Myths of the 'scientific method' exposed

Shining One

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1222/p09s02-coop.html?s=u
An excerpt from the article:
"Science employs the scientific method. NO, there's no such method: Doing science is not like baking a cake. Science can be proved on the basis of observable data. NO, general theories about the natural world can't be proved at all. Our theories make claims that go beyond the finite amount of data that we've collected. There's no way such extrapolations from the evidence can be proved to be correct. Science can be disproved, or falsified, on the basis of observable data. NO, for it's always possible to protect a theory from an apparently confuting observation. Theories are never tested in isolation but only in conjunction with many other extra-theoretical assumptions (about the equipment being used, about ambient conditions, about experimenter error, etc.). It's always possible to lay the blame for the confutation at the door of one of these assumptions, thereby leaving one's theory in the clear. And so forth."
Rex

seattleniceguy

I'm curious, Rex. Did you actually read the article? It doesn't really support your position. Here are the next two paragraphs after the one you quoted:

Let's abandon this struggle to demarcate and instead let's liberally apply the label "science" to any collection of assertions about the workings of the natural world. Fine, intelligent design is a science then - as is astrology, as is parapsychology. But what has a claim to being taught in the science classroom isn't all science, but rather the best science, the claims about reality that we have strongest reason to believe are true. Intelligent design shouldn't be taught in the science classroom any more than Ptolemaic astronomy and for exactly the same reason: They are both poor accounts of the phenomena they seek to explain and both much improved upon by other available theories.
The suspicion that religion is lurking somewhere in intelligent design theory is correct, but its locus is often misidentified. The religion isn't in the claims of intelligent design themselves. Rather, the religion is in the motivation for pushing a poor account of the natural world into the science curriculum.

The point of the article is that whether or not Intelligent Design is a science or not (that is, regardless of which category we place the idea), it is a poor explanation for the natural world in any case.

However, I disagree with the author's position that it is difficult to define what is and is not science. There is one very basic requirement: a science must make specific, falsifiable predictions about the natural world. Intelligent Design does not. It cannot be called a science because it doesn't do what sciences do.

At any rate, I enjoyed the article. Thanks for posting!

SNG

zagor

... and to add, anything science claims must be repeatable i.e if you follow the same method will always come to the same result. Religion on the other hand can claim anything they want and you as an entity are NOT supposed to question anything. One would really wonder why...

FSMonster

Wow there's some 'myths' you got exposed there. Or was it just your ignorance? It's sad how people still dependant on 'faith' are desperate to justify their system of beliefs. Faced with almost daily reports of progress in understanding of evolutionary biology they need to go out of their way and solicit 3rd party confirmation of their middle-age views. Now, hit me with a Boeing 747 and that awfuly complex mouse trap.

seattleniceguy

FSMonster,
Just wanted to say welcome to the board!
SNG

Pistoff

So, shi**ing one, tell me:

How many technological advances have been brought about by religious types?

tetrapod.sapien

he he,

okay okay rex, whatever...

metatron

If you like trashing scientific method as a means of discovery, read Feyerabend.

As for ID, read Dembski's book. There is nothing unscientific about injecting design into life's origins, as long as you stick

to that and don't wander off into the religion that the ID movement is associated with. The book admits ID is easily

compatible with polytheism, deism, pantheism and so on.

metatron

hooberus

The point of the article is that whether or not Intelligent Design is a science or not (that is, regardless of which category we place the idea), it is a poor explanation for the natural world in any case.

There are qualified scientists who disagree- take for example vision from photoreceptors.* I think that it is a poor explanation to invoke unintelligent natural fores for the origin of such things even once- let alone numerous times (neo-darwinian evolution requires that photoreceptors would have had to have evolved independently by unintelligent, non predetermined factors at least 40-60 times).

However, I disagree with the author's position that it is difficult to define what is and is not science. There is one very basic requirement: a science must make specific, falsifiable predictions about the natural world. Intelligent Design does not. It cannot be called a science because it doesn't do what sciences do.

This (oft repeated) claim is simply false. Here is a specific falsifiable prediction (paraphrased from ReMine's The Biotic Message): "An intelligent designer is necessary for the origin of biological life from non-life."

It is potentiallly falsifiable by demonstrating that unintelligent natural forces are sufficient to produce biological life from non-life. Similar predictive statements can also be extended to things such as the origin of biological structures, predictive non-evolutionary fossil trends, etc.

* For example the following is a brief description of what is involved in obtaining vision from one componet (photoreceptor) of even "simple" eyes (It can be verified by comparing it with a college level biology textbook). Keep in mind that photoreceptors are reqired for even the simplest eyes, and also the below treatment does not discuss the complexity of the sub-compontets named (ie: rhodopsin) etc. source (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=51)

Here is a brief overview of the biochemistry of vision. When light first strikes the retina, a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in the shape of retinal forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein's metamorphosis alters its behavior, making it stick to another protein called transducin. Before bumping into activated rhodopsin, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with activated rhodopsin, the GDP falls off and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)

GTP-transducin-activated rhodopsin now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to activated rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cut a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, like a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.

Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.

Elsewhere

That's it... I'm throwing out all of my technology and mathematical knowledge... it obviously doesn't work and is all BS.

I suggest everyone here immediately turn off and throw out their computers since they DO NOT WORK.

Myths of the 'scientific method' exposed

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