From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 18:55:33 MST
> (Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com>):
>
> It's an epistemological problem, to me. What they are doing
> is no different from what everyone else does, and it should
> not be touted as such. Doing so gives rise to scientism,
> and a stupid mystique that has bad effects on everyone,
> even the scientists who enjoy it.
>
> > /Something/ is different about what scientists are doing
> > today, that works, and what they had been doing for 10,000
> > years, which didn't work. Calling that difference "scientific
> > method" is a good way to identify it. Do you have a better
> > term?
>
> Yes, I do. It's called accumulated knowledge.
Here's the core of our disagreement, I think: you seem to think
that there is no difference in kind between what the ancients did
to create such things as agriculture, writing, masonry, and so on
and the "modern" techniques of science, and that what scientists
do is no different from what, say, engineers or detectives do.
Perhaps the difference is more one of degree than kind: a detective
or an ancient bridge-builder can afford to take shortcuts and make
bold inferences and work with likelihoods, while the modern
scientist has to be more careful and comprehensive to eliminate
all the possible bad hypotheses. But I still think /something/ is
different in kind about rigorous critical epistemology and ordinary
human reason, even when the latter is used with care. While I agree
that identifying that thing, whatever it is, with a particular
description of "the" scientific method may lead to dangerous
dogmatism, I still think there's something there, and it's related
to self-honesty and self-criticism.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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