Does every data point equal a hypothesis? Doubt is reserved for our hypotheses about how the world works. I guess that I have some small doubt for every individual observation as well, but I that is not really what I had in mind.
One more illustration about scientific inquiry that has been staring me in the face. I am a pediatrician. Clinical research is felt by most to be science. What do these clinical studies measure? Death rates. Presence of abscence of pneumonia (measured by physical exam or by a radiologist declaring what a set of shapes on an X-ray film means. Patient reports of pain level or of quality of life. Whether or not clinicians felt that an ear infection was present or not. Are these unscientific inquiry because the measurements are not calibrated instrumentally? Because instrumental measure is inferior (less reliable, accurate, and reproducible) to human perception in these instances?
My memorizing the Kreb’s cycle was not scientific inquiry.
Most patient encounters are. I formulate a hypothesis based on the Chief Complaint. I modify and replace my hypotheses based on what else the patient volunteers. I ask a few questions to collect a few additional data points which may provide additional confidence that my hypothesis is correct. Or not. Same with the Physical exam and lab tests if I feel more data is needed to lower doubt to an acceptable level. If something doesn’t fit the pattern that is my hypothesis then doubt is elevated and I search for other patterns and collect more data. It is not hard science. It is questionably the “natural world.” But it is scientific inquiry.
Finally, I think that Jerevan has it right when he describes the different meanings ascribed to the world “certainty.” I accept that certain things are true within a tolerence of certainty, within a reasonable standard of certainty. For practical purposes we will accept these things as if they are descriptions of reality itself. I am not really exactly certain but very nearly so and for day in day out use that is close enough.
So many things to do, and so little time. Let’s see now, where to begin…
Twice graceless and cowardly in the same thread? Looks like I’m about to break a world record. Still, despite my faults, there is something about me that’s just irresistibly lovable, dontcha think?
However, it is not, nor has it been, my intention to simply “insult and run,” so I guess I dodged the bullet this time. I simply meant that I did not plan continue engaging you in childish bickering, which I have found to be a juvenile, and pointless, waste of time. I’m beginning to get the feeling that our conversation here (if we can call it that) is simply becoming counter-productive, and that maybe I will just have to accept that, for the time being, we simply will not be able to see eye-to-eye.
But this does not mean, necessarily, that I will not respond to the factual arguments in your posts, should I chose to do so. And, unfortunately, having written that I don’t want to continue bickering with you, I nevertheless have a thing or two to say about your views concerning our dispute, but I hope to keep it civil. Anyway, concerning this:
No problem. This is the first time that I’ve noticed you objecting to it, but if you feel that it’s an unfair description, I’ll drop it. I was trying to communicate to you that I agreed, basically, that human sensory perception was a necessary ingredient in any scientific endeavor, and using the term “phenomenological” in the general sense of “a branch of philosophy, concerned primarily with the detailed, logical inspection of phenomena as presented directly to the senses.” That’s my impression of the general way the term is used. Perhaps you understand it in a more strict sense?
I would like now to take a moment and address, in general, the way in which you have presented what you claim to be “counterexamples” to my definition. You list several of these here, including taxonomy, biology, chemistry, etc. I’ve struggled quite a bit with them, twisting and turning them to see if you are correct or not: that is to say, attempting to ascertain whether or not they actually are the counterexamples you claim them to be.
Unfortunately, the fact that you simply proclaim taxonomy to be a “science,” and one that does not rely on instrumental measurement as well, does not necessarily make it one. This point goes for all of your other so-called examples as well. In order for you to convince me, or anyone else, that taxonomy (for example) is a scientific discipline you need in fact to tell me why you believe it is one, and to present a logical argument for its inclusion within the field. This will be rather difficult to do, however, if you cannot at first tell me, at least in some general sense, what you intend with the word “science,” or the term “scientific.” I’ve asked you once to provide me with that info, but you refused.
This leaves me in the rather awkward position of being forced to refute your counterexamples without having even the slightest clue as to why you, personally, think they are counterexamples in the first place. Other than “the intuitive sense” (which you mention now for the first time, above, on page 3 of this thread) that taxonomy is a science, or that the discovery of litmus paper is a scientific event, I haven’t received from you the slightest hint as to why you include these things as a part science. Thus, your examples are essentially meaningless, as far as I can tell. In essence, you simply pronounce them as “scientific,” and apparently, in your mind, that means that they are scientific. Using the same tactic (and this is a reducto ad absurdum, but anyway), if I were you, I could just as easily chose at random five things – string, Groucho Marx, rebirthing, cottage cheese, and the invention of the airplane – and then dogmatically proclaim that they were examples that refuted the proposed definition of science.
For example, you have repeatedly brought up the Kelvin scale as an example of science performed purely on the basis of direct sensory observation alone. I have in vain asked you to explain in plain language what you mean with this example, or to present it together with some sort of rational argument as to why you think it is such; yet you have not. Finally, only when Jerevandid present it, and his reasons for believing that it was a valid counterexample, did I manage to find an opportunity to respond.
