On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
The Daring Dufas wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

--
Ed Huntress

In article , huntres23
@optonline.net says...

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
The Daring Dufas wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

OK, Ed, you're now wandering into netloon territory.

On 1/9/2012 7:57 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J.
wrote:

In articleIIednXTl2OfeVJfSnZ2dnUVZ_tmdnZ2d@earthlink .com,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In ,
The Daring wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

Economics essentially owns applied statistics. Political science was a
junk field, no better than sociology, until economics colonized it and
taught the political scientists how to do regression...and stuck around
long enough to see that they did it.



People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:39:10 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
The Daring Dufas wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

OK, Ed, you're now wandering into netloon territory.

Nope, I've covered the bases on both sides. Don't get huffy about the
physical-science superiority until you've dealt with good scientists
in biological sciences, econometrics, and even many social scientists.
Their science is generally as good as, and often better than, the
science perpetuated by physical scientists. It's just a different
thing, working mostly with probabilities.

Think of it as something like quantum mechanics.

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:05:24 -0800, Delvin Benet ýt wrote:

On 1/9/2012 7:57 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J.
wrote:

In articleIIednXTl2OfeVJfSnZ2dnUVZ_tmdnZ2d@earthlink .com,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In ,
The Daring wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

Economics essentially owns applied statistics. Political science was a
junk field, no better than sociology, until economics colonized it and
taught the political scientists how to do regression...and stuck around
long enough to see that they did it.

I agree completely. Political science would have been fine if they had
used another word for it. Now that they use many of the methods of
econometrics, they can call it science.

--

Ed Huntress




People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

In article , huntres23
@optonline.net says...

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:39:10 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
The Daring Dufas wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

OK, Ed, you're now wandering into netloon territory.

Nope, I've covered the bases on both sides. Don't get huffy about the
physical-science superiority until you've dealt with good scientists
in biological sciences

Modern biology _is_ a physical science.

econometrics, and even many social scientists.

Name one verified predictive model that came out of either.

Their science is generally as good as, and often better than, the
science perpetuated by physical scientists. It's just a different
thing, working mostly with probabilities.

If it doesn't involve testable models it's not science.

Think of it as something like quantum mechanics.

Huh? Quantum theory is a predictive model that is in everyday use in
many kinds of engineering.

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:18:34 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:39:10 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:30:59 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
The Daring Dufas wrote:



Environmental Science degree, probably only good for a government
job. o_O

TDD

Or "public" or "Administration". My first degree I was twice blessed
as it was in Public Administration (although in my defense at the
time I was trying to a double major in Poli Sci and Journalism and
this was close w/o the need for a foreign language-grin).
(My next was a real degree in Nursing)

I note that "real" science does not have the word "science" as part of its
description. Whereas "pretend" science does.

Just using the scientific method does not make the discipline scientific.

Well, actually, using the scientific method does make the discipline
scientific. But if you're talking about "political science" and "social
science" they don't use the scientific method. They use statistics and
pretend that because they're playing with numbers they're doing science.

Nonsense. I've edited hundreds of scientific articles and papers,
ranging from materials science to statistical health care megastudies
and economics. They all use statistics -- often badly, on many counts.
The medical people are generally better at it than the engineers. The
economists blow both of them out of the water on that count.

People involved in physical sciences are smug elitists who think
they're the only ones who do science. Historically, they're as numb
about it as a high-school sophomore.

OK, Ed, you're now wandering into netloon territory.

Nope, I've covered the bases on both sides. Don't get huffy about the
physical-science superiority until you've dealt with good scientists
in biological sciences

Modern biology _is_ a physical science.

Ah, I think that most universities will disagree with you about that.


econometrics, and even many social scientists.

Name one verified predictive model that came out of either.

Narrow-minded instrumentalists, many physical scientists have an
ahistorical understanding of the term. Instrumentalism is just one
facet of science.


Their science is generally as good as, and often better than, the
science perpetuated by physical scientists. It's just a different
thing, working mostly with probabilities.

If it doesn't involve testable models it's not science.

You're describing instrumentalism, not the entire scope of science. An
anthropologist may use the scientific method to study the interaction
of cultures, but can't predict what would happen if those same
cultures were to meet for the first time all over again. If they use
the methods of science to gain knowledge, that's science.

By the same token, a scientist specializing in quantum mechanics can,
at best, give you only a statistical probability about where a
particle may be at some time in the future.


Think of it as something like quantum mechanics.

Huh? Quantum theory is a predictive model that is in everyday use in
many kinds of engineering.

It is a STATISTICAL model of probabilities. The entire field is
probablistic, never deterministic.

Hmmm.. something like economics. d8-)

It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

--
Ed Huntress

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

Aren't they the ones who call 18 feet of snow in Anchorage
"Anthropogenic Global Warming"? (kumbaya)

--
We are always the same age inside.
-- Gertrude Stein

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and
verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.
Ed Huntress

Physical scientists are well aware that only some areas of their disciplines
are prescriptive and others remain descriptive, as they once were entirely.
The difference is they can admit to uncertainty, in fact they have to seek
it out for Ph.D thesis subjects.

