[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

OK, so now we know why people shouldn't vote Tory.That has very little to do with how science works.

The issue I was intending to raise, and which began quite a few posts ago, is about personal experience.  As far as I am aware,  personal experience is completely inadmissible when practicing science.  My aim originally was to attempt to point out the shortcomings of this failure.

[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

Reviewing the Situation: an assessment

I began this thread enquiring, as a non-scientist, about scientific proof.  Specifically, I asked about a statement I read in a science book which said that science cannot prove theories, it can only disprove theories.

This statement bothered me and so I asked forum members, presumably mostly working or retired scientists, for clarification.  A discussion ensued in which members agreed with the claim made in the science book.  One member put the situation particularly well, I thought:

“Scientific knowledge is the residue of explanatory and predictive hypotheses that have not been disproved by test.”

Hmmm……….a “residue” e.g. a “leftover” or the “dregs” or the “scum”, perhaps?  All of these are synonyms.  So, what scientific knowledge amounts to is that it is the “scum/residue/dregs” left over after a filtering process i.e. the process of filtering out the outright lies from a mass of information.  The leftovers are not themselves truths.  No.  They are merely theories which cannot be disproven yet which science then calls truths or knowledge or fact.

What the scientific method amounts to, then, is that anyone can come up with any old crack-pot theory – I could, my next door neighbour could - and as long as it cannot be disproven, that crack-pot theory can become science “truth” or “fact” or “knowledge”.   (OK, not quite.  I am not a published scientist so my crack-pot theory would never make it across the starting line.)  That is my assessment of the situation.  The scientific method opens the door to any old crackpot theory.  Those of you who cannot see that, and I do not suppose any of you can, need to stand back a bit from science.  Unfortunately, however, scientific heads are far too buried in detail to exercise the detachment necessary to gain such a perspective.  My being a non-scientist, albeit one who knows a great deal about the history of science, is where, I believe, I have the advantage i.e. I have the necessary detachment to be able to distinguish the wood from the trees.

(My assertion about “crack-pot theories” is not flippant.  I am thinking here of Classical Physics v. Quantum Theory.  Admittedly I have not spoken to my physicist friend about this for many years, but am I not correct in saying that relevant physics experiments can be explained in terms of both Classical Physics and Quantum Theory? And yet physics in schools and beyond is being taught as if Quantum Theory has replaced Classical Theory?    I also believe that General Relatively, far from being disproved, was actually voted in by a group of eminent scientists of the day e.g. Bohr, Einstein, Di Broglie, Planck, at a Copenhagen conference in, I think, the early 1930s.) 


In short, I found all this rather disturbing.  I was hoping to hear something more positive and definite about how scientific knowledge is acquired and so I broadened my research to the internet and to media.  For example, BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time has a few podcasts on the Scientific Method. I listened to these.  I was not encouraged when I heard that science, instead if being independent, had borrowed some of its practices from mathematics.  (I don’t know how much you know but if you do investigate the history of science, you might be in for a bit of a shock.) 


What particularly bothers me is this lack of certainty in science.  Have any of you any idea what living in uncertainty is doing to your minds?  Have any of you any idea what this indiscriminate amassing of information is doing to your minds?  Uncertainty.  Never having solid ground under one’s feet.  It nearly drove me mad when I was younger.  It did me enormous psychological damage.  To say it nearly killed me is not putting it too strongly.  So too my (previous) inability to pick out the relevant detail form a mass of other detail.  Science ought to have similar warnings to cigarettes: Science Kills.

In fact, from where I am sitting now, I’d rather turn to religion.  I’d rather have faith.  At least it would preserve my sanity when walking over quicksand.  So why choose science?  Unlike religions, science does not promise salvation.  Actually, science is in the business of offering threats – science’s version of Hell – and it doesn’t matter whether you are a believer or a sinner, no one can escape climate change.  In fact, science manufactures fear: dying of cancer, dementia, plague, asteroid collision, climate change, the expanding sun swallowing the earth.  These all frightened me at one time or another.

Despite this, science purports to be doing good e.g. by improving longevity or saving us from climate change.  But what is the point when its very practice drives you to madness in the first place?  It strikes me that science is playing the same game as the electrician who came to my house once.  He was supposedly there to help but was in reality touting for business.  He walked around the house whilst every so often, with a sharp intake of breath, pointing out one fault after another.  He wore the face of a concerned friend, someone concerned for your health and safety, when in fact he was just putting the frighteners on me in order to get more business from me.

