# Is measuring and mixing “science”? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 16, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932 "2025-07-16T19:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TheBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@TheBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBryan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/41 "2025-07-19T03:08:05Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > > [@dolphinboy](#): > > > > The fact that the earth is round(ish) is an observation, explaining why it is round(ish) is science. > > So when Eratosthenes demonstrated that the earth was round, by careful measurements, he wasn’t doing science? I wonder why he did those measurements. My best guess is that he hypothesized that Earth was round and then went about trying to disprove it. Or maybe he was trying to prove it. That’s why peer review is important! Did they have peer review back then? Seriously, though, I think that any people who spend a lot of time outside and are aware of their surroundings would come to the conclusion that the earth was round just based on simple observation, so the hypothesis was readily available. I’ve encountered dozens of situations in my life where the curvature of the earth was observable. Why can’t we see Humphreys Peak from the top of the Moki Dugway? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/42 "2025-07-19T03:15:20Z")
Huh. I do not see the asking “why” as a _necessary_ component of science. The ability through hypothesis testing and revision to predict as accurately as possible is more the key. “Why” is a level to help develop models that further the ability to make predictions, but testing which temperature water helps produce the best bread is science even with no model of “why.” ---
**Author:** ![TheBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@TheBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBryan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/43 "2025-07-19T03:23:32Z")
It seems to me that “how” is more a part of science than “why”. I think “why” is more of a philosophical question. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/44 "2025-07-19T03:44:38Z")
I disagree. For example, if I drop a rock off the top of a building I will observe that it falls to the ground. I can time it and see how quickly it falls. Or I can measure how hard it hits the ground. If I do it multiple times, I will establish that the falling rock consistently takes the same amount of time to fall and strikes with the same strength. As an engineer, I might use this knowledge to develop a catapult, for example. I’m applying my knowledge of how objects fall to the ground to build something. But I haven’t taken any steps towards explaining why the rock falls toward the ground, rather than hovering in place or rising up away from the ground. Or maybe sometimes going up and sometimes going down. Figuring out that a force called gravity exists which causes the rock to move in a certain way is science. It’s explaining _why_ the rock falls rather than _how_ the rock falls. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/45 "2025-07-19T14:00:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I might use this knowledge to develop a catapult, for example Only if you are able to generalize some principles about how things fall, and slow down when going up, so you can make predictions. The desire for “why” does not discriminate between faith. It does this because the spirit god of the earth calls objects to it with its love. And this is how that love manifests. Science? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/46 "2025-07-19T15:29:22Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The desire for “why” does not discriminate between faith. It does this because the spirit god of the earth calls objects to it with its love. And this is how that love manifests. Science? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Science asks why this process produces these results and attempts to find the answers _via testable experimentation._ I agree that if you invent an explanation about the spirit god calling objects to the ground and then make no attempt to determine if this is true or not, you’re engaged in philosophy. Science is when you invent an explanation for why something happens and then test whether or not this explanation is true. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/47 "2025-07-19T19:35:59Z")
The earth spirit god’s love attracts its children at 9.8m per s squared. Other spirits, bigger ones, have greater love. Smaller less Of course. I can test that. Measure how much that love pulls. Describing the relationship of acceleration to mass, calling it a so-called “force” rather than love … is just a description: more attraction force correlates with more mass according to some mathematical relationship of some number and the masses. How is that more a why than positing love? Seriously much of science is describing what the relationships are more than knowing why they are. Why is the speed of light what it is? Why does it not change? Why not a different number? Why not different here than there or then and now? ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/48 "2025-07-19T20:28:11Z")
Cooking is an art, that may turn out well or be awful. You can just throw something together. Learn as you go what you did wrong, what to do next time. Baking is a science that must be measured, that is the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/49 "2025-07-19T23:59:05Z")
I will continue to claim that the essence of science is making a hypothesis _and_ testing it. That is why falsafiability is considered the hallmark of science. If no conceivable observation or experiment can prove you wrong, it is not science. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/50 "2025-07-20T02:32:38Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The earth spirit god’s love attracts its children at 9.8m per s squared. > > Other spirits, bigger ones, have greater love. Smaller less Of course. I can test that. Measure how much that love pulls. Once again, there is a critical difference between measuring something that happens and providing an explanation for why it happens. There is also a critical difference between just coming up with an explanation and coming up with an explanation and then testing to see whether that explanation is true. Saying a rock falls at 9.8 meters per second squared is a measurement not an explanation. Saying earth spirits cause this to happen is an untested explanation. So this is not science. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/51 "2025-07-20T03:18:07Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I will continue to claim that the essence of science is making a hypothesis _and_ testing it. That is why falsafiability is considered the hallmark of science. If no conceivable observation or experiment can prove you wrong, it is not science. I agree. This is the correct answer to the thread. Why are you measuring and mixing? If it’s to make a nice cake and nothing more, it’s not science. If it’s to try to figure out why your bread isn’t rising properly, that is a minor sort of culinary science. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/52 "2025-07-20T16:07:29Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > If no conceivable observation or experiment can prove you wrong How do we know what experiments might be conceived of in the future? Seriously. Not having a test available now doesn’t mean that one cannot be cleverly conceived of in the future. But more so, to a thinker in that earlier era, how is postulating that gets called gravity that mass _somehow_ results in, just because it does, any less magical than postulating the gods’ love increases with mass? Both fit with observations and predict future observations. And both are incorrect as it turns out! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/53 "2025-07-20T16:09:11Z")
