What does science do?

[Slaughterhousefive42]

WRote this a few months ago bored in class:
Straight lines do not exist
Geometry is lies with a human twist
Look to the horizon to abate
The myth of absolute we create
Kill a baby and you’ll see its true
Cause if its Hitler you won’t be so blue
Morality is nice to not think twice
It sets us apart from beetles and mice
Good intentions pave the road to hell
Uberman and Klansmen start to smell

 

[Slaughterhousefive42]

I'm not a poet, and I know it

 

[thursday]

math isn't physical but it's very pertinent in the metaphysical realm, which we are just as big a part of as the physical realm. our consciousness, our sense of right and wrong, our logical faculties are all non-tangible forms. science uses math to make calculations but observes physical phenomenons in order to discover consistent mathematical patterns which are found everywhere in nature. there are certain numbers, certain geometric structures, certain mathematical patterns which reappear in nature if you know where to look.

our knowledge of math and hard sciences which make use of math have helped us achieved great feats making use of our knowledge of how the universe works. math's relevance to our universe isn't as superficial as finding actual geometric shapes in nature. it has to do with calculating the rate of growth of populations, the rate of decay in isotopes, and other more complex natural processes which we can understand using mathematical formulas. things don't seem "perfect" in nature only because they're much more complex than just a single simple formula. there are too many forces at work and the relationships between these forces are often complex puzzles themselves.

 

[pa..]

math isn't physical but it's very pertinent in the metaphysical realm, which we are just as big a part of as the physical realm. our consciousness, our sense of right and wrong, our logical faculties are all non-tangible forms. science uses math to make calculations but observes physical phenomenons in order to discover consistent mathematical patterns which are found everywhere in nature. there are certain numbers, certain geometric structures, certain mathematical patterns which reappear in nature if you know where to look.

our knowledge of math and hard sciences which make use of math have helped us achieved great feats making use of our knowledge of how the universe works. math's relevance to our universe isn't as superficial as finding actual geometric shapes in nature. it has to do with calculating the rate of growth of populations, the rate of decay in isotopes, and other more complex natural processes which we can understand using mathematical formulas. things don't seem "perfect" in nature only because they're much more complex than just a single simple formula. there are too many forces at work and the relationships between these forces are often complex puzzles themselves.

That is precisely my point. How much can perfect math teach you about an imperfect universe?

The world around us... the universe is in constant change. Once you think you understand it, you're already wrong. That's not to say math isn't useful. Of course math has helped us as a civilization understand many things. Too much faith in science and math can be a negative thing however. Just as too much faith in religion can become negative.

If you ask me... science should stop trying to solve the "answers" to the universe, because quite simply, science's track record is horrible. Every couple hundred years a new paradigm comes about and science says "Look everyone! We've got it this time" Then a hundred years pass and we look back and go "wow that wasn't even close". It will always be that way.

Science should stick to improving life, not figuring out where it came from or why it came.

 

[thursday]

ughh... science has been making PROGRESS ever since it's inception, ever since man stopped using mythology to explain natural phenomenons. new scientific models are always being developed to fill in the gaps, and old ones are constantly being refined or expanded on. how is that a bad track record? is that worse than religion's attempts to explain how the universe works and where we came from? without science we'd remain eternally ignorant. we can only improve conditions through technology if we learn how the universe works. you can't make medicine without understanding biology and pharmacology.

and science doesn't try to solve the "answers" to the universe. science answers questions man raise about the universe. we have to keep raising questions and try to answer them through logical empirical means if we want to get anywhere. otherwise we might as well still be living in the dark ages.

how many physics/chemistry/biology/math courses have you taken? you can't criticize these fields without an understanding of them and their development. your statements are mostly ungrounded and show a lack of understanding of how the scientific process works.

and what negative things has "too much faith" in science produced? science isn't faith based, religion is based on faith. and faith in religion has caused a lot more ignorant mistakes than using science to improve the world.

 

[PGTips]

math....

