Let’s lay this one to rest, shall we?
All science is observational – observations are what we call “data”.
All science is predictive, whether it concerns events that happened in the past, and are unlikely to occur again, or events that are reproducible.
The scientific method is simple: you construct a model that fits a current set of observations, and then use that model to predict new observations.
There IS a difference between correlational and experimental inference, and some of what the likes of Ken Ham call “historical science” is correlational rather than experimental inference. The difference is that in experimental methodology the experimenter manipulates a randomly allocated variable. That way, if the observations correlate with the manipulation, you know the observed phenomena were the result of the manipulation – you know that the observation did not cause the manipulation. Although that may be moot in QM, I don’t know.
But it has no bearing on Ham’s faux distinction. We can make models about the past that we can test by making predictions about what we will find e.g. Tiktaalik, as Bill Nye pointed out. The fact that Tiktaaliks are long dead is as irrelevant to the methodology as the fact that a murder victim is dead is irrelevant to forensic methodology. In fact there is a sense in which all observations are in the past by the time we’ve observed them.
And it is possible to make predictions about what observations we will make if the world is 13 billion years old, and if it is 6000 years old. And the predictions arising from the former model are confirmed by multiple independent observations, and those from the latter by zilch.
Those non-Americans do understand spectacle, though. Both of your examples the Russians and the Germans
And the U.S. has no composers comparable to Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky. Of, course, neither does Putin, and neither did the Soviets.
Petrushka is homage to Stravinsky. My TV speakers are crappy, but I believe the Firebird accompanied the torch lighting.
My taste runs to Philip Glass and Mark O’Connor. In a century, we might find that Glass still has a place in the western “classical” repertoire. O’Connor, not likely, not “serious” enough:
Vistas, a 3 Part canon by Mark O’Connor, with Edgar Meyer and Yo Yo Ma, youtube live performance
Of course. You should have an avatar of one of the ballet Petrushkas.
Thank you. I found that more enlightening about what “scientism” is supposed to be than all of the preceding fulminations.
I should, by right, be a receptive audience for Gregory’s crusade against scientism — I’m a theist, and I find both Jerry Coyne and Lawrence Krause difficult to stomach — but all he ever does is annoy me without enlightening me.
As an atheistinstrumentalistunenlightenedamericancowboyredneckevolutionist, it is my impression that scientism is a code word for Gregory is smarter than we are.
We can observe only a limited part of our universe, we can probe only limited energy level (as in LHC), we can only be sure of part of history, hence we can only make a model which is speculative and test that speculative model , which we may find true today but it will be false in near future.
Even evolution ‘survival of the fittest’ is now questioned in this paper.
I’m afraid I didn’t come in at the beginning, so I saw several posts describing “the” scientific method generally in terms of constructing, testing, and modifying models. I saw lots of references to multiple unspecified scientific methods, but none was mentioned.
I got the vague impression that moving from place to place is “the” travel method, and that Gregory and perhaps others are regarding travel by foot, car, boat, plane, train as entirely different methods, rather than simply variations on “the” travel method.
So I’d like to know if these multiple scientific methods are subsets of a general method, or whether there are multiple general methods. I admit I agree with Nye and Lizzie that the distinction between observational and historical science is artificial and unhelpful.
Good, good so far, and apparently in complete agreement with Lizzie’s OP
Speculative? You mean speculative like The Book of Revelation? Or should you use a term with a more neutral connotation, maybe “prospective” or “predictive” or even “hypothetical”?
WILL be? Or MIGHT be? Are you echoing the scientific modesty that all our knowledge is provisional? What do you mean?
So? So Darwin’s 150-year-old expression didn’t turn out to be 100% of the correct answer?
Hammy boy is still wrong, no question, none at all. He’s fractally wrong.
….Charles Ives, Gershwin, Charlie Parker. Then the list starts.
USA is the most interesting country musically in the world.
All of this sentence is true, as best I can tell. What of it? What’s your point (if any)?
This should be a thread of its own.
