[FoRK] Practicing Science: No Ideology, No False Agenda?

[Jeff Bone]

On Jan 9, 2008, at 10:02 AM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:

> Hi Jeff,
>
> On Jan 8, 2008, at 2:23 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:
>>>> http://informationparadox.blogspot.com/2008/01/science-no- 
>>>> ideology-no-false-agenda.html
>>>
>>> I'm curious -- how many people on this list have actually spent  
>>> time as practicing scientists?
>>
>> Define your terms...
>>
>> I'd note for the record that *doing* science doesn't require  
>> anything particular other than just, well, *doing* it.
>
> Well, at the very least, it would require implementing some  
> definition of the 'scientific method', which includes peer review,  
> right?

Actually, I don't think so;  that presupposes some notion of "peer"  
--- which is, among other things, where you get into problems with  
science-as-social-networking.

>> Was Einstein "practicing" science when he was working in the  
>> patent office in Bern?  Was Newton "practicing" science while  
>> working at Woolthorpe?
>
> Until they write something down to be reviewed by their peers  
> (however formally or informally), I'd say they were only  
> "theorizing" -- which is necessary, but not sufficient, to qualify  
> as "science."

I disagree;  I would say observation, testing, repeatability and  
predictivity are the keys to the scientific method.  It certainly  
helps if other people *are in fact* repeating your experiment and  
verifying your results and predictions, but I wouldn't say that's  
essential.  But repetition of testing yourself increases reliability,  
even if not as much as independent 3rd-party repetition.

Cf. Wikipedia's article on the scientific method, for example:

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

Not until fairly far into the description do we find the phrase "Each  
element of a scientific method is subject to peer review for possible  
mistakes."  Note that even here it says "subject to" --- and peer  
review is not called out as an essential primary element of the  
process.  (Note that the enumerated list of steps does include the  
step "Publish results" --- but I'm not sure that matters, either;   
clearly there is science done under government auspices that is often  
not "published" --- at least broadly.  OTOH, the government  
apparently does things like figure out if humans can stop goats'  
hearts by the power of the mind alone, too... ;-)

I'm not trying to denigrate the potential value of collaboration,  
publication, peer review, etc. --- it's just that I think those are  
overemphasized by the culture that's sprung up around the academy as  
a means of maintaining a sort of elite exclusivity.  This leads to  
all sorts of problems (not unexpected for monocultures, etc.) --- cf.  
Smolin's recent jabs at the physics community.

>> Was Ramanujan "practicing" science when scribbling in his notebook  
>> at the Madras Port Trust Office?  (Is math a "natural" science?)
>
> Not by the usual definitions, no. Most definitions of the  
> scientific method require some form of experimentation.

I'm on the fence when it comes to the question of math-as-science.   
If you're a mathematical Platonist (I'm not) --- then it certainly  
is.  Otherwise...

Newton, on the other hand, was clearly doing some amount of science  
(along with no small amount of nonsensical non-science) at  
Woolthorpe.  By himself.

>> I'll admit that part of the difficulty in discussing science is in  
>> distinguishing between the epistemological method per se and the  
>> institutional community and practice that has evolved in academic  
>> and commercial research.  They are clearly two different things.   
>> I consider it somewhat arrogant on the part of the academicians  
>> and journalists to assert that the latter is in any sense more  
>> important than the former.
>
> Are you asserting that the former is more important than the latter?

Absolutely.

Again referring to Wikipedia's article, in particular the section on  
"Communication, community, and culture..."

"Frequently the scientific method is not employed by a single person,  
but by several people cooperating directly or indirectly. Such  
cooperation can be regarded as one of the defining elements of a  
scientific community. Various techniques have been developed to  
ensure the integrity of the scientific method within such an  
environment."

Note "frequently" rather than "always."  Note "techniques...  
developed to ensure the integrity... of the method."  The method is  
independent of the environment, though clearly the environment *can*  
benefit the method.

>>  Major shifts in mankind's understanding of the world have often  
>> been made by scientists working solo, outside any institution and  
>> often outside even the cultural scientific establishment.
>
> That's only half-true.  Scientists "working solo" may be operating  
> outside *institutional* establishments, but in all the cases I know  
> of they are still part of the "cultural" network of science,  
> exchanging letters and ideas with other investigators in the same  
> field.

This is not at all universally true, nor even true in some very  
important cases.  Newton at Woolthorpe was for some time unable to  
sustain any sort of correspondence due to the disruption of travel by  
the plague.  Furthermore the bandwidth attainable by means of  
correspondence, etc. up until as recently as the early 20th century  
almost certainly limited the extent and nature of the interaction  
between scientists.  (Though to be fair this is probably causally  
related to the speed of scientific "progress" at those times...)


> That's one of the things that differentiates chemists from  
> alchemists, as I'm sure you know.

Well, to be fair, Newton was certainly more the latter than anything  
else... ;-)

> So are you really arguing that there is some "transcendent"  
> abstraction called "pure science" which in its "essence" has "no  
> ideology or false agenda" -- as opposed the actual "establishment"  
> of science as embedded in institutions and funding agencies, which  
> often does?

I suppose it would be better to assert that the scientific  
(epistemological) method --- independent of any social practices  
around it, i.e., the process of iterative observing, hypothesizing,  
testing / measuring, repeating --- does not imply or require any sort  
of ideology or agenda.  The scientific "establishment" and the  
scientists comprising it almost certainly often have both ideology  
and agenda.

I'm more interested in seeing people approach the world from a  
perspective of scientific curiousity and practice than I am in  
necessarily creating more "scientists" in the academic sense and / or  
seeing the "scientific establishment" attain any particular  
prominence.  The method itself works directly to counter the memetic  
disease that threatens humanity;  the establishment, while usually a  
boon to the method, may potentially perpetuate various  kinds of  
damage that may actually hinder understanding of our world (cf.,  
again, Smolin on string theory.)

I'd like to see a world where children are free, indeed encouraged,  
to think of themselves as lifelong scientists, by avocation even if  
not by trade.



jb