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To quote the original post,Quote:
Originally Posted by ControlFreak1
"So while "knowledge" may change, the accepted practices for seeking out "knowledge" should be relatively consistent."
By "the accepted practices," I meant our idea of what counts as scientific reasoning/experimentation/etc. The knowledge may change, but the method does not. As such, regardless of what is discovered by "science," the notion of what "science" is more or less unchanged.
Yep. That is sciences working hypothesis. Scientists admit they might be ignorant to some other object that has these properties. That is key in science, if scientists we not open to other possibilities, THEN it would, perhaps, be a pseudoscience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim
'the notion of what science is', Is that what we have come to in this day and age? Science is a notion? What happened to the rigors of testable observable experimental science?Quote:
Originally Posted by holli4pirating
That is a notion of what science is. The whole point of this thread was to define what science is and what counts as science. Please do share your thoughts, if it suits you.Quote:
Originally Posted by ControlFreak1
Science, at least was, what you could observe and test and repeat, and after some period of testing and proving it would be accepted as a theory or eventually a law. Like thermodynamics, gravity, inertia, etc.
An interesting start, I quite like the first part, though I'm not sure why you included "at least was." I do think by what you've written so far, a number of fields that are accepted to be pseudoscience (such as psychology) would be fall into "science" as you've described it.Quote:
Originally Posted by ControlFreak1
I also think you should recheck definitions of theory and law, as no scientific theory can ever become a scientific law. Also, thermodynamics is a field of study, gravity is a phenomena which is explained by a theory, and inertia is a property of matter, so I'm not sure what similarities between these three you are drawing on.
If that were true then nothing could become a law. They were first theories before they became laws. Those things are called laws because they have always been observed to produce the same result.Quote:
Originally Posted by holli4pirating
No. Theories do not graduate into Laws. Laws are not at the top of a ladder.Quote:
Originally Posted by ControlFreak1
Where did you get the idea that this is how it works?
Laws don't start out as theories? Ok.
I'm happy you learned something today.Quote:
Originally Posted by ControlFreak1
I did ask where you got the idea that laws started out as theories. Care to tell?
Yes, I do know there is a definite difference. I was just speaking of a general process - an idea, a theory, a law. Hmmm, it does now make me wonder, what is a law before it becomes a law? It's not a hypothesis, it's not a theory. I wonder if there is an absolute accepted answer. Thanks.
:bow
Please, let's not bicker, and lets keep this gentlemanly. All one needs to do is look up a term.
Scientific law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scientific theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
These are the definitions we will use in this thread, because they are the commonly accepted ones. There are clear differences between the laws and theories, and it is clearly stated that Scientific Theories do not become Scientific Laws. If you would choose not to use these definitions in this thread, I would kindly ask that you do not participate in this thread. My reason for that request is that this thread cannot progress if we do not use common language.
Chill out fro magnum!
Hey D, I don't think that we are bickering or being ungentlemanly (well ok, JCD is, go tell the moderator). I still am curious of what a law is before it's classified as a law.
:gwh:[JCD]:whipped:
:shrug:
:roflmao
Control, if you would like information, please read the article I just linked. It will provide a better explanation that I could.
Hey, it's all good playuh.Quote:
Originally Posted by holli4pirating
Ya D, I did, but I didn't catch where it answered that question. Or it may have just been above my level of smarts.
Play on Playuh!
(if you read dis JCD, I'z saree fo' throwin' U under duh bus like that big dog, but U no how it iz gangstuh :cool: )
:cool:
Think of a scientific law as a rule by which theories have to play. Take, for example, newton's laws.
Now, laws do not apply to all cases and so they can be and are bound by the contexts by which they are applied.
For example, when speaking about physical bodies on an atomic-or-larger scale, newtons laws apply, however, subatomically that is not always the case.
That is why an as-yet unfalsified scientific theory is the apex of scientific method.
Sorry for the tangent but I thought an explanation in layman's terms might help. I'll weigh in with my thoughts on the OP when I'm in front of the computer and not pecking away on a phone.
Thanks O. My question was, what is a law called before it is called or classified as a law?