The same with your litmus test. Of course it’s science – how could anyone possibly think otherwise? I ask you to back up this claim with some sort of reasoned argument, however, and it seems you take offense.
Here is another: Jane Goodall’s observations of apes. I’m left floundering around, wondering why you think this is a good example, until I supply for myself what you might possibly mean when you claim her work to be scientific:
Is this what you mean? I have no idea, and apparently, you have no intention of telling me. It appears that in debating you, I am left debating myself. And in my willingness not to quibble over details, I allow it as an example: but erl apparently, does not, claiming that “But I’ve always been skeptical about these fields amending themselves to what we usually consider science simply because of the messy problem of consciousness being involved in one but not in the other.” My mistake, and I take it back. I will not do your work for you. If you wish to claim that ethology is a science, state plainly why you believe this is the case, so that we might have a dialogue about it.
You even bring up chaos theory here – again – as a counterexample, even though you have not been able to provide me yet with the study I requested of you. Can you tell me in what sense you consider it a valid piece of evidence for your refutation?
From one thing to another: further down in your last response to me, you explain why you feel that you have not been patronizing, insulting, etc.
I have experienced you as patronizing, quite simply. It is perhaps not easy for you to understand how I perceive you, but I’ll give it a shot.**
This is a strange dictionary you use. Patronizing generally means talking down to someone, as in an adult talking down to a child. For what it is worth, I have never asked, nor am I interested in, any sort of “insincere agreement” from you. I simply ask that you express your disagreements with a modicum of respect.**
Another strange definition. I use condescension essentially as a slightly less strong synonym for patronizing.
If I were too fragile to have my ideas challenged, I would not be here. I have opened this thread for the sole purpose of having my ideas challenged. That does not mean that I look forward to you hurling invective at me.
I guess that would make us equals. The vast majority of people in this thread have claimed that I am wrong, and I have not felt personally insulted by a single one of them, other than you.
Perhaps the fact that you have claimed I am wrong is not the problem?
You use tactics like the above as a means of intimidating other posters into agreement with you. In fact, I’ve seen you use exactly this same line, more or less, with other posters who have taken offense at your style of posting. You engage in a kind of game of intellectual brow-beating, rather than open dialogue, when a misunderstanding occurs. You seem to expect your debating opponents to immediately grasp your meaning, and when they fail to do so, you initiate a kind of systematic search and destroy mission, marking words and attacking their posts in a snide, condescending, and to be blunt, hateful tone. Once you perceive that you have been slighted, you return with guns a-blazin’ – as per the above, in which, after claiming that I was “monumentally foolish,” “obsessive,” and “idiotic,” you close by noting that you found the last statement of my previous post insulting ( I assume you read my entire post before writing yours). While I do not doubt that you did find it insulting, you do not seem to consider the possibility that it was unintentionally so, or give me the benefit of the doubt.
You have also misrepresented my claims in this thread. You stated, for example, that I seemed to “rely upon instruments through some a priori understanding that they are both accurate and precise.” Rather than take offense, or call your claim fraudulent, I simply understood it to mean that we had not communicated clearly, and responded with examples that countered it. I have since asked twice if you considered the above statement rebutted: you have not bothered to recant. Don’t now, it is of no consequence. For you to treat me in this fashion, and then take exception when the favor is returned, is hypocritical, even though I have not in any sense attempted to “return the favor;” it happened unintentionally.
I cannot interpret this statement as anything other than you reserving the right, at any time you see fit, to say anything you wish about anything I have posted, while at the same time denying me the right to react to it in an emotionally appropriate manner. Furthermore, to call something someone posts idiotic is an insinuation on their intelligence, no matter how you try to weasel out of it. This is why I do not engage in this practice here, and in part why I have not done so with you, despite that fact that your posts are also, on occasion, riddled with inconsistencies – like that of any other human being posting at the SDMB.
Finally:
I have not treated your apology as an insult. I inquired as to whether it was the one, or the other, because, due to the phrasing, I could not make out whether or not you were being sincere. I explained this once before, and accepted it.
You both have a lot of intelligent comments to make but it is getting hard to find them amidst all this … other stuff (not that I’ve never been insulted by, and responded in kind to, other posters … but enough already.)
First of all, I concur with DSeid. Both Mr S. and SM are, of course, free to argue as they please, and we are all free to ignore what they write. But I am (or have been) actually interested in what both have to say on the subject of the OP and prefer not to have to wade through so much… other stuff to find the salient points each makes. Thank you both for understanding.
You’re welcome. First, however, do note that I did not claim to give you the history of the thermometer; I just explained the basic concept of building one. Secondly, I did not say that this was how Kelvin developed his scale. The concept of the “triple point”, and how one goes about arriving at it, is more complicated than the thermometer, and I apologize if I inadvertently misled you into thinking my explanation was history. I certainly did not take my words from a textbook. I just put it in simple terms to avoid cluttering the thread with too much information, that’s all. Nevertheless, based on your response it did, I think, make my basic point: that the construction of instruments is ultimately rooted in some kind of sensory experience.
