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To: Soliton

A good way of looking at science is to compare it to the game of chess.

Both science and chess have a very precise set of rules. If you follow these rules, you either conduct a scientific experiment or you play a game of chess. Nothing more and nothing less.

Importantly, it is just as wrong to interpolate and extrapolate in science as it is to do so in chess. That is, if an experiment works, in very controlled conditions, to assume it will behave in exactly the same way in uncontrolled nature. That is as wrong as saying that because you consistently win against an intermediate level chess computer program, you will consistently win against an intermediate level human chess player.

Very few students can handle the rigors of a properly executed scientific experiment. It tends to go against typical psychology, except in a few people who are inclined to good science. However, by understanding the rules of science, students are greatly helped in telling the difference between good science and bad science.

And this has great value in its own right. But it has far greater value than that, because it teaches students the value of objectivity. And this can be life changing.

When someone is asked their opinion, often their response can be prefaced by either “I feel”, which is a subjective, or emotional response, or “I think”, which implies some understanding of the thing in itself, and its objective character. Subjectivity needs no justification to like or dislike something. Objectivity required open mindedness and a willingness to set aside feelings to divine deeper truths.

Our society, and civilization itself, is very dependent on objectivity to maintain order and reason. It is critical to the law, and large parts of government, to many businesses, to medicine, etc. And when objectivity is lacking, very bad things can happen.


3 posted on 11/29/2008 1:40:05 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Both science and chess have a very precise set of rules.

The government of scientific thinking by a "precise set of rules" is a chimera, and is itself the result of poor scientific thinking. For if one reviews a history of the great achievements in science, it's easy to see that passion and imagination, as well as illusion and error, were important elements of the process just as much as reason and logic.

4 posted on 11/29/2008 2:32:59 PM PST by dr_lew
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