Science is Boring

reply to post by Kandinsky

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.

I should’ve known. Forgive me. I am now embarrassed that someone may have noticed the spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes throughout the hack-job of the OP.

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.

Oh yes my whole OP is meant to be subjective, hence the highly opinionated title. I’m glad someone noticed. The idea of using objectivity to take on objectivity is strange enough. I hope it will also not go unnoticed that I too spoke of Science with a capital S, as I think most people do, which is the only thing I was essentially attacking, in the hopes that the real science, the honest science, the boring science, can remain ideologically free. Fibre optics for instance (good example—boring stuff).

So I wasn’t attacking science as such because there’s really nothing to attack. I, like everyone else, was being ideological about it, as we often do when treating such things (country, state, religion, society, institutions etc.) as more than what they are. In this instance: Science with a capital S. Blaming science for its effects on nature is as of I were to blame the hammer for when I hit my thumb. I tried to hint at an instrumentalist view, where science is really a tool and not an explainer of things. I was arguing that science is supposed to be boring, boring science is a good thing!, and the not boring science, Science with a capital S (for lack of a better phrase), the strictly theoretical stuff where people derive conclusions about origins, beginnings, and universal teleology, can be met with some degree of scepticism, and that no one theory need be chosen over the other—sort of like religion. The fact that there is so many different theories of everything I think proves that Science with a capital S is not any body of truth, but a body of interpretations and perspectives, and this becomes a breeding ground for ideology. In my opinion there should be no enthusiasm about science whatsoever. We don’t need any more idols.

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.

I think you’re right. That would be the result of my opinion, and might one day be the result if science is continuously viewed through an ideological lens, or as it is sold in the media nowadays, as something that provides answers, gives truth, sets laws. But luckily there is no such entity, and removing Science is only eliminating the ideological use of it.

People defend Science, but I don’t think they really know what they are defending. A branch of knowledge? A series of principles? Scientists? Technology? They defend only their ideology.

I had it all explained, but for brevity’s sake and a little enigmatic mystery (really because I had exactly zero characters left in the OP), I hacked my original into pieces.
Hopefully it provoked some thought.

reply to post by PhotonEffect

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

NO! It's supposed to be boring! The last thing we need is the rabble getting their dirty hands on it. Imagine the travesty.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Boreness is in the eye of the beholder

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Interesting OP.


I believe that the creative inventive mind is what gives us the technology we see today. Some of this technology is good, some bad.

Science merely describes the world around us.

A man crafts a bow, a string , broadhead and arrow.

Is a man using a bow and arrow doing physics? Is he doing Science?

He may be doing what he needs to do in order to have food on his plate. His eye, his brain, and muscle memory do all the necessary calculations needed to draw the bowstring and hit his target.

A whole book could be written on the physics involved in the action. Yet the man is only intuitively aware of the physics and focuses on the game he is hunting.


Science does not create the world around us, and sometimes I wonder if people truly understand that.


Science is a tool and like all tools has its place.




A hammer is usefull but it isn't the right tool for some things.




Some people worship this tool like graven images of old.




Tools don't build jack.

In the hand of a creative person it can.

A person may hope, they dream, and they build, all for pride or glory or hate or love.

LesMisanthrope
reply to post by PhotonEffect

 

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

NO! It's supposed to be boring! The last thing we need is the rabble getting their dirty hands on it. Imagine the travesty.

rab·ble
noun ˈra-bəl
: a large group of loud people who could become violent
the rabble : ordinary or common people who do not have a lot of money, power, or social status
Full Definition of RABBLE
1: a disorganized or confused collection of things
2
a : a disorganized or disorderly crowd of people : mob
b : the lowest class of people

Source

Yes God forbid the lowest class of people should ever learn about this huh LM LM

Let them eat cake LM?????

LM does it make you feel better when you can stereotype people?

Label them is some way that makes you feel superior to them????

Is it possible you are using this forum to compensate for your feelings of inadequacies???

dusty1
reply to post by LesMisanthrope

 

Interesting OP.


I believe that the creative inventive mind is what gives us the technology we see today. Some of this technology is good, some bad.

Science merely describes the world around us.

A man crafts a bow, a string , broadhead and arrow.

Is a man using a bow and arrow doing physics? Is he doing Science?

He may be doing what he needs to do in order to have food on his plate. His eye, his brain, and muscle memory do all the necessary calculations needed to draw the bowstring and hit his target.

A whole book could be written on the physics involved in the action. Yet the man is only intuitively aware of the physics and focuses on the game he is hunting.


Science does not create the world around us, and sometimes I wonder if people truly understand that.


Science is a tool and like all tools has its place.

A hammer is usefull but it isn't the right tool for some things.

Some people worship this tool like graven images of old.

Tools don't build jack.

In the hand of a creative person it can.

A person may hope, they dream, and they build, all for pride or glory or hate or love.

edit on 14-4-2014 by dusty1 because: (no reason given)

Tools are the extensions of ourselves. They are senses and they are limbs of all sorts. Who cares if humans are born with an eye that cannot see the distant galaxies with clarity, for we have invented the telescope.

reply to post by gosseyn


Science has never actually completed an evaluation of religion by actually investigating its origins. In reality the only scientist that has done anything like that came up with, the conclusion of the Collective Unconscious, that would be Carl Jung.

How can you claim the intent of something is invalid without actually investigating it???

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai

LM does it make you feel better when you can stereotype people?

Label them is some way that makes you feel superior to them????

Is it possible you are using this forum to compensate for your feelings of inadequacies???

Do you feel stereotyped Kashai? If the shoe fits...

I only wish it was my fault that you are susceptible to belittlement. But the phrase was obviously in jest.

LesMisanthrope
reply to post by Kashai

 

LM does it make you feel better when you can stereotype people?

