Science, What is Science?

[krikkitz]

I think it is great that people allow their imaginations to take us into new territory. But I want to caution everyone as well. Just because an idea sounds plausible, does not automatically make that idea scientifically sound.

Feynman said it best. You start with a guess (a hypothesis), then calculate what the implications would be if the guess is correct, then compare those results with experiment/reality. If the guess is formulated in such a way that the implications cannot be calculated, you don't have a scientific theory. Or if you can calculate the implications, but the results do not match experimental results or real observation, then the guess and theory are wrong. It doesn't matter how smart you are, or what your name is, or what august company you keep -- you must reject it.

So while we are grandly exploring alternate views of the universe, it is important to keep this in mind. If it can't be measured, it ain't science, AND if the ideas can't be supported by observation as compared to calculated implications of the ideas, then it ain't science. If it fails either of these test it must be rejected.

[onthehook]

Go tell them that at your local college, ha.

[nick c]

If it can't be measured, it ain't science, AND if the ideas can't be supported by observation as compared to calculated implications of the ideas, then it ain't science. If it fails either of these test it must be rejected.

Like dark matter, dark energy, and black holes?

[Sparky]

So while we are grandly exploring alternate views of the universe,---

NASA and the rest of standard, consensus scientists, grandly explore, but have to invent absurd mechanisms to explain what they find. They can not predict, as required by theory, but resort to ad hoc, patch work explanations, which are fallacious arguments by authority, at best.

The Standard model needs more science and less assumptions, built upon speculations. The consensus cult may be comfortable in their numbers and wealth, but will be eventually shown to be an nonsensical, alternate view that became more of a religion than science.

[303vegas]

The Standard model needs more science and less assumptions, built upon speculations. The consensus cult may be comfortable in their numbers and wealth, but will be eventually shown to be an nonsensical, alternate view that became more of a religion than science.

Once something supposedly 'scientific' becomes orthodox it's basically dead. It will become so defensive that it eventually eats itself alive. Lets leave orthodoxy with the religious people where it belongs.

[orkneylad]

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), by Thomas Kuhn

What is Science? We’re taught that science is a steady accumulation of knowledge. We're also taught that scientific theories evolve over time, to account for new knowledge gained by observation and experiment. We’re taught that scientific progress looks like this:



This is a complete fabrication.

What scientific “progress” actually looks like is this:



It’s not a straight line at all, it’s a complex tree of theories. Divergent courses abound, and scientists in opposing camps attack each other until one theory appears to win-out over the others. We get to hear about a few scientific revolutionaries, like Galileo, Newton and James Clerk Maxwell, but what the science textbooks tend not to tell you is that the entire history of science is paved with revolutions.

Theories that don’t fit into the current scientific paradigm meet one of two fates:

1: They are removed from new editions of science textbooks due to irrelevance. The 'tree of knowledge' gets pruned.

2: They undergo a revisionism into the current scientific paradigm, so that it appears that these 'divergent theories' were really agreeing with the current paradigm all the while, albeit in an 'unorthodox' manner. Thus the knowledge tree is retrospectively straightened out so that it appears it was heading towards the current paradigm all the time:




This is the Scientific Paradigm at work.

A 'scientific paradigm' is the set of unwritten rules that determine what is and is not acceptable scientific research. For example, in the current Western scientific paradigm, research into Theoretical Physics or Climate Change gets substantial funding, but research into things like Over Unity or Tesla's 'Radiant Energy' get very little funding, if any.

The scientific paradigm is demanding and unforgiving. To practice science at all, you must practice it under the dominant scientific paradigm or be shunned and ridiculed.

If you find something that doesn’t fit into the scientific paradigm, your duty is to either ignore it, discredit it, or somehow force it to fit into the paradigm.

But sometimes, stubborn facts persist and demand to be accounted for. If enough scientists care, you get a scientific crisis:



A crisis occurs when counter-examples call the scientific paradigm into question. Scientists respond to crisis in one of three ways.

1: They come up with desperate exceptions, trying to keep the current paradigm alive.
2: They hang up their lab coats and quit science altogether.
3: They start a revolution.

There are four steps to a scientific revolution:

1: A group of scientists acknowledge that anomalies exist and cannot be accounted for within the current paradigm.

2: They blur the paradigm and loosen the rules for research.

3: People pick sides and paradigms compete. The people advocating the new paradigm are young or new to the field. The paradigm that gets the most followers wins.

4: The old people die off. Some people will never switch paradigms, so you just have to wait for them to kick the bucket to shut them up.


It takes a special kind of person to go against the current paradigm before it becomes acceptable. It takes revolutionary, 'heretical' thinkers.

The control paradigm is rigid and unforgiving. Those who dare to suggest that there could be another way of thinking are sidelined.

However, even allowing for this orchestrated resistance to change, these revolutions continue to happen.