Is science truth?

[Al Hakim]

Favourite quote on science:

"I am an old-fashioned scientist...

Hi Treegod,

I do not think that your are so old-fashioned.
We all have to follow the wheel of history: In the beginning 20th century - and the few decades before - science changed the world and its thinking. Many of its results were undoubtedfully of benefit for the world, a few were atrocious (like the atomic bomb). In fact, we would still live on trees without science.

However, at its heymay science denied that there can anything exist like the scientific experiment to explain the world. That was wrong as we know today. Look how psychology developed throughout the last century: From Taylorism (to make work more effective by watching and reducing the worker's motions) over behaviourism (if you give an incentive the worker will become better) to the new idea of feeling self-controlled.

We should admit nowadays that people like science if it is about to solve a special (or technical) problem. Howeve,r we began to acknowledge that there is more than mathematical truth. People are thinking beings - and thinking is not always logical. It contains dreams, aspirations and fears. A nice example is the development of medicine. Doctors tend to have a holistic view rather than just seeing the technical parts.

In my opinion: That is the right approach to science! A pure scientist who is unable to cope with the fears of "normal" people is a poor scientist.

[Gwion]

I wonder if the definition of the term science has changed and how and when. I hold, as above, that science is a method of working that involves observing, hypothesising, testing by experiment, measuring and reaching a conclusion which allows you to modify your hypothesis to be more probable, a closer fit to the observations and measurements. Experiments are tests designed to disprove an hypothesis. If they fail to disprove it then you go on to refine it further. (This was basic Year 7 science, lesson 1. ) Now, it seems that definition/description applies to experimental science – but we also have something called theoretical science.

As far as I can tell, theoretical science uses mathematics to model events. The problem is that, whilst you can never prove anything experimentally, only disprove it or fail to disprove it, you can prove things mathematically. This mathematical proof holds true within the laws of mathematics, just as creationism can hold true within the laws of fundamentalist Christianity. To my mind, however much things may be mathematical “facts”, it doesn’t make them true outside of maths.

Both types of science are therefore limited. “Real”, experimental science helps us to understand, explain and predict the material world but can tell us nothing about our non-material environment. Theoretical science can tell us anything about anything about mathematics but nothing outside of maths.

Both types of science are also just tools. They can be used for good or bad and can easily be misrepresented (a bit like magic). Science can be appropriated by politics and business just as magic could be and was in the middle ages (anyone want to buy an indulgence?) No amount of misrepresentation can change what science actually is or what its limitations are.

I do agree, however, that scientists themselves must take some of the blame for the misrepresentations. As pointed out, funding tends to be provided by those with motives and those motives are sometimes best served if people are fed the “Science has the facts” line. Perhaps we’ll only get honesty if we go back to funding science as a search for knowledge rather than a search for an answer that will give us a profit.

[Hennie]

There are over a hundred theories about how our solar system has come into existence. All of them have their scientific reasoning, including loads of maths, to back up the "facts" . Bottom line is is that it is very much the personal conviction of the scientist which of the theories seems most likely to them. Science is a game of probabilities, personal discrimination. Science is truth, but truth is an expression of very multiple things (mostly).

[Bart]

Favourite quote on science:

"I am an old-fashioned scientist who believes, as Freeman Dyson put it in his book Infinite in all directions, that the ethic of science is based on a fundamental open-mindedness, a willingness to subject every theory to analytical scrutiny and experimental test. The Royal Society of London in 1660 proudly took as its motto the phrase "Nullis in verba" meaning "No man's word shall be final". There is no place for infallibility in science. I was also brought up to believe that science was serious but not sacrosanct and that creative science required a sense of wonder and a sense of humour." James Lovelock, Healing Gaia

I like the quote.

In my mind we should approach science as if we know nothing, this will allow for new possibilities. The moment someone claims the truth, all communication stops. This holds also truth for those who hold the fluffy stuff as the whole truth. There are extremists on both side, an closed mind is a pity.