The less firm the understanding social scientists have of cause and effect,
the more adamant and defensive they are of their conclusions. They could be
safely left alone to bicker if they weren't trying so hard to impose public
policy.

jsw

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:26:39 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and
verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.
Ed Huntress

Physical scientists are well aware that only some areas of their disciplines
are prescriptive and others remain descriptive, as they once were entirely.

A lot of astrophysicists will be relieved to hear that. And tell
Clarke, while you're at it.

The difference is they can admit to uncertainty, in fact they have to seek
it out for Ph.D thesis subjects.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop here...


The less firm the understanding social scientists have of cause and effect,
the more adamant and defensive they are of their conclusions.

[clunk!]

Is that a testable hypothesis? d8-)

They could be
safely left alone to bicker if they weren't trying so hard to impose public
policy.

Your perception that they're "trying hard to impose" is not my
perception, but vive la différence.

There's a lot more to be gained by noting the similarities between
physical sciences and others before focusing on definitions and
putting fields of science into boxes. All science at the frontiers is
a blind seeking, and what is sought first is descriptive and
analytical. When a cosmologist doesn't know what he's looking for (the
source of dark energy, for example), he's at least as much in the dark
(sorry for the pun) as an economist who's trying to analyze risk
aversion. It turns out that understanding risk aversion is a matter of
social psychology, so the economist gains understanding by fishing in
the dark until he gains an insight -- in this case, the insight that
another field of science can identify the phenomenon that's perturbing
his analysis. He was looking for something along the lines of
"rational action" -- the economist's traditional turf -- until he
realized he was looking in the wrong place. Great science is done by
the scientists who have the unanticipated insights and look in
unsuspected places: charmed and blessed guesswork, as some of them
have said. Risk aversion is not so lofty as a subject, but seeking
insights outside of deductive science can be very lofty indeed.

Instrumentalism and its exclusive focus on testable hypothesis and
predictability has a congealing effect on the mind. At the frontiers,
not much is instrumental. It's mostly jazzing around by brilliant
people. Then come the hypotheses. Sometimes they're even testable.
Then the brilliant science enters the slog of empiricism and dreary
labwork. Some engineers who look at science through their own set of
lenses come to believe that it isn't science if it doesn't produce
testable hypotheses that enable reliable predictions. They're wrong,
of course. Within their narrow working world, almost everything is
testable and will lead to predictability. But science is much larger
than that.

When will astrophysicists be able to test the hypothesis that those
distant planets they're discovering among the stars will have not only
the conditions for life, but life itself? Maybe never. The planets are
too far away. The means to detect life on them may never be found; a
method may not exist at all. If they're never able to predict the
existence of other life with certainty, will we decide someday that
they weren't really scientists at all?

Of course not. Likewise, the social scientists who seem *always* to
be on their frontiers, because they are limited in how they can detect
and measure the effects of vast numbers of variables -- complexity.
And, like quantum physicists, they're also dealing with random events
and perturbations of unknown complexity -- the butterflies flapping
their wings in Brazil, the unknown unknowns. Are they fractal or
simply chaotic? Is there a way to test it? To make predictions?

Maybe, maybe not. Meantime, we go with the best knowledge we have,
like doctors using the best antibiotics they know of to cure diseases
on which those antibiotics don't work. We try our best. So do other
life scientists, and social scientists.

We're the ones who press them for answers, not the other way around.
We always want answers and we blame the sociologists, or the
economists, or the medical researchers, for not having the answers we
want. When they take their best shot and it doesn't work out, we blame
them for imposing their policies on us.

But the political process is how we decide upon policies. The social
sciences and life sciences just provide the best current knowledge.
Sometimes -- often -- it's wrong. But it's the best we have. What's
the alternative? To rely on complete ignorance?

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
...
Instrumentalism and its exclusive focus on testable hypothesis and
predictability has a congealing effect on the mind. At the frontiers,
not much is instrumental. It's mostly jazzing around by brilliant
people. Then come the hypotheses. Sometimes they're even testable.
Then the brilliant science enters the slog of empiricism and dreary
labwork. Some engineers who look at science through their own set of
lenses come to believe that it isn't science if it doesn't produce
testable hypotheses that enable reliable predictions. They're wrong,
of course. Within their narrow working world, almost everything is
testable and will lead to predictability. But science is much larger
than that.
...
Ed Huntress

You are arguing against your own straw man. Those of us who know the history
of scientific progress realize that each discipline evolves in steps from
raw information-gathering to a complete understanding of fundamental
principles. Measurement to confirm prediction has proven to be an extremely
valuable filtering tool where it can be applied. Before it was practical
Aristotle'e rejection of experimental validation had held human advancement
static for nearly two millennia.

When I was in school both geology and biology knew the What but not the Why.
Plate Tectonics subsequently answered the questions for geology and DNA
sequencing is making good progress for biology. Physics crossed the
threshold with Newton, chemistry with Lavoisier.

