Our ability to effort and act in the genuine world depends on our accepting a acceptance in our acknowledgment and in our language’’. “Tolerance – is the essential protection, the important degree of roughness which makes it likely to work with conceptual entities in the real world”. a great deal tolerance and you are misled by accidental dissimilarity; too little tolerance and you lose expensive information. The most advantageous degree of tolerance must be a material of decision since it cannot be dogged in advance. So, the finest echelon of tolerance is acknowledged only retrospectively, by comparing the rate of improvement when a greater or lesser scale of tolerance is presupposed. The conclusion of tolerance which led to the quickest scientific improvement is defensible as having been the best. Science thus needs to tolerate different judgments of tolerance among scientists, allowing a assortment of levels of lenience to coexist and vie. And yet one has to be tolerant of the fact that neither you nor the man you are arguing with is going to get it right”.
Tolerence in Science ??
I don't agree 
I don't get it so I guess I don't agree either
Umm..seeing other posts by the auther, I don't really get the point of any of them...
Umm..seeing other posts by the auther, I don't really get the point of any of them...
| yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| Our ability to effort and act in the genuine world depends on our accepting a acceptance in our acknowledgment and in our language’’. “Tolerance – is the essential protection, the important degree of roughness which makes it likely to work with conceptual entities in the real world”. a great deal tolerance and you are misled by accidental dissimilarity; too little tolerance and you lose expensive information. The most advantageous degree of tolerance must be a material of decision since it cannot be dogged in advance. So, the finest echelon of tolerance is acknowledged only retrospectively, by comparing the rate of improvement when a greater or lesser scale of tolerance is presupposed. The conclusion of tolerance which led to the quickest scientific improvement is defensible as having been the best. Science thus needs to tolerate different judgments of tolerance among scientists, allowing a assortment of levels of lenience to coexist and vie. And yet one has to be tolerant of the fact that neither you nor the man you are arguing with is going to get it right”. |
Most of this is just verbiage, but there are maybe one or two points in there worth mentioning, once they're translated to English.
Let's start here: "... a great deal tolerance and you are misled by accidental dissimilarity; too little tolerance and you lose expensive information....".
In English: "If you open your mind too wide, the wind whistles through it. If you don't open it enough, you miss possibilities."
True. However....
Then this: "The most advantageous degree of tolerance must be a material of decision since it cannot be dogged in advance."
English: "In order to know how much you have to open your mind, you can't figure that out beforehand, you have to do it after the fact."
Uh oh, problems start here. But first, let's continue....
There's this: "The conclusion of tolerance which led to the quickest scientific improvement is defensible as having been the best."
English: "However much you have to open your mind to get a quick answer is the best for science."
Damn, now we have troubles. Let's finish first, though....
Finally: "Science thus needs to tolerate different judgments of tolerance among scientists, allowing a assortment of levels of lenience to coexist and vie. And yet one has to be tolerant of the fact that neither you nor the man you are arguing with is going to get it right."
English: "So in order to get quick answers, science should let everyone decide what they think should be true. And since it's all subjective, you can't tell anyone else they're wrong."
Wow.
Ok, now that we've translated, let's see what we can say about that.
The first sign of trouble is the claim that the only way you can know whether or not you've opened your mind wide enough is a posteriori. Anyone familiar with logic should recognize this right away. It's the old "Texas sharpshooter fallacy". There is a reason that the entire field of science is designed to set conditions (hypotheses) before doing experiments. Doing it the other way around doesn't work. Think about it. Suppose i had a theory, and i ran an experiment to test it... but i didn't say before i ran the experiment what i expected to get. Instead, i run the experiment, and when it's done, i point to the results and say "that's what i wanted"... how do you know i'm not faking? How do you know my theory isn't complete nonsense, and i'm just pretending that the results were what i expected? (And deliberate deception isn't the only way this problem can come up - people can do it unconsciously, too, which is why we frown on "interpreted" results, and always demand raw data that we can do statistics on ourselves.)
The next major problem is this silly idea that science needs to get the answers quickly. That's just foolishness. Science needs to get the answers right. It does not need to get the answers quickly, it needs to get them correctly. If it takes fifty years, or a hundred years, so be it. Many scientists are working today on things that they don't believe they will live to see solved. They don't want an answer just for the sake of having an answer, they want to understand nature, and they want to understand it properly. There's no rush, but it must be done right.
And then finally... the conclusion, which is absurd. Why do people want to turn science into an election? Science is a tool to understand nature. If you don't agree with its conclusions... tough. Suck it up. Either accept that you're wrong or live in a fantasy world (in other words, go insane). Science is not a matter of opinions or "what you believe". You can argue about the best way to interpret the facts, but the facts are the facts. And you can't even interpret those facts any old which way you feel like - there are right ways and wrong ways to do the interpretation, and those right ways and wrongs are determined in order to avoid logical fallacies and other mistakes. Every part of science is very carefully designed by the brightest humans that have ever lived, over hundreds of years, to be the most accurate system for understanding nature we can possibly hope to have. If you choose to ignore the facts, or to interpret them in a way not recommended by the rules of science, then you have no guarantees that you're not completely out of touch with reality.
