Evolution....of science

[Leonard James]

Rose

There are no such things as ghosts. All apparent sightings of such things are anecdotal. There are never any objective facts or sensory evidence on which a hypothesis could be based and thence tests set up.

On what grounds do you believe, or seem to, there are from how I read your post?

100 to 1 the grounds are going to be human experiences. 

[Bubbles]

Rose

There are no such things as ghosts. All apparent sightings of such things are anecdotal. There are never any objective facts or sensory evidence on which a hypothesis could be based and thence tests set up.

On what grounds do you believe, or seem to, there are from how I read your post?

Hi Susan

I was just using ghosts as an example, scientists look at how those sensations can be recreated in the brain.

The conclusions just in that small idea comes up with ideas ranging from mold to electromagnetic fields to the one in my first link.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/70293/6-scientific-explanations-ghosts

If there is another explanation it might be very hard to pin it down so it can be measured.

We can recreate rainbows and mirages because they are common and we understand why they happen.

We would have to keep looking and stumble across something which would give us a clue as to something else.

I do think it is possible for there to be unusual conditions that create something odd which are hard to pin down and measure. ( like a rare form of mirage etc)

Science just has to keep looking, at everything.

Which I think it does.

I'm open minded about ghosts, Ufos and the rest.

I just don't believe all the hype around them.

[L.A.]

Which is why if people claim alternative models you ask what is their methodology.

I think you misunderstand me.  On a personal level we have beliefs about every aspect of our personal 'universe'. Some of those beliefs might be described as  'scientific' - e.g. most of us don't believe we can fly or walk on water, but the vast majority (and probably the most important) certainly can not.

When you 'dig-down' it turns out people have all kinds of bizarre beliefs that play a major role in how they live their lives - and for the most part these are areas that science can't offer any certainty.

What are we? Why are we here? What becomes of us after death?

We fill the gaps with stuff that seems to work for us, because that is all we can do - and just as willow bark turned-out to be a useful drug, some of our weird beliefs might end up as useful science.

[Bubbles]

This is a rare mirage, which science has explained

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/what-caused-china-s-floating-city-sky

What even rarer things exist, which we haven't discovered yet?

 

[L.A.]

There are no such things as ghosts. All apparent sightings of such things are anecdotal. There are never any objective facts or sensory evidence on which a hypothesis could be based and thence tests set up.
 ....

Though I'd imagine that if you ever experienced a ghost sighting yourself, you would feel very different.

[Leonard James]

Though I'd imagine that if you ever experienced a ghost sighting yourself, you would feel very different.

I doubt it! Susan is far too aware of the machinations of the human mind to be fooled into considering it "real".

[Nearly Sane]

I think you misunderstand me.  On a personal level we have beliefs about every aspect of our personal 'universe'. Some of those beliefs might be described as  'scientific' - e.g. most of us don't believe we can fly or walk on water, but the vast majority (and probably the most important) certainly can not.

When you 'dig-down' it turns out people have all kinds of bizarre beliefs that play a major role in how they live their lives - and for the most part these are areas that science can't offer any certainty.

What are we? Why are we here? What becomes of us after death?

We fill the gaps with stuff that seems to work for us, because that is all we can do - and just as willow bark turned-out to be a useful drug, some of our weird beliefs might end up as useful science.

I think the willow bark is precisely a bad example because at base that is science, experimentation, observation. Further that people have any number of weird guesses about stuff gives it no validation and in the context of the OP from Sriram is simply a hand waving exercise.


I think you are on much stronger ground with the idea that certain questions will never be science, though I don't see necessarily the questions you use as being crucial. I find the fascination that exists of what happens after death quite odd. Before I could ask why are we here with its built in purposive, I would be asking is there any reason to build that purpose into the question. As to what we are, I would suggest again that to assume an essential mystery and then, say as Alan Burns does, attach it to something not fully understood is yet again a form of question begging. I haven't seen any convincing argument for the sort of exceptionalism this is based on. Not, I think that there can only be arguments put forward for such things as they are specifically outside of our methods that establish evidence, which are methodological naturalistic.


I think science will never give us morality, or beauty or love because they are be their natures subjective. They are also in their motivational guise the only way of creating action since reason is still the slave to passions that it was for Hume.

[Nearly Sane]

I doubt it! Susan is far too aware of the machinations of the human mind to be fooled into considering it "real".

Except it's observable that there are people who have so claimed who have changed their minds on such things. To think that we as individuals are someone immune from delusions, is a delusion not backed up by the evidence.

[L.A.]

I think the willow bark is precisely a bad example because at base that is science, experimentation, observation. Further that people have any number of weird guesses about stuff gives it no validation and in the context of the OP from Sriram is simply a hand waving exercise.

