I regurgitate my food to eat it the following morning? I doubt it. Should scientist use a more precise language because their method might be misunderstood as one that requires time-travel? I doubt it.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I think this thread is now dead.

Many people have now explained the same thing so carefully and conclusively so many times that if the OP person still doesn't get it then it is because of he wants not to get it, possibly for a religious reason.

The point has been adequately explained in this thread at least 11 times according to my count.

This isn't a genuine question because the OP LTI even fell into the trap he claims the scientists have fallen into by leaving out the irrelevancies in his own description:

POST 1

Imagine a simple experiment with a noise-making device in an enclosed space and the air being sucked out of that space. Gradually the sound from that noise-making device fades. Eventually the sound is gone.​

POST 26

That describes the experiment. Even in your own words you have left out the irrelevancies.

The best thing to do with a stupid thread like this is to stop replying to it.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

The issue raised by the OP is only a sementic one. What's the meaning of "same" in "same experiment". Words meaning is contextual. Words have many definitions but we don't feel the need to define each of the words we use before saying a sentence. If I say "I ate the same thing every morning" people will understand that I mean that I ate the same kind of food every morning. Should I be more precise because some people might think I regurgitate my food to eat it the following morning? I doubt it. Should scientist use a more precise language because their method might be misunderstood as one that requires time-travel? I doubt it.

Hogwash.

A typical 14 year old student in a secondary school physical science class does not know that when an instructor in a lecture, a narrator in a video, an author in a textbook, etc. says that sound cannot travel through a vacuum that it really means that that is the imperfect, tentative, best explanation that a social enterprise called science has come up with through its so-called scientific method.

For any scientist or any advocate of science to say that he/she does not have to be precise in his/her words is irresponsible.

Society gives scientists, the work of scientists, and non-scientists who teach/advocate science a great deal of authority. Consequently, much of what scientists say is taken as gospel.

The issue is not the precise meaning of words. The issue is what I perceive to be a lack of openness and honesty about the nature of scientific work and the nature of its findings.

To suggest that anybody who has a problem with science is lazy, stubborn, closed-minded, stupid, motivated by religion, or some combination of such characteristics is nothing short of arrogant.

Insulting a person's intelligence by taking his words out of context and distorting those words--such as turning one example of an experiment into a straw man and beating it up rather than addressing the larger issue of experiments in general (that includes the social sciences, not just the so-called hard sciences)--and then dismissing the person as being intellectually inferior and/or having less than honorable motives does nothing to advance science. It does display an arrogance and conceit that probably subconsciously inspires a lot of doubt about science. And it certainly does nothing to advance human knowledge and human thought.

Some people do not take everything that their preacher, science teacher, employer, government, etc. says as gospel. Some people are critical, independent thinkers.

I brought up a problem with science that I have had for a long time. Attacking me personally, insulting my intelligence by dismissing my criticism as merely "sementic" (it's "semantic", by the way), etc. is not going to resolve that problem.

Science is rationality, we are told. Well, the words and actions of many defenders of science suggest otherwise.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Experiments are less certain then that because we never know if we have account for all causally relevant factors...

That is what I have been saying.

And I continued by saying that it bothers me that scientists do not seem to acknowledge the fact that we do not know if they have accounted for all causally relevant factors.

Are humans even capable of accounting for every variable that is in play?

And surely it is possible that different variables that are not accounted for exist at different points in space and at different times. It does not matter if it is a physicist studying sound or a sociologist studying the family institution.

Therefore, when a speaker or a writer makes a sweeping generalization such as "sound cannot travel through a vacuum", yeah, I have a problem with it.

Context? Well, the context of statements made by scientists and read/heard by the general public is often that of a few authorities speaking to the non-authority masses.

It seems to me that if scientists were to be completely open and honest about the imperfect, tentative nature of their work and their findings that they would not have much authority. Maybe that is the point.

Scientists do not want that authority, you say? That authority is just something that is given to science in the political and economic interests of the powerful elite, you say? Well, I do not hear much objection from scientists.

Some people want to know truth and reality. Honest, pure truth and reality.

I have always believed that in spite of social influences on the enterprise of science that scientists aspire to advance honest, pure truth and reality.

Acting as if one could not care less if the layperson is getting clear, honest, intelligible information about science and its findings is at best selfish and arrogant and at worst a betrayal of the cause to advance honest, pure truth and reality.