Now, if that doesn't bother you... if you care more about doing it "your way" (or your religion's way, or your belief system's way) than you do about being right... then fine, go for it! But understand that you have made the choice to sacrifice accuracy for _________ (you fill in the blank - is it your religion? your belief system? your stubborn pride?). That's your choice, and you have to live with it.
i don't.
And neither does anyone else who wants to be sure that - to the best of human ability - the beliefs they have about nature are right. If you choose to ditch the accuracy of science for your own purposes, don't drag anyone else down with you.
That was very good translation in lay mans English but alas I thought I wrote in English I am not a native speaker of the great language guess you can understand my difficulty in putting my thoughts in it
Good work
I guess a lot more people can now understand what I tried to say
Although you have translated in the best you understood it I must say it is not about science at all
It is about tolerance and science is an example here of what tolerance is
so all the verbose post of science and all that is just not needed here
It is about tolerance now consider this
take science away and put any other idea or anything suitable there and try to comprehend what I tried to say
In fact you have translated ( if may call it that since as far I know you cannot translate the same lang) in as you understand and you are putting forth arguments against your own translated text; wasteful exercise
in this particular example you said
"The next major problem is this silly idea that science needs to get the answers quickly. That's just foolishness" that was never implied in my post and you go at lenght to agur aginst what you have yourself said
looks tad funny
Good work
I guess a lot more people can now understand what I tried to say
Although you have translated in the best you understood it I must say it is not about science at all
It is about tolerance and science is an example here of what tolerance is
so all the verbose post of science and all that is just not needed here
It is about tolerance now consider this
take science away and put any other idea or anything suitable there and try to comprehend what I tried to say
In fact you have translated ( if may call it that since as far I know you cannot translate the same lang) in as you understand and you are putting forth arguments against your own translated text; wasteful exercise
in this particular example you said
"The next major problem is this silly idea that science needs to get the answers quickly. That's just foolishness" that was never implied in my post and you go at lenght to agur aginst what you have yourself said
looks tad funny
| HalfBloodPrince wrote: |
| I don't get it so I guess I don't agree either
Umm..seeing other posts by the auther, I don't really get the point of any of them... |
Thanks for seeing all my posts
I am getting a lot of points from the post and thats what that matters at least now since I was down to -5 last week! LOL
Well IMHO i believe that this is in some ways true but in the greater respect false. One of the most basic scientific principles is Occam's razor. Using that one can be very tolerant but only if tolerance agrees with common sense. For example if someone believe life evolved from a from spaghetti that is an absurd proposal so you would assume it false. But if someone purposed that life began on mars logical that is reasonable and there fore would have some reason to be looked into.
Thats my 2 cents,
Markus
P.S. YA!!! non english speakers rock
. English is my 3rd language
Thats my 2 cents,
Markus
P.S. YA!!! non english speakers rock
. English is my 3rd language| Flarkis wrote: |
| Well IMHO i believe that this is in some ways true but in the greater respect false. One of the most basic scientific principles is Occam's razor. Using that one can be very tolerant but only if tolerance agrees with common sense. For example if someone believe life evolved from a from spaghetti that is an absurd proposal so you would assume it false. But if someone purposed that life began on mars logical that is reasonable and there fore would have some reason to be looked into. |
Occam's Razor doesn't work like that. OR says that when there are two or more equally likely explanations for an observation or phenomenon then you should pick the one with the fewest other assumptions. In the case above the idea that life originated from spaghetti is clearly not reasonable and therefore OR would not need to be applied.
| yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| Our ability to effort and act in the genuine world depends on our accepting a acceptance in our acknowledgment and in our language’’. “Tolerance – is the essential protection, the important degree of roughness which makes it likely to work with conceptual entities in the real world”. a great deal tolerance and you are misled by accidental dissimilarity; too little tolerance and you lose expensive information. The most advantageous degree of tolerance must be a material of decision since it cannot be dogged in advance. So, the finest echelon of tolerance is acknowledged only retrospectively, by comparing the rate of improvement when a greater or lesser scale of tolerance is presupposed. The conclusion of tolerance which led to the quickest scientific improvement is defensible as having been the best. Science thus needs to tolerate different judgments of tolerance among scientists, allowing a assortment of levels of lenience to coexist and vie. And yet one has to be tolerant of the fact that neither you nor the man you are arguing with is going to get it right”. |
Are these your words or from somewhere else? Why are they in quotes?
Interesting thoughts, there is probably pressure for scientists to all agree and not deviate too much from their peers; peer review is one such process that can be affected by the tolerance.
| TBSC wrote: |
| Interesting thoughts, there is probably pressure for scientists to all agree and not deviate too much from their peers; peer review is one such process that can be affected by the tolerance. |
Anti-science types love to make that claim, but think about it. Does it really make any sense?
There are dozen different ways to show that the idea is bollocks. Here are a few:
Name the ten greatest scientists. Pick any ten, i don't care - you can choose the ten best in the 20th century, the ten best of all time, the ten physicists or biologists - knock yourself out. Now, tell me, are they famous for agreeing with their peers... or for disagreeing with them?