There is no "before." Laws are general statements which are true. Well, I suppose there could be a "before" period in which the experts of a field verify that laws hold, but as far as I know, there is no name for a law during this stage.Quote:
Originally Posted by ControlFreak1
Some may apply to specific circumstances, such as Newton's Laws of Motion (which do not account for high speeds or extremely small bodies), while others are true in every circumstance as far as we know, such as Maxwell's Laws (which can be beautifully used to show that electricity and magnetism are indeed two branches of the same force).
Well, there is a certain period before that, which I have read mentioned, but it didn't say what it was.
Thanks D.
Science: Comparing two or more similar things in an environment where the variables are known and posting an unbiased account of the results. For example, comparing the health effects of alcohol against drugs per 1000 users.
Pseudoscience: Comparing two or more similar things but engineering the comparison so you find what you want to find. Spinning the results with political ideology or plain making up the numbers. For example, comparing the health effects of alcohol against drugs across the population of the UK.
In the second example, the results will clearly be distorted because there are far more alcohol drinkers than drug addicts in the UK, so the number of people affected is much larger.
Science is watertight, clear, concise and backed up by empirical evidence that was generated using a fair and unbiased experiment.
Pseudoscience is fluff, smoke, mirrors, political spin or uses falsified evidence. I'm not saying its always wrong, but it is definately misleading and uses a bit of truth to cover a load of junk.
Some of the things mentioned above (psychology, astronomy) can still be called sciences as long as they are fairly based on the rules of that science as we understand them today. As long as you're not spinning the results or making them up, it has some sort of scientific process, which is I suppose the key to the whole thing for me.
Science has a scientific process that it follows, pseudoscience doesnt.
Stubear FTW!
:)
stubear ftw +1.
I would like to add repeatability (maybe I missed it?). If something is a hard fact (gravity for instance) it is consistent and always true. If I drop an apple, it will fall at an acceleration of -gMm/r^2 where g is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the earth, m is the mass of the apple, r is the distance between the two centroids.
I feel though that it is necessary to include normalization in these things because processes may necessarily be chaotic and therefor highly sensitive to initial conditions.
In laymans terms- Science is practiced by scientists, testing one variable, ceteris paribus, in a control manner and generating models. Pseudoscience is practiced by philosophers, observing phenomena and theorizing models.
Astronomy- using physics and data to model the universe. Highly repeatable. Landed men on the moon etc.
Astrology- using anecdotal observations of the stars and theories to accomplish the same task- before the "evolution"/split into astronomy led to many misconceptions (false "ends of the earth" dates, geocentricism, flat earth, etc....)
I still take issue with the statement that psuedoscience is only conducted by non-scientists. My half-baked allegories earlier in the thread were an attempt at showing this. Black holes, etc, are outside the realm of controlled environment, and are not even directly observable. And it is perhaps not quite right to term it psuedo-science, but calling it hard science is not quite right either.Quote:
Originally Posted by khaos
It's hard science in the sense that it's a solid theory with both observation to support it and no falsifications to discount it. Because it can't be replicated due to the impossibility of being able to survive such a situation, doesn't mean it's not real.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim
And I'm not saying I'm particularly sold on the idea, but if you agree with the scientific method, you can't really call it pseudo-science.
Perhaps a more technical split would be, theorem, theory, and thought- "hard" science, "plausible" science, and pseudoscience.
They are creating miniature black holes in labs now. just BTWQuote:
Originally Posted by Oglethorpe
After a quick trip through cyber-space in search of info on black holes, I came across the Hubble official site, which had some stuff on black holes.
OK, so the theory is that a black hole is a collapsed giant star, right?
But through the laws of conservation of matter, don't both the star and the resulting black hole both have to have the same mass? Just because it collapses, and gets smaller, does not therefore increase it's mass, and make it all of a suddden a different gravitational force. The gravity per unit area would certainly be higher, but the overall mass must still be the same. And on a cosmic scale, does it matter if the mass is a few thousands of miles in diameter, or the size of a loaf of bread, if the nearest object is x millions of miles away?
Another ψάρια-science topic (since it may fall niether ubnder science, nor psuedo-science, I'm making a third category: fishy science:)): the Big Bang and the expanding universe.
