Can you make assumptions in science?

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Money and fame are too rare in science to be such a large scale motivator for fraud. Science does not pay well and never has. Fame is so rare that only a small handful of scientists have their discoveries recognized by anyone beyond other scientists, or even beyond other scientists in their field. The average public is far more likely to be able to name Oscar winners than Nobel Prize winners and winning an Oscar is arguably less difficult (not that I could ever win either).

There are scientists who lied about data and gained fame (and possibly money,I don't know) but it's pretty rare and anyone who does it is booted out of the scientific community once caught. A famous example (famous on WP for sure) is Wakefield who doctored his vaccine and autism data to make it seem like he'd discovered causation. This is how the (medical branch of the) scientific community responded when he was found out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield


Since that^^ is what happens to those who get caught creating dubious data, I don't see how you can claim it is the norm.

edit double post. i missed the 2 second delete window

Last edited by Janissy on 02 Feb 2015, 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Put to death"???? That is a goofy bit of hyperbole. But there is a grain of truth in that those who expose popular myths sometimes face sanctions. But it has been the religious imposing sanctions on those who exposed their popular religious myths. But even the Church didn't put Galileo to death for exposing their cherished myth. However they did put him under lifetime house arrest.


I'd buy the book where you described your research and help the youtube video of same go viral. Repeating your claim isn't "bringing it down" though. You'd need evidence-evidence and a more coherent claim to disprove. Nobody has actually made the claim that "everyuthing that didn't exist causes itself to become whatever it will be for no reason."

Examples abound in all religion, not just Eastern ones. Anthropomorphizing reality is pretty much what religion is. What is God/Zeus/Shiva etc. but attempts by humans to give human characteristics to the natural world? I don't think this is extreme egomania though. It's just hard to not put humans at the center of everything, it's just how we roll. Science has been a steady struggle to get away from this anthropomorphizing and be as objective as possible.

It hurt humanity's ego to see the sun rather than the earth as the center of our solar system and worse yet as our solar system to be one of very,very many. It hurt humanity's ego once again to see humans as just another primate instead of the special chosen ones officially named to rule over all. But this is normal egoism, not extreme.

The universe is terrifying in its enormity. I don't use "terrifying" lightly. I think the vastness (visible even to our paleolithic ancestors looking up at the sky) is so overwhelming that it is a comfort to imagine something is out there that loves us as earthlings,or at least vertebrates, conceptualizes love. The alternative is a sense of insignificance which easily brings on existential dread. Religion promises significance, the personal touch from a deity (or deities) who notice us and care about us. That is an understandable view but it isn't objective observation.

If you want to discuss "religion" I suggest it belongs on another thread and with a definition of what "religion" means.

Presently "religion" is just being used as a pejorative term to dismiss anything that does not conform to the religion of Naturalism or Materialism.

I am suggesting that religious or ideological assumptions (i.e. Naturalism, Materialism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Voodoo etc.) have no place in science. Just because a religious or ideological assumption is relentlessly sold in the popular media does not make it any less impossible, or unreasonable, or unscientific.

David you are becoming ever more irrational. For the best definition of science

"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s really true. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature, or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” Richard Feynman

Perhaps you need some of your own advice:

Arty, we have been discussing this to no avail.

A guess (or more in scientific parlance; an hypothesis) is not the same as an assumption. An hypothesis (or guess) is a possible explanation for an observation that is to be verified or falsified by experiment.

An assumption is a presumed "fact" independent of any observational or experimental validity.

I bow to your expertise on this point, David. You're well practiced at making assumptions.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assumption

Honestly, sometimes it's best just to look the word up in the most widely used dictionary on Google.

It sure beats mental masturbation, in my opinion.

Of COURSE, ONE CAN MAKE Assumptions in science, AS after all is said and done AND FELT, Assumption is a frigging synonym for an hypothetical.

This is just common sense.

And science can't understand common sense, often, it seems, from what i've seen here..

And seriously, systemization is the PROBLEM, per the broadest definition of SCIENCE, as most humans run on emotion and assumption, otherwise, if 'they' use science alone, historically, 'they' WILL never make it OUT of the stone age, as the wild animals WILL be eating 'them', by the time 'they' repeat 'THAT' experiment, FOR 'DEAD'..

Emotion, imagination, and human creativity THAT IS the source fire (INSPIRATION) for human social cooperation and survival, is, overall, not a science based thingy, per the scientific method, as many of these observable human behaviors, simply CANNOT BE REPEATED, WITH any measure of scientific tool available FOR EMPIRICAL MEASURE.

Humans attempt to apply order to reality to relieve existential angst.

The river keeps flowing, ebbing, and flowing to the OCEAN THAT IS REAL, DESPITE what humans 'think' they know by experiment alone.

Science is good to make tools of life better but it will LIKELY never speak FULLY to the human heArt, soul, or spirit that are all synonyms for the emotional 'ORGAN' that emotes human survival.

AND that's wHere philosophy comes in, as science is 'just a book', with a few pages entailing the true FULLER existence AND POTENTIAL of human being, in inner world manifested OUTSIDE of what 'this or that' human 'sees' of 'IT'.

But anyway, Merriam Webster IS the authority here, when it comes to the FACT THAT ASSUMPTIONS ARE MADE IN SCIENCE.

But when it comes to Human relative free WILL, AND EMOTIONS OF FAITH, HOPE, and BELIEF:

STYX AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS KNOWS, AND MOREOVER FEELS, MORE ABOUT that THAN SCIENCE LIKELY EVER will.

And with THAT SAID AND FELT, I'LL LEAVE this, and please do carry on, with WHATEVER..



OH, and about that Avatar; I'm starting to look LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT..;):)

HUH..
he
HEH..!

Kudos! Well put.

THANK YOU, KIND sir..

Which, of course, means that all "wisdom" is completely detached from reality.

Don't believe me... go check Blavatskyite magic.

Anyhow, as far as I know, this thread is still about assumptions in science.

Wow! Now that's a new one... a religion about religions. lol
You do come up with some "esoteric" people to keep things interesting.
Have you been digging through Shirley Maclaine's bookshelves?

If anyone is still curious about "why would they do it" you should ask the bods above. It's clearly even less reasonable than I thought.

A bit cryptic, David. Sorry, after 3 Coronas I'm not following at all.