Science - Good And Bad?

[Father McPot]

I heard from an old geography teacher that the contentment/calmness you feel at the ocean is due to negative ions(not sure) released from the sea...

I laughed when I heard it, can anyone who knows more than the basics of science tell me what he was on(about)?

[deanbo]

Science USED to be the search for truth,through experiment or experience that could be validated by it's repeatability.

A scientific theory starts with a guess,then you compare your results to experiment or nature.

If the 2 are in agreement,then you have a VALID theory,if not it's just another beautiful theory slayed by a nasty little fact.

As i said science USED to be the search for truth.

Sadly now it's the search for FUNDING instead.

Personally i reckon this is an ancestor simulation,and not reality at all.

Then again this bubble's ever so nice,and it could just be that.

[Michael Oakes]

Good Science makes complex things seem simple, and Bad Science makes simple things seem complex.

Regards Michael

[MU]

if mankind is to survive future catastrophes which make planet earth uninhabitable, we need to spread to other planets in the galaxy.

let's hope science enables us to do that before we blow ourselves up with nukes or get hit by a big asteroid.

[grobag]

When using words like soul and emotion, in relation to science I am drawn towards the arguments between Isaac Newton and Liebnitz, both battling within themselves in terms of theology and Philosophy and trying to make sense of their perceptions. One opting for Physics, the other for monadology. Still trying to get my head round it. Principa Mathmatica ain't the easiest of reads.

Edit: Leibnitz's Monadology

Edited March 19, 2007 by grobag

[Boojum]

Back in the early days of modern science many practitioners were alchemists. Modern perception of alchemy is that it was the quest to turn base metals into gold, but that's really just a metaphor for "The great work", which was a spiritual, not physical thing, it wasn't a transformation of physical materials, but the transformation of the soul. Base metals and gold, flasks and beakers, the philosophers stone - all of those were representations of the self or of important factors in it's journey from base self to higher self, smoke and mirrors to hide what the great work was REALLY about (because, I suppose, it was 'magic' and thus brought great risk in the form of being declared a heretic). So I think many early scientific works are obscure because they deal with both physical science AND the great work, the transformation of the soul. Hermetic tradition & all that. Even the 'father of numbers' Pythagoras was a metaphysician, concerned with 'divine geometry' and the 'music of the spheres'.

Edited March 19, 2007 by Boojum

[Punky]

at heart, i am a scientist. i was raised with both scientific and religious inputs where my parents were concerned, but i've turned my back on organised religion. i tend to see it like Santa Claus - plausable and a nice fantasy when young, but you soon see through it as you grow up. anyway, back to science..

fair and balanced science, in which it is being conducted purely to gain knowledge, improve life and without an agenda, is a very important and valid practice in my opinion. animal testing also comes into this category for me, as long as the line between necessity and cruelty/vanity is not crossed. some things do need to be tested on animals, and to be honest i'd much rather a rat or a rabbit dies instead of a person. all those tests on monkeys do seem slightly wrong to me, but i can see the vailidity of them at times. using animals to test beauty products or for any other non-essential product is just wrong though.

the sickening side of science is that funded by those wishing to create evidence to prove their own point, such as those employed by oil companies to aid their 'GreenWashing' campaigns, or by governments to create weapons of devastating, horrific and sickeningly inhuman destruction. quite how or why people can actively strive to create items specifically created to cause suffering and pain to their fellow human beings is quite beyond my comprehension.

science is the balance of religion, the rational opposition of the fantasy which is required to keep society going. if we all followed what organised religion stated, we'd still be in the middle ages and living in wattle and daub huts, roasting wild boars. some people need religion, be it as a comfort or control mechanism. however, i cannot find any scientific evidence or validity in any form of organised religion at the moment, and until i can see solid evidence that can be proved fully, then i'm gonna stick as an athiest.

[Michael Oakes]

grobag, I found Feynman's Lost Lecture - The Motion of Planets Around the Sun by David L. Goodstein and Judith R Goodstein ISBN 0-224-04394-3 really good and would help make better sense of it.