It's an abstraction. As in.... outside of what is real. You will never find a perfect circle anywhere in nature. You won't find a straight line in the universe, yet science is all based off of math. How much can perfect math teach you about an imperfect universe?

Only so much....

Math teaches you nothing about the universe. Does French tell you how the Sun works? No. You can explain to someone in French how the Sun works, but it is not the French language which is responsible for that information, only a means of conveyence.

Science is about taking evidence, analysing it, making a logical prediction about something else from your evidence and seeing if your prediction is right. Maths is based on logically continuation of basic assumptions and makes an excellent language to describe relations of things. You could say the whole of maths in words if you so wished (they used to up until about Newtons time!) thus removing maths from science. You'd severly handicap yourself, but its possible.

The fact mathematics is "idealised" is a good thing. Consider the converse, a universe which has perfect lines and circles and is infinitely smooth, yet a maths which cannot produce perfect lines and circles and is "rough". Maths in that case would have a limitation in how well it could describe the universe. Its like describing something but not being allowed to use adjectives. You can get a general idea, but not very close to reality. Instead we've an idealised mathematics and an imperfect universe. This means you can build into a mathematical description, if you so wish, compensating factors. Instead of no adjectives, you can use an infinite number till you've correctly described something (if you see what I mean).

Take "diffrential equations". They work by assuming a system is infinitely divisible into tiny pieces and is "smooth". In reality, things like fluids have a smallest scale, their atoms/molecules, so aren't infinitely divisible. Hence there is a tiny difference in the mathematical description and the behaviour. How big is the difference? Its probably somewhere like the 15th decimal place. Thats such a tiny amount its completely overriden by experimental error. Its like measuring the radius of the Earth and being wrong by the width of a human hair.

Every couple hundred years a new paradigm comes about and science says "Look everyone! We've got it this time" B]

Where do scienctists say "This time we're definately right". They say "Our current theory matches all current experiments", but thats not the same as being right, you just haven't found the error yet.

The world around us... the universe is in constant change. Once you think you understand it, you're already wrong.

Are you saying the laws of physics change over time? Having a new scientific theory does not mean the laws of changed, just our perspective of them.

That's not to say math isn't useful. Of course math has helped us as a civilization understand many things. Too much faith in science and math can be a negative thing however. Just as too much faith in religion can become negative.

Maths is a language. It does not set out to prove anything about the universe. People often think that maths is physics and physics is maths. Its not!! Its like saying "Too much faith in science and Chinese is a negative thing". Maths is the most convenient language to express quanative relations between things, it is not a factor in the theories themselves.

 

[Cex]

It often strikes me that the most passionate critics of science are those who know least about it.

I suspect that the same thing may be true of religion however, so I'm not sure how useful this observation is.

 

[PGTips]

To add to my last post and perhaps Cex's.....

If you ask me... science should stop trying to solve the "answers" to the universe, because quite simply, science's track record is horrible. Every couple hundred years a new paradigm comes about and science says "Look everyone! We've got it this time" Then a hundred years pass and we look back and go "wow that wasn't even close". It will always be that way.

If science's track record is so bad, how do you explain the medium in which you and I are communicating? How do you explain our understanding of the atom, of the galaxy, of electronics, of biology, or the Earth, and all the other advances in technology and understanding we have?

I think you have made the unfortunately not uncommon mistake of thinking a "new paradigm" results in nullifying all previous paradigms and their results.

Take Newton and Einstein for instance. Newtons Theory of gravity was fine and dandy for about 250 years. Then towards the end of the 1800's people started noticing things which Newtons theory didn't explain properly (the behaviour of Mercury for instance). Then Einstein came along with General Relativity and a completyely new way of thinking about gravity, a new paradigm. Your wording suggests you think this made Newton completly wrong, and just shows how useless his ideas were. Wrong. It showed Newtons ideas were incomplete. If they were completely wrong they'd not have matched observations for 250 years! Theories are accepted into the scientific community if they match observations, hence they are as correct as we can make with our current understanding. If a new theory or paradigm comes along which matches observations better, then its used instead. Relativity reduces to Newtons Theory if you take the weak gravity, low speed limit. This is because at low speeds Newton's ideas were essentially correct, but didn't take into account extreme conditions. Relativity does that better. Not perfectly, black holes are a problem, but better.

