Because I’d like to see how this turns out, I’ll start a new thread based on this post:
I’m not quite ready to jump into this poorly argued quagmire, but I’d love to see the bloodbath…er debate on this one.
go ahead and prove me wrong then. All I hear about from you “science lovers” are “you’re stupid” or “bad logic.” But yet I have yet seen one to attack my theories.
Is it that hard for you or is science one of those, “we’re right you’re wrong” kind of deal?
What about it? It may be poorly argued, but he has a point, and those disciplines are not really science per se. They are attempts to figure out cause and effect, but in an environemnt which can never prove anything. I don’t necessarily agree with the poster, but he isn’t exactly wrong, either.
Could you please restate those here?
A link to the original thread would help. That post, without context, doesn’t mean much to me.
How about
This isn’t a “theory” in any sense of the word-this is a hint that somebody needed to receive a dictionary for Christmas.
There are ‘soft’ sciences and ‘hard’ sciences. The soft sciences regularly ignore scientific methodology because they delve into areas where the underlying mechanisms cannot be observed. So they base conclusions based on correlations of subjectively interpreted data. This doesn’t make science as whole fallible, just those particular fields. In those fields, and often in academia, there is little criticism of the faulty techniques. But I know plenty of ‘hard’ scientists who scoff at the nonsense in these fields.
here’s my take on this issue,
I keep hearing this common argument
- poster#1 will argue that god exists
- poster#2 will argue that god does not exist because science cannot prove it
- Poster #1: why? But you hear stories all the time…
- poster#2: Stories are not science. They’re stories.
thus the common argument i see is, “if it cannot be proven by science, it does not exist.” accordingly, “stories are not science.”
My argument is that certain things in life cannot be proven by science. For example, why one person commits crime while another does not.
it has been written by many criminologists that criminals exposed to crime at an early age, who lives in poorer neighborhood, who do not have parental support, etc all contributes to crime.
However, these came from “stories” and interview. According to the posters above, this is not “science.” But it would be illogical to argue that poorer people, who without parental supervison do not commit more crime than those from richer and more socially structured life.
Thus can science prove why one would commit crime and one would not? Or is criminology “junk science”?
commoncents - are you arguing that without the ability to test in the lab, it is not science?
Criminology researchers develop a hypothesis, and then test it against data. It is true that you can not do a full, environmentally controlled experiment - but there are ways to control for a variety of factors (e.g. access to education, dual-parent household, socio-economic status) to see what does and does not appear to correlate with level of crime. Sometimes we find amazing things.
A favorite example of mine is the researcher at USC who found a higher level of poor eyesight among gangs in South Central Los Angeles. He then worked on further refining his analysis to go down this path:
Young male, poor eyesight.
No access to health care, esp. glasses (or won’t wear them)
Sits in the back of the classroom due to societal pressure
Can not read the board, and possibly not the book.
Fails classes
Drops out
No job prospects
Gang life
Now, each one of these can be measured and tested for, and then analyzed. That is science. While there is the risk of allowing your personal bias to impact the coding of the data sets, there is still the scientific method being applied.
Nor can we pick 500 stars, tweak the composition of half of them and see how their properties change. Does that mean the scientific method cannot be applied to astronomy?
I would add the word “yet” to the end of that sentence. “Science hasn’t done it yet” is 'not the same thing as “science can’t do it ever.”
Stories?
- Exposure to crime at an early age is quantifiable data
- Home address and the level of income is quantifiable data
- Lack of parents or parental support is quantifiable data, though it requires some subjective initial coding when setting up the measure
- Whether or not the child is a criminal or not (and what level) is quantifiable data
From those data points we could find some predictive variables that would indicate a higher propensity to engage in various levels of crime. Criminologists will not come out and say that every child who fits certain criteria will become criminals - but they will say that certain factors have a higher correlation with crime. By the time that research hits the mainstream media, it can be a bit distorted.
Well, the original argument was that the scientific method could not be applied to any of these. That’s ridiculous on the face of it.
How about one example:
This actually is wrong. We could use scientific methods in this context. But political, ethical, and practical considerations make it unlikely. And there’ve been plenty of ethically questionable sociological and physiological studies performed on people that, while not as bad as this particular proposed experiment, were plenty bad themselves (Tuskegee, Stanford Prison, Third Wave, Nazi experiments, eugenics, etc).
As such, it’s not actually an argument that the scientific method can’t apply but that there are external factors which make the ideal scientific experiment impractical.
Basically, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of actual science here.
Sorry about that. Here’s the link to the other thread (starting on page 2, as that’s where this particular digression came from).
Thanks.
BFD. Science cannot answer all the question we have*, but it is the best tool we have to deal with the real world. Religion can produce some great literature, but it’s not a useful tool to understand the workings of the world.
*anyone who claims it can does not understand science.
Actually, it is a BFD.
Without explicitly saying so (though coming very close very often), commoncents denigrates a scientific ability to answer any question because:
- It can’t answer every question.
- It is is comprised mainly of “random guessing” - even going so far as to claim this is how Einstein, Bohr, and others developed their theories.
- Because of (1) and (2), this makes science equivalent to a religion, with its adherents.
There’s just so much wrong with each of those points it astounds.
Fighting ignorance, and all that.
but wouldn’t that be junk science? It seems to me that posters all argue that science occurs in one way and one way only. That there are no alternatives. But yet science has yet to determine why rich people who are socially and financially sound commit crime. Furthermore, science has yet to determine why one person commits crime and another don’t.
Also you can quantify all you way but science is about causation, not correlation.
how dare you argue that science cannot answer all our questions. You should be stoned to death
and that’s why you’re any idiot. I said that science can’t answer “EVERY” questions. I never said that it can’t answer “ANY” questions. You seriously need to go back to school.
I’m just saying that we should keep an open mind. It seems like everytime someone mention ghosts, god, or w/e, posters flock to the thread and argue “god is not real because science can’t prove it.”
Look I’m sorry that you have a reading impairment, not my fault
Is that strawman heavy?
Nobody who understands the scientific method would claim it can answer all questions. Attributing that attitude to proponents of science is strawcrafting of the highest order.