Regards Michael

[Guest Gert Lush]

A lot of people seem to confuse science with its application. While there may be several advantages to applications, science itself is gloriously pointless. It is the discovery of knowledge purely for its own sake and the appreciation of its beauty. Pure maths, physics, geology and biology are windows into the beauty of the world, and appreciating them as such is what real science is about, in my view. The "applications" are completely optional, and have little to do with science itself.

Most real scientists had this "child's wonder", this magical view of the world.

Here's an example and one of my favourite scientists:-

When university professors were arguing with each other about whether God put fossils on mountains to test our faith, or to glorify "His" nature, a man called William Smith, later to be known as "Strata" Smith, the father of English geology, figured out that all the oucrops and ridges of the UK showed us an underlying pattern. He talked to coal miners, and realised that the order of the fossil placement in coal seams was showing the same thing.

He walked the whole country and single-handedly produced a map of the geology of the country that is little changed today, 200 years later! And in the process he showed us a picture of the Earth's history that could not even have been imagined, stretching into billions of years, a concept which must have been frighteningly perplexing at the time.

===

To read all you ever need to know about bad science, read Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", specifically the journey to Laputa. Not only will you laugh, but you'll be shocked to see that bad science was just the same as it is today, even in the 18th century.

Here's a taster:

The first Man I saw was of a meager Aspect, with sooty Hands and Face, his Hair and Beard long, ragged and singed in several Places. His Cloathes, Shirt, and Skin were all of the same Colour. He had been Eight Years upon a Project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into Vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the Air in raw inclement Summers. He told me he did not doubt in Eight Years more he should be able to supply the Governors Gardens with Sun-shine at a reasonable Rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and intreated me to give him something as an Encouragement to Ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear Season for Cucumbers. I made him a small Present, for my Lord had furnished me with Money on Purpose, because he knew their Practice of begging from all who go to see them.

[Squaggles]

"God put fossils on mountains to test our faith"

I always wondered how those creationist types explained fossils and the like .

Is that really what they believe ?

[jdiesl]

im with you gert lush.

there is no good nor bad science.

just moraly good or bad intent with its use.

[Guest Gert Lush]

Is that really what they believe ?

I may be exaggerating a bit for effect. That statement is probably more what modern fundamentalists would say. Bill Hicks takes the piss quite nicely. But let's not go off-topic.

The point is that the professors of the time, when confronted with something as confounding and beautiful as a fossil could only explain it away, by saying it was "placed there by god to glorify his nature".

That's the point: Bad science involves a lot of glib explaining away of things. Usually the more challenging the question, the morre pompous the bullshit answer. Smith demonstrates real science. He follows a hunch, collects evidence, and brings it all together, giving a wondrous new picture.

Read "The Map That Changed The World" (S.Winchester - Viking) if you're interested. Amazing read.

[Guest nav182]

"God put fossils on mountains to test our faith"

I always wondered how those creationist types explained fossils and the like .

Is that really what they believe ?

Me thinks you may be a Bill Hicks fan?

[Arnold Layne]

Some really good stuff folks, keep it coming. Too much to comment on, really, but just to pick up on a few things.....

Science is not in itself bad or good. It's a tool. Our best tool. It's looking at the world and working out how it works. It turned us from naked apes huddling together for warmth and hiding from the sabre tooth tiger and the storm, to demi-gods who ate the sabre-tooth tiger and made the lightning sit up and do tricks, who became so powerful that no animal could ever threaten us again. It gave us the power to blow up the world, and just enough wisdom not to do it - so far, anyway. B)

The industrial revolution was ugly and exploitative while it was happening, but without it most of us would be peasants, condemned to a life of hard physical labour and dead of old age by forty. No centrally heated houses, no haute cuisine, no holidays in the sun, and if you want a new shirt it will take you a year to make it. If you are hankering for a perfect pastoral world, I'm afraid it's a myth, never existed.