Still, specify your definition and then answer when you think human societies first developed “science” … not until the scientific revolution? When? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/54 "2025-07-21T13:19:04Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is having learned to avoid a certain berry because last you ate it you got the runs, science? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I feel what you’re describing is a form of engineering not science. Engineering is when you learn that if you follow this process you will get these results. **[Wikipedia’s opening sentence in the science article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science)** covers science pretty nicely: > **Science** is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable [hypotheses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotheses) and [predictions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction) about the universe. Hypothesizing _from a single instance of post-berry sickness_ that a particular berry makes you sick, and then not experimenting to verify/falsify that hypothesis, is weak science - but it’s still science. You have built some knowledge of the universe, and have formed a testable hypothesis. Strictly speaking though, a person who opts to not eat those berries again (and observes that he gets sick much less often) is in fact testing the hypothesis by experimenting (“what happens if i _don’t_ eat those berries?”), though not as rigorously as could be done. Testing may not have been his intent, but if someone asks him a few months later, he might think about it and say “I stopped eating those berries months ago and haven’t gotten sick once since then, so I’m pretty sure it was the berries.” That’s him reviewing the data and drawing a conclusion, building knowledge. More rigorous science would test the hypothesis on large groups of berry-eaters and berry-abstainers, look for alternative causes of sickness that might explain why only some folks in the experiment group get sick (maybe some folks are allergic, maybe certain batches of berries are tainted with salmonella), and would document the investigation methods//data/results so they could be shared with others who might either reproduce the results (affirming them), or fail to reproduce the results (resulting in investigation of why the original results could not be reproduced). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/55 "2025-07-21T13:45:05Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Hypothesizing _from a single instance of post-berry sickness_ that a particular berry makes you sick, and then not experimenting to verify/falsify that hypothesis, is weak science - but it’s still science. You have built some knowledge of the universe, and have formed a testable hypothesis. Very weak science. Suppose instead of theorizing that eating berries was what made me sick, I observe that I had been wearing a green shirt on the day I got sick and theorized that was the cause. So I throw that shirt in the garbage and vow to never wear a green shirt again. A while later I say “I stopped green shirts months ago and haven’t gotten sick once since then, so I’m pretty sure it was the shirt.” Does that sound scientific? Because I haven’t tested my theory or attempted to discover why I got sick, what I did was establish a superstition not a scientific fact. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/56 "2025-07-21T13:54:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Still, specify your definition and then answer when you think human societies first developed “science” … not until the scientific revolution? When? That’s like asking when humans developed technology or capitalism. It was a drawn out process and it took a while before people recognized what they were doing. And after some people pointed out the process it took a while longer before society in general recognized the process was occurring. That said, science was a relatively recent development. It took root in the last five hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/57 "2025-07-21T14:08:54Z")
I would agree with this. The way I look at it: a scientist studies nature. An engineer is a practical problem solver; the engineer uses the output of scientists to create and build things to improve our lives. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/58 "2025-07-21T14:12:20Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Hypothesizing _from a single instance of post-berry sickness_ that a particular berry makes you sick, and then not experimenting to verify/falsify that hypothesis, is weak science - but it’s still science. You have built some knowledge of the universe, and have formed a testable hypothesis. I’m not a scientist, but I believe the modern approach to research uses the idea of the [null hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis). ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/59 "2025-07-21T15:16:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Because I haven’t tested my theory or attempted to discover why I got sick, what I did was establish a superstition not a scientific fact. But you _did_ test your hypothesis: you stopped wearing the green shirt, and observed that you hadn’t gotten sick since then. You just did a poor job of controlling for confounding factors (like the fact that sickberries coincidentally went out of season right around the time you stopped wearing your green shirt). ---
**Author:** ![TheBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@TheBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBryan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932/60 "2025-07-22T00:53:18Z")
I think in both cases, you’d have to revert back to the behavior you eliminated in order to test your hypothesis. By stopping those behaviors, you’re establishing a control. I’ve gone through some eating tests to see if I have food allergies in the past. The test always involves eliminating the food for a few weeks and then adding it back. I know several friends who have eliminated multiple foods from their diet without adding it back to test to see if they were right. I mean, if I had to go through life without ever eating another tomato, I’d make damn sure I was right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-measuring-and-mixing-science/1020932.md?page=4)