So, if the theory is that the universe was created all of a sudden in the Big Bang. What was there before? What is outside of the bubble of our expanding sphere of the known universe? Is science saying that there is such a thing as nothing? An absence of anything?
The press headlines may say so, which sells papers, but I think the facts say differently:Quote:
Originally Posted by khaos
Pseudo Black Hole Created in Lab - Yahoo! News
They have developed things that mimic certain aspects of black holes, they have not created mini black holes.Quote:
"The device we created is not a real black hole, but only a device to mimic the black-hole effect," said researcher Tie Jun Cui, a professor at Southeast University in China. "Actually, the device can trap and absorb the electromagnetic waves which hit the device. Hence we call it as the Electromagnetic Black Hole."
The big bang theory is obviously pseudo science! its definitely not been studied and no numbers ever agree. Its as classic an example as geocentricism. Scientists observe somethings and make a guess, then set out proving that guess, rather than investigating. Also, when it comes to mass density and black holes, it does matter. If one accurately computed gravitational force it would be a volume integral, summing the individual particles' forces. Thus, a point mass would have a much more direct force than an infinitely large volume of equal mass. (masses to the side would add a lateral force)
Re: black holes: they can't be mimicked in labs (at least by definition) because they are not strong enough to attract photons.
Re: the big bag: again, by definition, is not pesudo science. i'd go so far as to call it "hard science". it's a theory with enough scientific evidence to support it's occurrence. the details of how it happened are what's in question (i.e. what is the explosive strength required to cause the particles to expand at the rate at which they did so as to not cause it to implode upon itself.
to be honest, i don't like the term pseudo-science.
I really can't list Big Bang under hard science at all. It is conjecture, based on scientific ideas, but conjecture all the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oglethorpe
Perhaps it is not expansion, but rather attraction from something beyond the range we can investigate?
There is some discourse as to why it seems that the rate of expansion is increasing, as opposed to slowing down, as would be reasonable to expect if the Big Bang theory is the guiding principle.
I say that is due to attaraction from sources outside of what we can percieve, and tghus, the objects on the outer reaches of the observable universe are becoming increasingly attrated to these Zbodies (I just made that up!), and thus making them accelerate, not slow down.
I'm calling this the Big Suck theory, as all the matter is being sucked away further and further, faster and faster.
Well, when you let something evaporate in a vacuum the vapor disperses itself evenly- this is the second law of thermo/entropy, basically, so how do we know its not just some random diffusion of matter into a vacuum?
But we digress. The original thread was about science in general, not astronomy. Though I would like to point out that the definitions we are generating are pseudoscientific in nature. :p
By your definition of science, it sounds like a double blind taste test to determine which of two types of chocolate tastes better would be scientific. While the process may be scientific, I don't think the results are. Or I could compare the temperatures of two beakers of water by smelling them. I'm comparing them, I know the variables, and the test is unbiased. Is that science?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stubear
Why is science watertight? What about the process makes it so? How many scientific papers do you read that are clear and concise?
To say that science has a scientific process is quite circular. What are the criteria for a process to be scientific. For all you've said, though there is a start in your first section, there is very little definition. You've said what science is as the result of it following a "scientific process" - watertight, backed up, evidence based - but nothing about what defines something as scientific.
Like Einstein and all other theoretical physicists?Quote:
Originally Posted by khaos
Black holes - when the volume decreases, objects are able to get much, much closer to the black hole, and that is where gravity increases dramatically. Yes, if you are 10 light years away there is no difference, but when you are just outside the event horizon there is a huge difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim
Big Bang Theory - while the theory may be largely incomplete, that does not make it non-scientific. The structure of the universe, cosmic background radiation, the expansion of the universe, and a number of other carefully documented phenomena can be explained through a theory such as the big bang theory. Is the theory correct? Maybe. Is it a scientific theory? Yes.
Black holes have been created in labs, and they are created in our atmosphere all the time as well. The black holes that I am speaking of fit the only important definition of a black hole, which is the ratio of mass to radius - namely the Schwarzchild radius.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim
In what way is the big bang theory geocentric?Quote:
Originally Posted by khaos
I'm sure there are scientists who are out there trying to prove the big bang theory, but there are lots of others seeking out alternate explanations.