That is what science is doing too.  It points out all the flaws in the world e.g. asteroid collision, climate change, just to make business for itself so that we turn to science to save us.

So I thank you all for your input.  You have enabled me to obtain a greater understanding of science, although not, I think, in the way you might have expected. 

[Bored chemist]

Hmmm……….a “residue” e.g. a “leftover” or the “dregs” or the “scum”, perhaps?  All of these are synonyms. 

Obviously, not in this case, so that's just silly.
It might be better to describe science as the survivors.

What the scientific method amounts to, then, is that anyone can come up with any old crack-pot theory

In science , it can be crack-pot or it can be a theory.
But it can't be both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

I could, my next door neighbour could - and as long as it cannot be disproven, that crack-pot theory can become science “truth” or “fact” or “knowledge”

No it couldn't.
At best, it could become a hypothesis.
It would fall into one of two types.
Either you can use it to make a prediction, or it can't.
If it can't then it's not a scientific hypothesis (because it' not testable).
If it can, then the hypothesis will stand as part of science.
Until someone actually tests it.
If it passes the test then maybe it's not so crack-pot as you think.
If it fails it's discarded- consigned to the world of failed ideas in science.

Most of them just get forgotten.
Some get remembered as examples of how not to do it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

So, what's clear is that you have yet to understand how science works.
Perhaps you should wait until you do before you criticise it so strongly(and accurately)

[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

In science , it can be crack-pot or it can be a theory.But it can't be both.

Thank you for your very lucid explanation of the difference between a theory and a hypothesis.

At the risk of once again coming on too strong - but if you read on you will understand why I feel that this is necessary and that I speak on behalf of the general public, not just for myself – science is full of crackpot theories e.g. General Relativity, Quantum Theory, Newton’s Laws and all the rest.  In other words, I think the entire corpus of science to be composed of crackpot theories. 

Two things: as has already been said, science cannot hope to get to the truth.  If a theory is not true, what is it?  Crackpot.

My second big objection is the malign nature of these untruths.  For example, on Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4) today a man, a member of a well known band who later worked for Greenpeace, nearly cracked up because he was so afraid for his child’s future in view of predictions of climate change.

As I said in my post, these predictions of science, some of which I’ve mentioned, are seriously psychologically damaging the population.  And again, I repeat, this damage is being done to the population by the untruths of science.

I could go further and point to various questionable ideas but I will just raise one issue.  Physicists have denounced intuition.  And this on the basis of knowing nothing about the human mind and how it interacts with the world.  At this point I’d like to say: if that’s not crackpot, what is? 

Is there anything here that you can honestly argue with?  It seems to me that there is a great onus on scientists at the moment to put my mind to rest, my mind being just like the vast majority of people in this world, the mind of a non-scientist, and one which is suffering under the rule of science.


PS: I looked up the references you so kindly provided.  My response to them would be: just because a few theories that scientists consider to be crackpot have been located and discarded does not mean that there are not legions more lying undetected. 

[Hayseed]

littlebrowndragon, I can well understand your feeling of the whole situation.  I believe that you are trying to put everything together, too fast.  Keep things simple and separated.

Remember, no one can put all of this together.  Keep in mind that science has tried to mix the knowable, with the un-knownable.  Many believe this can be done with math.

Scientist are just like all other people, most want to truly discover, but consensus has constrained and misled them.

No man will ever know how and when this universe started.  No one will ever know where mass and energy came from.

And don't count on, that understanding the physical, will lead you to the purpose of existence.  It won't.  Life does not come from the physical.   But still, the physical is an elegant perfection.

And we can study the mass and energy we have now.  We can manipulate it.  We can even manipulate it greatly, without understanding it...........imagine what we could do, when we do understand it.

I believe we could quadruple, even sextuple the current power transfer of wireless charging and double the data rate of any rf channel, without increasing the bandwidth, for a few examples.

Being able to design and manipulate matter on the atomic level, will be a huge tech revolution.  It could lead anywhere.  Cheap abundant elemental resources.  Atomic printer.  Imagine that.  A replicator.

These kind of things are worth study.   Putting atoms together, not busting them apart into un-usable, dissolving fragments.