Don't forget that the approach we took to transform from hunter/gatherers to farming has a close resemblance to a scientific approach.

[Nicholaas]

In my mind we should approach science as if we know nothing, this will allow for new possibilities. The moment someone claims the truth, all communication stops. This holds also truth for those who hold the fluffy stuff as the whole truth. There are extremists on both side, an closed mind is a pity.

Science - when done properly and objectively - is a ground-up approach. It starts with observable phenomena, and attempts to create testable models to explain the world and the stuff that happens. Science is not about absolute truth, it's about devising the best possible explanations based on the preponderance of evidence.

Religion, on the other hand, is a top-down system. It presupposes the nature of the cosmos to be a certain way, and tries to fit all of observable phenomenon into said model. When the data and observations do not fit (and they never do) to the religious model of the universe, the facts are either tossed aside as irrelevant, or distorted to attempt some kind of harmonizing with the model.

Science changes with the facts, while religion doesn't. Science is it's own harshest critic, while religion doesn't suffer criticism.

[Explorer]

Science - when done properly and objectively - is a ground-up approach. It starts with observable phenomena, and attempts to create testable models to explain the world and the stuff that happens. Science is not about absolute truth, it's about devising the best possible explanations based on the preponderance of evidence.

Religion, on the other hand, is a top-down system. It presupposes the nature of the cosmos to be a certain way, and tries to fit all of observable phenomenon into said model. When the data and observations do not fit (and they never do) to the religious model of the universe, the facts are either tossed aside as irrelevant, or distorted to attempt some kind of harmonizing with the model.

Science changes with the facts, while religion doesn't. Science is it's own harshest critic, while religion doesn't suffer criticism.

You are right, and this is what I said before also.
The main problem in discussions like this is that people who don't get this, won't read it, and simply repeat their doctrines as if nothing was said.

It is a shame, because there is a level of thought beyond this sharp distinction, where science and religion do not oppose each other, and it is at the core of druidry and it can be quite illuminating if you can get through that paradox. But that takes a broader perspective and willingness to learn. That is not going to happen here I fear.

[Kima]

You guys seem to keep mixing up what-science-is with the role of science in the community.

How many times have I heard that I was mixing up the pure mission of the church with the mistaken way in which Christians behave in the world

I am very much enjoying this discussion with interesting points being made on both sides... but has anyone listened to the radio show? I think it is worth it and if you skip the music breaks it won't take an hour.

Here is the website of the author who, may I remind you, is a physicist; http://activistteacher.blogspot.ch/

[Hennie]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010 ... act_lehrer

Please read to the end.

[Kima]

Science - when done properly and objectively - is a ground-up approach. It starts with observable phenomena, and attempts to create testable models to explain the world and the stuff that happens. Science is not about absolute truth, it's about devising the best possible explanations based on the preponderance of evidence.

This is what science should be, and perhaps what is used to be. I don't think this is what science is now becoming.

@Nico: I too like your Lovelock quote.

The reason why I submitted a radion show is that I was hoping we might discuss more specific points than the general religion vs. science talk as a whole, where we already know on which side each member of the forum stands...

[Aphritha]

Interesting read, Hennie.

[Explorer]

The reason why I submitted a radion show is that I was hoping we might discuss more specific points than the general religion vs. science talk as a whole, where we already know on which side each member of the forum stands...

You may want to ask a more specific question then? What do you want to discuss?

[DaRC]

You guys seem to keep mixing up what-science-is with the role of science in the community. That makes things rather confusing.

I have explained a bit about what science is, because some people don't seem to have a clue.
That is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of understanding.

Or perhaps they have a good awareness of how science, in practice, works and are playing devil's advocate.

The OP is around whether science is truth.

We've yet to clarify what 'science' is; between the scientific method, the scientific community and (to throw a new one into the cauldron) the scientific establishment.
We've yet to clarify what truth is and whether it's the same as fact.