I wonder if it will be clear which is my text...Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim
I'd like to say that, while there are seeming digressions, they are not really. In each digression, there is a discussion of whether something is science or pseudoscience. I would encourage you all to look at each digression and, in determining whether something is science or pseudoscience, examine your reasons for coming to your conclusion and share those reasons with us. Your reasons are how you define and distinguish science from pseudoscience. In doing so, we will continue to formulate the definitions this thread was created to find.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim http://straightrazorpalace.com/image...s/viewpost.gif
I really can't list Big Bang under hard science at all. It is conjecture, based on scientific ideas, but conjecture all the same.
me--- So in what way is the Big Bang Theory conjecture and not science? What is the difference. That is the point of this thread.
Perhaps it is not expansion, but rather attraction from something beyond the range we can investigate?
me--- And perhaps there is no gravity, but little fairies that push on everything, but they're too small to see.
There is some discourse as to why it seems that the rate of expansion is increasing, as opposed to slowing down, as would be reasonable to expect if the Big Bang theory is the guiding principle.
me---- The truth or untruth of the Big Bang Theory has nothing to do with whether the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing or decreasing. There could have been an explosion and then increasing expansion or decreasing expansion - the explosion and the expansion are not directly related.
I say that is due to attaraction from sources outside of what we can percieve, and tghus, the objects on the outer reaches of the observable universe are becoming increasingly attrated to these Zbodies (I just made that up!), and thus making them accelerate, not slow down.
me----- This is conjecture, because it is not based on any observations or evidence. The Big Bang theory is based on observations and evidence, and also fits quite well with the rest of physics.
I'm calling this the Big Suck theory, as all the matter is being sucked away further and further, faster and faster.
It is trying to describe something that happened, unobserved X thousands, millions, billions, or zillions of years ago. Scientists can look at stars whizzing away through the cosmos, but that is no more proof of the Big Bang than is the idea of the little fairey pushing them away.Quote:
me--- So in what way is the Big Bang Theory conjecture and not science? What is the difference. That is the point of this thread.
Gravity is.Quote:
me--- And perhaps there is no gravity, but little fairies that push on everything, but they're too small to see.
Science really has no real idea of exactly what the dynamic is that makes gravity work, all we know is that it does, and some info on what mass creates what sort of gravitational pull.
The rate of expansion obviously has to be relaed to the alleged explosion itself. How could it possibly be de-coupled?Quote:
me---- The truth or untruth of the Big Bang Theory has nothing to do with whether the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing or decreasing. There could have been an explosion and then increasing expansion or decreasing expansion - the explosion and the expansion are not directly related.
My Big Suck theory is no more conjecture than the Big Bang. They both propose mechanisms to explain why it appears that objects appear to be moving away from each other at a rapid rate. I just submit a different dynamic of getting to the same result. Astronomers often mention getting images from the "edge of space", well, that's just as far as they are able to see, right? that does not mean that is all there is. Unless they are saying that there is a great Nothing beyond the edge of the universe, then there has to be Something there, right? So, I propose that there is something with a gravitational pull, that would also explain why there is noticeable expansion to the known universe.Quote:
me----- This is conjecture, because it is not based on any observations or evidence. The Big Bang theory is based on observations and evidence, and also fits quite well with the rest of physics.
Or perhaps the whole idea of the Big Bang is wrong in the first place? Perhaps there was/is no "start" point for the universe? What if the universe always was, and is indeed infinite, which would fit Khoaos's idea of stuff simply expanding in a vacuum, a limitless space.
The Big Bang supposes a "start time" event, yet does not propose what proceeded it, or what exists beyond it. That is a pretty big hole in a theory to simply dismiss and call it a winner. It is unsubstantiated, and thus I list it as conjecture.
here's ten characters and then some...Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphim
Ding ding! This round is up.
The next round - string theory vs. LQG. Sharpen your pencils please!
:jedi:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparq
If I knew what LQG was I'd debunk it immediately!
Personally, I like pseupo - particularly tomat pseupo. Too bad itsa too late to comment.
:boohoo: