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To: MacDorcha

Maybe the problem is a misunderstanding of what science is about. Science is not a search for truth. It is a search for ideas that are USEFUL, even if the truth of them will never be known. For example, how would you go about proving the truth of electron existence? It's easy to think of experiments whose outcomes would be different if electrons didn't exist, so proving the falsity of this idea would be easy if it were false. However, what would you do to prove that electrons actually exist? We can make predictions about experimental outcomes that would occur if electrons did exist, but the success of these predictions doesn't prove that electrons really do exist. However, to a working scientist, this distinction is irrelevant. Electrons are an accepted part of physics and chemistry precisely because they are useful. They help scientists describe the world in a coherent way and understand and predict other observations, so they are accepted. Even ideas that have been shown to be false are still and accepted part of science. Consider Newton's law of universal gravitation. This was proven false by experiments suggested by Einstein's theory of general relativity. However, NASA still managed to get the Apollo ships to the moon using Newton's law.


400 posted on 05/04/2005 5:45:59 AM PDT by stremba
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To: stremba

First, please use the "enter" key more often. It will help. Thank you.





"Science is not a search for truth. It is a search for ideas that are USEFUL, even if the truth of them will never be known. "

IT searches for truths that are useful. And it does such a job. However, it can ignore our more human side by this same virtue. We WANT to know "truth" and "pretty nifty" is good, but it still hasn't answered our questions.



"Electrons are an accepted part of physics and chemistry precisely because they are useful."

And this is good. But is it correct? "For simplicity's sake" doesn't usually fly if it's wrong. We have a way of understanding that now fits our ideas about the world.

Problem: We've ALWAYS had a way of describing things in the easiest term. That makes "Science" todays "Mythos." (I see nothing WRONG with this, but it is an assertion that would drive many scientists bonkers- in technical terms)

Do we want to simply explain things, or do we want to be right?



The problem is not in my understanding of science, but in science's understanding of it's humanity.


493 posted on 05/04/2005 1:33:23 PM PDT by MacDorcha (Where Rush dares not tread, there are the Freepers!)
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