And how do you suppose the Farenheit scale came into being? It is based on observations of physical phenomena, too. The Celsius scale just happens to be a little easier to calibrate because of the phenomena involved.
Do we? If so, unless I’m way off-base, doesn’t that defeat (to your way of thinking) the purpose of the instrument? If we do not get consistent readings from an instrument – regardless of how it is produced – doesn’t that make the instrument unreliable? Or, alternately: if we cannot construct as simple an instrument as the thermometer so that it works reliably, how can we hope to construct a mass spectrometer, or a neutrino-detecting swimming pool, and hope to get measure anything meaningful at all?
Taking a different tack on your statement above: what does the consensus (or lack thereof) on the freezing point of water have to do with instrumentation? Surely these things can be arrived at without the thermometer – especially it is as unreliable or arbitrary as you suggest?
I think I know what you’re trying to get at: you say that instruments are different (in kind, not degree) from the human senses because instruments are reliable and exact while human sense are fallible and imprecise. But in the foregoing argument you seem to be saying that instruments are inherently unreliable or imprecise because they depend on unreliable and imprecise human senses for their design. You can’t have it both ways: either instruments have a precision which is independent of human senses (making the two separate), or there is an inherent inter-dependency between instruments and senses. And as for the former option, you haven’t yet suggested how one goes about building an instrument without human senses and human thinking involved.
No, my story did not. I explained the basic process of building a thermometer; I can dig out a reference for you, if you like, so you can be assured of this. You have not offered an alternate explanation to support your thesis that instruments are separate from the human senses. So I have to ask: how would you build a thermometer without resorting to your senses or other instruments (especially if you don’t have any)? I’m not trying to be difficult on this point. I really just don’t understand how, exactly, you think instruments are made.
Well, in talking about this I think we’ve ranged somewhat far afield from your OP. But if you recall I have never stated that I think instruments are essential to a definition of science. I have been presenting a rather narrower argument: that instruments are not completely independent of the human senses, so that your definition of instrument ought to include the human senses as well.
… !!! …
I follow this and like the synthesis, but this still doesn’t answer the basic question: how do you get from this consensus of human sensory observations in arriving at the measurement (to borrow a previous poster’s term,inter-subjectivity), and the complete non-human-sensory objectivity of instrumentation? There are several huge steps missing which you have yet to explain.
Mainly because, in human beings, sight is best suited for making these fine distinctions. It’s just trading one sense for another.
But no, it doesn’t. True, we develop an experential association between the measurement and our senses; personally, my ideas of “hot” probably matches the Swedes or Canadians better than, say, Singaporeans. But that’s just it: we can never reach consensus about “hot” or “cold” on the basis of completely individual experiences – which is precisely why the temperature scale is not based on that kind of individual experience. It is based on observations of physical phenomena which do depend on our human senses but not on our individual quirks and preferences. For this reason we can arrive at some consensus about when water is observed to boil (as you point out), or how far it is (in whatever units) from here to there.
Note that I am not arguing that the human senses and instruments are identical; I am saying that each shapes and informs the other, and so they cannot really be taken as two distinct, separate. . . well, entities. . . as you are suggesting.
To emphasize the points made by Jerevan, the important bit is that the measure be accurate and reliable. Often this translates into an instrumental measure, and instruments have other advantages discussed before. But instrumental measurement is not what’s essential, accuracy and reliability are. If a circumstance exists where subjective direct observation by human senses measures particular data with more reliability and accuracy than any instrument, then use of human senses would be more scientific. (My last example of much of clinical research attempts to illustrate this point by example.)
You’re right. I apologize, straightup, to everyone, for behaving so childishly – including you, Spiritus.
You’ve raised a lot of interesting points that I’ve thought quite a bit about, and I’m also sorry that I won’t be able to give you the response you deserve. But I do want to comment briefly on your question concerning anthropology.
The traditional methodolgy of anthro is generally called participant-observer. As you rightly note, it does involve the direct interaction between a ”subject” and an ”object” of study, and does not rely on measuring instruments (usually). However, anthropology is most often not regarded as a Natural Science, and it is precisely that difference, among many, that got me to thinking about this stuff – especially when compared to the behavioral, scientific psychology that I had abandoned in its favor. In fact, you could in a way view my understanding of science as an attempt to subject it to an anthropological study; one in which instruments would be viewed as ”products of a culture,” rather than as a simple, straightforward reflection of the regularities found in the world around us. That perspective, of course, has its strengths and its weaknesses. This thread has demonstrated some of the weaknesses pretty clearly, I think, but I don’t know if I have successfully managed to communicate the strengths. If not, it should be understood as a failure in my presentation, and understanding, rather than on the part of the field as a whole.