Assume that scientists want science to advance. That makes sense, doesn't it? Why would a scientist want science to go backwards, or stay stagnant? So assume that scientists want science to advance. Now imagine someone comes up with a revolutionary idea that shakes the foundations of science. What would an average scientist do, assuming they want science to advance? If they just "pressure" the offbeat thinker into conforming to the current thinking... how can science possibly advance from that action? It can't. The logical course of action to take is to examine their idea and see if it holds merit - and if the idea has any flaws, to point them out. If the idea has merit, science advances, and if it doesn't science advances anyway by ruling out one more bad idea. But do they do the most rational thing? Well, look around at what scientists really do. Do they not actually look at the publications of even the most kookiest variety, from conspiracies about the Moon landings to Erich von Däniken, and then publish rebuttals?
Ok, let's pretend for a moment that scientists really do put pressure on their peers to conform to the widely-held viewpoint. If you were a young, up-and-coming scientist, what would you do? Bend over and conform? To what end? To have a mediocre career where you struggle to find research to do that hasn't already been done? Or, do you try to do something different, on the chance that you might open up a whole new field or a least a new line of questioning, garner yourself some name recognition, and give yourself publication possibilities (even if you just publish how your new theory fails!) for the rest of your career?
Do you know what tenure is? When a scientist gets tenure somewhere, they have a job for life. They can never be fired, no matter what they do or say, as long as they publish and don't do something really stupid (like breaking the law). Getting tenure is not easy, and you may be under pressure to conform to get it. However, once you have it, you can do whatever the hell you want! You can publish theories that the Moon is made of cheese and moves through the sky on puppet strings. Pressure becomes literally non-existent.
And so on and so forth.
The truth about science is that it's a highly competitive world where brilliant people make a career out of challenging each other. They're really a rather disagreeable lot - professionally speaking, that is. Conformity is not enforced, because it makes no sense and these people are bloody well smart enough to know that. Yes, it's true that more established scientists defend their theories (which, obviously, are more established) from the theories of up-and-comers, and it is true that they sometimes use their influence in a less than sporting way. Scientists are human, too. But the field is so huge, and global, that if you somehow manage to get completely shut down in your faculty and in your university and in your country and in your whole damn field (not an easy thing to do, as you can imagine), there are still alternative venues to publish your thesis! It gets harder, sure, but if your theory really does have merit, it will get a fair hearing.
Now, there is some truth to the claim that when a truly revolutionary idea comes out, it faces resistance at first. But doesn't that just make sense? Think about it. You have a theory that has had hundreds of papers published, that's been rigorously tested for decades (at least), and that has worked almost perfectly (or sometimes totally perfectly) for all that time. And then, someone comes out of left field and says, no, this is better. Doesn't it make sense to be a little sceptical? Well, sure, of course it does. The old theory has been put through the wringer for decades - it doesn't make sense to ditch it and accept the new theory without first putting it through at least the equivalent of those decades of challenge, if not more.
But every new idea gets a chance. Even in those very rare circumstances (mentioned in the paragraph before last) where it requires a fight to get published, it will eventually get its hearing. However, once an idea has been aired, considered and rejected, scientists simply can't be bothered to keep listening to the same bad arguments again. What that leads to is, for example, people who are trying to pass off creationism - which was rejected long before Darwin (most people don't know that) - simply being ignored... then they bitch about how closed-minded the scientific establishment is. But of course, their arguments have been refuted for almost two centuries now - and they have nothing new - so scientists can't be bothered to waste time on them. They aren't being completely ignored, their idea had been given its hearing before they were born! And, it lost. Even relatively new ideas suffer similar fates - to the person with the idea it may look new and exciting, but to a scientist with years of experience and extensive knowledge, it may just take a glance to see the flaws, and reject it. So to the person with the idea, it feels like they've been slighted, when in fact their idea had its hearing and was rejected so quickly, they pretty much missed it.
Just because science looks intolerant, does not mean that it is. There are several reasons it looks intolerant:
- Its ideas have been challenged for decades, and any new idea will need to stand up to decades worth of challenge, too, to be considered equal.
- Many scientists are so experienced and so smart they can spot a bad idea very quickly. Sometimes even before the person with the new idea finished describing it.
- It does not bother to give a hearing to the same bad idea twice.
[quote="Indi"]
Do you know what tenure is? When a scientist gets tenure somewhere, they have a job for life. They can never be fired, no matter what they do or say, as long as they publish and don't do something really stupid (like breaking the law). Getting tenure is not easy, and you may be under pressure to conform to get it. However, once you have it, you can do whatever the hell you want! You can publish theories that the Moon is made of cheese and moves through the sky on puppet strings. Pressure becomes literally non-existent. [quote]
I think you are very much right in fact this is correct in the context of public funded research like the one I am in Now that I have got my tenure I am just going about the job. But Had I been In a private research org where basic research is of not much concern I think I will be be brimming with new application ideas but alas the system in public funded is so that I don't have to have tolerance nor need to expect thus greatly eroding my capabilities!