Plate Tectonics provides a good example of how radical ideology actively
seeks and contaminates untestable theories to improve its own image. Alfred
Wegener proposed continental drift before WW1. The Nazis enthusiastically
adopted his Welteislehr as proof of German scientific superiority and thus
made his work untouchable for everyone else until a grad student innocently
made the same observations Wegener had.

Lysenkoism could have similarly held back biology had Stalin's Russia not
been so isolated.

Hydrogen was the irresistable wave of the future right up to the day Bush
backed it. Then silence.

The social sciences are still in the data-collecting state where chemistry
was before 1800, with the attendant unproveable popular hypotheses like
Phlogiston, or Keynesian economics or operant conditioning. Understandably
ethical concerns restrict testing.

The point of instrumental testing is that it separates fact from biased
hope. If the theory extends to predictions that test true then it improves
its status, if they fail it's out. Explaining what you don't yet see is
enormously more convincing than explaining what you do, to show you
understand WHY it happens instead of making up excuses to fit.

Untestable theories must be considered only as competing possibilities
subject to further analysis. Wanting to believe them doesn't make them
right. The desire for equal professional status and validation also has a
congealing effect on the mind.

Statistical analysis of historical data sets may lead a brilliant mind to
deeper understanding but they don't prove a theory in themselves, or justify
harmful interference in peoples' lives for nebulous benefit.

jsw

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:29:15 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
Instrumentalism and its exclusive focus on testable hypothesis and
predictability has a congealing effect on the mind. At the frontiers,
not much is instrumental. It's mostly jazzing around by brilliant
people. Then come the hypotheses. Sometimes they're even testable.
Then the brilliant science enters the slog of empiricism and dreary
labwork. Some engineers who look at science through their own set of
lenses come to believe that it isn't science if it doesn't produce
testable hypotheses that enable reliable predictions. They're wrong,
of course. Within their narrow working world, almost everything is
testable and will lead to predictability. But science is much larger
than that.
...
Ed Huntress

You are arguing against your own straw man.

"Straw man"? That was Clarke, right in this thread:

"If it doesn't involve testable models it's not science."

And his view is not uncommon. We hear things like that on this NG from
time to time. It's hardly a straw man.

Those of us who know the history
of scientific progress realize that each discipline evolves in steps from
raw information-gathering to a complete understanding of fundamental
principles. Measurement to confirm prediction has proven to be an extremely
valuable filtering tool where it can be applied. Before it was practical
Aristotle'e rejection of experimental validation had held human advancement
static for nearly two millennia.

When I was in school both geology and biology knew the What but not the Why.
Plate Tectonics subsequently answered the questions for geology and DNA
sequencing is making good progress for biology. Physics crossed the
threshold with Newton, chemistry with Lavoisier.

Plate Tectonics provides a good example of how radical ideology actively
seeks and contaminates untestable theories to improve its own image. Alfred
Wegener proposed continental drift before WW1. The Nazis enthusiastically
adopted his Welteislehr as proof of German scientific superiority and thus
made his work untouchable for everyone else until a grad student innocently
made the same observations Wegener had.

Lysenkoism could have similarly held back biology had Stalin's Russia not
been so isolated.

Hydrogen was the irresistable wave of the future right up to the day Bush
backed it. Then silence.

The social sciences are still in the data-collecting state where chemistry
was before 1800, with the attendant unproveable popular hypotheses like
Phlogiston, or Keynesian economics or operant conditioning. Understandably
ethical concerns restrict testing.

The point of instrumental testing is that it separates fact from biased
hope. If the theory extends to predictions that test true then it improves
its status, if they fail it's out. Explaining what you don't yet see is
enormously more convincing than explaining what you do, to show you
understand WHY it happens instead of making up excuses to fit.

As I said, that's great, where it works. But again, consider Clarke's
statement. That's the most frequent argument that the life sciences
and social sciences are not "science." As for the life sciences, the
argument is being used today, in distorted forms, to argue against
evolution.


Untestable theories must be considered only as competing possibilities
subject to further analysis. Wanting to believe them doesn't make them
right. The desire for equal professional status and validation also has a
congealing effect on the mind.

Theories are not all of science, either. You're slipping into the
instrumental argument again.


Statistical analysis of historical data sets may lead a brilliant mind to
deeper understanding but they don't prove a theory in themselves, or justify
harmful interference in peoples' lives for nebulous benefit.

jsw

Theories are not all of science. Learning how things work does not
always involve theories about *why* they work, or about what is
predictable. You're taking an instrumentalist point of view.

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
...
Theories are not all of science. Learning how things work does not
always involve theories about *why* they work, or about what is
predictable. You're taking an instrumentalist point of view.
Ed Huntress

Have you studied Chemistry? The texts are thick with Mix A with B to get C
with little or no explanation of the thermodynamics that determine a
reaction's stable end point. We learned that separately, but much of it was
extensive memorization of complex details and procedural rituals,
appropriate to Harry Potter or Paracelsus.