I disagree with this:
…for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I suspect that you mistake the craft of being a doctor with the science of medicine. It has been my point all along that there are circumstances where direct observation is in one way another a more appropriate approach in the study of a given object than instrumental measurement, but that such observation are generally not considered scientific. In medical treatment, I suspect that one uses all the resources available to one. Jerevan:
Oh. My bad.
I was merely striving for historical accuracy here. Normally, I would agree with you. But, if you refer back to my quote from Kuhn, previously, you will note that he tried to argue that the development of the thermometer was a much less straight-forward process than one might imagine, in hindsight. In order to understand its implications, Kuhn would argue, one must first begin by imaging how the world was experienced, and how heat was conceptualized, before we had a thermometer to measure it for us. He would argue that the process seems so straightforward to us today primarily because we now have thermometers and the understanding of heat measurement that comes with them.
You are right, and you have me over a barrel, I’m afraid. Clearly, if I am to speak of NS as the act of ”measuring Nature with instruments,” I must exclude the invention, testing, and development of instruments from my definition – especially if they are the product of correlating, let us say, two direct observations with each other. Yet, most would probably consider the development of instruments of measurement as a part of scientific work, or research. This appears to leave my poor definition in the grips of a kind of circular logic – I cannot defend it, I’m afraid. Touché, sir.
Curses, foiled again!
But don’t you worry, my little pretties: I’ll be back with a better definition next time.
(Rubbing his hands together and cackling insanely, Mr. Svinlesha rushes off to his basement laboratory to begin constructing a new definition.).
**First off, I don’t experience your intelligent and critical questioning as being difficult, so please don’t worry on that account.
Secondly, as I pointed out in my example, I had conceptualized the development of a measurement as simply arbitrary. For example, in the standard English measuring system, allegedly, a yard is equal to the distance between the king’s nose and the thumb of his outstreched hand. It could easily be calibrated to any other feature, or simply made up without reference to any natural object at all. That’s why, in part, this Kelvin thermometer example has stumped me. Unlike measuring other things, such as, for example, distance, temperature measurement, it would seem, requires that one correlate the instrument with some kind of marker in the outside world. I had never really considered the implications of this very deeply, before. It would appear that, as time has gone on, we have also calibrated other measures, like metric weight and metric length, to objects, so that in essence they have become a symbolic referant for a naturally occurring regularity.
I suspect this refutes my definition (unless I can come up with a clever defense at some point), but I hope everyone else has found its incorretness to be as thought-provoking and intellectually fruitful as I have.
To all: due to a number of complications IRL (moving to a new apartment, becoming a first-time father, and arranging my 40th birthday party, all within the space of the next 2 to 3 weeks), I won’t be able to continue posting at this rate for the next few weeks or so. I’ll drop by as often as I can, though, and thanks again for all the input.
Well, I have enjoyed the discussion very much. How sad – do you really have to arrange your own birthday celebration???
I was thinking about this a bit more this morning, and DSeid raises an important point: while instrumentation is often capable of greater precision than any one person’s sense(s), like the senses instrumentation is neither infinitely precise nor the only (or optimum) method for measuring in all cases. For instance, some humans (like myself) have an aspect to their hearing called perfect pitch: they can identify different sounds in an absolute sense. I can tune my musical devices without the aid of an external device. I simply know that this A-string on my violin or guitar is not at the right pitch, and adjust the tightness of the string until it is right. Is this scientific? Probably not. Is the end result less precise than if I had used a tuning fork, or an electronic device which generates a waveform at 440 Hz? No. Can a mass spectrometer help identify and quantify the flavor components in a glass of wine? Yes. Would I use that analysis to determine whether to buy a particular wine? No. There are all kinds of information to be absorbed and assessed; which instrument you use – one of your senses or a man-made device – really just depends on what you’re doing, and what you will do with the information you obtain. Which more or less re-expresses this (minus the judgement about what is “scientific”):
And the difficulty I’ve had with your OP’d definition all along has been that, in looking at history and the role of instrumentation in “science”, you have already made an assumption about what “science” is and/or who conducts it. And for myself, I’m not sure that any act of measurement is, by itself, scientific (or whatever adjective we care to use). Rather I think this concept is defined by the process: what you are doing that necessitates the measurement, and what you do after taking it. It’s about what happens in your head.
Agreed. But, as I think now we can also agree, that does not eliminate the importance that human senses played in arriving at our modern understanding of temperature and how to measure it.
Well, I’m not sure your first statement is really necessary for you to accept. My difficulties with your definition were broader. In connection to the star-gazing activity earlier, I asked “How does the act of measuring something change the fundamental nature of what I am doing from non- or proto-science to science?” Your argument seemed to say: the fact that you are using instrumentation instead of your senses. OK, but neither if the act of measuring with an instrument nor the act of building the instrument itself, is an act of science, how does measuring with an instrument change something from non-science to science?
Anybody want to take a stab at a definition for mad science?