[evan_au]

What particularly bothers me is this lack of certainty in science

You could be killed by a truck tomorrow.
There is no certainty in life - get used to it!

science is full of crackpot theories e.g. General Relativity, Quantum Theory, Newton’s Laws

You just quoted three of the most widely tested theories in physics.
- The testing eventually showed that Newton's Laws did not quite hold true for the planet Mercury (if you watched it closely over a couple of centuries), and this small discrepancy was eventually resolved with Einstein's General Relativity.
- Einstein's Relativity was non-intuitive at first, but it has passed very many verification tests over the past century
- All three of these theories have been so well tested that you could not call them crackpot
- But nobody claims that these theories are perfect; physicists are always looking for some small discrepancy - because there is a Nobel Prize waiting for someone who develops a better theory (which passes sufficient verification tests where the old one fails).

a man ... nearly cracked up because he was so afraid for his child’s future in view of predictions of climate change

It's true that many people are being stressed out by climate change.

It's also true that many people are not stressed by it because they think there is nothing wrong with the way they live and/or that other people will step up to pay the true costs of today's behavior (ie people in other countries, the poor people, the people in government after they retire, or people in later generations).

I heard someone say that the best way to get across the message of climate change is "optimism, tinged with trepidation".

[alancalverd]

The climate has always changed and always will. Human societies have been wiped out by climate change, and also (particularly in northern Europe) more recently thrived on it - apart from a bit of starvation in the 11th - 13th centuries when the temperature dropped to its current level but our forefathers hadn't invented coal fires, chimneys and glazed windows. 

We have a serious but entirely avoidable problem in the near future, that modern civilisation is not resilient to quite small changes in climate. Part of the problem is that 80% of the human population lives within 60 miles of the coast, so a small rise in sea level will precipitate a massive migration of say 20% who live within 10 miles of the coast trying to move into space already occupied by the other 60% rather than have their sewers flood and carpets ruined. There is no prospect of a general shift inland because the fertile land and all the facilities we cherish are all in the coastal strip. So there will be enormous civil wars, everywhere.

Or we could reduce the population. Zero cost, massive benefits, no chance of it happening (there's no immediate profit to be made from a shrinking consumer base).

[alancalverd]

personal experience is completely inadmissible when practicing science.

No! A thousand times no!

Observe, hypothesise, test. It all begins with personal experience - the observation. It takes a person to make a hypothesis. It needs a person to do and evaluate the test. It is all about personal experience!

The convention of scientific writing is to describe your experiences with sufficient detail about the circumstances that others can repeat the experiment. Neatly summarised by the requirement for a patent specification: a patent is a means of doing something, expressed so that "a person skilled in the art" can reproduce it.

There was something of a Victorian style convention  that required scientific papers to be written in the passive voice, but in fact all the greatest discoveries (Cook, Ross, Darwin, Amundsen, Becquerel….) were excitedly reported in the first person and to my mind the best papers continue to do so: short letters and weird case notes are much more interesting than stodgy undergraduate  reworkings of the obvious.

[Colin2B]

Physicists have denounced intuition.  And this on the basis of knowing nothing about the human mind and how it interacts with the world. 

That is untrue.
Most scientists will tell you that at various points in an investigation they have a sense of the direction to go, or have ‘slept on it’. The difference for a scientist is that they will then try to rigorously test out that intuition to see whether it provides consistent testable results.

I was not encouraged when I heard that science, instead if being independent, had borrowed some of its practices from mathematics.

You might just as well criticise Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, etc for thinking and writing in French.
Mathematics is a language for analysing and describing processes and the results of experiments and observations.

[alancalverd]

Intuition is the process that derives a hypothesis from observation. You can't do science without it.

The object of physics is to develop useful mathematical models of the universe.

[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

All three of these theories have been so well tested that you could not call them crackpot

None of these theories is true.  It doesn’t matter how much they have been tested; they have not been proven to be true.  They are untruths.  This is not an opinion of mine as a non-scientist.  I am quoting scientists.  Scientists themselves say that none of their theories are true and can never be true.

You have just demonstrated to me one of the big problems with science as it is presented.  That is, because scietists do not drive home the point that their theories are not true, then those such as Newton’s Laws which have been around for a long time, begin to take on the status of truths in people’s minds.  That is to say that people, and I suspect scientists can be included here, begin to think and behave as if these laws and theories ARE true.

