Science is Boring

Kashai
Science is about details, what does it entail to build a car or computer from scratch?

Time, money and patience. Oh, and knowledge.

Phage
reply to post by ImaFungi

 

Language and math exists because of science.

No, you have that backwards.
Without language and math, science could not exist.

edit on 4/13/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

I understand what you are saying and mean, you dont understand what im saying and mean. I have the same perspective you are able to have with what you are saying, but also the perspective I suggested at the same time. My perspective and understanding of theses terms and the reality and history they relate to is more expansive and unlimited, where as yours is limited by your point of view, and holding to your stubbornness, as if you really think I could not comprehend and agree to a degree the 'point' you are passionately expressing. Its very literal and confined and thats great, but you are missing my point. The nature and essence of science is embedded in human nature, beyond the modern mans writing out what the scientific method is and saying "Now science exists".

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Archeaology is a science and I find it anything but boring.
But the protocols of science, are what render most of it
boring IMO.

LM you do realize that every robotic satellite in Earth orbit as well through-out our solar system and in some opinions beyond, were once a bunch of rocks.

One example of what modern science has accomplished.

Further

Any thoughts?

Fluid dynamics? Turbulence? Reaction-diffusion equations? Frozen turkey cannons and jet engines? Magnetohydrodynamics of stellar cores? Sonoluminescence? Rayleigh-Benard convection? Rayleigh waves? The Cloud Appreciation Society?

How can you say science is boring? You probably haven't heard about these...

it's tedious work.

no high 5's till some other chumps said you did a good job, for as long as it lasts.

someone else is always trying to one up you.

maybe ya need something like this.

"Unified field theory is sometimes called the Theory of Everything (TOE, for short): the long-sought means of tying together all known phenomena to explain the nature and behavior of all matter and energy in existence. In physics, a field refers to an area under the influence of some force, such as gravity or electricity, for example. A unified field theory would reconcile seemingly incompatible aspects of various field theories to create a single comprehensive set of equations. Such a theory could potentially unlock all the secrets of nature and make a myriad of wonders possible, including such benefits as time travel and an inexhaustible source of clean energy, among many others. According to Michio Katu, a theoretical physicist at City College, City University of New York, those in pursuit of a unified field theory seek "an equation an inch long that would allow us to read the mind of God."

whatis.techtarget.com...


but what would that mean in the big picture?

reply to post by Kandinsky

Science is conceivably grateful that an ATSer has limited their range of pejoratives to the innocuous 'boring.'

It most assuredly is a more welcoming description of light's finer aspects. Nevertheless, a poet's words won't provide the colourful perspectives of Hubble's cyclopian eye. Science has provided the medium by which we can all share in the wonders of the creative mind; at least to an extent that surpasses the reach of word-of-mouth from the poet's own sphere of society.

Without science, 'Les Mis' would not be expressing his eloquent and thoughtful contentions to so wide an audience.

I know it's difficult to do so, but refraining from anthropomorphizing science might actually be the first step to making science exciting again. We treat it like it has feelings, or that it's our diligent friend working away while we sleep, and that it deserves our thanks for providing things to play with. Every technological advancement was conceived by singular subjective individuals, and not some objective force we decide to endow with a proper name.

I mean we often thank Science for being so imaginative, but it's only because we're too lazy to go see who actually invented and designed the tech in question. "Science provides such and such..." No, not really. Every advancement in science was made by particular individuals, and not entire branches—let alone the entire tree—of objective science. Science loses it's romantic allure which is so thrown about these days, when it is realized that if it is continuously treated as if it was capable of doing good and evil, Science must also be culpable for nuclear and chemical weaponry, the destruction of entire species, the effects on climate change, deforestation, the encroachment on indigenous peoples, animal testing and on and on and on. Hell, we should almost bring it to court! But no, we only like to speak about it in such manners when we have an ideological purpose for doing so.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis

Science is not your passion. You may look down your nose at it, but scientists have a passion for life, knowledge and this world of ours that is not so different from the passion of a poet

Sounds a little sour-grapish to me. Did a scientist kick sand in your face? - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Certain sciences are my passion. But I'm not going to treat the entire scientific body of knowledge as if it was a force for good and evil. I'm sure we can say scientists have a passion for life when they are testing cosmetics on animals, or designing weaponry or devising different ways terra-form the earth. Surely, passion for knowledge is a prerequisite for Science, but at what length are they willing to go for this knowledge? I think we already know the answer.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


If you were sole leader/ruler of the world, how would you establish science to be done? What is your ideal world? Is mankind working to discover new technologies and innovate, and learn about nature? Where do you draw the lines?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


I don't understand. In your OP, you say that science is boring because it gives us an objective view of the universe around us and not a subjective view through the eyes of someone, but then in you second post you say that science could become less boring if we could refrain from anthropomorphising it. This is a contradiction. I say that having a tool that can give us an objective view of our universe us included, is the least anthropomorphic view that we can have.

But what you seem to rant against is not science itself or the scientific method, but scientists and what the general population makes of science. I understand that but in my mind, science and scientists are 2 different things.

Perhaps you are not happy with the overspecialisation ? I can understand that too. I admire polymaths. In the mind of someone like Leonardo daVinci, there was no difference between science and art, for him painting a portrait and inventing and building a machine with calculus, tools and measures were the same. We lack that today, we are often overspecialised and we don't build bridges between the different domains of knowledge like we should if we wanted to see the bigger picture. Someone who is a scientist, an artist and a philosopher all at the same time can certainly see a more complete picture than someone who is overspecialised.

reply to post by Phage


You seem to think that before the code/rules of the scientific method were written down and established, no one ever made an observation and an experiment. Of course they did !

Also, 5 or 6 centuries before Galileo, there was Ibn al-Haytham.

Science that denies the faculties of Imagination and Intuition for the collection of knowledge is boring...and terribly slow at progressing toward a better understanding of everything.

ImaFungi

Phage
reply to post by ImaFungi

 

No.
There are things like self awareness, language, mathematics and writing. These all came along before science.

Language and math and self awareness utilize the scientific method.

Not sure if you understand what the scientific method is...

Science boring...hmmm....well some of it. I don't like working through long equations and before I had a better understanding of the terms used in many papers it read as blah blah blah however as I learned more and became accustomed to the language I would say I F%@#ING LOVE SCIENCE...

As I read your perspective on the solar system model I couldn't help but think about this recent picture brought to us by science.



Now that can give a person some perspective.

So yeah some parts can be boring but nowhere as boring to me as looking through a dusty old book of stories written by ancient people who attribute everything to a magical being. Not every scientific field is interesting to me, but that doesn't mean that someone else doesn't find it interesting overall though I marvel at many of the wonders of science. Anyway that is my perspective.

Check out my signature link for 10 sublime wonders of science,

reply to post by gosseyn

I don't understand. In your OP, you say that science is boring because it gives us an objective view of the universe around us and not a subjective view through the eyes of someone, but then in you second post you say that science could become less boring if we could refrain from anthropomorphising it. This is a contradiction. I say that having a tool that can give us an objective view of our universe us included, is the least anthropomorphic view that we can have.

But what you seem to rant against is not science itself or the scientific method, but scientists and what the general population makes of science. I understand that but in my mind, science and scientists are 2 different things.

Perhaps you are not happy with the overspecialisation ? I can understand that too. I admire polymaths. In the mind of someone like Leonardo daVinci, there was no difference between science and art, for him painting a portrait and inventing and building a machine with calculus, tools and measures were the same. We lack that today, we are often overspecialised and we don't build bridges between the different domains of knowledge like we should if we wanted to see the bigger picture. Someone who is a scientist, an artist and a philosopher all at the same time can certainly see a more complete picture than someone who is overspecialised.