OTOH physics and electronics are very deterministic, testable and
intensively complex. Mechanical engineering is in between because you are
rarely certain of a material's properties.

jsw, BS Chem 69

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:06:09 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
Theories are not all of science. Learning how things work does not
always involve theories about *why* they work, or about what is
predictable. You're taking an instrumentalist point of view.
Ed Huntress

Have you studied Chemistry? The texts are thick with Mix A with B to get C
with little or no explanation of the thermodynamics that determine a
reaction's stable end point. We learned that separately, but much of it was
extensive memorization of complex details and procedural rituals,
appropriate to Harry Potter or Paracelsus.

OTOH physics and electronics are very deterministic, testable and
intensively complex. Mechanical engineering is in between because you are
rarely certain of a material's properties.

jsw, BS Chem 69

Sure. Those are the physical sciences in which predictions and testing
hypotheses are easiest. The whole point of this discussion was that
there is more to science than that.

I can't speak to chemistry but electronics is, as you say, very
deterministic. And it's not all that complex. Networks and filters can
get hairy, with many interactive variables, but most of it is
manageable by anyone who has studied it seriously. That's not the case
when you're trying to determine the influences on consumption or
financial trading, for example.

The point that started this is that applying the statistical and
calculus tools of econometrics to data in political science has
elevated the latter to a level of study that is truly scientific. Not
all of poli sci or economics are subject to numerical or scientific
methods, but applying those tools has opened a whole new level of
understanding to some aspects of each.

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:06:09 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...
I can't speak to chemistry but electronics is, as you say, very
deterministic. And it's not all that complex. Networks and filters can
get hairy, with many interactive variables, but most of it is
manageable by anyone who has studied it seriously. That's not the case
when you're trying to determine the influences on consumption or
financial trading, for example.
The point that started this is that applying the statistical and
calculus tools of econometrics to data in political science has
elevated the latter to a level of study that is truly scientific. Not
all of poli sci or economics are subject to numerical or scientific
methods, but applying those tools has opened a whole new level of
understanding to some aspects of each.

If you think electronics isn't all that complex then you've never seen
digital communications theory, which has spawned whole new branches of
mathematics.

Simple telephone network design problem.
Q: When is the system most congested?
A: Mother's Day
Q: What happens if the switch matrix that connects calls is too small?
A: Callers who don't get a dial tone become very angry.
Q: What is the correct response?
A: F..k 'em, we're the phone company, we don't have to care.

Although that's a standard joke the problem of predicting statistical
calling behavior in order to economically size the system for an acceptably
small no-connect rate is real, and difficult.

An FAA system I worked on was like an aerial party line with every airliner
radio yelling "Here I am" at once on the same channel. It attempted to
resolve the confusion with a more sophisticated version of Ethernet
collision detection. For that one the consequences of failures were a little
higher. I was the hardware tech and don't claim to understand the math of
it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat...ance-broadcast

I realized I was over my head on the complex problems when the guest
lecturer from Qualcomm asked for a numerical energy value for the difference
in entropy from a change in the number of possible states of a digital
encoding scheme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viterbi_algorithm
It's used in your cell phone.

This stuff is so far beyond instrumental determinism it might as well be
from Star Trek.

jsw

In article , huntres23
@optonline.net says...

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

Lemme guess, your degree is in one of the "social sciences".

In article , huntres23
@optonline.net says...

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:06:09 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
Theories are not all of science. Learning how things work does not
always involve theories about *why* they work, or about what is
predictable. You're taking an instrumentalist point of view.
Ed Huntress

Have you studied Chemistry? The texts are thick with Mix A with B to get C
with little or no explanation of the thermodynamics that determine a
reaction's stable end point. We learned that separately, but much of it was
extensive memorization of complex details and procedural rituals,
appropriate to Harry Potter or Paracelsus.

OTOH physics and electronics are very deterministic, testable and
intensively complex. Mechanical engineering is in between because you are
rarely certain of a material's properties.

jsw, BS Chem 69

Sure. Those are the physical sciences in which predictions and testing
hypotheses are easiest. The whole point of this discussion was that
there is more to science than that.

I can't speak to chemistry but electronics is, as you say, very
deterministic. And it's not all that complex. Networks and filters can
get hairy, with many interactive variables, but most of it is
manageable by anyone who has studied it seriously. That's not the case
when you're trying to determine the influences on consumption or
financial trading, for example.

The point that started this is that applying the statistical and
calculus tools of econometrics to data in political science has
elevated the latter to a level of study that is truly scientific. Not
all of poli sci or economics are subject to numerical or scientific
methods, but applying those tools has opened a whole new level of
understanding to some aspects of each.

Fine, you believe that something that does not produce falsifiable
models is "science". Among philosophers of science I think you'll find
yourself in the minority.

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:05:46 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:06:09 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...
I can't speak to chemistry but electronics is, as you say, very
deterministic. And it's not all that complex. Networks and filters can
get hairy, with many interactive variables, but most of it is
manageable by anyone who has studied it seriously. That's not the case
when you're trying to determine the influences on consumption or
financial trading, for example.
The point that started this is that applying the statistical and
calculus tools of econometrics to data in political science has
elevated the latter to a level of study that is truly scientific. Not
all of poli sci or economics are subject to numerical or scientific
methods, but applying those tools has opened a whole new level of
understanding to some aspects of each.