But then let’s turn this around a little and look at it from a different perspective.  Consider the Scottish legal system.  There are three possible verdicts: Guilty, Not Guilty, Not Proven.  What would happen to the Scottish legal system if the outcome of every single trial was Not Proven?  So there are murders, rapes, amd all sorts of heinous crimes being committed and nobody ever gets convicted.  They all leave the courtroom with Not Proven.  I think the Scottish legal system would be in deep trouble if this happened and its practices would be subject to intense scrutiny with a view to reforming these practices. 

Now consider if scientists were to be totally scrupulous in their presentation whether in papers, textbooks or popular science books/magazines etc.  They would find themselves having to put, probably in parenthesis, beside every law, every theory the statement Not Proven.  What do you think the reaction would be?  What would YOUR reaction have been if that had been your introduction to science?  Personally, I would have found it to be terribly discouraging.  Here’s me looking to understand how the world works and all I’m getting is a load of theories which are not proven.  I would be unable to find it at all worthwhile to go on studying the subject.  The only possible interest I would find is in the rather more detached question of: How can people place so much value on something which never can find a true answer to any question?   (Now that I have come to this point, I am reminded of philosophy and the problem I have with that.  Philosophers too, admit that they can’t answer any questions and have resorted to claiming that questions are more important than answers.  At this point, for anybody with any sanity, for anybody who lives in the real world and has to deal with real life, teir jaw should be hitting the sidewalk.  The simple fact is that in real life, you need answers to questions.  And I would go on to say that in REAL life you need to know the truth.)

[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

Most scientists will tell you that at various points in an investigation they have a sense of the direction to go, or have ‘slept on it’. The difference for a scientist is that they will then try to rigorously test out that intuition to see whether it provides consistent testable results.

Exactly.  However much intuition plays a role in providing a sense of direction for a scientist during an investigation, the actual testing of the hypothesis cannot involve intuition.  Scientific method disallows “proof by intuition”. 

[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

Intuition is the process that derives a hypothesis from observation. You can't do science without it.

As far as I understand it, intuition is not part of the scientific method.  However much intuition is used in formulating a hypothesis, e.g. a flash of inspiration when having one’s morning shower, the finalised hypothesis is not tested using intuition.  It is tested experimentally, these experiments being designed to be repeatable to enable further testing. 

[Bored chemist]

None of these theories is true.  It doesn’t matter how much they have been tested; they have not been proven to be true.  They are untruths. 

No.
They may or may not be true.
They are unproven.
That's a different thing altogether.

I could make two statements
(1) There are lupins in my garden
(2) There are no lupins in my garden

One of those statements has to be true.
I can post pictures of lupins and claim it's my garden- but you might reasonably enough claim that I took a picture of someone else's garden.
It's practically impossible for me to prove that I have the flowers.

On the other hand, I can post a picture of my garden which shows it without lupins.
But again that doesn't prove anything- it might be someone else's garden or it may have been taken years ago- before I grew the plants.


But according to your misunderstanding,
because I can't prove statement 1 it must be false and
because I can't prove statement 2 it must be false.

But they can't both be false- there are lupins or there aren't.
So your idea that "if a statement is not proved right, it must be false " can't be right.

[alancalverd]

You don't use an oscilloscope to formulate a hypothesis, and you don't use intuition to test it. So what? The essential steps of observe, hypothesise, test are quite distinct. Formulating a hypothesis is an integral part of science, and intuition is the key to that process. In the absence of intuition our hypotheses would never progress beyond dogma.

Here's an example. I once watched a gorilla discover what had eluded mankind for around 2000 years since Aristotle  lied about gravitation. He dropped two apples, one larger than the other, and noticed that they hit the ground at the same time. AFAIK he had no formal education in science, but he repeated the experiment, got the same result, then changed hands and got the same result again. Observe, hypothesise, and two critical tests - brilliant. Galileo was tried by the Inquisition, forced to recant, and died under house arrest for even suggesting the result, which says a lot about the stupidity of humans.

Not all experiments are designed to be repeatable. They might be in principle, but there are all sorts of practical constraints when dealing with explosives, or fatigue testing an airframe, for instance.

[alancalverd]

There's a world of difference between mathematical proof (absolute demonstration that A = B follows logically and always from the stated axioms), legal proof (that X occurred beyond reasonable doubt), and scientific proof. The latter is actually a loose translation of prufung - a test. Scientific knowledge is the residue of explanatory and predictive hypotheses that have not failed a test.

