Originally posted by Vanitas
The sad thing is that scientists are getting payed to imagine instead of coming up with real science. Where can I sign on? I don't even need a
degree! Cool!
What follows is not a rhetoric question:
What exactly is "real" science?
Am I right in suspecting it is supposed to mean research within the limits of what is presently known to be "true" (and which was discovered,
ironically enough, by individuals who transgressed the known limits of science in their own time)?
I like the way constantwonder prefaced the OP by commenting that we should take some salt along with the OP article! Well said.
And the question this topic raises is indeed what is real science. Let's examine one definition:
What Is Science? And What Is The Scientific Method?
Science is a METHOD for the acquisition of knowledge about the universe around us (reliable - thought not infallible). The minimum requirements
was given in the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1981. Judge Overton found that science has four essential features: QUOTE
1. It is guided by natural laws, and is explanatory by references to natural laws.
2. Science is testable against the empirical world.
3. Its conclusions are tentative, not the final word.
4. It is falsifiable.
It seems to me like what we have is the beginnings of science but not real science on this topic yet, because so far we haven't been able to test
this science against the empirical world.
The main difference between the scientific method and other procedures for generating knowledge is that science says that YOU HAVE TO PROVE WHAT
YOU CLAIM. The scientific method has a set procedure for going about this. It can be summarized in a series of steps:
1) Observation ( A series of observations is made and a phenomenon noted)
2) Form a falsifiable testable hypothesis to explain these observations. Deduce predictions from the hypothesis. These are phrased as statement in the
form "if principle P is true, then event E should occur or fact F should be true."It MUST be "falsifiable" (The most crucial). That means a
scientific hypothesis must have some feature about it that would allow someone (a careful experimenter or observer) to prove the hypothesis false if
it is wrong.
3) Testing of the hypothesis (We must design an experiment or define a set of observations that we will take as proof that our theory is wrong. )
4) Adoption of the hypothesis or back to (2) if it fails the test(in which we admit that there is no evidence that our theory is correct.
So you have to prove what you claim in science? OK where is the proof for any of this in the context that science must be testable against the
empirical world? It seems to me like we have made some observations on the micro (quantum mechanical) scale and tried to apply some of those
observations to a macro (universe-sized) scale, without any evidence that such an extrapolation is warranted. This is OK for an idea to pursue...but
where is step 3 in the scientific method, testing the hypothesis?
If it's not testable, and not falsifiable, etc, at least according to the supreme court, it's not science, at least not yet anyway. And if it is
testable, what are the hypothesis tests, have they been planned or done? The multiverse theory along with string and M-Theory all seem to suffer from
a lack of any real world empirical observational evidence to demonstrate their validity as being within the realm of science. I don't expect
immediate results when someone comes up with an idea, since it took years for observations to be made to confirm Einstein's ideas, but I really
don't see much in the way of real world hypothesis confirmations resulting from multiverse and M theory yet.
[edit on 19-10-2009 by Arbitrageur]