If you think electronics isn't all that complex then you've never seen
digital communications theory, which has spawned whole new branches of
mathematics.


Yeah, I've looked at it, but I don't do it.

Certainly it's very complex, but electronics carried the mantle of
objective, physical science long before digital technology became the
mainstream.

Complexity may be a difficult basis on which to make the distinction
I'm trying to make. Maybe a better way to put it is that electrical
phenomena behave according to relatively simple laws of nature, even
when those laws are woven into complex interactions and quantum
effects or other uncertainties that involve probabilities and that
require statistical treatment.

But electrons don't have bad-hair days, nor do they make a run on the
bank when some talk-radio crackpot spreads a rumor on the air. They
don't all decide to pile up on the starboard side of a microchip for
unanticipated reasons and make it capsize. g

So the number of variables involved in an econometric analysis is not
only huge, with ever-changing cohorts of group behavior, but it's
different every time -- the behavior itself is ever-changing, too. For
the most part, electrons do the same thing every time, at least in
groups larger than a couple of dozen taken at once.

Which is more complex to identify, measure, and implement in a model
or even an observation? I'd vote for those things that involve human
behavior. In the middle are those sciences that investigate other
forms of life.

Simple telephone network design problem.
Q: When is the system most congested?
A: Mother's Day
Q: What happens if the switch matrix that connects calls is too small?
A: Callers who don't get a dial tone become very angry.
Q: What is the correct response?
A: F..k 'em, we're the phone company, we don't have to care.

Although that's a standard joke the problem of predicting statistical
calling behavior in order to economically size the system for an acceptably
small no-connect rate is real, and difficult.

Ok, but the problem as you pose it is an economic problem, in the
sense that Steven Levitt is an economist. In other words, if one is a
business analyst or other researcher studying the problem, the methods
they would use are the modern tools of econometrics.


An FAA system I worked on was like an aerial party line with every airliner
radio yelling "Here I am" at once on the same channel. It attempted to
resolve the confusion with a more sophisticated version of Ethernet
collision detection. For that one the consequences of failures were a little
higher. I was the hardware tech and don't claim to understand the math of
it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat...ance-broadcast

I realized I was over my head on the complex problems when the guest
lecturer from Qualcomm asked for a numerical energy value for the difference
in entropy from a change in the number of possible states of a digital
encoding scheme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viterbi_algorithm
It's used in your cell phone.

This stuff is so far beyond instrumental determinism it might as well be
from Star Trek.

Right. Now, relating it to the discussion, those are problems in
probability that are the same kind of stuff that econometrics tries to
model. Again, dealing with human behavior as a key part of the
variables, the levels of certainty are much lower in economics. But
statistical evaluations are a facet of science that's common among
social sciences and the probabalistic side of the physical sciences.

To go back to the original point I disagreed with, the idea that
something isn't science if it can't produce testable models is simply
wrong, historically and in contemporary practice. And the reason that
the physical sciences are more able, more often, to produce such
models is not that they are "superior" sciences. It's because the
things they study always behave the same, even if the sameness is some
statistical value. When the singular or collective behavior of human
beings are the subjects, or part of the subjects, that's rarely true.
But those studies are still scientific in every essential meaning of
the word, which is an elaboration on the ancient idea that science is
a systematic investigation to increase the store of knowledge.

--
Ed Huntress


jsw

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:22:19 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

Lemme guess, your degree is in one of the "social sciences".

Nope. It was more like vocational training.

--
Ed Huntress

In article , huntres23
@optonline.net says...

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:22:19 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

Lemme guess, your degree is in one of the "social sciences".

Nope. It was more like vocational training.

Well, now I know I can safely discount your opinion in the matter.

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message .
...
Right. Now, relating it to the discussion, those are problems in
probability that are the same kind of stuff that econometrics tries to
model. Again, dealing with human behavior as a key part of the
variables, the levels of certainty are much lower in economics. But
statistical evaluations are a facet of science that's common among
social sciences and the probabalistic side of the physical sciences.

To go back to the original point I disagreed with, the idea that
something isn't science if it can't produce testable models is simply
wrong, historically and in contemporary practice. And the reason that
the physical sciences are more able, more often, to produce such
models is not that they are "superior" sciences. It's because the
things they study always behave the same, even if the sameness is some
statistical value. When the singular or collective behavior of human
beings are the subjects, or part of the subjects, that's rarely true.
But those studies are still scientific in every essential meaning of
the word, which is an elaboration on the ancient idea that science is
a systematic investigation to increase the store of knowledge.
Ed Huntress

IIRC in the Ringworld series Larry Niven comments that engineers and lawyers
solve similarly difficult problems, except that an engineer's problems don't
actively evade solution. Then he mostly disproves that statement.