Now, this is good definition for the “consensus” you spoke about earlier. I like this.
Anyway, thanks for a challenging, thought-provoking and rewarding discussion. Hopefully we will bump into one another (butt heads?) on another thread sometime.
I’m sorry, but I’m not quite ready to let this lie. I feel very motivated by the OP’s denial of the principle of falsifiability as a necessary and defining element of science, and certainly very motivated by the requirement of instruments. I feel this mainly because there are so many things that really fall under this principle. If I may hazard a guess, our entire world falls under science’s eye; that is, we may make almost any (and I think, in fact, that “almost” is just being generous, because I mean “all”) empirical proposition the object of scientific inquiry.
I have a theory that my name on these boards is erislover. This theory is clearly falsifiable. Did I just partake in science? How is this any less absurd than recording music as science? How does any empirical proposition avoid becoming science?
Now, way back on page one we encountered this gem: Science is the creation of explanatory theories that are open to falsification. Can we get away with it by saying that I haven’t actually explained anything? I don’t believe so. I have clearly explained the questionable phenomenon: “What the heck is an erislover?” My theory is: it represents me.
Or are we not allowed to examine language scientifically? If this is the case the definition surely doesn’t tell us that. Perhaps further insight into the motivation for this definition is required; I am surely not prepared to give up my position yet.
Recalling my definition: The creation, testing, use, and amendment of theories about associations of inherent properties of external objects to other properties of other external objects or the object itself, by quantitative measurement along arbitrary but unambiguously defined scales.
Now, does my definition escape the above conclusion? It escapes the above conclusion because there is no axis along which names vary. But it does not escape the music studio.
Which, I would like to reiterate, does not surprise me.
What I like best about your definition, Eris, is that it avoids the mention of both validness and physicalness. It’s probably the least pretentious definition I’ve seen. (By the way, you’re not saying that linguistics is not science, are you?)
eris, well… I’m afraid that after this I will have to let it lie, at least for a time, as I will be going out of town. And not, as one might think, into Straight Dope re-hab at the Betty Ford Clinic.
I like your definition because it seems to encompass all the salient points of the “Baconian method” and related thinking; whereas we’ve seen here that taking just one principle, such as falsifiability or the use of instrumentation, as the defining feature of “science” doesn’t seem to get us anywhere. The other nice thing about your definition is that it allows for falsifiability, even implies it strongly depending on exactly what you’re doing, without actually making it a necessary requirement.
But I still have difficulty with the stipulation of “quantitative measurement”. I can see why you put this in but I can’t see a way around the question I asked of the OP a while back: how does the act of measuring something change the fundamental nature of what I am doing from non-science to science?
I’m not saying that there is no satisfying answer to this question, just that I haven’t been able to imagine one.
Take care. I’ll stop by here next week when I’m back.
I would hazard a guess that your name example is a use of scientific inquiry, just a trivial one. I am inferring that there is a solitary poster who posts under one name only on these boards and refers to himself as erislover but also answers to erl or eris. This really is just a hypothesis. Maybe you post under several names. Or maybe you share your name with others as a group effort. Is it less science because it is a hypothesis about something that I couldn’t give a hoot about?
I would further suggest that virtually any qualitative characteristic can be made into a set of dimensions with enough effort. The issues become whether or not the values on the dimensions correlate with anything that is salient or predictive.
Nope, I think linguistics is a science, in that it attempts to create an, or understand an already created, isomorphism. A grid, as you put it to Jerevan. Language and instruments: these are isomorphisms between what we conceive and what we perceive. The difference between normal conversation and scientific inquiry about conversation is that a scientific inquiry creates or uses an unambiguous mapping.
Indeed, and I would heartily agree. If we understand “instrument” to mean “the ismorphism between what we perceive as real qualities and an unambiguous reference to those qualities” then we are well on our way to taking part in science, IMO.
Yeah, I think your definition is more precise than mine. But it would appear to me that it falls for the same reason mine does: if the development of the Kelvin thermometer was a “scientific act,” then what “scale” was used to build it? Any definition of science that relies on measurement by a scale, or instrument, presupposes the existence of said scale or instrument prior to the generation of knowledge that might be considered “scientific.” However, you may be glad to read that I have discovered, rather unexpectedly, a “clever argument” in response to Jerevan’s objection, above.
By the way, I was wondering if you’ve read Quine and Duhem, or if you happened to have stumbled about their thesis (well, to be precise, almost stumbled upon their thesis) independently?
Finally, I still haven’t gotten a bead on this argument regarding recording: what sort of recording, and in what way does the mere capture of sound on tape imply “measurement,” thus falsifying both our definitions?