Label them is some way that makes you feel superior to them????

Is it possible you are using this forum to compensate for your feelings of inadequacies???

Do you feel stereotyped Kashai? If the shoe fits...

I only wish it was my fault that you are susceptible to belittlement. But the phrase was obviously in jest.

Actually I was thinking the opposite as the term "Rabble" is a well known stereotype.

It did take the opportunity to contact the rabble and there response to you can not be posted in this forum.

However it does begin with you are an ....... and then continues.

people who actually do science find beauty in it.
It is a wonderful thing, making a discovery for yourself.

Like the time I realised that an electron could be made of a photon. It was such an amazing feeling.
Even if I am wrong it lead to a train of thought that I had never discovered before, that mass could be
pure electromagnetic energy.

You seem to equate maths to statistics, but maths can describe anything.
When James Clark Maxwell put together the equations of electricity and magnetism
and found a wave equation, he discovered what light is. You could not have done that without mathematics.
It is beautiful.
You find it boring because you don't understand that it is more than statistics.

Kashai
reply to post by gosseyn

 

Science has never actually completed an evaluation of religion by actually investigating its origins. In reality the only scientist that has done anything like that came up with, the conclusion of the Collective Unconscious, that would be Carl Jung.

How can you claim the intent of something is invalid without actually investigating it???

Any thoughts?

How could science evaluate it? Religion is the complete opposite of the scientific method; the process of studying observable phenomena.

What in religion is "Observable" apart from its practitioners? To study them you'd do better to use psychology and sociology.

If you came up with a hypothesis like, "I believe God exists" then you could apply the scientific method to prove that hypothesis. You will of course, fail, as there is no observable phenomena in the notion of God.

So, I personally don't see how the two can "meet" and link up.

And for the record, science is not boring to me - it's fascinating, interesting, captivating and has contributed to the majority of our understanding in nature, physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, architecture, etc.

Religion has... well, my mum always said, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all

I recognize that some facets of written art rest upon the litterary exploration of the unknown. It is easier and maybe more powerfull to write metaphors about something that remains as yet unexplained. I believe that as science lifts the great mysteries of this world, the realm of the fiction and poetry that I know grows smaller.

However, I'd be willing to give that away and more in exchange for the benfits that science brings humanity.

We are a very dynamic species. I believe art will change, and move from the realm of the mysterious to that of the explained. Just because new forms of expression may be alien to you or me does not mean that they are any less valid. Some say poetry can be found in an equation. I do not see it, but I'm willing to believe that it is there.

As an author, a poet, and a rational human being.

LesMisanthrope
.... I prefer the light and color as seen by the poet’s eye rather than expressed by math....

Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, your opinion, man. Mathematics is the poetry of the cosmos for me; far more beautiful than allegory and metaphor.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


There are very few things which I have ever found truely boring.
These, much like this posting, are usually so far below my own level of interests that I could not make myself garner the intellectual energies needed to attempt comprehension.
This may also be the case with the OP when confronted with the subjects of mathmatics and science.

reply to post by Kashai

Actually I was thinking the opposite as the term "Rabble" is a well known stereotype.

It did take the opportunity to contact the rabble and there response to you can not be posted in this forum.

However it does begin with you are an ....... and then continues.

Of course. Only the rabble would resort to name calling. That's to be expected.

reply to post by teamcommander

These, much like this posting, are usually so far below my own level of interests that I could not make myself garner the intellectual energies needed to attempt comprehension.

Yet here you are. It's funny how that happens. I suppose we are all gluttons for boredom.

reply to post by Ismail

However, I'd be willing to give that away and more in exchange for the benfits that science brings humanity.

Yes, as long as science brings benefits to the human race, we'll let her do whatever she needs to get there. Who needs a forest when we have the convenience of parking lots.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

But I'm not going to treat the entire scientific body of knowledge as if it was a force for good and evil.

In fact - this is (almost) exactly what you've done with your OP - reduced all of science to one very simple thing that can then be easily judged and then dismissed

:-)

Judged and dismissed by you anyhow - and you call it boring. At first. You chose that particular insult (maybe) because you thought the sting would be worse for having to filter all the way down to it's lowly subject from your great above-it-all height

Then you give us the real reasons to hate science:

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.

Maybe you just don't recognize the real target when you see it?

We have met the real enemy. I bet that won't change much from here on out

Pace yourself LesMisanthrope. At this rate the only things that will be left for you to criticize will be HotPockets and Sesame Street

:-)

reply to post by Spiramirabilis

In fact - this is (almost) exactly what you've done with your OP - reduced all of science to one very simple thing that can then be easily judged and then dismissed

:-)

Exactly so. Like those who promote their particular view of science, namely, as being some grand all-knowing entity, someone can come along, look at the exact same phenomena, the exact same results they procure, and present a completely different ideological view of it. So much the better.

Judged and dismissed by you anyhow - and you call it boring. At first. You chose that particular insult (maybe) because you thought the sting would be worse for having to filter all the way down to it's lowly subject from your great above-it-all height

What am I really dismissing here? Have I dismissed the scientific method? Have I dismissed the body of facts? Have I dismissed experiment? Curiosity? Have I dismissed speculation or prediction? I merely dismissed the ideology of Science with a capital S, which essentially, is nothing but people forming a dogmatic view about a practice that has little to do with dogma. No actual science was harmed in the making of this thread, only feelings and sensibilities. No one likes to hear their worldview called “boring”.

Maybe you just don't recognize the real target when you see it?

We have met the real enemy. I bet that won't change much from here on out

Pace yourself LesMisanthrope. At this rate the only things that will be left for you to criticize will be HotPockets and Sesame Street

Perhaps I do not. What is this real target and enemy?