I don’t have author privileges, but if someone else wants to start a “music appreciation” thread, I would have plenty to say.
coldcoffee,
SotF was a soundbite attempt to articulate the principle of Natural Selection. Even in Darwin’s day, it was not proposed as the sole means by which populations change. Early attempts to formally model were deterministic, but stochastic handles on the process were commonplace in the 1960’s, including the interplay of the various evolutionary forces. Should we sweep away the old paradigm and replace it with “Survival of the Fitter Usually”?
And … you are trying to use a paper based upon evolutionary theory to undermine evolutionary theory!
Steve Schaffner,
Have you ever made an original point here? You don’t annoy me, but likewise you haven’t said anything.
You could actually contribute something about the ideology of ‘scientism’ or whatever you choose. Do you know anything more than KN being ‘interested’ in it and it not having a single ‘consensus’ definition (which is the case with many ideologies and even with scientific terms). But instead you seem to prefer fence-sitting and empty criticism.
Is that power-puff participation for a science guy when it comes to meaningful dialogue?
p.s. it’s funny sometimes what you find when you follow your own links and find things you hadn’t seen before: here’s an interview with Artigas relating both to scientism and evolutionism – http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/evolutionism-and-the-limits-of-science
p.p.s. don’t worry anyone, Steve’s obviously already read it and I’m not saying anything original here, just providing links that ‘skeptics’ here who say they don’t understand scientism won’t read or learn anything from anyways – just go to Steve’s research page if you want to know something original or helpful about ‘scientism’, and certainly don’t read this at AAAS: http://www.aaas.org/page/what-scientism
p.p.p.s. and whatever you do, just trust that a Harvard man – in ANY field – is much more likely to be an expert and helpful about ‘scientism’ than to read this! – http://www.unav.es/cryf/past2003.html
Fixed. So feel free to start that thread.
So I’ve read your links, Gregory. I have to say my eyes tend to glaze over when I encounter someone capable of starting a sentence with, “Galileo would not have had any problem with the church if HE had just…”
That’s just backwards. Galileo would have had no problem if the church had not been in the habit of torturing and burning people for heresy. This is really the demarcation line. Any institution, be it church, state, or whatever, that has the power to imprison, kill, or torture heretics, and which uses that power, has relinquished any claim for moral authority.
I’m posting on a tablet and having a hard time editing more than a few sentences.
I do not believe science has any moral authority, nor does any institution practicing science, teaching science, or engaging in research.
What science has a monopoly on is figuring out how things work. To a large extent, that means science has a monopoly on figuring out cause and effect.
Figuring out how things work is a major input to moral reasoning, but it isn’t moral reasoning. Sometimes it looks that way, because it is in common thought, obvious that hurting people is wrong. So if scientists discover some hitherto obscure cause of harm, the moral or ethical implications seem obvious. Maybe.
Gregory,
from a link: “the book states that there are questions that science cannot resolve.”.
Well, knock me down with a feather. That’s my worldview shattered!
You have a curious approach, Gregory, trying to communicate and yet simultaneously ensuring by your manner that people feel disinclined to follow you.
TSZ-ers are ideologues; they can’t see they’re ideologues because of their ideology? Something like that. That’s me pigeon-holed, then.
.
Went to read Artigas’s interview linked by Gregory. Thoroughly unimpressed:
Artigas’s positive program is nuts: he seems to suggest that you have to be Christian to study nature. So far as I know, studying nature does not require thinking in terms of first and second causes. In fact, this paradigm doesn’t seem to be useful to science, although it might be relevant in Christian apologetics.
As to “avoiding scientific imperialism which attempts to judge everything through science,” I am fully on board with that. I don’t think we can judge a movie or a novel through science. Medical decisions involve scientific knowledge but also include ethical considerations. I can give countless examples.
The more I read about scientism, the more I get the impression that it’s a case of sour grapes.
We all hold ideologies, Allan. Some don’t realise what ideologies they hold. But hold them nevertheless they do.
olegt, are you, by profession, a scientist? That might explain something about why you hold that view. And your impression, welcome as you are to have it, doesn't in any way discount the fact that more and more people are writing and speaking about 'scientism' because it rather obviously has become one of the guiding ideologies behind peoples worldviews in many countries around the world, including, perhaps especially so, in the one you now live.
