My Integrity Challenge

[Astrophile]

Since one poster here likes to bring up integrity a lot, I thought I would issue a challenge based on it.

Here's my challenge:

If you were offered one million dollars to find evidence of Noah's flood, would you:

A) Take it and go look somewhere?

B) Decline it on the basis that you are convinced scientifically that Noah's flood didn't occur?

B)

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Technology can do that. But theories do not. You're confusing the two. Theory makes technology possible, but it doesn't kill.

Earlier:
So would the hundreds of millions of people whose lives were saved by their theory.

AV1611VET: For every life saved by science, how many have been taken?
BARBARIAN: I can't think of a scientific theory that killed anyone.
Very silly of you to delete "theory." Did you think no one noticed?
We saw that a mile away.

AV doesn't care. He'll swing back and forth on science either being a gift from God or a tool of the Devil, used to either save people or massacre innocents as long as he wants to. One of his unstated but self-evident prime directives: no matter how crass it looks, science must be made to be the villain.

 

[AV1611VET]

B)

Thank you for a nice straightforward answer.

 

[The Barbarian]

For example, kinetic theory is science. Phrenology was never science.

According to whom?

The rules. For an idea to become a scientific theory, its predictions must be repeatedly verified by evidence.
You don't have elections to decide what science is.

No, there aren't elections. But it's not as if Moses came down from the mountain with clearly spelled out boundaries of what is and isn't science.

It's not like that. The process evolved over a very long time, People like the Ionian philosophers, Arabic scientists, Europeans like Roger Bacon, and so on, discovered and perfected a methodology that works. It is a logical process of induction that formalized what many people had discovered over thousands of years.

There's nothing idealized in the notion that we can systematically learn about the world. It's just a method. The problem is that for many laymen, science is visualized as something like a religion. It's not like that at all.

That's an idealization of how science is supposed to work, but in fact there's a mix of philosophy and systematic research involved. And exactly where one crosses the line from "science" into "not science" is a major question of epistemology.

There is a philosophy of science, but it's merely the application of inductive reasoning. Nothing that depends on public opinion or faith.

That's an idealization of how science is supposed to work, but in fact there's a mix of philosophy and systematic research involved. And exactly where one crosses the line from "science" into "not science" is a major question of epistemology.

For example, "how many times must the predictions of a hypothesis be verified in order for it to be a theory?"

I don't think we can neatly separate out science and technology, especially with the role of scientific research in the development of new technologies.

Discovering a way to make logic circuits fit in a smaller space is science. Building 4TB drives is technology. Technology is application of science. And this is a sore point with some engineers. They aren't junior scientists; they have their own discipline, no less demanding than that of science, and it is their work that makes science save lives.

 

[Fervent]

For example, kinetic theory is science. Phrenology was never science.


The rules. For an idea to become a scientific theory, its predictions must be repeatedly verified by evidence.
You don't have elections to decide what science is.

Who makes these rules?

It's not like that. The process evolved over a very long time, People like the Ionian philosophers, Arabic scientists, Europeans like Roger Bacon, and so on, discovered and perfected a methodology that works. It is a logical process of induction that formalized what many people had discovered over thousands of years.

Induction is only one part of science, in fact the larger part of science is critical redaction. There are numerous epistemic issues that are often less clear than people believe as to what makes a science and what doesn't.

There's nothing idealized in the notion that we can systematically learn about the world. It's just a method. The problem is that for many laymen, science is visualized as something like a religion. It's not like that at all.

It's not just a method, it's a model.

There is a philosophy of science, but it's merely the application of inductive reasoning. Nothing that depends on public opinion or faith.

There's more than just inductive reasoning involved, in fact one of the biggest epistemic problems for philosophy of science is the induction problem since there is no non-circular way to justify the inductive method itself. Though that's a bit outside of our current discussion, which is the demarcation problem. While some things easily fit under the purview of science, what makes something a science and what doesn't qualify is a matter of debate. So to unilaterally say "that's not a science" requires some sort of non-question begging definition of science, and while our understanding of what is and isn't a science may change over time the question we're currently discussing rather falls more into the issue of the entire naturalist program since we can functionally treat them as identical for the purposes of our discussion.

For example, "how many times must the predictions of a hypothesis be verified in order for it to be a theory?"

Discovering a way to make logic circuits fit in a smaller space is science. Building 4TB drives is technology. Technology is application of science. And this is a sore point with some engineers. They aren't junior scientists; they have their own discipline, no less demanding than that of science, and it is their work that makes science save lives.

Applied science is still science.