I don't believe it is a contradiction. When I say I don't think we should anthropomorphize Science, I am speaking about the way people speak of science as if its some grand explainer of phenomena. It is a tool, yes, yet it is treated as if it is a dispenser of truth and knowledge and objectivity, whereas it is entirely up to the subjective interpretation of the one who views the data, and the speech community that considers the interpretation. I think considering it as anything more that what it is, namely an explainer of truth, breeds a certain dogmatic ideology among people who are not scientists.

There are many technical details I decided not to get into, for instance the problems of the Newtonian and Cartesian methods of science, and some Humean and Wittgensteinian objections that lay at the roots of my ideas here, but overall I'm merely touching on the growing dogmatism surrounding Science with a capital S. I actually hope that science remains boring to repel the dogmatists as much as possible. Only then can it get real, unbiased work done.

That being said, I am always happy! I just figured I'd spend a Sunday trying to be critical about something that no one is very critical about. No harm no foul.

So what are you suggesting OP? That people pursue modes of thought not based on emperical data? That objective-emperical science be seen as only one sphere of understanding among others? Or that the truth is boring, and other modes of thought may be interesting but don't hold up to scrutiny? That science needs interpretation that extends beyond the data itself? Or what?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

I know it's difficult to do so, but refraining from anthropomorphizing science might actually be the first step to making science exciting again. We treat it like it has feelings, or that it's our diligent friend working away while we sleep, and that it deserves our thanks for providing things to play with.

I think the style of my response eluded you there. I was gently satirising your post using the same literary devices you choose in your OPs.

Every advancement in science was made by particular individuals, and not entire branches—let alone the entire tree—of objective science. Science loses it's romantic allure which is so thrown about these days, when it is realized that if it is continuously treated as if it was capable of doing good and evil, Science must also be culpable for nuclear and chemical weaponry, the destruction of entire species, the effects on climate change, deforestation, the encroachment on indigenous peoples, animal testing and on and on and on.

Perhaps your focus on the humanities is giving you a blind spot? For example, if you look at the history of fibre-optics, you'll see incremental advances built upon preceding discoveries by those who were educated in the sciences. The rest of your argument is highly subjective and emotive and, I suspect, another literary conceit of which you are well aware. That's not a criticism of you, just a nod from someone who recognises rhetoric.

If we really analyse the above quote, it's as guilty of personification as my tongue-in-cheek response. Moreover, if your words are truly how you feel, they call for anti-intellectualism and a return to the status of hunter-gatherers - a time before science? Even if that were the case, there's an argument to be made that hunter-gatherers were responsible, in part, for the mass extinctions of larger mammals. So where would that leave us if we hold science responsible? Should we be returned to that point in time before the first flint was knapped (surely a seminal scientist)? Or perhaps before the first sharp rock was calculated to defeat larger predators?

It seems to me that your argument, if taken to its logical limits, would actually take us back to a point in time when our ancestors hadn't the language to express the poetry that we both love so much.

LesMisanthrope
reply to post by gosseyn

 

I don't understand. In your OP, you say that science is boring because it gives us an objective view of the universe around us and not a subjective view through the eyes of someone, but then in you second post you say that science could become less boring if we could refrain from anthropomorphising it. This is a contradiction. I say that having a tool that can give us an objective view of our universe us included, is the least anthropomorphic view that we can have.

But what you seem to rant against is not science itself or the scientific method, but scientists and what the general population makes of science. I understand that but in my mind, science and scientists are 2 different things.

Perhaps you are not happy with the overspecialisation ? I can understand that too. I admire polymaths. In the mind of someone like Leonardo daVinci, there was no difference between science and art, for him painting a portrait and inventing and building a machine with calculus, tools and measures were the same. We lack that today, we are often overspecialised and we don't build bridges between the different domains of knowledge like we should if we wanted to see the bigger picture. Someone who is a scientist, an artist and a philosopher all at the same time can certainly see a more complete picture than someone who is overspecialised.