And do you know what, olegt, it is those who themselves hold the ideology of scientism as part of their personal (usually no group or community accompanies it) worldview, who most often deny the validity of pointing it out. They are like children putting their hands over their eyes saying "You can't see me!"
Gregory, rather than rant about scientism in the abstract, why not favor us with an example in which it presents a societal problem. There must be countless instances.
And if “science” cannot be an agent, how can scientism be an agent? How can any ideology be a cause?
I think this comment of Gregory should not have been moved to you-know-where. I’d like to respond to it.
Gregory,
In your reference frame, the
axis is directed east, so your 
coordinate is greater than mine. You are ahead of me in your reference frame.
As you know, I went the other way. My
axis is directed west, so my 
coordinate is greater than yours. I am ahead of you in my reference frame.
That’s some physics for you.
I watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics. And I liked it. I also liked it that the Canadian broadcasters (I watched it on CBC) made no snarky comments about the event. I couldn’t resist a snarky comment or two myself (Sviridov’s Time Forward was cheesy), but they stayed above the fray.
And one more point, perhaps. If you look at any decent university in the US, you will find that it has a core unit typically called the school of arts and sciences. Alongside physics and chemistry, it will have English and history departments, math and philosophy, and so forth.
In the East, universities are far and few between. Science, engineering, and humanities were taught at entirely separate institutes. Your own place is called European Humanities University. My alma mater is called these days Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a State University. Neither is a university, to be frank. One is an institute of humanities, the other is a school of basic and applied sciences. That’s how it is in the East these days. They slap the name university on everything.
I prefer the American system of higher education because kids who enter it have a real choice. My son went to college thinking of majoring in philosophy or English. He is working toward a PhD in astrophysics now. That kind of switch would be hard to accomplish in the East, where specialization begins in high school.
Cheers to Pussy Riot!
Gregory,
You keep throwing around this bugaboo “Scientism!” but you haven’t even explained what you understand as scientism. I know enough about the term (I think) and I view it as a silly caricature. I have said many times now that movies and novels can’t be judged scientifically. I think this distances me from the swelling ranks of the adherents of scientism.
The implication being that the American network, NBC, made snarky remarks?
Evidence?
Those are your words, not mine.
Here you are.
Gregory,
Sure. But that statement is pretty much devoid of content (and, once again, curiously WJM in flavour). We all think. We therefore all have ways-of-thinking. There are more people than there are ways-of-thinking. Inevitably there is a certain set of correlates. If I post on the pro-evolution side at TSZ I must (?) be an adherent of position X.
We assume correlates when we lack information about an individual. It’s how we comparmentalise the world.
But when you are talking to the individual themselves …. you can find out what they think. You can see if your prejudices are justified. But all I see in you is provoked confirmation of your own preconceptions re: the scientifically-minded non-believer. It’s not far from bigotry, and seemingly not amenable to discourse. So why bother? Why stroll up to an assumed ideologue and say “You’re an ideologue. You just don’t recognise it”. I’m a what now?
Ideologue: “an adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic.”.
Ideology: “a system of ideas and ideals”.
So is the ideology simply disbelief in God? Guilty as charged. And not unconscious about it, either. Also politically liberal-to-apathetic. Doesn’t think science has all the answers. Likes cheese and prog rock. etc.
Then I have to ask why you appreciate the absence of snarky remarks and why the concept even arose. Perhaps Gregory has poisoned that well.
I did not watch the NBC coverage, petrushka, (not a cable subscriber), so I cannot tell whether their broadcasters were snarky. But unless you have been living under a rock, you can’t miss the high level of snark in the US media covering the Olympics. Here is a twitter line from Jared Hopkins, a Chicago Tribune reporter:
For the record, the broadcast of the opening ceremony was entirely snark free.
I don’t blame the media for reporting on construction deficiencies. Not being obsequious is generally called journalism. I like it.
I agree that snark doesn’t belong on the live coverage of the events. And it isn’t there. We have lots of news outlets and lots of approaches. Only one network does live coverage.
The scientism accusation is always leveled at people who require evidence and explanations with content (as in mechanisms).
Not only theists are talking about ‘scientism,’ olegt. At least you could admit that. Atheists are talking about it too. Pigliucci, which KN recently linked has particular cause for concern about it. For me it is helpful to read both ‘sides’.