But there is one thing- peer pressure still does exist in terms of self respect I have to put up to some base line performance otherwise I will be deemed as a poor researcher by my peers
In fact even when you retire from public life with a pension after having been a scientist till superannuation there will still be some peer pressure which will pinch your dignity and self respect
Do you know what tenure is? When a scientist gets tenure somewhere, they have a job for life. They can never be fired, no matter what they do or say, as long as they publish and don't do something really stupid (like breaking the law). Getting tenure is not easy, and you may be under pressure to conform to get it. However, once you have it, you can do whatever the hell you want! You can publish theories that the Moon is made of cheese and moves through the sky on puppet strings. Pressure becomes literally non-existent. [quote]
I think you are very much right in fact this is correct in the context of public funded research like the one I am in Now that I have got my tenure I am just going about the job. But Had I been In a private research org where basic research is of not much concern I think I will be be brimming with new application ideas but alas the system in public funded is so that I don't have to have tolerance nor need to expect thus greatly eroding my capabilities!
But there is one thing- peer pressure still does exist in terms of self respect I have to put up to some base line performance otherwise I will be deemed as a poor researcher by my peers
In fact even when you retire from public life with a pension after having been a scientist till superannuation there will still be some peer pressure which will pinch your dignity and self respect
“Tolerance – is the essential protection, the important degree of roughness which makes it likely to work with conceptual entities in the real world”. a great deal tolerance and you are misled by accidental dissimilarity; too little tolerance and you lose expensive information. The most advantageous degree of tolerance must be a material of decision since it cannot be dogged in advance. So, the finest echelon of tolerance is acknowledged only retrospectively, by comparing the rate of improvement when a greater or lesser scale of tolerance is presupposed. The conclusion of tolerance which led to the quickest scientific improvement is defensible as having been the best. Science thus needs to tolerate different judgments of tolerance among scientists, allowing a assortment of levels of lenience to coexist and vie. And yet one has to be tolerant of the fact that neither you nor the man you are arguing with is going to get it right”
I wonder why tolerance has such a high reputablilty. Sometimes, I think we as a society should stop tolerating some of the crap that goes on. Like, why should I tolerate that people believe in creationism b/c of their religous beliefs.....should I tolerate any nonsense? I tend to disagree.
I wonder why tolerance has such a high reputablilty. Sometimes, I think we as a society should stop tolerating some of the crap that goes on. Like, why should I tolerate that people believe in creationism b/c of their religous beliefs.....should I tolerate any nonsense? I tend to disagree.
| Indi wrote: | ||
Anti-science types love to make that claim, but think about it. Does it really make any sense? There are dozen different ways to show that the idea is bollocks. Here are a few: Name the ten greatest scientists. Pick any ten, i don't care - you can choose the ten best in the 20th century, the ten best of all time, the ten physicists or biologists - knock yourself out. Now, tell me, are they famous for agreeing with their peers... or for disagreeing with them?
Assume that scientists want science to advance. That makes sense, doesn't it? Why would a scientist want science to go backwards, or stay stagnant? So assume that scientists want science to advance. Now imagine someone comes up with a revolutionary idea that shakes the foundations of science. What would an average scientist do, assuming they want science to advance? If they just "pressure" the offbeat thinker into conforming to the current thinking... how can science possibly advance from that action? It can't. The logical course of action to take is to examine their idea and see if it holds merit - and if the idea has any flaws, to point them out. If the idea has merit, science advances, and if it doesn't science advances anyway by ruling out one more bad idea. But do they do the most rational thing? Well, look around at what scientists really do. Do they not actually look at the publications of even the most kookiest variety, from conspiracies about the Moon landings to Erich von Däniken, and then publish rebuttals?
Ok, let's pretend for a moment that scientists really do put pressure on their peers to conform to the widely-held viewpoint. If you were a young, up-and-coming scientist, what would you do? Bend over and conform? To what end? To have a mediocre career where you struggle to find research to do that hasn't already been done? Or, do you try to do something different, on the chance that you might open up a whole new field or a least a new line of questioning, garner yourself some name recognition, and give yourself publication possibilities (even if you just publish how your new theory fails!) for the rest of your career?
Do you know what tenure is? When a scientist gets tenure somewhere, they have a job for life. They can never be fired, no matter what they do or say, as long as they publish and don't do something really stupid (like breaking the law). Getting tenure is not easy, and you may be under pressure to conform to get it. However, once you have it, you can do whatever the hell you want! You can publish theories that the Moon is made of cheese and moves through the sky on puppet strings. Pressure becomes literally non-existent.