As I think you see now the science I'm familiar with encounters the same
issues as the social sciences when policy makers seek and employ their
advice as the rationale for expensive and nationally significant decisions,
both socially and technically oriented.
http://mitre.org/
I was a lab manager there, not involved in decisions but not ignorant of
them either, and also as an amateur historian I've investigated the
background of air power and military electronics systems development.
Currently I'm researching and debating the tradeoffs of WW2 armored vs
unarmored aircraft carriers in rec.aviation.military.
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-042.htm
Like social issues these required firm timely decisions derived from
incomplete and possibly wrong information plus good intuition. Much of the
"logic" of opposing arguments masks their financial, professional or
electoral self interest.

There is pressure to offer unjustifiably definite advice to avoid
accusations of Analysis Paralysis (see Jimmy Carter). With some exceptions
the physical sciences are more aware of and willing to admit the limited
accuracy of predictions based on statistical methodology. Some good clues we
pick up are numerical values with too many significant digits, or rounded
percentages that add up to exactly 100%.

Political pollsters here report the margin of error as one over the square
root of the sample size without relating it to confidence level, and are
annoyed and suspicious when they are proven wrong. Experimental verification
exposes such sloppiness by physical scientists and serves to keep us honest
and careful.

Social scientists can be very certain, smug and arrogant about conclusions
which we plainly see that their data does not adequately support. A common
failing is that while the logic may be internally consistent its underlying
assumptions are at least controversial. Chomsky is a fine example. And that
is the basis for considering them less than real scientists, not the
extensive complexity and uncertainty of their subject though they are
trivial compared to human biochemistry. It's the results that matter, not
the tools used to obtain them.

I accidentally took a statistics class meant for social scientists once. The
mathematical rigor fell drastically short of what I expected and needed, but
it was very interesting for the insight into sampling algorithms and the
many intentional and inadvertent ways to bias the results, such as calling
homes during the daytime when only unemployed people will answer. The
pundits here repeatedly express their amazement at how so many of us can
remain "undecided" right up until we enter the voting booth.

jsw

On Jan 12, 10:48*am, "Jim Wilkins" wrote:

To go back to the original point I disagreed with, the idea that
something isn't science if it can't produce testable models is simply
wrong, historically and in contemporary practice. And the reason that
the physical sciences are more able, more often, to produce such
models is not that they are "superior" sciences. It's because the
things they study always behave the same, even if the sameness is some
statistical value. When the singular or collective behavior of human
beings are the subjects, or part of the subjects, that's rarely true.
But those studies are still scientific in every essential meaning of
the word, which is an elaboration on the ancient idea that science is
a systematic investigation to increase the store of knowledge.
Ed Huntress


jsw

This exchange reminds me of the story about the old economics graduate
returning to the campus and talking to the economics professor. They
talked about how much the world has changed and how important it was
to know economics. The professor was grading the final exam papers at
the time and showed some to the graduate.
Who exclaimed " Why these are the very same questions that were on my
final exam ". And the professor answered " Well yes those are the
same questions, but we keep changing the answers."

To me the thing that casts doubt on how scientific a subject is is how
good is the repeatability of the theory. If the theory always
explains what happens, then is is science. If things do not repeat
the same way according to the theory, then it really is not science.
It is history, perhaps with a great theory of why things turned out as
it did. But not a science that can be used to see how things are
going to turn out.


Dan

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:48:10 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message .
...
Right. Now, relating it to the discussion, those are problems in
probability that are the same kind of stuff that econometrics tries to
model. Again, dealing with human behavior as a key part of the
variables, the levels of certainty are much lower in economics. But
statistical evaluations are a facet of science that's common among
social sciences and the probabalistic side of the physical sciences.

To go back to the original point I disagreed with, the idea that
something isn't science if it can't produce testable models is simply
wrong, historically and in contemporary practice. And the reason that
the physical sciences are more able, more often, to produce such
models is not that they are "superior" sciences. It's because the
things they study always behave the same, even if the sameness is some
statistical value. When the singular or collective behavior of human
beings are the subjects, or part of the subjects, that's rarely true.
But those studies are still scientific in every essential meaning of
the word, which is an elaboration on the ancient idea that science is
a systematic investigation to increase the store of knowledge.
Ed Huntress

IIRC in the Ringworld series Larry Niven comments that engineers and lawyers
solve similarly difficult problems, except that an engineer's problems don't
actively evade solution. Then he mostly disproves that statement.

As I think you see now the science I'm familiar with encounters the same
issues as the social sciences when policy makers seek and employ their
advice as the rationale for expensive and nationally significant decisions,
both socially and technically oriented.
http://mitre.org/
I was a lab manager there, not involved in decisions but not ignorant of
them either, and also as an amateur historian I've investigated the
background of air power and military electronics systems development.
Currently I'm researching and debating the tradeoffs of WW2 armored vs
unarmored aircraft carriers in rec.aviation.military.
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-042.htm
Like social issues these required firm timely decisions derived from
incomplete and possibly wrong information plus good intuition. Much of the
"logic" of opposing arguments masks their financial, professional or
electoral self interest.