It means nothing to me that you dismissively call it a ‘silly caricature’. Others here at TSZ do the same. What is more astonishing is that you are a Russian emigrant saying that. Scientism was launched as an ideology in the USSR more dramatically and dastardly than perhaps any other country on Earth. I worked in the Russian Academy of Sciences, so this is not just kitchen table talk. You know about scientific atheism, scientific materialism and scientific socialism, right?
Yes, I understand your point. My point was that ‘scientism’ is an underdeveloped topic in English-speaking countries. Surely you don’t disagree? It is no wonder that SoS (and naukovedeniye) began in the East, in Russia and Poland, where social institutions and ideologies influenced ‘science’ more profoundly than in the West. Are you not familiar with Bukharin, Hessen and the history of science delegation in London in 1931 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1931/diamat/)? Fascinating stuff, and then J.D. Bernal facing ‘socialist science’ as a ‘westerner.’ I’d have thought, as a scientist (which you still have not confirmed), that you’d be aware of this.
The ‘historical science’ vs. ‘observational science’ YEC apologetics, IDT dependency is kindergarten stuff in comparison. And Lizzie is still wrong, along with too many Anglo school-level dictionary writers, that there is such a thing as a SINGLE scientific method. There’s not (ask Feyerabend). But don’t worry, she’ll still go back to writing that same thing next time around. Her brain is programmed to be getting in the way of improving her language to developments in PoS; its probably an evolutionary thing. 😉
Bla bla bla, irrelevant philosobabble. There’s one scientific method: making models that make testable predictions and then testing them against observational data. No amount of dictionary-references, namedropping of philosophers or semantic philosobabble is going to change this simple fact.
Gregory, do you agree with Nagel on this topic?
If you said, “there’s one way of doing science” instead of “there’s one scientific method” I could agree entirely.
guys, can you all check the rules please!
I’ve been away for the weekend, so apologies for not moving stuff that should have been moved.
But please mod your own posts before posting.
Ta.
Not sure I see the difference.
There’s one way to cut through all the babble and that is to follow the forum rules, assume the other person is arguing in good faith, and try to understand the intended meaning of his or her statements.
If terminology makes a critical difference, one can discuss definitions, but I think it is up to the objector to establish how the definition is critical.
I have only a vague recollection of scientific communism from my high-school and college years. I was bored to death by Marxist-Leninist philosophy both in school and in college. My college class was the last one to suffer a course in scientific communism. The year was 1989 and I pity the poor lecturer and section teachers, who had neither love nor respect from their students. Suffice it to say that the ideological bullshit hanging over the actual science was regarded as a necessary evil by the scientists. No one took scientific materialism and the rest of this crap seriously.
I know Bernal for his scientific contributions (specifically, the Bernal-Fowler ice rules), but not his ideological leanings. Science in the East suffered not so much from scientific materialism as from actual purges. Lots of scientists perished in them.
Since you’ve asked, yes, I am a scientist. You could easily figure it out by clicking on my username.
It has finally dawned on me what you meant by that, Gregory. If I read this right, you meant to say that scientism was born in the USSR when scientists usurped the study of humanities. Correct me if I’m wrong, Gregory.
Given the colours shown in recent threads here, there’s not much incentive to write at TSZ; not only a den of ‘skeptics,’ but of atheists and rabid anti-theists, regardless of Lizzie’s and KN’s eclectic atheist/pantheist soft-talk towards religion. Steve Schaffner will of course say all theistic talk is empty unless it is his talk, but that’s not really important coming from Boston.
Let me now answer olegt, as there was a personal component involved, i.e. his Russian/Soviet background and my education in Russia.
Well, I wouldn’t actually contend that ‘scientism’ was born in any particular place. Who first spoke/acted scientistically? Who first abused other knowledge realms by ‘priviledging’ science above them? Do you know? I don’t. Perhaps August Comte or a certain ancient Greek? Not the Muslims, surely.