And so on and so forth. The truth about science is that it's a highly competitive world where brilliant people make a career out of challenging each other. They're really a rather disagreeable lot - professionally speaking, that is. Conformity is not enforced, because it makes no sense and these people are bloody well smart enough to know that. Yes, it's true that more established scientists defend their theories (which, obviously, are more established) from the theories of up-and-comers, and it is true that they sometimes use their influence in a less than sporting way. Scientists are human, too. But the field is so huge, and global, that if you somehow manage to get completely shut down in your faculty and in your university and in your country and in your whole damn field (not an easy thing to do, as you can imagine), there are still alternative venues to publish your thesis! It gets harder, sure, but if your theory really does have merit, it will get a fair hearing. Now, there is some truth to the claim that when a truly revolutionary idea comes out, it faces resistance at first. But doesn't that just make sense? Think about it. You have a theory that has had hundreds of papers published, that's been rigorously tested for decades (at least), and that has worked almost perfectly (or sometimes totally perfectly) for all that time. And then, someone comes out of left field and says, no, this is better. Doesn't it make sense to be a little sceptical? Well, sure, of course it does. The old theory has been put through the wringer for decades - it doesn't make sense to ditch it and accept the new theory without first putting it through at least the equivalent of those decades of challenge, if not more. But every new idea gets a chance. Even in those very rare circumstances (mentioned in the paragraph before last) where it requires a fight to get published, it will eventually get its hearing. However, once an idea has been aired, considered and rejected, scientists simply can't be bothered to keep listening to the same bad arguments again. What that leads to is, for example, people who are trying to pass off creationism - which was rejected long before Darwin (most people don't know that) - simply being ignored... then they bitch about how closed-minded the scientific establishment is. But of course, their arguments have been refuted for almost two centuries now - and they have nothing new - so scientists can't be bothered to waste time on them. They aren't being completely ignored, their idea had been given its hearing before they were born! And, it lost. Even relatively new ideas suffer similar fates - to the person with the idea it may look new and exciting, but to a scientist with years of experience and extensive knowledge, it may just take a glance to see the flaws, and reject it. So to the person with the idea, it feels like they've been slighted, when in fact their idea had its hearing and was rejected so quickly, they pretty much missed it. Just because science looks intolerant, does not mean that it is. There are several reasons it looks intolerant:
|
Intolerant types love to accuse others of being ant-science.
Anything that is hypervigilant in terms of lack of tolerance and skepticism ceases to be scientific.
| TBSC wrote: |
| Intolerant types love to accuse others of being ant-science. |
Ant-science - sounds interesting. Formicidaeic biology?
| TBSC wrote: |
| Anything that is hypervigilant in terms of lack of tolerance and skepticism ceases to be scientific. |
Hypervigilance is a technical term associated with stress disorders:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance
| Bikerman wrote: | ||
Ant-science - sounds interesting. Formicidaeic biology? |
Oops, um yeah...talk about a specialty...
| Bikerman wrote: | ||
Hypervigilance is a technical term associated with stress disorders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance |
Exactly...lol.
| videoguy wrote: |
| I wonder why tolerance has such a high reputablilty. Sometimes, I think we as a society should stop tolerating some of the crap that goes on. Like, why should I tolerate that people believe in creationism b/c of their religous beliefs.....should I tolerate any nonsense? I tend to disagree. |
If we mean acceptance that a particular viewpoint/theory/position is as good as any other, then no - that is nonsense. Are creationism and evolution equally valid explanations of the origin of homo-sapiens? Of course not. One is a rational explanation with overwhelming evidence and the other is an irrational belief with no significant evidence.
On the other hand, if we take tolerance to mean permitting other viewpoints to be expressed without fear of retribution, then yes, of course, tolerance is not only a good thing but is required, ethically, if we accept free-speech. That does not mean, of course, that you should passively accept such viewpoints - you should use the same freedom of speech to express your objections.
When it comes to science, Indi has already explained the position adequately. New theories should be examined critically. Having been examined and rejected, however, there is no onus on the science community to repeatedly re-examine the same theory. In science, if a theory fails the test of observation/experiment, then it is wrong. Rehashing the same theory in different words does not make it worthy of reconsideration.
| TBSC wrote: |
| Intolerant types love to accuse others of being ant-science. |
They also love to accuse others of being intolerant to hide their own intolerance.
An easy test for whether someone is saying something based on intolerance is to check their reasons for saying what they say. If they have no reasons, or if their reasons are obviously bad, then they are probably intolerant. If they have good reasons, then they can't be intolerant.
i look back and see that i've provided a whole ton of good reasons for saying what i say.
Where are yours?
| Bikerman wrote: | ||
If we mean acceptance that a particular viewpoint/theory/position is as good as any other, then no - that is nonsense. Are creationism and evolution equally valid explanations of the origin of homo-sapiens? Of course not. One is a rational explanation with overwhelming evidence and the other is an irrational belief with no significant evidence. On the other hand, if we take tolerance to mean permitting other viewpoints to be expressed without fear of retribution, then yes, of course, tolerance is not only a good thing but is required, ethically, if we accept free-speech. That does not mean, of course, that you should passively accept such viewpoints - you should use the same freedom of speech to express your objections. When it comes to science, Indi has already explained the position adequately. New theories should be examined critically. Having been examined and rejected, however, there is no onus on the science community to repeatedly re-examine the same theory. In science, if a theory fails the test of observation/experiment, then it is wrong. Rehashing the same theory in different words does not make it worthy of reconsideration. |
No creationism and evolution are not equally valid as science. No people shouldn't passively accept viewpoints either. Even scientists, however, are not immune from such irrational prejudice resulting from passively rejecting ideas (without considering them rationally and based on prejudice, for example). Such a case would be considered a lack of tolerance, I suppose.
| TBSC wrote: |
| No creationism and evolution are not equally valid as science. No people shouldn't passively accept viewpoints either. Even scientists, however, are not immune from such irrational prejudice resulting from passively rejecting ideas (without considering them rationally and based on prejudice, for example). Such a case would be considered a lack of tolerance, I suppose. |
Let me give you an example.
