drrayeye Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Carol,
>
> Science is what I do for a living: I design,
> review, and help publish experimental studies and
> doctoral dissertations. On this board, I am hear
> to learn and explore. I'll consider anything:
> blue sky thinking is fun! I have a pretty good
> idea what can and can't be studied using
> established research methodologies. I can read and
> understand peer reviewed published studies when
> they are presented to test alternative ideas. I'm
> also aware when alternative ideas can't be studied
> at all with scientific methods.
>
> If one is "scientific", one is always open to new
> possibilities--hoping to rethink for
> testability--and carry out experiments to correct
> existing dogma. A scientist is aware that
> everything we think we know through experiment is
> only the latest best guess--waiting for the next
> study to provide improvement or an alternative.
>
> If one is "scientistic", one tends to believe that
> the "guess" is true:
>
>
>
> That wouldn't be you, would it?
>
> Ray


No Ray, it wouldn’t, smarty pants. And thinking you’ve scored points on what I believe doesn’t make you particularly observant.

You’re not a scientist, Ray. You’re an administrator, as detailed above in your own words.

And as for what I believe about science, I’ve stated on numerous occasions on these boards that science cannot answer questions that don’t fall into the realm of science. How much more explicit can that be?

Here are a few examples I can find after a quick search. In these posts I’ve made it clear that science cannot deal with such subjects as
the afterlife, non-measurables or philosophical issues .

If such examples, showing an awareness of what science cannot, and should not, be required to deal with, make me a proponent of ‘scientism’, then I don’t know how to express myself in a manner that’s simple enough for you to understand that I’m not.

This leads me back to the subject of the sub-thread - that ESA scientists were surprised and initially disbelieving of the results coming from Rosetta. I’d like to know why you think that my pointing out to Starbinder the obvious fact that these scientists, facing such unexpected results, now have to clear the slate and re-think what they thought they knew about comets - in order to advance scientific knowledge of comets – makes me a scientismist, or whatever the silly noun is.

Carol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07-Nov-15 20:53 by carolb.