There is pressure to offer unjustifiably definite advice to avoid
accusations of Analysis Paralysis (see Jimmy Carter). With some exceptions
the physical sciences are more aware of and willing to admit the limited
accuracy of predictions based on statistical methodology. Some good clues we
pick up are numerical values with too many significant digits, or rounded
percentages that add up to exactly 100%.

Political pollsters here report the margin of error as one over the square
root of the sample size without relating it to confidence level, and are
annoyed and suspicious when they are proven wrong.

Ah, having done that research myself in different contexts --
primarily broadcast license-renewal studies and marketing research --
let me toss in an oar here. The researchers, at least the good ones,
know what they're doing. The problem comes in the reporting, primarily
in how the *press* reports the findings. Knowing that the press is
going to munge a report, behavioral-science researchers (which
includes pollsters and marketing researchers) report their findings at
a 95% confidence level unless otherwise stated. There are other
examples of misreporting, primarily in basing statistics on the number
of respondants rather than the sample size, but everyone who's
knowledgable in the field is on the lookout for non-respondant bias
when they look at a poll or marketing report. That's why, when we used
to discuss polls here more than we do now, I'd always link to the
methodology, if it was available, when I cited a poll.

This error is much more common in marketing, where the researchers in
the small agencies that do a lot of that work often have no real
background in statistics. No one else is going to understand the
difference, anyway.

In medicine and pharma research, for which I've spent several years
editing journal articles, there is some flabbiness due to the fact
that they rely on p-values rather than confidence levels. The standard
p-value they use for significance is 0.05. Unless they state
otherwise, that's the cutoff level they use for rejection of the null
hypothesis and determination of "statistical significance." Sometimes
they'll determine significance at 0.01 if they're really proud of
their data, and they'll be sure you know about it if they do. In terms
of what it means, it makes no discernible difference, but it sounds
better.

It's arbitrary, but given the enormous range of cohort sizes in pharma
and medical research (from perhaps a dozen to 100,000), it's the only
thing that makes any sense -- even though it doesn't make a lot of
sense. g

My experience is that many of the current generation of report writers
who write for general public consumption don't know a lot about the
statistics they report. They report the output values from SAS, SPSS,
Stata, or sometimes R that are conventional in that particular field.
There's an entire layer of expert statisticians and researchers who
work up the line from them. (See below.)

Experimental verification
exposes such sloppiness by physical scientists and serves to keep us honest
and careful.

Of course, and, in the life sciences, it's as big a part of the
science as it is in the physical sciences. One drug I was writing
about (rimonabant, trade name in Europe is Acomplia) had over
$100,000,000 invested in experimental research.

In the social sciences, psychology has more success at it than, say,
sociology, but there are models and testing going on in all of them.
It's just a lot more limited part of those sciences, which tend to be
more about observing phenomena and measuring them than testing
hypotheses.


Social scientists can be very certain, smug and arrogant about conclusions
which we plainly see that their data does not adequately support. A common
failing is that while the logic may be internally consistent its underlying
assumptions are at least controversial. Chomsky is a fine example. And that
is the basis for considering them less than real scientists, not the
extensive complexity and uncertainty of their subject though they are
trivial compared to human biochemistry. It's the results that matter, not
the tools used to obtain them.

Well, then, it boils down to matters of perception. Having spent
roughly 30 of the past 35 years interviewing engineers and others
whose work is based on physical science, my perception is that the
physical science side is the more smug and arrogant one. For example,
Clarke's statements. Those are common.


I accidentally took a statistics class meant for social scientists once. The
mathematical rigor fell drastically short of what I expected and needed, but
it was very interesting for the insight into sampling algorithms and the
many intentional and inadvertent ways to bias the results, such as calling
homes during the daytime when only unemployed people will answer.

That must have been a long time ago, and you didn't get very far with
it. Even when I studied it (statistics and behavioral research
methodologies in three different university departments, including
both math and social science), those biases were well-known and the
methodologies either avoid them or develop correction facors based on
additional research.

The
pundits here repeatedly express their amazement at how so many of us can
remain "undecided" right up until we enter the voting booth.

Don't blame the limitations of political polling on all of statistical
behavioral research.

My son, with a degree in economics and currently a grad student in
applied math, who works as an econometrics researcher for a major
think tank, could run both of us under the table on statistics and
methodologies. And the entire policy institute in which he works is
full of comparable young people. They are very, very good at what they
do. And that's where the policy research work is coming from.

How the politicians, the press, and particularly the general public
abuse and misuse the results is our problem.

