Re: Tuesday's elections


"John Oliver" <aussiejohn67@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jfpin1hkga0r80qneug5tev5im2rrf5an1@xxxxxxxxxx
> I would guess that the number of working scientists who worry about
> how to define a scientific theory can be counted on fingers and toes.
> I've certainly never met one. The ones I know just want to get on with
> studying whatever interests them and using whatever tools are useful
> in those studies.
>
> And as far as I can tell, the overwhelmingly consensus among those
> philosophers who are interested, is that there is no good way to
> demarcate the difference between science and non science.

Which is why most scientists getting their work done don't worry much about
philosophy of science, at least when it's arguing points like this. Why
would they? Science has advanced by insisting on hard-to-meet standards
like falsifiability because it is a useful standard. Meanwhile, far from
the action, a handful of philosophers get themselves tied into the same
knots they always have. As I've mentioned other times, my great-great-great
uncle was a 19th century physicist and philosopher, a Positivist whose
insistence on empirical evidence led him to reject some of the most
important ideas of his era, not because they didn't make sense, but because
they couldn't be observed and thus were at odds with his philosophical
leanings. He was apparently a brilliant mine and a fine physicist some of
whose ideas anticipated both relativity and quantum mechanics, and if he
hadn't been such a philosophical stickler, he might not be the footnote he
now is. To get back to the original topic a little, he was a firm supporter
of Darwin, and as a judge had decided a case against the teaching of the
Bible in public schools.

Mark Alan Miller


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Pol.Sci. vs. Poli.Sci
    ... Karl Popper, _Logic of Scientific Discovery_ ... Donald Gillies, _Philosophy of Science in the 20th Century_, vol IV ... the scientists and Creationists both get it all wrong. ... He and a bunch of other profeesional philosophers worked out ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Scientific Definitions
    ... working scientists usually don't pay any attention to philosophers of ... Most of the philosophy of science is ignored, probably correctly, by ... philosophers have gone off the deep end again with the wide spread ... Except for Popper, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Slow Death for Real Science
    ... of the problem, in my opinion, is that scientists use tools, culture, ... Philosophers and lawyers also use words in specialised ways so that ... isn't a unique trait of science. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Semi off-topic: Anything above a grade 10 education is a waste of
    ... God knows Western Civilization would be far ... and reminds me of the Greek philosophers who ... and scientists) and everything that involves semi-conductors, ... So 'real' education contains less natural philosophy (science) than ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: vatican observatory
    ... just our understanding of it is ... Don't worry, you're not even close to that, ... about science than millions of scientists ever will. ...
    (talk.origins)
Loading