Jerevan:
I’ve been thinking about our exchange, above, and to my surprise I discovered that we both might have been a bit premature in our conclusions. I want to sketch out, as briefly as possible, why. We wrote:
[QUOTE]
[ul][li]JS: ** If we do not get consistent readings from an instrument – regardless of how it is produced – doesn’t that make the instrument unreliable? Or, alternately: if we cannot construct as simple an instrument as the thermometer so that it works reliably, how can we hope to construct a mass spectrometer, or a neutrino-detecting swimming pool, and hope to get measure anything meaningful at all?.. You can’t have it both ways: either instruments have a precision which is independent of human senses (making the two separate), or there is an inherent inter-dependency between instruments and senses. And as for the former option, you haven’t yet suggested how one goes about building an instrument without human senses and human thinking involved.[/li]
[li]MS: ** You are right, and you have me over a barrel, I’m afraid. Clearly, if I am to speak of NS as the act of ”measuring Nature with instruments,” I must exclude the invention, testing, and development of instruments from my definition – especially if they are the product of correlating, let us say, two direct observations with each other.[/li]
[li]JS: **Well, I’m not sure your first statement is really necessary for you to accept. My difficulties with your definition were broader. In connection to the star-gazing activity earlier, I asked “How does the act of measuring something change the fundamental nature of what I am doing from non- or proto-science to science?” Your argument seemed to say: the fact that you are using instrumentation instead of your senses. OK, but neither if the act of measuring with an instrument nor the act of building the instrument itself, is an act of science, how does measuring with an instrument change something from non-science to science? **[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Okay, now, the question is this: taking any other standard definition/general sense of the meaning of the term “scientific,” can we say that the development of the Kelvin thermometer was a “scientific act?” Is the act of developing the scale falsifiable, for example, or does it imply a falsifiable hypothesis? Certainly, once we have decided upon a scale, we can falsify other hypothesis against it: we can, for example, falsify the hypothesis that water freezes at 50[sup]0[/sup] degrees Kelvin. But we can only do this, in turn, by employing the scale we have devised. Does the development of the scale imply that something important is going on the inventor’s head? That he is developing some sort of theory? Not as far as I can tell, although certainly, once the scale is in place, he can use it to develop theories.
In other words, think of it this way: since the dawn of time, people have noticed that water changes state at a certain temperature. When it gets cold, water turns icy; when you heat it, water boils. Would we consider these observations to be “scientific?” Hardly. Then what is a thermometer, if nothing other than an attempt to quantify a “non-scientific” observation about a regularity in Nature, so as to create a sort of standard vocabulary with which differences in temperature can be articulated?
Thus, I would like suggest that perhaps the development of the Kelvin scale shouldn’t fall under the category of scientific research at all. Rather, it was merely engineering: the act of applying technical knowledge to the solution of practical problems. It is not until after the thermometer has been built, discussed, and accepted as a scientific instrument that we can speak of any scientific work being done with it. This may appear like an arbitrary decision on my part, but I submit it for others to consider as well.
I’d like to point out as well that some of the difficulties we have had discussing these questions is embedded in the different ways in which the term “science” is generally employed. In this thread as well different posters use the term science in different ways, or the same poster may employ different meanings at different times. I can imagine, for example, that someone reading this might immediately object to the above, and claim, “What are you talking about, Mr. S? Engineering is a science, too!”
Having gone back and skimmingly reviewed this entire discussion, I have to admit that I am at least as guilty of this lack of clarity as anyone. All I can say in my defense is that I started it with a fairly unclear idea of where I was headed, and have been learning as I go along – which has also entailed that my position has been subject to a certain amount of unfortunate “drift” from post to post. Therefore, I need to clarify my terms a bit, and then stick to them more carefully.
When I have spoken of science, above, what I have really intended to mean is Natural Science. I mentioned this somewhat off-handedly in my original post, but now I want to make it very clear.
In addition, my definition was meant to be applied to that aspect of Natural Science that entails research: the development and growth of new knowledge. In a way, what I wanted to say was that what characterizes research in the Natural Sciences, and leads us to consider it to be different from all other forms of research, is that typically, research in the Natural Sciences relies, in one way or another, on measuring Nature with some sort of man-made instrument – even if that instrument is nothing other than “a symbolic referent for a perceived, naturally-occurring regularity.”
I agree whole-heartedly with this assessment, but what I’m looking for here is the defining characteristic; why it is that some we label some theories as “Natural Science,” and others as “not – Natural Science.”
Hmmm…I seemed to have missed that question earlier. Sorry.
We can take it the other way round: literally everyone on the planet observes Nature directly, with their senses, every day. But when do those observations become scientific – in the sense of a Natural Science? It appears that at some point, knowledge about the world passes a kind of invisible barrier, and goes from idiosyncratic, subjective impressions to ordered, rational, generalized knowledge about a thing. If we reject the instrumentation argument, then on what basis can you make the following assertion?
(It is tacit knowledge, by the way, a modality of knowledge explored most thoroughly by Michael Polanyi, whose writings I can highly recommend.)
Anyway, if you accept the reasoning above regarding the thermometer, it might appear that my definition was buried prematurely – and now, returning from the grave, it is free to run about the countryside at night, terrorizing the peasants.