String Theory or whatever comes along to replace General Relativity will not say "Relativity was completely wrong, science wasted 100 years on it!" Thats not going to happen because of all the enormous amounts of evidence to back up Relativity. The new theory will say "Relativity didn't take into account *something* at these extreme conditions", or something similar.

New paradigms almost invariably incorporate old paradigms into themselves, because we wouldn't have been using the old paradigms if they weren't correct in at least a few situations.

 

[pa..]

why does everyone immediately assume I know nothing about science ?

Is it because I question the "facts" it provides? The "answers"?

The point is... science can only go so far. Religion can only go so far. If you think about it.... they are both attempts at discovering the same basic truths. And they both fail every time. They are both very useful none the less, and they both contribute to the human race's progression. You must all admit there is very much we do not know about the world around us... and I assume, will never fully understand no matter how much math and observation we put into it.

Plus... Alphanumeric brought up the analogy of using math that cannot create perfect circles and straight lines while living in a universe that does create such things... well Alpha, isn't that the precise converse of the world we live in now?

 

[pa..]

To clarify, what I ment by science's track record being bad... I'm referring to things such as... Newtons ideas of a universe that is of complete perfection. A universe where there are parts and peices that work together like a clock, and if we can just break it down to the peices and understand them individually (using math)... then in turn... we could understand the entire thing.

With quantum physics, we now know this not to be true, though in Newton's time, and for a period after... people just accepted it as fact. Just as people today accept quantum physics and string theory as fact. When really... it will just seem yet another peice of the puzzle 100 years from now. A puzzle that never ends.

Science is great though, don't get me wrong.... you all are acting as if I'm here preaching we abandon it all together. That's not what I'm saying at all... I'm just saying science will come close to the truth, but will still be wrong in the end. Even if it is by the width of a human hair. (or smaller)

 

[Cex]

With quantum physics, we now know this not to be true, though in Newton's time, and for a period after... people just accepted it as fact. Just as people today accept quantum physics and string theory as fact.

No one accepts quantum theory or string theory as 'fact'. We know that quantum theory has problems (it doesn't include gravity) and string theory isn't even a finalised theory - just a lot of ideas at present!

We just know that they are good assumptions - better assumptions that those we have had before.

It's dangerous to treat science like a religion, where you either have faith or you don't. It's all about questioning currently held perceptions in order to develop our understanding.

 

[thursday]

^and newton never claimed to have a perfect or compelete model of the universe. that's the beautify of science; it's a always open to revision. and scientists accept that nothing we know is ever absolute, unlike religious claims.

 

[pa..]

^and newton never claimed to have a perfect or compelete model of the universe. that's the beautify of science; it's a always open to revision. and scientists accept that nothing we know is ever absolute, unlike religious claims.

If scientists really believed nothing was absolute, they wouldn't be using math to explain observations.

 

[thursday]

what does using math to make calculations have to do with believing that you are 100% correct? ever heard of margin of error? ever heard of probabilities and statistics?

you're making some really weird inferences about mathematics.

 

[pa..]

well... they do accept math to be absolute don't they?

example... 2+2=4, not 2+2=10

You said scientists don't accept anything to be absolute. I'm showing you that they do accept some things to be.

 

[thursday]

actually, 2+2=10 in base 4.

but seriously, that has nothing to do with scientists claiming that science is absolute. mathematical expressions are absolute, and they're used to express different functions in different scientific models. but that doesn't mean anyone's claiming that these scientific models are perfect. that's like saying well math is an intangible metaphysical concept so a math book must also be metaphysical rather than physical. the connections you're drawing are absurd.

one of the various applications of math is making calculations in science. these calculations can describe to the best of our knowledge how certain natural forces/processes behave. they don't claim that we have perfect knowledge of the universe. scientific observations have shown that the universe is very consistent and logical, therefore it makes sense to use math to describe the universe. how else would we try to understand the universe? through mythology?

no offense but all of the analogies you draw suck. that is why people are assuming that you don't know anything about math or science.

