Posted by DSCH on November 12, 2003, at 17:21:23
In reply to Re: In defense of objectivity » DSCH, posted by femlite on November 12, 2003, at 6:38:07
> > > Odder still is the ability to act on one's own behalf.
>
> Let me try again. When acting on ones belief do you find unusual the acting or the beleif?I don't know. I was making reference to microorganisms there. Once you recognize and ponder the fact that a bacterium can do these amazing things, whatever we as a species bring to the table doesn't seem quite so singular anymore (i.e. a barrier was broken or a gigantic leap made in the ability to 'propogate organization' in the evolution of single cells... everything else has been incremental elaborations from there); and then you can see what our fellow mammals are capable of too. But then I guess I am not answering your question because I do not understand how it follows from what I said before (some misunderstanding over 'belief' vs. 'behalf'?).
> > That is why the final appeal is to experiment. And the presuppositions are discarded along with the used paper coffee cups if they do not work.
> I wish I had such great faith in true human objectivityA dissapointingly small fraction of people in technical fields can think this way, indeed. But then they are generally not the ones making breakthroughs. Some wag once said that science advances one tombstone at a time, and that is partly true.
> You have me. What is vitalist, and what does that have to do with the persistence of discovery in a concept or thereory that is currently unbelieved?
Vitalists believe that the distinction between life and non-life requires there to be supernatural forces at work. Be it "God" or an "elan vital".
A good example of a theory that was laughed at but gained acceptance over decades as observations built up in favor of it is continential drift. Darwin's theory of natural selection certainly many detractors at first but they have gradually been pushed further away from the mainstream.
In 1900, many physicists thought the task of physics was basically complete and all that was left to so was keep refining the values to physical constants by doing more elaborate experiments to measure them more precisely. But then in a matter of years, radioactivity, X-rays, the inability to detect the Eart's motion relative to the aether, the "ultraviolet catastrophe", and the photoelectric effect were discovered.
Physics today is in a similar bind as our ability to probe higher energies is starting to require accelerators that even the public of the United States will balk at funding. I wonder wether the upgrade at CERN represents the swan song of this branch of experimental physics.
> ***As science is continually evolving, how can any scientist worth his salt claim that it is possible to possess "objective" realism? To rule out what we have not yet proven or disproven seems a lack of true scientific spirit.
> This conversation may have started on this premise, but their are a GREAT many revelations unrelated to such "medicinal" inducement. As a scientist it is good to examine all possiblities, no? But an honest one must admit that true objectivety can only belong to one who knows all.How do you test this stuff outside of just giving people acid and getting trip reports from them? It's the responsibility of the person wanting to persue this line of inquiry to its depths to come up with testable hypotheses to present to the community at large. THEY must present something testable so as to overcome skepticism and those "preconviced" notions.
Frankly, they are so many questions one is forced to persue relatively few in the course of a career and rely on the mainstream ideas to provide a weltanschaung elsewhere.
I do not hear respected physicists saying they have advanced string theory by dropping acid. ;-) Some may, but they certainly don't state that acid revelations are a way to bypass experiments. ;-)
Yes, I know Kary Mullins does LSD. ;-)
> What science are you studying?
Well it was materials before, but the employment opportunities are currently dismal and plus it's all "dead matter" and less interesting to me these days. I am reading more and more on computers and biology and may go back to school soon.
poster:DSCH
thread:276748
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031031/msgs/279122.html