This actually reflects back on the classic nonrepeatable experiment: proof testing a gun or a rope.

[evan_au]

It doesn’t matter how much they have been tested; they have not been proven to be true.  They are untruths.

Let me give you another level of truth: "Good enough for all practical purposes".
Newton's laws of gravity (& motion), despite having known errors in the case of Mercury (or in case of high speeds), are good enough to plot the course of a spacecraft traveling to Mercury - a trip that might take 5-10 years.
The impact of the solar wind, errors in position and thrust measurement will have a greater impact than the errors in Newton's laws of gravity and motion.

But I wouldn't use Newton to plot an orbit close to a black hole!

They would find themselves having to put, probably in parenthesis, beside every law, every theory the statement Not Proven.

They do.
- Theory and hypothesis both imply that it hasn't been fully proven yet.
- And scientific laws have been proved to the satisfaction of experts in the field, but are always provisional in case some better experiment or theory comes along.
- Unfortunately, sometimes the "theory" or "law" appellation has been in place for so long that it remains in place, even after the experts are satisfied, for purely historical reasons...
- So, "Newton's laws of motion" retain the "law" moniker, even after they have been superseded
- And "Einstein's theory of General Relativity" retains the "theory" moniker, even though it has satisfied the experts, and hasn't (yet) been superseded. People like Steven Hawking were certainly wanting to develop a better theory of gravity, one that is compatible with quantum theory.

In a sense, every theory has a realm of applicability, and this is often stated (explicitly or implicitly) in the assumptions on which it is based.

And there are boundaries to the applicability, often where the theory produces "nonsensical" results (eg infinities - Einstein was acutely aware of several areas where his theories hit unexplainable infinities).

[Kryptid]

Now consider if scientists were to be totally scrupulous in their presentation whether in papers, textbooks or popular science books/magazines etc.  They would find themselves having to put, probably in parenthesis, beside every law, every theory the statement Not Proven.  What do you think the reaction would be?  What would YOUR reaction have been if that had been your introduction to science?  Personally, I would have found it to be terribly discouraging.  Here’s me looking to understand how the world works and all I’m getting is a load of theories which are not proven.  I would be unable to find it at all worthwhile to go on studying the subject.  The only possible interest I would find is in the rather more detached question of: How can people place so much value on something which never can find a true answer to any question?   (Now that I have come to this point, I am reminded of philosophy and the problem I have with that.  Philosophers too, admit that they can’t answer any questions and have resorted to claiming that questions are more important than answers.  At this point, for anybody with any sanity, for anybody who lives in the real world and has to deal with real life, teir jaw should be hitting the sidewalk.  The simple fact is that in real life, you need answers to questions.  And I would go on to say that in REAL life you need to know the truth.)

Okay, so you don't like that science can only give us theories and not absolute truth. That being said, what do you suggest we replace science with? What system do you propose that can give us the whole truth on issues that science can only give us approximations of?

[alancalverd]

They would find themselves having to put, probably in parenthesis, beside every law, every theory the statement Not Proven.  What do you think the reaction would be?  What would YOUR reaction have been if that had been your introduction to science?

It was. Not quite, admittedly. The phrase was "not disproved", and we were encouraged to question and  investigate every assertion that was ever put before us. Brilliantly, my first physics lesson consisted of a simple demonstration and some dictated notes. At the end, the teacher said "What you have just written is a lie. I didn't do that, and you didn't see it.  No matter what anyone ever tells you, if you are going to be a scientist, say what you did, say what you saw, and say what you think. Now cross out that page and write down  what happened "

Three of my gang ended up running public laboratories and after a career in the scientific civil service I still  have a lot of fun consulting with small companies and challenging idiots in authority. 

[littlebrowndragon (OP)]

Being able to design and manipulate matter on the atomic level, will be a huge tech revolution.  It could lead anywhere.  Cheap abundant elemental resources.  Atomic printer.  Imagine that.  A replicator.

So, you are saying that without science we would not be enjoying e.g. technology, and all the benefits technology provides?

My answer here is that no one knows what a world which had taken a different path, a non-technological path, would be like.  A non-technological world could have many features, these of far greater benefit to humanity than what technology makes available.   A technological world could, in fact, have resulted in a very poor, restricted world, even a harmful world, compared to whatever other possibilities are available to us.   We simply do not know.  And since we do not know, then I do not think we can make such claims about technology.