[language] pseudo philosophy of science

[H.M. Hubey]

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I found this in Science, p. 967, 1 Nov 2002. It is about the perennial
issue of what is science, how is it done, and related issues of philosophy
of science, such as confirmationism, verificationism, falsificationism etc.
The difference is that it is written without the philosophical jargon.

---------------------------------------------------------------
...Archimedes made the following astonishingly subtle deduction:... (the
famous
Eurako episode)..

Austere and technical as they are, Archimedes' treatises are just as
striking as the
anecdotes about him. In the treatises three motives run together: proof,
amazement,
and the juxtaposition of the unexpected. Proof and amazement are related
because
Archimedes amazes by proving that something that is very surprising is
in fact is true.
Amazement and juxtaposition of the unexpected are related, because the
amazing
result is usually seen in the equality or equivalence of two seemingly
separate domains.

----------------------------------------

But now we can clearly see what is practiced by scientists now as a
matter of
course. Since the easy parts have already been done (e.g. physics,
engineering, etc)
the massive amounts of available data in the social sciences requires
high-powered
statistical analysis programs. However everything here is applied
directly. Indeed,
one can see the "surprise" factor in physics e.g. a strange theory based
on waves
all of a sudden predicts something amazing, etc.

It saddens me that there are physicists who still have not understood
the basis
of science. I would assume that their probability theory is either weak
or nonexistent
or their comprehension of logic (as used by philosophers) is
disconnected from
anything in the real world.

It seems like this list was silent for a very long time and it seems
like a good time to
wake it up by discussing Popper or anything else that comes to mind.


--
M. Hubey
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The only difference between humans and machines is that humans
can be created by unskilled labor. Arthur C. Clarke

/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/ http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey



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