The Good Thing About Science

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The above statement (or one of its variations) might appear clever initially, but after utilising some critical thinking skills most people will be able to see how ridiculous such an argument actually is. I don't deny that the man making the statement is a smart, well-educated individual with many contributions to science. That doesn't mean he is automatically correct in this case, though.

I'm not going to analyse individual words such as "good" and "true" because that would make the thread more complex than it needs to be. What I shall do is interpret the meaning of the overall statement, put forth my argument and see whether others agree or not.

What I understand by his quote is this: science is correct despite what your personal beliefs towards it might be. Isn't this, however, a dangerous approach to acquiring knowledge? Why? Because you start to associate "science" with "scientist", and start trusting what is said by the scientist without utilising your critical thinking skills. You lower your defences and begin to accept what you are being told as factual without confirming it for yourself. Too many times we hear people parrot the views of others without thinking it through first.

I am certainly not advocating that scientists should be distrusted or looked upon with suspicion; I am rather arguing that any claim made by an authoritative source should be examined before being accepted as truthful or self-evident. We know those in power prefer to use those in positions of authority to relay their messages as people are more likely to accept something as factual if it has come from an authoritative source compared to a commoner from down the road.

There are many good things about science; blind allegiance to the views of those whom study it is not one of them.

Seeing as so few scientists are inclined to replicate, and find it difficult when they try, while scientists and journals themselves are under so much pressure to publish novel findings, I'd be inclined toward suspicion of individual scientists and their work. Technically, that's supposed to be a given, peer review and all that, but the system seems to be failing so we need to rely n our own faculties. It's a healthy thing, really.

The "science is true whether you believe it or not" might be fair but it ignores the reluctance to reexamine the axioms like the speed of light constant. Science also assumes it knows most things already and dismisses inconsistant information, like pre-sumerian civilisations or the aquatic ape theories.

You could even say that the quote in the OP actually goes against what science teaches from the beginning. Nothing is to be just taken as fact, everything should be tested.

A great personal example to what you brought up was one of my first days in a genetics lab. The GA starts off class by saying " evolution is a fact so we're not going to be disputing that here." I thought that statement nullified the whole class.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

I changed it a bit so it would be a truthfull statement.
“The good thing about all spanning truth is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
Science is sometimes trying to increase awareness and move towards all spanning truth.

Some scientist proved that they could not handle what they found when they went down the rabbit hole. Entanglement is a good example that even Einstein had problem with.

Richard Dawkins is an example of a person who takes the clothes of a science to get authority to bash everything that is not materialism, is not automatically truthful just because other views are confused about all spanning thruth.

The truth is the truth whether or not you believe it...
To bad scientists don't know the truth.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
The truth is the truth whether or not you believe it...
To bad scientists don't know the truth.

...he said as he typed his reply on a computer, the design and implementation of which depended on generation upon generation of scientific discovery and engineering implementation.

And it's "too".

a reply to: Dark Ghost

I wanted to drop something I was reading earlier and shared on another thread and think it may fit hear better .

American Thinker, physicist Thomas Sheahen briefly reviews the great strides science made over the past century, including recognizing the limits to scientific knowledge. He writes:

“We have indeed come a long way over a century, and physicists, chemists and biologists know a lot more than in the past. But the most important thing a physicist learns is about the limits of our knowledge. There are things that scientists do not know and we can be sure that we are not going to know these things via science – human knowledge comes with limitations. One major advance of 20th century science was Quantum Mechanics, which includes the Uncertainty Principle, which sets a limit on how well you can possibly know extremely simple things, like where something is or how fast it’s moving.”

As Sheahen writes:

“We gradually realized that our viewpoint is terribly limited – that we can only grasp a small fraction of reality. It was a big dose of humility for scientists, but it was necessary. We understand now that there is a big difference between the very little human mind and ‘the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.”

The limits to knowledge need to be more fully explored and understood.

wattsupwiththat.com...

Do us all a favor and get an actual degree in science before criticizing it and consequently embarrassing yourself.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: Bluntone22
The truth is the truth whether or not you believe it...
To bad scientists don't know the truth.

...he said as he typed his reply on a computer, the design and implementation of which depended on generation upon generation of scientific discovery and engineering implementation.

And it's "too".

Thank you grammar nazi,,,

Maybe I should have said that scientist don't know all truth. They developed theories and try to prove them and sometimes fail miserably. They must be afraid to say "I don't know".
But hey I've used your using a computer argument defending capitalism.

a reply to: TzarChasm

So a right to knowledge, philosophy, the questioning of claima thereof are all dependent on whether one has a degree?
Lets analyze this statement by you Tzar.
What you imply seems to be purely based in ignorance, let me tell you why;
First, you made the assumption that the man(or woman)who started this post has no degree, and you take up issue with that. All that is implied in that statement alone shows that you never got a degree, as you first presumed based on personal knowledge, which is that you have no degree, and neither do many of your peers, so based on personal reality, you presume that most others you speak to do not have a degree, and that is why you presume to speak as though your argument has equality to any statement thus far here, while failing to see that you are hypocritical in that you claim others of no authority should speak, when you yourself have no authority.

Secondly, I would like to point out that most with degrees these days are either incompetent or cheats, as now most colleges have their tests done online, and I have personally witnessed friends looking up the answers while taking their "big test" showing that they have learned or have knowledge that is incomplete, and untrustworthy as an authoritative source.

So basically, having a degree doesnt mean a thing, ask bill gates if you dont believe me, a Degree is simply proof you took a course in something, not propf that you know or remember a damn thing about it.

