To which hosepipe replied: “You do me a service I do not require. I’m not after the term ‘scientific method’; I’m after the very term ‘SCIENCE’.
"It has become a 'juju bag' term… a term for 'witch doctors' and “Gurus'... A bag full of bones and rattlers shaken to amaze the dumb and naive…."
Well, confronted with this exchange of views, I must say that I take side with hosepipe.
Dear tacticalogic, I don’t think I have ever said that the currently-understood scientific method is “fundamentally flawed.” My main — and only — criticism is that it is an “incomplete” method by which to understand Reality as fully engaged by human beings.
By which I mean to suggest that its very method is a limit on what can be known by human beings about the natural world.
Yet as my dear brother hosepipe is entirely correct to point out, to the extent that just because “science” enjoys such prestige nowadays, it succeeds in reducing the World of common experience to what can be observed and measured in “objective” Nature (i.e., that part of Nature that can be directly observed and measured). Given this limited mission, it cannot possibly address the biggest, most perplexing, even seemingly most “mysterious” aspects of common human historical experience — problems such as What is Life (why am I alive?); What is Consciousness/Mind (what are the sources and structures of my personal thoughts?); for what purpose(s) do I exist?
When the Logos — ultimate Truth as a standard of human judgment — has been abolished, such questions become meaningless. Thus people are free to discount/discredit such aspects of common human personal and historical/cultural experience/existence as unworthy of “serious” — that is to say, “scientific” — study. Talk about a "vicious circle!"
So dear tacticalogic, when you allege that such miscreants as hosepipe and moi, who it seems you feel are consumed with going after “a few ‘evil bastards’ that have taken up residence” as public “truth-speakers” of “modern science” (e.g., Dawkins, Lewontin, Dennett, Pinker, Singer, Monod, et al. — the "usual suspects" who qualify for "evil bastard" stature — that this proves this somehow results in the “tearing out the foundation” of science itself, I am not just a little perplexed.
You have made it very clear — and I do accept your findings — that “science” ultimately is all about what can be “observed and measured”; that is, subject to the “replicability of experiments,” on the sole basis of which the original finding can be verified by independent observers. Get enuf "consensus," then you know it's "true."
In short, we here have a case of "science" — and effectively of Life and Mind — conducted by public opinion poll.
While that understanding may give you great comfort in the “certainty” direction, there is still ever so much more in the common world of human experience that categorically cannot be measured in this way.
That is NOT so say that science is necessarily “flawed.” Its methods and techniques are eminently well-suited to its legitimate pursuits.
I suspect that what my dear brother hosepipe and I commonly object to is not the inherent limitations of the scientific method, but to the corruption of science itself (by folks who want to do philosophy/ideology, theology, and/or politics “under the color of science”) — so evident these days in the abuse of science for political, social/cultural, and/or economic ends.
I can give you a great analogy, dear tacticalgic, from the maths, that might shed further light on this issue. But I’ve already run on so long, I perceive I should give you a break for now.
But if you’re interested in the said analogy, please do feel free to get back to me!!!
And as for you, dear 'pipe, my brother in Christ: Meta-HUGS!!!
Thank you so much, dear hosepipe, for writing!
"I’m after the very term ‘SCIENCE’.
"It has become a 'juju bag' term… a term for 'witch doctors' and “Gurus'... A bag full of bones and rattlers shaken to amaze the dumb and naive…."
Then you say:
'That is NOT so say that science is necessarily “flawed.” Its methods and techniques are eminently well-suited to its legitimate pursuits.'
You want it both ways, and it's impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who does that.
While I find most of your postings thoughtful and carefully expressed, this is nonsense, and I'm certain you know it.
Science is not a matter of public opinion, even when politicians promote their own favorite hypotheses (i.e., Gore-bull warming).
It is a matter of testing & falsifying or confirming hypotheses.
As such, it requires the same level of honesty you yourself exercise every day when you approach an intersection: is that traffic light red or green?
Thus "consensus" is the result, not the cause of, the truth of the matter.