A Misconception About Science

backdraft's picture

A Misconception About Science

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skeptoid's picture

Word!

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Ozmen's picture
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I'm not really sure you should blame science for the prevalence of the Ptolemaic world view. That was the Catholic church all the way through. Although only because they were the only source of knowledge in Europe in those times and the knowledge was... canonical.

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daftcunt's picture
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This will surely be -hmmmmmm- encouraging for those that think the particular field of science they "disagree" with will soon be disproven by those that think they know better although they appear to have not even the slightest understanding of the issues at hand.

 

3/5 for this being a commercial for a ppv series, which isn't even available outside the US, although of course they desperately need this way more than others.

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backdraft's picture
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Maybe this would be encouraging to those who tend to think science is set in stone (whatever the field might be). 

Most likely we have it wrong in a lot of areas when it comes to leading-edge science. Science evolves so a dogmatic view is never a productive way forward.

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daftcunt's picture
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"Revolutionary" developments in areas that are fairly well understood are not very likely to happen. 

 

As we have way better technology then in medieval times (or even in the 80ies) is way more likely that such a development will be made in for example battery technology than evolution of species. It is also way more likely that anything revolutionary will be developed by scientists (or engineers/technitians), i.e. specialist in the field, rather than laymen in their garage. The more complex the issue the more likely this is.

 

Of course there is the odd "surprise" success but often the perceived "revolutionary" development is based on years of study, experiment and preparation, simply waiting for a few (at this point in time) seemingly unsurmountable issues to be ironed out, the general public will see it as an "explosive development" because they are not aware that people were even looking into it.

The beauty of science is that there hardly ever is a standstill, like you said, and that it does not have an agenda* as this would become obvious very quickly in the peer review process. 

 

* Individual scientists may have a bias (or maybe better a hunch) and steer the research on a certain topic in a certain direction, though.  

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backdraft's picture
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"Revolutionary" developments in areas that are fairly well understood are not very likely to happen.

 

What constitutes as "fairly well understood" can be subjective. One could say we have a good basic understanding of the workings of the universe, despite not knowing what 95% of the universe consists of (dark matter and dark energy). 

If it has practical applications, of course, you can't dispute it, but anything that relies on much theory (can't be reproduced in the lab directly) most likely will be subject to change at some point in time.

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daftcunt's picture
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We may have an idea of the "workings of the universe" but 

  1. this is too vague a definition to serve as a good example, as itbasically describes EVERYTHING.
  2. there are parts of the "workings of the universe" we actually DO understand well enough that "groundbreaking, theory changing" surprises are extreemely unlikely.

 

OTOH although there are systems of which we CAN predict the overall behaviour although we CANNOT predict some of the processes envolved in every detail. 

 

example:

 

An internal combustion engine can be designed with a very accurate prediction of its power output, even the combustion chamber can be designed to maximise efficiency.  Tha path combustion takes as such, though, will be slightly different with every ignition and thus is less predictable. The outcome (power output) is unaffected by this, though.

 

Similar things can be said about lightning paths, we know that at a certain difference in electrical potential it will flash over, we cannot predict its exact path, though.  Same goes for climate science, etc. etc.

 

The more advanced technology we use the better the prediction will become.

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backdraft's picture
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"this is too vague a definition to serve as a good example, as itbasically describes EVERYTHING."

 

It doesn't describe everything. Dark matter explains why galaxies stay together and don't rip themselves apart. Dark energy explains why the expansion of the universe constantly increases. I'm not an astrophysicist but would consider these as BASIC understanding of the universe.

 

Your examples are of practical applications, which again cannot be disputed because we see them actually work. You can always nitpick the detail from these that we can't exactly calculate. 

 

Complex systems that cannot be directly tested in lab settings can go which every way, simply because we do not know what we do not know.  Like the example in the video about Copernicus system vs the old geocentric system. A wrong theory can still predict the motions of the planets accurately but that doesn't make it right.

 

 

 

 

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