What is science?

POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 21:01
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CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, February 5, 2011 11:31 PM

From time to time, here in RWED, we have debates about science. Inevitably, these debates end up accusing the other side of not knowing what science is, or betraying scientific integrity in some way.

So, what IS science? What is non-negotiable about what makes science, science? What is pseudo-science? When someone claims to be a scientist, what can he/she do that REALLY gets your goat and makes you want to scream, "You don't know what science is, you idiot!"?

PHOENIXROSE

Saturday, February 5, 2011 11:43 PM

The most commonly used definition would probably be:
systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and controlled experimentation.
Pseudo-science is when someone uses a scientific word (such as "theory") in an improper way to make themselves sound like they are operating from fact when they aren't. It could also be when an observation or experiment isn't properly controlled, or it's done backwards, and the conclusions can't be trusted. It could be claiming causation where the cause can't be proven to give a predictable effect under controlled circumstance. A "scientist" claiming that, for example, the existence of Quantum Theory proves that there's a magical field creating the universe that we can control with our minds... that sort of thing makes me want to scream that they are not a scientist.

Ritual is what happens when we run out of rational.

THEHAPPYTRADER

Saturday, February 5, 2011 11:47 PM

My best definition of 'Science' would be discovery based off of observation and empirical evidence that can be measured and tested against itself and other factors/discoveries/etc... Outside of that, it could have scientific aspirations but is still really guesswork.

EDIT: I agree with Pheonixrose's definition, that's more or less what I was trying to say and is written better.

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, February 6, 2011 12:12 AM

Science today is not the same as it was in 1850, so the old definition doesn't work for me.

It has two serious problems:

1) Something can be demonstrated through experimentation which turns out not to be true. A correlation may be recognized as the result, but may not imply either the causality nor the mechanism of action.

2) Something can be a scientifically provable fact while there is absolutely no way to do so, such as Quantum Mechanics.

The way this science is derived at is by the application of sometimes simple, sometimes very advanced applied logic. You can logically deduce that something *must* be so given certain laws of the universe, such as the statistical law that governs evolution.

I have gone through step by step and shown, what I'm not about to do here, because I'm busy, but I can show that absolutely everything we observe can be derived as an unavoidable outcome of the uncertainty principle. Even uncertainty itself seems logically unavoidable.

OTOH, there are sometimes experiments done, such as one I've been meaning to dig up on an anti-psychotic drug, which they studies, according to the scientific method, lowered dopamine levels, but in reality, the drug simply killed brain cells, and had no real direct effect on dopamine levels. This may be science, by the old school, but it has to fall into a special category of "bad science."

This is a chart from UC Berkeley. It gives a decent stab at the complexity of new science.

Sure, there's a grey area, but for me, the dividing line is if it can logically walk from one point to another using the existing laws of science to arrive at an unavoidable conclusion that cannot be reached by another mechanism, then it is probably a decent scientific proof, even if it cannot be tested.

We can't create a star or an atom, so we can't really experiment to prove how these things happen. But we can still understand them, do to the laws of science, and the judicious application of logic.

If something fails to meet these criteria, it might still be science, but its not undisputed. For instance, I can easy arrive at all of the data currently known to the field of cosmology using any of a number of static state models for the universe, as well as a number of inflationary models which still conflict with big bang. Big bang theory is clearly science, but it's not a scientific proof, it's still a theory, because the conclusions reached can be gotten at by other means. Likewise, the theory of global warming can also be reached by other methods than the greenhouse effect. So, again, it's a scientific theory, but it's not proof.

Many unprovable things cannot be gotten to by another mechanism, and represent as far as I'm concerned a scientific proof: Chaos Theory, String Theory, Darwin's theory of Evolution*. These might be considered as unscientific as Quantum mechanics by the scientists of the last century, but today, we deal with things we cannot test, yet we can still know, as certainly, or more so, as we would from laboratory tests.

* The theory of evolution by natural selection is solid even if the incidence of random mutation as a perpetuating factor is not certain. The quantity of genetic code that was clearly scripted, written, locked, unlocked, shuffled through lysogenics and jumping genes, hopped into and out of parasites and symbionts, ultimately does not alter this one inescapable fact: The genes of the survivors, however they are created, will dominate over those who do not.*

*extra caveats for genetic drift, generation loss, dominance and sleepers, etc. It's a science, it evolves, but the evolution of the theory itself is not about to discredit the theory.

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, February 6, 2011 12:15 AM

Put more simply: Science is wrong. If it's not wrong, it's not science. Belief systems are right. They know the answers, and try to arrive at the conclusions, a predetermined destination. Science does not know where it's going, and it's able to allow itself to be radically overturned by a shift in the balance of evidence.

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, February 6, 2011 12:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Science is wrong.

So in your view, is the term "scientific fact" an oxymoron?

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, February 6, 2011 12:54 AM

Sure, but then so is a fact.

I mean, 19 Jews were killed on Kristallnacht. Is that really what happened? What if it was 21? It's a fact to the best of my knowledge. I've found over my life that virtually everything I've ever learned has been overturned. Science *needs* to be overturned, if it's going to evolve, and approach the unreachable truth. I could rehash the holocaust forever, but the basic lessons and implications show little change (enough to make it worth doing, how to avoid that happening, etc.) but changes in science can have radical implications. What if greenhouse theory is wrong? Then we're cutting carbon emissions for no reason, while ignoring the real cause of the problem, provided there is a problem.

Some things in science are definitions. If an atom has 14 protons we call it silicon. But even some hard and fast rules can be broken. Conventional models of chemistry do not predict Xenon Tetrafluoride.

The moon orbits the earth, or the moon and the earth orbit a point in between. Or a point 3000 miles from the center of the earth, so still inside the earth. Or the moons, plural, orbit a point inside the earth. But all is getting closer to the truth without really necessarily utterly discarding the general principle.

Sometimes things unravel entirely

The moon is the same size as the sun. The moon occupies the same arc in the sky as the sun. The sun is much further away than the moon, so, the sun is radically larger than the moon. The sun and the moon still appear to be the same size. Is this coincidence?

The sun is 27 million times the size of the moon. Earlier reports that they were the same size were in error.

DMAANLILEILTT

Sunday, February 6, 2011 1:05 AM

So to put it another way: Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.

"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"

BYTEMITE

Sunday, February 6, 2011 1:06 AM

I probably have a mentality very like dreamtrove in regards to science.

When I read a study, I usually first think "how is this wrong." If spotting what is wrong is not easily coming, I look and see if the data supports the conclusion in a logical manner, and if so, I give the hypothesis some degree of interest and potential weight.

The biggest problem I see when something is probably wrong if I can see a clear bias either in the researcher or in the structure of the experiment, which is when I call foul.

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, February 6, 2011 1:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
... I can see a clear bias either in the researcher or in the structure of the experiment, which is when I call foul.

How do you determine what is a "clear bias"?

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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