You of course would know this to be true, if you had spent more than a year in any college my son

originally posted by: AutisticEvo
a reply to: TzarChasm

So a right to knowledge, philosophy, the questioning of claima thereof are all dependent on whether one has a degree?
Lets analyze this statement by you Tzar.
What you imply seems to be purely based in ignorance, let me tell you why;
First, you made the assumption that the man(or woman)who started this post has no degree, and you take up issue with that. All that is implied in that statement alone shows that you never got a degree, as you first presumed based on personal knowledge, which is that you have no degree, and neither do many of your peers, so based on personal reality, you presume that most others you speak to do not have a degree, and that is why you presume to speak as though your argument has equality to any statement thus far here, while failing to see that you are hypocritical in that you claim others of no authority should speak, when you yourself have no authority.

Secondly, I would like to point out that most with degrees these days are either incompetent or cheats, as now most colleges have their tests done online, and I have personally witnessed friends looking up the answers while taking their "big test" showing that they have learned or have knowledge that is incomplete, and untrustworthy as an authoritative source.

So basically, having a degree doesnt mean a thing, ask bill gates if you dont believe me, a Degree is simply proof you took a course in something, not propf that you know or remember a damn thing about it.

You of course would know this to be true, if you had spent more than a year in any college my son

...this topic isn't about me, so lets nip that bud right now. I said one thing: get a degree. And you said: degrees are worthless.

I disagree based (in part) on the number of certified experts worldwide who are paid to certify each generation of aspiring experts. I can't make you appreciate the nature of this system, but I can promise you won't be taken seriously by the ISCU unless you have the paper recommendation from established scholars. Which explains your presence on a conspiracy forum, where a keyboard is your golden ticket.

Degrees are not flawless because nothing is idiotproof. Nothing. Is. Idiotproof. So good luck presenting a "superior" alternative to science, without science.

a reply to: AutisticEvo

The mere fact that academic fraud happens in academia should speak volumes ,and seeing that it is a ongoing concern within academia ,there are still charlatan's running loose .

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: AutisticEvo

The mere fact that academic fraud happens in academia should speak volumes ,and seeing that it is a ongoing concern within academia ,there are still charlatan's running loose .

Religion invented charlatans. Nothing is idiotproof.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
Do us all a favor and get an actual degree in science before criticizing it and consequently embarrassing yourself.

Just like you need to be a professional athlete to discuss the performance of professional athletes, how everyone who critiques a book has been published and everyone who talks # about a band has a wall full of gold records, right?

Science orthodoxy is not to be examined, it is the truth, whether you agree or not.

Science is a religion.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Religion invented charlatans. Nothing is idiotproof.

Scientist have made it empirical .Or some of the idiots have .

originally posted by: Bluntone22

Thank you grammar nazi,,,

Maybe I should have said that scientist don't know all truth. They developed theories and try to prove them and sometimes fail miserably. They must be afraid to say "I don't know".
But hey I've used your using a computer argument defending capitalism.

Developing a theory and then trying to prove it is called the scientific method. I think you're confusing how science actually works with TV shows.

originally posted by: mirthfull

originally posted by: TzarChasm
Do us all a favor and get an actual degree in science before criticizing it and consequently embarrassing yourself.

Just like you need to be a professional athlete to discuss the performance of professional athletes,

No, but you'd better have the right equipment and the right training and the right skills to perform on a team of professional athletes.

how everyone who critiques a book has been published and everyone who talks # about a band has a wall full of gold records, right?

If you're walking around and talking as though you're a New York published author when you haven't written a poem or read many books since high school, then no publisher is going to pay attention to your ideas of what literature is and what direction it should take.

Science orthodoxy is not to be examined, it is the truth, whether you agree or not.

Scientists examine it all the time, particularly through a type of research called "metastudies." Theories get knocked about all the time, and the ones who can overturn a great hypothesis with a better one are celebrated (the asteroid from space that marked the end of the time of dinosaurs is one such (more recently they found that the non-avian dinosaurs died before the comet hit.) Advances like Lasik (which I had 10 years ago) and shoulder surgery (which my husband will have this year) along with their corollary technical advances mean I see better than my grandparents and my husband will not be crippled by arthritis in a few years.

That's science.

Now -- what we DO see is the news media (desperate to be the "News Everyone Reads" picking up on graduate studies (preliminary studies) and oddball studies (measuring how long it takes an animal to pee) and holds them up as "goofball stupidity and who can trust people who think up lame things like this." They don't look at the real paper (how can you tell if a patient's bladder is releasing all the urine (and the followup question of whether they're at risk for problems such as kidney stones and so forth))

So they present scientists as buffoons.

And scientists get tired of listening to people who've "read a few websites and are pondering a Great Problem" pontificate. It's like standing around a fully disassembled starship, putting together the pieces, while the crowd stands behind you yelling "Here! I've got duct tape! Use this! Elmer's Glue! Put that black thing on the red thing! Shiny!"

Scientists do try to get interested people involved in citizen science (where citizens work in partnership with scientist on a project).

Before you dismiss Tyson so readily, perhaps you might like to work on some of the citizen science projects and get involved with a team. Usually Audubon centers will have one or more scientists working with them and you can actually talk to them (live). Ditto zoos, planetariums, and a lot of other places.

Get involved in doing science. Don't stand outside offering comments and suggestions. March in and work with scientists and get your hands dirty along with them.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Surely Science is a process of repudiating older paradigms as new information becomes available.

It disproves itself all the time. Hardly "truth" as Neil DeGrasse Tyson suggests.

originally posted by: Dark Ghost
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I think a reasonable human would concede that science is only, and can only be, an approximation of a truth. Never the absolute truth.

Science is, after all, a human endeavor, and therefore, biased by human subjectivity.