And on the contrary, I don’t think that humanities were actually ‘usurped’ in the USSR/CCCP by natural-physical sciences. Indeed, the field of philosophy in Russia is even still considered a valid academic realm. But the meaning of ‘nauk’ vs. ‘science’ is a fascinating one that 98% of people here don’t have linguistic or cultural access to (speaking to olegt specifically here). I heard from a decorated Russian writer the belief that traditional and current Russian philosophy is ‘logo-centric’, which also means not merely ‘naturalistic’ in its orientation.
Scientific atheism, scientific socialism, scientific materialism etc. were of course examples of scientism. But I don’t blame only the Soviets for this. Do you olegt? Scientism is displayed adequately in other places too, the gas chambers of Auschwitz/Birkenau as one blatant example.
Well, it suffered from both olegt. And in some ‘eastern’ countries, it still does. Let’s at least be realistic and not sugar coat this to suit your current agnostic/atheist worldview, shall we? I’ve met many Russian scientists who grew/became free from ideological materialism, even as ‘natural-physical scientists’ and who ‘found religion’ after being denied access to it under the Soviet regime. This was a liberation for them, perhaps in some ways similar to what you’ve faced in moving to the USA, though theirs was also a worldview shift, whereas yours appears not to be in that feature of your life.
John Lennox is an example of a mathematician from the ‘west’ who went to the USSR/CCCP and spoke with Russian mathematicians, who were quite curious about how he could possibly be an Abrahamic theist. Russian Adventures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHjJpoVp57E
What appears to be true, though case by case differs of course, is that you were ‘systematically exposed to atheism’ in your education in Russia, olegt. No doubt atheism was present in at least some features of your education in the Soviet Union, is that correct? Nowadays, a not entirely different situation is happening in the USA, where the ‘secular’ authorities are purging public education, on a legalistic basis, of any and all religion wherever and as soon as they possibly can. You are a pre-atheist society in the USA, compared to post-atheist Russia. Indeed, contemporary Russia is far, far ahead of the USA in its maturity dealing with religion in public schools and universities, imo. They know what the USA does not regarding scientism and scientific atheism and what it does to people.
In conclusion, I realised that I had already faced the main question in this thread elsewhere (history vs. observation). You can find my attempt to answer that HPSS question here. But what does it matter if one can’t possibly build a bridge between radical fundamentalists and evangelicals in the USA who have distorted ‘science’ to fit their ideological purposes and radical anti-theists in the USA who purposely construct their worldview and attitude in response to the intolerant and self-righteous fundamentalism they see around them in their local communities? Nothing much. It helps one like me and probably many others to be thankful they were not born in the USA with its imperialistic, exceptionalistic and superiority-ridden attitude on the world stage. And to have outgrown the scientism of small-hearted rational idiots is a step in the right direction, if you want my opinion.
This is the exact opposite of what is happening. It is not secular politicians who are trying to introduce all the education bills and amendments at the moment.
There are a handful of openly non-religious politicians in the USA. Atheists are almost unelectable in that country.
As far as I am aware, none of them have drafted academic ahem “freedom” bills.
In which country? The United States of America?
davidhooke is obviously not USAmerican. olegt therefore likely knows better than he does.
davehooke seems to want to promote ‘secular’ society, in particular, where disestablishment becomes a reality.
He does not seem to acknowledge the negative consequences of Soviet atheism. But hey, how many ‘western’ atheists actually would or realize the consequences of their ideology?
At least olegt can speak about this with some experience, unlike anyone else here. And olegt is welcome to address John Lennox, who went into olegt’s rodina unlike most other ‘westerners’.
Gregory,
You do recognize the difference between secularism and atheism, right?
Religious affiliations of members of congress.
I recognise the negative effects of Soviet Communism.
You do recognise the difference between naturalism and empiricism, right? Out of your league.
No, apparently you don’t. Myth. Nothing given. Pragmatism. KN’s ex-Reform Jewish worldview. Ultimately despair. Eclectic mess.
“I recognise the negative effects of Soviet Communism.”
No, sir. Mr. proud atheist, you don’t. What have you actually faced of Communist atheism in your safe UK domicile?
So your epistemological criterion is being sent to the gulag labour camps?
You are wrong about US politicians and atheism, as the data I linked to show.
So no person, davehooke. And look angry and disgruntled in your avatar too. ; )
Don’t be a proud atheist then. That’s normal here at TSZ.