And I note that even the chief science-hater appears to be communicating via computer... B)

Demi-gods? Maybe, but these gods have annihilated species after species, and seem hell-bent on the complete destruction of their environment. Is this the best we can do? Moreover, viruses are way ahead of us IMHO - much better predators

Not hankering after any myths personally - I realise that life would be very different and quite harsh without much of what we take for granted today. But is harshness wrong, comfort right? Central Heating, cuisine, hols abroad etc etc - just trinkets and baubles to dazzle IMO. But I think they will one day turn to mould and crumble in our hands, ripping the very life from our frail bodies as we pass away on a polluted and spent planet. I hanker after a real and sustainable world. Death at 40? Sounds fair enough to me. Why are humans so fearful of the natural realities within which we have our existence?

Of course I use a computer. I have never claimed to live without science - just asked about its value, its rectitude. That it is useful, no-one can deny. But that does not make it right or good. Neither do I "hate" it, but I do question it in every way and every day.

"God put fossils on mountains to test our faith"

I always wondered how those creationist types explained fossils and the like .

Is that really what they believe ?

Some of them, yes. But they have failed to comprehend the nature of Myth, to grasp what the writers of the Myths were really attempting to do. They instead bring reductionist hermeneutics more suited to the Science Lab to bear on ancient texts. It is easy to see that the Judaeo/Christian Creation myth was never intended to be taken in a wooden literal way - just read it. Its a mysogenist agenda introduced as a religious absolute replete with severe and draconian punishments for those who reject it - even more worrying than any daft creationism.

I find the Big-Bang theory of interest, its almost biblical. In biblical terms, creation comes about though vibration - the "Word" of JWH - which also upholds it. Word/Bang, its all noise, all vibration and motion - so similar. And what was the first thing following this Word/Bang? In biblical terms - chaos. Interesting, as Chaos is so much in scientific vogue these days.

Its all vibes, man.

On with the discussion.......

[euthanatos93420]

Science is neither "good" nor "bad". Science is infact inherently Amoral. It has been stated before in this thread that science is merely a process of observation and experiment based around proving or disproving a hypothesis. If you want to bring morals into the equations you must add the human factor. This is where an agenda comes in/ I am much perplexed by many poster's reference to "agendaless science." Science without a ppurpose? This is some kind of oxymoron to me. Without good reason we will not preform research. Therefore every science has an "agenda."

I then move to what I believe you meant by that. Misinformation. When you throw misinformation into the mix the science of today is the church of yesterday. Its a tool used to control the information the masses recieve. Throw the label "science" on something and you can make a lot of people believe. Anyone seen "school for scoundrels" yet? "Lie, lie, and lie some more..." Science has irrevocably been used, just as the church was (and to a lesser extent still is), as a tool for "misinformation" on issues ranging from drugs, energy, pollution, war, and business. It all comes back to power. Throughout time man has created the "power gap" and those on the power side do everything with the (vast amounts) of power they already have to keep it that way. Occaisionally they fail and/or die, but as with everything, someone is right there ready to take their place and claim their power.

So I say to you science itself is not inherently "bad". Rather the people who propogate information falsly claiming science as the source in the agenda of increasing or flexing their power are "evil".

The great thing about science is that no one in the world can claim science as evidence if his/her experiment cannnot be repeated exactly yielding results within a certain threshold of varience.

What really kills me...is that in an article of Popular Science about a few years back a guy from India designed a very simple engine modification (bored out grooves on the piston heads). After many mistakes he finally created a design that didn't crack the engine or the head and took it for a test drive. He drove 500 miles on a single stroke dirt bike. When the engine cooled off he ran his finger around the inside of the exhaust pipe and his finger was clean. The spark plug's metal was burnt blue. Apparently his model worked so well the he had achieved near 100% efficiency (compared to our current, i believe 35-45%). Such a simple change in the design of every motor vehicle would be relativly simple with enough research. Ever single car would have: More power (like double), Better efficiency (Dude got like 120+ mpg on that single stroke), cleaner emmisions (like, this would likely stop most pollution in the world).

Anyway, in summary, I don't believe you hate science. I believe you hate misinformation. I heartily agree with you and would advise anyone else concurring that education and personal research will get you the truth. The question then is....can you handle it?