I see, all the time, perpetual motion machine ideas. Now although I am not a physicist, I do have a fair grounding in the physical sciences. I know, therefore, that any such machine is likely to be violating either the first or second law of thermodynamics. It is normally easy, when considering such proposals, to spot the problem - often before the proposer has even finished explaining their idea. That does not mean that I have dismissed the idea based on prejudice - it means that I have seen the flaw in the idea quickly and therefore seen why it won't work. I don't have to build the machine to know that it won't work. Now the proposer of the idea might accuse me of blind prejudice because I refuse to consider their idea further. They would be wrong, however.
| Bikerman wrote: | ||
Let me give you an example. I see, all the time, perpetual motion machine ideas. Now although I am not a physicist, I do have a fair grounding in the physical sciences. I know, therefore, that any such machine is likely to be violating either the first or second law of thermodynamics. It is normally easy, when considering such proposals, to spot the problem - often before the proposer has even finished explaining their idea. That does not mean that I have dismissed the idea based on prejudice - it means that I have seen the flaw in the idea quickly and therefore seen why it won't work. I don't have to build the machine to know that it won't work. Now the proposer of the idea might accuse me of blind prejudice because I refuse to consider their idea further. They would be wrong, however. |
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for clearing that up.
I am trying to get the full text f this article is someone can get it please do let me knwo
THis is very much in the context of this thread
Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 260, Issue 13, 1939-1940, October 7, 1988
ARTICLES
Science needs vigilance not vigilantes
P. K. Woolf
THis is very much in the context of this thread
Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 260, Issue 13, 1939-1940, October 7, 1988
ARTICLES
Science needs vigilance not vigilantes
P. K. Woolf
| yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| I am trying to get the full text f this article is someone can get it please do let me knwo
THis is very much in the context of this thread Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 260, Issue 13, 1939-1940, October 7, 1988 ARTICLES Science needs vigilance not vigilantes P. K. Woolf |
Yes, i have the article. No, it has nothing to do with this thread.
| Indi wrote: | ||
Yes, i have the article. No, it has nothing to do with this thread. |
Oh! the title sounded as if it could have something about the thread
But still I wont mind if you could send me the link or the file by mail
THanks
| yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| Our ability to effort and act in the genuine world depends on our accepting a acceptance in our acknowledgment and in our language’’. “Tolerance – is the essential protection, the important degree of roughness which makes it likely to work with conceptual entities in the real world”. a great deal tolerance and you are misled by accidental dissimilarity; too little tolerance and you lose expensive information. The most advantageous degree of tolerance must be a material of decision since it cannot be dogged in advance. So, the finest echelon of tolerance is acknowledged only retrospectively, by comparing the rate of improvement when a greater or lesser scale of tolerance is presupposed. The conclusion of tolerance which led to the quickest scientific improvement is defensible as having been the best. Science thus needs to tolerate different judgments of tolerance among scientists, allowing a assortment of levels of lenience to coexist and vie. And yet one has to be tolerant of the fact that neither you nor the man you are arguing with is going to get it right”. |
That text is so confusing. Better doing science than that kind of philosphy, believe me.
Yes I will try and put it in simple terms in my next post
I don't find the debate surrounding intelligent design very fair. If our universe is trillions of years old, and our planet billions, would it not be logical that intelligent life would have developed elsewhere in the universe and that by now they would have the technology to master or travel the universe?
Evolution is a theory. Why can't other theories be examined as well. There is so much in the universe that we don't know.
I want to see that new Ben Stein documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".
Evolution is a theory. Why can't other theories be examined as well. There is so much in the universe that we don't know.
I want to see that new Ben Stein documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".
| gandalfthegrey wrote: |
| I don't find the debate surrounding intelligent design very fair. If our universe is trillions of years old, and our planet billions, would it not be logical that intelligent life would have developed elsewhere in the universe and that by now they would have the technology to master or travel the universe? |
If relativity turns out to be correct (and it is doing pretty well up to now), and the speed of light is indeed a fundamental limit then it is unlikely that any civilisation would be able to 'travel the universe' at will.....
| Quote: |
| Evolution is a theory. Why can't other theories be examined as well. There is so much in the universe that we don't know. |
*sigh* - how often does this have to be repeated?
All science is theory - theory in science is the word we use for 'best explanation'. Gravity is a theory - do you think we should teach children that gravity doesn't really exist and we are actually stuck to the earth by little pixies?