 

[pa..]

Well at least we agree on everything except the quality of my analogies. I guess..

So.. math is absolute when it's abstract. When it's used to model reality... If you agree or not (I'm still not sure, because you bring up other crap each post)... but it falls short every time. Especially in newer areas of science like quantum physics. The other points you are trying to argue with me are just sermons for the choir. (I can explain that metaphor to you if it sucks as much as my analogies.)

 

[deroxor]

Science Awnsers and Creates Questions !

 

[thursday]

the only reasons why you can't perfectly predict the outcome of things in the phyisical world is because there are a lot of factors that come into play, some which we do not yet understand or haven't identified, and some which are too miniscule and spontaneous to be accounted for. but that doesn't matter because you can still perfectly calculate the nature of the particular force or natural process that you are studying. objects near the surface of the earth may not always accelerate downward at exactly [GM/(r^2)] m/s^2 because of wind resistance, but we know through our observations that gravitional acceleration does have the relationship with mass, radius, and the gravitational constant specified by that equation. these are sound logical deductions that come closer to explaining how our universe works than any other method that we have at our disposal. how does this fall short? because we don't have perfect and complete knowledge of the universe yet? because religion claims to have perfect knowledge of the universe? because there aren't perfect circles or perfect lines in the universe? because current scientific models will continue to be improved and expanded upon to be more and more accurate and paint a more complete picture of the universe as time passes?

what it all comes down to is that the only way to obtain knowledge is to use our faculties of logic and reasoning. there is no other way. and empirical science is built on logic. we didn't develop medicines and learn how to treat diseases by assuming that the universe is illogical and incapable of being understood through logical means.

 

[PGTips]

Plus... Alphanumeric brought up the analogy of using math that cannot create perfect circles and straight lines while living in a universe that does create such things... well Alpha, isn't that the precise converse of the world we live in now?

Yes, that was why I brought up the analogy.

Just as people today accept quantum physics and string theory as fact. When really... it will just seem yet another peice of the puzzle 100 years from now. A puzzle that never ends.

Find me a scientist who says "Yes, Quantum Theory is fact." or "Yes, String Theory is fact".

If scientists really believed nothing was absolute, they wouldn't be using math to explain observations.

They never believe their models are absolute. Mathematics, as I've already said, is the most convenient way to express relations. Within itself, it is absolute, its a closed system. You cannot prove 2+2=10, because it doesn't. You could rebuild mathematics from the axioms up with a slight tweak to make 2+2=10, but I imagine you'd arrive at a nasty contradiction long before that.

You could do exactly the same scientific things we do now, but instead of maths, express the relations in logic, using sentences. It'd be just as valid, provided you accept the consistency of logic. If you doubt the validity of mathematics as a self consistent system, then you doubt logic too.

So.. math is absolute when it's abstract. When it's used to model reality... If you agree or not (I'm still not sure, because you bring up other crap each post)... but it falls short every time. Especially in newer areas of science like quantum physics. The other points you are trying to argue with me are just sermons for the choir. (I can explain that metaphor to you if it sucks as much as my analogies.)

Mathematics is absolute, full stop. You are confusing mathematics and physics again. The mathematics used in physics is absolute. Its an abstraction where you have assigned meanings like "energy", "mass", "time" to certain mathematical entities, but the whole system is still perfectly self consistent. The error comes in from the physical interpretation of the mathematical symbols. In reality is that symbol really "mass" or should we have interpretated it as "energy", or "inertia" or the like?

Mathematics has been proved from the ground up to be self consistent so far. There are no "loop holes". If you accept logic, then you accept mathematics, since its development is based on logical continuation of initial arguements. Physics is about interpreting the universe. The error lies in interpreting observations into equations. The obervations are correct. The mathematics is self consistent, the problem is just getting them to link, which is what physics is.