My point about the willow bark was that originally people used it without any scientific basis simply because it seemed to work. If 'stuff' works science may offer an explaination in the fullness of time.

I think science will never give us morality, or beauty or love because they are be their natures subjective. They are also in their motivational guise the only way of creating action since reason is still the slave to passions that it was for Hume.

But these are the things that are important to most people for most of the time - and science has nothing to say! Little wonder that people often look elsewhere.

[SusanDoris]

Though I'd imagine that if you ever experienced a ghost sighting yourself, you would feel very different.

Not so. I would always know that there is a better, natural, explanation. Even as a child, although I'd have been less positive about that, that would have been because I did not have the information I needed. In any case, I would have gone around asking, 'Is this TRUE?'

[SusanDoris]

rose


A few posts back, you say you are open-minded, but then so am I and many others. However, open-minded should mean always ready to consider impartially new evidence and better information, not to accept someone's subjective opinion without valid evidence.

[jeremyp]

We believe dark matter exists although we cannot currently detect it.

Yes we can. We detect it by observing the rotation of stars in galaxies.

[jeremyp]

What are we? Why are we here? What becomes of us after death?

Bad examples. Science can give us an answer to all of those questions. The fact that many people do not like the answers, has no bearing on their correctness.

[L.A.]

Bad examples. Science can give us an answer to all of those questions. The fact that many people do not like the answers, has no bearing on their correctness.

I'd be interested to know the answers?

[ippy]

rose


A few posts back, you say you are open-minded, but then so am I and many others. However, open-minded should mean always ready to consider impartially new evidence and better information, not to accept someone's subjective opinion without valid evidence.

Except when it's Star Trek.

ippy

[Sriram]

Oh My My! There has actually been a discussion on here....(shock)!!! Unbelievable.

I thought it was always about me saying something and all others throwing cyber stones ....and that's it!    Not bad, I say! 

Thanks LA.

[SusanDoris]

Except when it's Star Trek.

ippy

Well, of course, that goes without saying!

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Actually in the OP, I wasn't talking about the discoveries and inventions of science. These are what science DOES. Science exists only for such things.  These don't show the development or evolution of Science.

What I mean by the evolution of Science is that science should review its basic premises, assumptions, scope and methodologies.  It should become a modified, renewed and new Science.

The very fact that all of you are screaming to good heaven that the 'scientific method' is fixed and if something cannot be measured it isn't science......shows how static and stagnant it is. 

Cheers.

Sriram

[Maeght]

The very fact that all of you are screaming to good heaven that the 'scientific method' is fixed and if something cannot be measured it isn't science......shows how static and stagnant it is.

No it doesn't. Why should the definition of what science is change? So you can have the stamp of authority ('this is science') for things which aren't science?

[Bubbles]

rose


A few posts back, you say you are open-minded, but then so am I and many others. However, open-minded should mean always ready to consider impartially new evidence and better information, not to accept someone's subjective opinion without valid evidence.

Yes that's right.

I don't consider I do accept people's subjective opinion.

That everything originates in the mind only, is an opinion.

[Bubbles]

Except when it's Star Trek.

ippy

 

[Nearly Sane]

My point about the willow bark was that originally people used it without any scientific basis simply because it seemed to work. If 'stuff' works science may offer an explaination in the fullness of time.

But these are the things that are important to most people for most of the time - and science has nothing to say! Little wonder that people often look elsewhere.

Weird reply. The first part simply accepts that it's a crap analogy and they were just doing science. The second part ignores that it was the point I was making.

[L.A.]

Weird reply. The first part simply accepts that it's a crap analogy and they were just doing science.

Hi NS,

I refute that it is a crap analogy. A couple of hundred years ago a 'rationalist' like yourself might well have dismissed the herbal treatment as 'snake oil' ; yet by the turn of the century it was being synthesized as aspirin. Just because you don't have a scientific explanation for a phenomena doesn't mean you should dismiss it.

Yes, of course, you're right that was just doing science but at the time it wasn't necessarily seen that way - there are people even today who think many areas of research are 'beyond the pale'.

The second part ignores that it was the point I was making.

I'm not entirely sure which 'second point' you are referring to NS.

[jeremyp]

I'd be interested to know the answers?

What are we?

Mammals with unusually well developed central nervous systems.

Why are we here?

To propagate our genes

What becomes of us after death?

We cease to exist and our bodies are reused as food by other organisms.

[Shaker]

What are we?

Mammals with unusually well developed centra nervous systems.

Why are we here?

To propagate our genes

What becomes of us after death?

We cease to exist and our bodies are reused as food by other organisms.

And only the middle one I quibble with ...