I don't believe it is a contradiction. When I say I don't think we should anthropomorphize Science, I am speaking about the way people speak of science as if its some grand explainer of phenomena. It is a tool, yes, yet it is treated as if it is a dispenser of truth and knowledge and objectivity, whereas it is entirely up to the subjective interpretation of the one who views the data, and the speech community that considers the interpretation. I think considering it as anything more that what it is, namely an explainer of truth, breeds a certain dogmatic ideology among people who are not scientists.

There are many technical details I decided not to get into, for instance the problems of the Newtonian and Cartesian methods of science, and some Humean and Wittgensteinian objections that lay at the roots of my ideas here, but overall I'm merely touching on the growing dogmatism surrounding Science with a capital S. I actually hope that science remains boring to repel the dogmatists as much as possible. Only then can it get real, unbiased work done.

That being said, I am always happy! I just figured I'd spend a Sunday trying to be critical about something that no one is very critical about. No harm no foul.

Well, yes science is as you put it an explainer of truth, but then that is the only choice we have. Science is the best approximation to Reality(truth) that we have, it is the best model. It is the best approximation because all we can produce is approximation. Everything that we think we know goes through our senses and is filtered by our brain. Who knows what Reality really is without any kind of filtering or interpretation ? Is light really luminous, does sound really make sound ? Science is also the only tool that can let us make accurate predictions, exactly because it is our best model of Reality. I am not saying there is no truth(representation of reality) in the arts or philosophy, but science is more clever when it comes to representing reality with accuracy. Science is more adapted to reality and permits us to adapt ourselves better to reality, because it allows us to predict and that is invaluable.

What I find boring is philosophy without science. Philosophy without science leads to fiction(religion for example). I know fictions can be beautiful and interesting but Reality is incredibly more exciting and interesting than any fiction ever imagined, because reality is unique, singular and real. Why invent fabulous animals in fairy tales when you have giraffes and whales that are as strange and most of all are real. I can understand why someone would be more interested in the aesthetic of ideas, but personally since I have linked together science and philosophy, I just can't go back. I like this quote :

"It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd—uncanny and highly improbable. G. K. Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at a gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't."
— Chapter I, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Alan Watts, 1966

Regarding the social reaction of the general population to science, I mainly agree but I don't think we can separate science from the rest. There are economical and educational factors that play a role here. And actually I was planning to post a subject about how socially simplistically retarded we are compared to how we seek complexity and refinement in science.

Would you say that you are more interested in the aesthetic of ideas rather than in their potential to represent truth/reality ?

LesMisanthrope

I know it's difficult to do so, but refraining from anthropomorphizing science might actually be the first step to making science exciting again.

What human form do you think is given to science ?
Surely there is no need to make todays "science" more exciting to those who are passionate about it now.
The old concept of "Science' (has become pseudo-science )it has been marketed to the public as exciting for the last decade. Political and marketing use todays " science" includes selling big pharma's drugs, GMO, to support hedge fund agendas = "Climate Change" (as though the climate is man made,changed by cow farts, or is not in the nature of seasons to change or climate is under man's control).This is not the original concept mankind had of science(as knowledge).


But you my friend just said you think science is boring to argue .

LesMisanthropeCertain sciences are my passion.

It would be good to note the change in the concept of science as knowledge to a giant pseudo science bubble.
This is not for the good of mankind.

The more I think about it, you're right~ Science is boring, which is probably why folks tend to prefer religious belief systems and miracles and telepathy and levitation and aliens and such

Maybe Science should instead present its findings in the same way that we pass along our legends, stories, myths and metaphors. Or perhaps every once in a while it should announce a new discovery as a "Miracle"!

The Legend of Relativity sounds much more intriguing than the Theory Of General Relativity, doesn't it? I mean heck, even the damn title has the word "general" in it-- how unfortunately dull...

Spice it up a little, is all I'm sayin