okay Even Sven…How come the initial studies of Prozac’s efficacy is a case of science gone awry, while the study you quote is, as you imply, believable? I am assuming that they both follow the same methodologies and approach (aka ‘the scentific method’) and were written up in peer-reviewed journal articles. You’re trying to have your cake and eat it too…
bizz: I’ve heard the same fallacy from people who believe the moon landings were a hoax. They try to present scientific evidence that the mission was impossible, showing they trust some scientists but not others. If one scientist says the Van Allen radiation belts are highly toxic and another says they aren’t, why do they trust the first and not the second?
Using science to debunk science is proof of hooey-ness.
The strange thing is science, has in most people’s minds become Science
Somehow science has also been given this monolithic structure as if it was a business or government organization.
science is a way of observing and attempting to explain the world and universe. Occasionally a theory comes up that seems to explain it until something comes around that doesn’t fit. The theory is re examined and either modified or dismissed to factor in the anomally.
It is not dogmatic nor is it a structured organization. Scientist may join groups or have organizations in which to exchange data or theories or better yet gain funding for more studies but in the end science itself is a method.
kingpengvin beat me to it.
Science is not a body of knowledge.
Science is a method.
I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from a highly-respected arts college. I understand simultaneously the strength of the scientific method as a rational tool for evaluating the functioning of the material world, and the value of the nonlinear creative impulse for capturing and expressing the nonquantifiable ephemera of human emotion. Pray do not confuse the two.
Hey, if an astronomer spotted a large asteroid on a collision course with Earth, what would YOU suggest throwing at it? 
Ranchoth
Bruce Willis?
Oh, and one more thing:
Actually, I’d say there are some things that, for a given set of moral/political/cultural values, “they-who-hold-those-values” shouldn’t DO with knowledge, or for the sake of knowledge. This is different from “things we just should not know”.
That is, knowing something (how long it takes for a man to die in cold water; the critical mass of plutonium; how stem cells grow into organs) is neutral to politics or morals and may be an interesting datum to have. It’s how you acquire and use that knowledge (freeze camp immates to death; vaporize a city; harvest cloned embryos), that is subject to political, cultural, moral judgement.
Actually, many science critics would say that scientists who do dream up these wacky things have a responsibility to ensure that their creations don’t fall in the wrong hands. In other words, the onus is on them to stop pretending they’re “just doing science” and to be activitists. Sorta like incorporating values to fight/prevent bias and injustice.
Which is exactly the same thing, only restated: moral responsibility for the USE of knowledge and the means of acquiring it. But the knowledge itself is neutral.
Which is exactly the same thing, only restated: moral responsibility for what you DO with the science, not for there being science at all.
:smack: &^%#[sub]grumblemumble[/sub]@#%SDMB server*&^%&[sub]mumble[/sub]%#preview button*&^%$[sub]mumblegrumble[/sub]hamsters…
I think a very good case can be made that atomic bombs have saved lives. I would even go so far as to say they saved Japanese lives. To look at them and say science has gone to far is naive and simplistic view of war. An invasion of Japan would have cost many lives and done terrible damage to Japan.
Well, to take the contrarian position on a scientists’ moral imperative, allow me to quote Tom Lehrer:
gobear: that only proves that science is bad when your enemies have it and you don’t.
(wiping hands together)…Well done, fellow dopers!! It looks like once again, the cockroach of ignorance has scuttled back into the dark corners of, um,…not-knowingness… when confronted by the kitchen light of…uh…
shit, someone help me out....I'm dyin' up here.....Which is all well and good, especially when you realize that science is not “truth”. It is interpretation based on observation. We see something happen, and we try to explain it. As we gather more knowledge on that thing, we learn new details, and alter our explanations to fit.
Five thousand years ago, people saw the Sun as a giant bright firey light. They explained it as a chariot of fire galloping across the sky every day.
A few millenia later, ideas about stars came to light, and the sun was explained as being a gigantic ball of flame that circled our planet.
Nowadays, we know far more about stars, fusion, gravity, the universe, our planet, centripetal force, and other scientific minutiae than the ancient Greeks ever could. That’s why our explanations are more “accurate” than theirs.
Who knows… in another five thousand years, it may be discovered that the entire universe is an illusion projected by some incredibly powerful force. When this is discovered - surprise! - science’s explanations will change to accomodate the new information.
But truth? Nah. If you want “truth”, go find a religion.
Funny you should say that… I was just getting ready to post my long-held view that science is just another form of religion.
That should rile a few of 'em up. smirk
In my mind, any scientific discipline is based on a set of asssumptions. Change the assumptions, and you change both the methodology of the science and the conclusions reached. However, the assumptions are required first… they’re pretty basic. In our case, “parallel lines never intersect” is one such assumption. This affects geometry, physics, and pretty much any tool we use to measure our universe. So far, that assumption has proven to be fairly accurate, but nobody can say that it will be accurate forever.
Science, like most religions, requires faith in a few basic facts before it can be explored and adopted.
I have a lot of respect for scientists. I see science as a creative, exciting process… as others have said, a methodology by which certain truths (or at least apparent truths) can be discovered. If you don’t think science can be creative, try reading Alan Lightman’s Dance for Two sometime… he makes the discussion of science into an art form.
The process of science can be as creative and revealing as that of art. It does, however, take a measure of faith in a framework of assumptions before it can really act as it’s meant to. As such, I see science as another form of religion… or more specifically, another form of agreed-upon belief.
I can say, with 100% confidence, that we will never find a pair of parallel lines that intersect. Why? Cause if they intersect, then by definition, they’re not parallel. This meaning of “parallel” is a definition, not an assumption.
Anyhow, carry on with the rest of the thread.
No, you’ll just get a bunch of links to the last fifty times we had to smack down this silly and, dare I say, intellectually porous notion.
Grumble grumble, smirking newbies show up and think we ain’t seen these old canards before, grumble grumble
One problem science has is that it’s conducted by human beings.
And, unfortunately, science is not unbiased, nor is it done in a vacuum. Researchers have sponsors. Universities have investors. Politicians have big business constituents. Individual scientists can be vain and ego-driven, can refuse to abandon their pet theories no matter what the evidence says, and can even falsify data to preserve their careers.
All of this can result in skewed results, or incorrect conclusions. No, it’s not “good science,” but it’s far from uncommon, I think. I point people to the fat/carbohydrate firestorm–which shows us how little we really do know about the human body, IMO–( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=124546 ), and ask them to consider if the agriculture and food manufacturing lobbies have any interest in maintaining the status quo (i.e., encouraging people to eat cheap sugar and flour at high markups) or if pharmaceutical co.'s, who now maintain that a third of all Americans need to be on cholesterol-loweing drugs, have any interest in promoting the use of statins.
And this is from an avowed atheist who believes the scientific method is the best way to approach the universe. I just want to point out that the ideal notion of pure science is not always carried out as neatly as we like to think, and the ugly human side of scientific research is likely a contributor to the viewpoints of people like sven.