On the other hand, maybe I watch too many reruns on the Late, Late, Late, Late Show.
P.S. Please let us know how things go at the clinic. We’ll be here waiting for you, when you get back.
Spiritus has also suggested I look up Quine when we were discussing knowledge previously. I have yet to do so, unfortunately. I’m still struggling through Wittgenstein.
The development of the first thermometer… I don’t see how that doesn’t fall under my definition. A creation of an unambiguous scale in this case requires the use of other unambiguous scales: the number system, for one, and the concept of density which varies continuously along a set of arbitrary but unambiguous values (mass and volume). So the theory could be said that density and temperature are directly proportional, and we have here an arbitrary but unambiguous scale which relates these two qualities.
I’d like some comments on the effort that I put up early on:
“Science is the attempt to systematically develop ever more accurate models of how things work. Such a process of model improvement requires constant doubt as to whether or not the current model has it quite right.”
Sure, “the creation, testing, use, and amendment of theories about associations of inherent properties of external objects to other properties of other external objects or the object itself” means just about the same thing as my developing “ever more accurate models …” but, personally I find it a bit, well, wordy.
Falsifiability, competition with other hypothesis that may or may not explain more or explain better, instrumental measurement, scale to objective referents, regulation of doubt, all become part of the toolkit available for such an endevour and are often employed, but not a requisite part of scientific enquiry.
Natural science is merely a function of the subject that such a method is applied to.
Science is always looking for the shortcut, for the essential features that allow consistent predictions about the whole. Reducing to a minimum of salient dimensions. Model development is about determining an abstract form (a prototype) from our experience with particulars (exemplars). Not, in its essence, any different from our percieving a square when presented with four corners. It is a meta-application of the same processes that we use in any perception.
Actually, I feel a bit sheepish about this. I knew the internet was a great resource, but I figured that the history and sociology of science were such esoteric subjects that I wouldn’t be able to find much about things like the history of the thermometer. I should have known better. I did a very brief bit of Googling, and look what I found:
**Well, that falls in line with my definition rather well, anyway.
According to the cite, Galileo is credited with inventing the first thermometer; but the craft of building them didn’t really take off until Fahrenheit built his. It’s construction and use was to radically changed the way in which the natural philosophers of the time conceptualized heat:
**In other words, our way of understanding heat (and cold) was fundamentally restructured by virtue of a measuring instrument – Natural Science in action, I say.
But it is perhaps even more interesting to look at Fahrenheit’s own notes. Regarding the beginnings of his interest in this topic, he writes:
NOTE: Apparently, before Amontons had constructed his thermometer and demonstrated that water boils at fixed temperature, no one knew for certain if it did. In order to demonstrate that this was the case, Amontons first built a thermometric measuring device, and then successfully used it to demonstrate what we now take for granted: that water always begins bubbling at a certain degree of heat. Even afterwards, no one was completely sure that he had unquestionably demonstrated his hypothesis, and thus Fahrenheit felt gripped by a need to repeat the experiment and confirm it. Naturally, he could only do this by constructing his own thermometer.
This is really quite obvious, when you think about it, although somewhat counter-intuitive. There was no way for anyone to know for sure if water always boiled at the same temperature until they developed a device for measuring heat, and tested boiling water against it. Maybe water boiled at various temperatures, at various times; maybe its boiling was dependent on factors other than heat as well. Who knew? What did all this boiling signify, anyway?
To put it another way: in order to determine if water always boils at the same temperature, one must have a measuring device first. My previous understanding of this question in my last few posts above was inverted, because I mistakenly assumed that researchers were aware that liquids boiled at a fixed degree of heat a priorí, and merely needed to engineer a device according to this scale in order to perform other sorts of measurements.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, Fahrenheit stumbled upon the idea of using mercury in the construction of the device; once built, it beautifully recapitulated Amontons original observations:
Fahrenheit has now confirmed that water has the property of always boiling at a fixed degree of heat. Is this equally the case for other liquids? He must test to find out:
Wow! What a discovery! It holds true across a large number of natural phenomena. But there were rather inexplicable anomalies as well:
And how did Fahrenheit calibrate this miraculous device? Well, it would seem, in a rather arbitrary manner:
I hope this historical example provides more weight to the ideas I’m trying to present.
Why do you think Fahrenheit calculated his device in relation to a human body, by the way?
erl:
I was going to answer that despite any sort of numerical scale one employs, the entire process starts from the direct observation of two objects – boiling water, on the one hand, and a tube full of mercury, on the other – without reference to any scale. But maybe I’ve misunderstood your definition. Anyway, regarding this, which you wrote previously (right before you suggested your defintion):
Impressive. Check this out – a quick explanation of the Quine-Duhem Thesis:
– from Science Observed, Knorr-Cetina, Karin, and Mulkay, Michael, eds. (Sage, London, 1983).
If you keep going at this rate, you won’t need to read Quine.
A shame Jerevan had to split. He would have enjoyed this.