Nobody is stopping creationists proposing Intelligent Design - check the web, it's full of the stuff. That is entirely different from teaching it in science lessons as though it were established science - it isn't.
| Quote: |
| I want to see that new Ben Stein documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". |
| gandalfthegrey wrote: |
| I don't find the debate surrounding intelligent design very fair. |
Science is not "fair". It is not a children's game where everyone has to get a fair hearing or their feelings get hurt, it is a big boy's game where you don't even get to play unless you measure up to the standards (such as "you must be this high to get on this ride").
Intelligent Design Creationism doesn't even have the bare minimum standards to even be allowed in the game. Until it does, it can't even play.
And yet, despite that, a handful of scientists - naively hoping to reach out with reason to people who have no interest in being reasonable - have taken IDC seriously, and have examined it with the same microscopic ferocity that they examine all scientific hypotheses. And they tore it to shreds - repeatedly. It's dumb. Plain and simply dumb. It completely ignores the findings of well over a dozen different and separate fields of research (cosmology, atomic theory, evolutionary biology, anthropology, geology, etc. etc.), it uses a methodological philosophy that David Hume proved flawed in the 1700s, and it violates the very fundamental structure of what has made science work properly since the 14th freaking century! ^_^;
Yes! It's that bad. ^_^; Fair, you say? If we give "fair time" to IDC, then wouldn't we also have to give "fair time" to "theories" about fairies and the flat Earth. You think i'm being "unfair" by lumping IDC in with those silly "theories"? Well, that's the problem... i'm not! Because if we relax the definition of science enough to make IDC science... all of those things become science too! ^_^; Yes, that's how bad IDC is!
And even worse is the documented deceit by IDC's "leaders" to try and hoodwink the public into thinking that IDC is legitimate science (they have also tried to deceive the scientific community, but the scientific community is structured in such a way that deceit gets sussed out very quickly, so they haven't had much luck fooling scientists... which is why they're targeting the scientifically illiterate public). Yes, i said they are liars. Yes, documented evidence exists of their attempts to deceive the scientific community, the general public... they even lied in a goddam court of law!!! ^_^;
It's that bad, dude! It really is. IDC's advocates really don't give a rat's ass about science, they really don't. They want IDC to be taken seriously for religious reasons. (Again, documented in court even!) If you want an analogy of what is going on, pretend science is hockey, and scientists are the hockey team. IDC people are a bunch of curling players who want to be let on the hockey team, but since they simply can't play hockey, they want to change the rules of the game to make it more like curling so they can play too. And then they piss and moan about how "unfair" the hockey players are for not changing the rules so they can play too! That is what is going on. ^_^;
| gandalfthegrey wrote: |
| If our universe is trillions of years old, and our planet billions, would it not be logical that intelligent life would have developed elsewhere in the universe and that by now they would have the technology to master or travel the universe? |
For starters, you have to grasp the sense of the time scales and distances here. First, consider that we haven't even been noticeable for anything more than the last 100 years or so - when we started broadcasting signals that can go out into space (possibly even less: i've heard that we have only been broadcasting signals loud enough to be picked up at the nearest stars for around 50 years, but i'll be generous). A very generous estimate of the number of stars our signal has reached is about 15,000 (and of course, only a tiny, tiny percentage of those might have life-supporting planets). There are ~200-400 billion stars in our galaxy. So, with even these very generous estimates, we have only been noticeable by a maximum of 0.0000075% of our galaxy (not even the universe, just our galaxy)... and remember, the real estimate without being so insanely generous will be thousands of times smaller. So it's a pretty safe bet that they simply haven't seen us yet.
But what about aliens that simply happened to be exploring, what is the chance that they would stumble on us (just by chance coming closing enough to detect us in some way or another)? Well, the Earth is 4.5 Ga old, but humans are only 200 ka old - and that includes when we were about as intelligent as monkeys. In other words, humans have only been around for 0.0044% of the Earth's life, and 0.0015% of the life of the universe. So even if Earth was visited by aliens... they'd have a pretty damned small chance of finding us.
i saw an interesting visual demonstration by Richard Dawkins once. Hold out your arm to your side with your palm flat. Now, the imaginary line down the centre of your ribs is the point where humans first came into existence, and the distance from that line to the tip of your finger is all of human history. Neanderthals died out somewhere between your elbow and you wrist. All of recorded human history - including Ancient Egyptians, Biblical times and so on - is so small on this time line that it can be turned to dust with a single swipe of a nail file.
Those are the kinds of scales you have to wrap your head around.
| gandalfthegrey wrote: |
| Evolution is a theory. Why can't other theories be examined as well. |
BUT THEY ARE!!! ^_^; That's yet another one of the lies spread by creationists - that only evolution gets a fair hearing in science. Rubbish! They honestly don't have a clue - they're so out of touch with science that they still talk about Darwinists and Darwinism. But Darwinism has been refuted since at least the 1920s! ^_^; You see? We do challenge evolution in science - and Darwinism was challenged and lost. The thing is, what replaced it - while not Darwinism - is also an evolutionary theory... just not the same as Darwin's.