So to explain my scientific establishment point - within any establishment to climb the greasy pole towards Professorship, for the majority, needs a combination of pure science (via the scientific method i.e. actual work) and political nous; understanding what research to focus on, which others in the establishment to 'get on side' and the correct publications to publish that research.
Having got to the top of the greasy pole some 'scientists' have been known to then fight a rear-guard action particularly when it comes to their favourite or preferred theories (or more particularly the research that got them to the top of the greasy pole). Maybe even as far as squashing research in areas they, personally, find unfavourable. Obtaining research funds is a part of that political process.

This IMO can de-value the currency of whether science is truth because the establishment has moved, for political and financial reasons, away from a free-market research into nature via the scientific method.

We've also not even got into the area of how 'science' is then sold to the public via the media. Which takes us back to what is 'science'. Even the dictionary struggles:
1.
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2.
systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3.
any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4.
systematized knowledge in general.
5.
knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.

[Al Hakim]

Having got to the top of the greasy pole some 'scientists' have been known to then fight a rear-guard action particularly when it comes to their favourite or preferred theories (or more particularly the research that got them to the top of the greasy pole). Maybe even as far as squashing research in areas they, personally, find unfavourable. Obtaining research funds is a part of that political process.

This IMO can de-value the currency of whether science is truth because the establishment has moved, for political and financial reasons, away from a free-market research into nature via the scientific method..

DaRC, you made a good point. Science in itself may be based on neutral findings - as Nico showed before a few times. But many people - I am afraid - do not work as a scientist in order to confirm a certain theory any longer but to find what he is to find. Perhaps I am mistaken but had not there been any scandals about researchers who were bought to produce certain results recently? It would be very human, indeed, to falsify a series of measurements by omitting some non-fitting values.
Well, results gained like that may not hold water when the experiments are repeated. But they unsettle the public because they do not know any longer what to believe, or whom.
That is why I prefer humanist arts as everybody would know that what I am saying can be fiction or truth.

[Til]

Which is the problem you get with the media reporting science to the public. It does so in such a fashion that everything is over-sensationalised and hyped up, all in the name of headlines and ratings. It's pretty annoying, because people who don't know science can't verify things for themselves. They simply don't have access to the same journals and publications that professional scientists do (unless they want to part with reasonably large sums of money). It's easier to trust people who claim to have an understanding! As was mentioned, there's a lot of politics and profit in science these days too, so it's no longer the straightforward observation -> hypothesis -> experiment -> conclusion scenario you'd associate with science. In practice it's not so straight forward. Some areas and industries are better than others, but lots of people get into science for the wrong reasons.

Which is why the definition of "science" in terms of the question asked is problematic. And as for defining truth, hmmm, that may text a while and a few philosophy textbooks!

[DJ Droood]

I wonder if religionists have ever made claims based on politics, power, money and/or personal agenda? I suppose one key difference is it ia possible to test the claims of scientists.

[Al Hakim]

DJDrood,
I believe that there are many religionists who made their statements for political reasons, i.e. to gain power over the rest of the world. Gaining power means making money, too. Scientist usually cannot make it in such an obvious way. Instead, they produce "myths" that non-scientific persons cannot understand.

[Til]

I wonder if religionists have ever made claims based on politics, power, money and/or personal agenda? I suppose one key difference is it ia possible to test the claims of scientists.

Yep. I'm pretty sure they have. And yes, you can test the claims of scientists, but only to a point! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction for example).

[DJ Droood]

Al: such as?

[DJ Droood]

As a practical example, my wife is about to negotiate her way through a major urban area while I play here on my smartphone...I am neither a scientist nor a theologian, and understand the worjings of this technology about as well as I understand the mind of god...when the time comes to help her, should I pray or use the gps?

Edit: she is cranky fron 4 hours of driving...both?

[Aphritha]

Definitely both.