I see this history more as an example of the nonlinear relationship between ideas and technology. One intends to study one thing, to do so you need a device, the process developing the device changes the nature of your understanding of the ideas that you aqre intending to study. Science, all knowledge, arises in a context. Context is dynamic. The act of studying changes that which we desire to study.
DSeid: “Science is the attempt to systematically develop ever more accurate models of how things work. Such a process of model improvement requires constant doubt as to whether or not the current model has it quite right.”
It is this nagging “constant doubt” requirement that I don’t accept, though, because it doesn’t seem to make much epistemological or semantic sense to me (maybe it does and I just don’t see it). In order to attempt to understand phenomena we form a symbol set—strict mathematics, words, instrument—in which our data can serve to map to our understanding of underlying reality. The world only shows us data; we have to work from there.
Now, at any point, one may certainly state: “We don’t really know for sure that moving a magnetic field across a wire will induce a current, we only know that moving what we think is a magnetic field across what we call a wire corresponds to behavior that leads us to believe that what we have previously termed electric current is being formed.” The latter is a cautious statement, though I think it is unreasonably cautious, and I think it stems from pessimism about science (every theory we’ev had in the past has been overturned by a more successful theory, so there is no reason to assume that any theory we have now is actually correct). That’s fine; you can carry around all the metaphysical baggage your heart desires. But when we engage in science, we operate under conditions in which the doubt you claim to have finds no room to express itself in.
We have Theory D. Theory D explains data d gathered from the instrument [symbol]d[/symbol]. Theory D is the comment on underlying reality, data d is the proof of that theory (or disproof, as the case may be), and instrument [symbol]d[/symbol] is… what? Where does it lie in the realm of your doubt? Not within the Theory D, and surely not as a part of the data d. No, [symbol]d[/symbol] lies outside the scope of D and d… in fact, this is completely unsurprising, because (as I’ve tried to show, but have probably simply asserted thus far) the instrument serves the purpose of mapping d to D. For us to have a means of expressing doubt about D or d we cannot have doubt in [symbol]d[/symbol].
This isn’t to say we cannot doubt [symbol]d[/symbol]. We can. But we doubt [symbol]d[/symbol] when [symbol]d[/symbol] is the c of Theory C, or when [symbol]d[/symbol] is Theory C itself! Consider this little mapping:
Theory D predicts data *d* from instrument [symbol]d[/symbol]
[symbol]d[/symbol] is a consequence of Theory C
Theory C predicts data *c* from instrument [symbol]c[/symbol]
[symbol]c[/symbol] is a consequence of Theory B
...
etc
This is how I see science. All of science cannot be doubted simultaneously, because the doubtful consequence of one theory is the stated assumption of the next! There is no room in theory D or data d for doubting [symbol]d[/symbol].
Because it cannot be doubted simultaneously, there are only specific circumstances in which doubt has a means to express itself. Now, here’s the kicker (IMO). If Theory B depends on Theory A, and we doubt Theory B, we must assume Theory A. If we doubt Theory A, this has no consequence on Theory B, because Theory B was formulated assuming A. If we then proceed to change Theory A, Theory B must be reinterpreted in light of the changes.
None of this, I feel compelled to note, expresses anything about validity, truth, and so on. It is merely my formulation of what scientific doubt means. Theory B was explicitly formulated with Theory A in mind: it only makes sense when Theory A is assumed. When operating from within Theory B, there is no means with which to doubt Theory A.
Does this make my objection clearer?
Let’s take a concrete example that we’ve been belaboring: temperature. We have this theory of heat which states that it evolves continuously and has a direct effect on density. Theory. Data: the observation of the thermometer, with appropriate nicks for a scale of some sort. But!—the thermometer itself actually measures volume! This theory of volume comes from previous experiments along the way.
What is most interesting here is that a theory of what heat is changed over time—but our thermometers didn’t! they were measuring something, alright. At first we thought it was this mysterious quality. We later find it to be explained by molecular motion. Didn’t change the thermometer, though!
Svinlesha, that is an interesting quote indeed. First, though:
The observation forces one into a position where the variable quality has a quantifiable meaning. The scale is necessary (and it needn’t be continuous!) but arbitrary. If we feel there is an underlying phenomena of temperature, any scale which serves to measure it should be translatable into any other scale which measures it.
But is this where science starts? Are you looking for the answer to the question, “When can we say that a person begins doing science?” or “When can we say that science itself began?” If it is the latter, then I think you are right: science begins by noticing some quality varying in some unspecific manner (unspecific because we have no unambiguous scale—yet) and seeking to understand it. As for the bootstrap that was first pulled: impossible to say. I don’t think we had written communication going back that far for posterities’ sake.
As far as the quote goes… “This follows from the fact that no one single theory or theoretical hypothesis can ever be extricated from ‘the ever present web of collateral assumptions’ so as to be open to conclusive refutation.” Beautiful! I gotta read this man.