And even today, modern evolutionary theory is being challenged all the time by legitimate scientific challenger theories. (i actually had a table that showed 6 different challenger theories to modern evolutionary theory - five of them scientific, and then ID - and the number of scientific papers that had been published about them. ID had zero. One of the others had two. And all of the rest had dozens or hundreds. i can't find the book right now, but it's around, so i'll try to dig it up.) IDC claims that science does not allow scientific challenges to evolution are bullshit. It does. It just doesn't pay attention to any unscientific challenges.
| gandalfthegrey wrote: |
| I want to see that new Ben Stein documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". |
You know, i haven't seen this and i'm in no real hurry to. But, i do want to comment on a semantic note.
A "documentary" is a presentation (film, book, whatever) that documents something. It picks a subject, observes the subject and reports on the subject - preferably dispassionately, but of course that's usually not possible.
A presentation (film, book, whatever) that is not about documenting something, and is instead about garnering support for a political or ideological position, is not a "documentary". It is a "screed". A documentary informs and does nothing else. A screed attempts to convince. Which is Ben doing? Documentary, or "docu-ganda"?
I'd just like to say that I agree with everything above. I'll also add some links for those who doubt the dishonesty of ID/creationist proponents - specifically regarding the recent propogandist 'documentary'.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know
http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/dover.html
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2008/0418expelled.shtml
http://unspeak.net/intelligent-design/
On challenges to Darwinism - as Indi says modern biology has moved on a long way since Darwin and there have been (and continue to be) many challenges to Darwin - particularly regarding the 'natural selection' element of his work. Most of these are genuine scientific challenges and result in modification of the general theory (just as Einstein's relativity has been improved and modified by later generations of physicists). ID/creationism is not a scientific challenge - it is a religiously inspired attack and has nothing relevant or new to say on the issue.
Wiki has a decent article on the 'Modern Synthesis' which contains a reasonable summary of work up until the middle of last century. More up to date developments would include gene flow and genetic drift as mechanisms, and genetic recombination as a driver for change. The problem is that these developments require a grounding in biology/genetics to understand properly.
Here's a couple of links for the non-biologists on the state of play in modern genetics/evolution.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/modern-synthesis.html
http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/pigliuccilab/Papers_files/2007-Evolution-EES.pdf (pdf file)
Finally a link to PZ Myers' blog on this issue:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/altenberg_meeting_next_week_ex.php
PS - a colleague has suggested the following resources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/06/index.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know
http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/dover.html
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2008/0418expelled.shtml
http://unspeak.net/intelligent-design/
On challenges to Darwinism - as Indi says modern biology has moved on a long way since Darwin and there have been (and continue to be) many challenges to Darwin - particularly regarding the 'natural selection' element of his work. Most of these are genuine scientific challenges and result in modification of the general theory (just as Einstein's relativity has been improved and modified by later generations of physicists). ID/creationism is not a scientific challenge - it is a religiously inspired attack and has nothing relevant or new to say on the issue.
Wiki has a decent article on the 'Modern Synthesis' which contains a reasonable summary of work up until the middle of last century. More up to date developments would include gene flow and genetic drift as mechanisms, and genetic recombination as a driver for change. The problem is that these developments require a grounding in biology/genetics to understand properly.
Here's a couple of links for the non-biologists on the state of play in modern genetics/evolution.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/modern-synthesis.html
http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/pigliuccilab/Papers_files/2007-Evolution-EES.pdf (pdf file)
Finally a link to PZ Myers' blog on this issue:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/altenberg_meeting_next_week_ex.php
PS - a colleague has suggested the following resources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/06/index.html
| Bikerman wrote: |
| http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/dover.html |
Nyuk nyuk ^_^
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Seriously, though, most people don't even have a clue about the modern state of evolutionary biology, and that's not by accident. The plain fact is that most people don't get more than a high school understanding of the science, and the high school understanding is just wrong. That's not the fault of the teachers or the curriculum either, it's a sad reality arising from the fact that it is an enormously complicated subject - way beyond what most people think they know. It's simply and plainly beyond high school. You can't expect high school students to grasp population genetics when their grasp of statistics barely goes as far as standard deviation... if that. And you can't expect them to grasp genetic drift without population genetics. It's just too much.
Of course, evolution is not alone in this respect. Most high school students get a (cursory) understanding of mechanics, too. High schools teach Newtonian mechanics... which is ultimately just wrong. You go beyond high school physics, and you get to the point where your professors tell you "forget everything you learned about physics, and let's start over properly".
But most people know that the high school teaching in physics is just the tip of the iceberg, whereas they don't know that high school teaching in evolution is just the tip - and a large part of that is due to flat out lying and disinformation spread by creation advocates. They pretend everyone is still using Darwinian evolution... which not only pre-dates modern synthesis, it pre-dates the bloody discovery of genes for crying out loud!
This is not a question of tolerance, it is a question of humility. For the average person - going by statistics alone - i can say with a very high degree of certainty that although you think you understand modern evolutionary theory... you don't. So if you're promoting "teaching the controversy", how can you say evolution is flawed/unconvincing/whatever? You simply can't because you don't understand it... yet somehow you think that you understand it well enough to not only declare it lacking, but to declare that some alternative (in this case, intelligent design) is better! And they call me arrogant? ^_^;
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