--
Ed Huntress

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:19:57 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Jan 12, 10:48*am, "Jim Wilkins" wrote:

To go back to the original point I disagreed with, the idea that
something isn't science if it can't produce testable models is simply
wrong, historically and in contemporary practice. And the reason that
the physical sciences are more able, more often, to produce such
models is not that they are "superior" sciences. It's because the
things they study always behave the same, even if the sameness is some
statistical value. When the singular or collective behavior of human
beings are the subjects, or part of the subjects, that's rarely true.
But those studies are still scientific in every essential meaning of
the word, which is an elaboration on the ancient idea that science is
a systematic investigation to increase the store of knowledge.
Ed Huntress


jsw

This exchange reminds me of the story about the old economics graduate
returning to the campus and talking to the economics professor. They
talked about how much the world has changed and how important it was
to know economics. The professor was grading the final exam papers at
the time and showed some to the graduate.
Who exclaimed " Why these are the very same questions that were on my
final exam ". And the professor answered " Well yes those are the
same questions, but we keep changing the answers."

To me the thing that casts doubt on how scientific a subject is is how
good is the repeatability of the theory. If the theory always
explains what happens, then is is science.

Well, there goes Newtonian physics. I guess Newton wasn't a scientist
then, huh?

If things do not repeat
the same way according to the theory, then it really is not science.

Unless your electrons suddenly develop personalities, you're in good
shape. Stick to things that are dead or were never alive, and you
won't have any trouble.

It is history, perhaps with a great theory of why things turned out as
it did. But not a science that can be used to see how things are
going to turn out.

Science is about acquiring knowledge. If it can make predictions,
that's great. But Louis Leakey would be disappointed to hear you say
he doesn't do science, even though he wouldn't venture to predict the
further evolution of the human race.

You're in the instrumentalist tank, Dan. It's good for dead things.

--
Ed Huntress

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:47:20 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:22:19 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

Lemme guess, your degree is in one of the "social sciences".

Nope. It was more like vocational training.

Well, now I know I can safely discount your opinion in the matter.

Right. My degree is as narrow and career-oriented as that of any
engineer. Discount them while you're at it.

--
Ed Huntress

On Jan 12, 2:28*pm, Ed Huntress wrote:


Science is about acquiring knowledge. If it can make predictions,
that's great. But Louis Leakey would be disappointed to hear you say
he doesn't do science, even though he wouldn't venture to predict the
further evolution of the human race.


Ed Huntress

I think Louis Leakey would have been quite happy to be recognized as
having figured out a lot of the history of man.

Dan

In article , huntres23
@optonline.net says...

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:47:20 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:22:19 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

Lemme guess, your degree is in one of the "social sciences".

Nope. It was more like vocational training.

Well, now I know I can safely discount your opinion in the matter.

Right. My degree is as narrow and career-oriented as that of any
engineer. Discount them while you're at it.

Nope, just you.

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:48:10 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...
In the social sciences, psychology has more success at it than, say,
sociology, but there are models and testing going on in all of them.
It's just a lot more limited part of those sciences, which tend to be
more about observing phenomena and measuring them than testing
hypotheses.

As I said, where chemistry was before 1800. Passive observations couldn't
prove or disprove competing incorrect hypotheses like Caloric, Phlogiston or
the AEther. We honor the early scientists for their contributions but their
flawed ideas were discarded after precise experimentation led to the correct
ones. At that time Adam Smith was as (or more) scientifically valid as
Joseph Priestley, IOW chemistry was then where economics is now. We have
seen the maturation process and know the intermediate stages.

My main point is that since they are still at the observational stage and
demonstrably incapable of accurate prediction, social scientists shouldn't
impose their unproven conjectures on us as though they were the laws of
nature.

I accidentally took a statistics class meant for social scientists once.
The
mathematical rigor fell drastically short of what I expected and needed,
but
it was very interesting for the insight into sampling algorithms and the
many intentional and inadvertent ways to bias the results, such as calling
homes during the daytime when only unemployed people will answer.

That must have been a long time ago, and you didn't get very far with
it. Even when I studied it (statistics and behavioral research
methodologies in three different university departments, including
both math and social science), those biases were well-known and the
methodologies either avoid them or develop correction facors based on
additional research.

I aced it effortlessly. This is what was skipped that I needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_thermodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis

jsw

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:58:22 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:47:20 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:22:19 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In article , huntres23
says...

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:52:20 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
...
It's not very helpful to one's understanding of the world of knowledge
to trap oneself in instrumentalist models of science. Historically,
strict insrumentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it reflects a
narrowing, not an expansion, of understanding. And it's only one
aspect of science, which applies particularly to the physical
sciences.
Ed Huntress

Here we have envious 'scientists' who can't produce rigorous and verifiable
mathematical models attempting to downgrade the ones who can.

jsw

Here we have self-important physical scientists, who have excellent
vocational training but not much of what one could call an education,
thinking that science starts and stops at their doorstep.

Lemme guess, your degree is in one of the "social sciences".

Nope. It was more like vocational training.

Well, now I know I can safely discount your opinion in the matter.

Right. My degree is as narrow and career-oriented as that of any
engineer. Discount them while you're at it.

Nope, just you.

So far, you're only proving my point about the narrow and smug
attitude of many instumentalists.

Regarding engineering, this is also the reason I got out of it. There
are few college programs that are narrower or that have less allowance
for electives in fields other than engineering itself and the
peripheral prerequisites and so on. Although the result is a very high
level of vocational training, the education of an engineer depends
mostly on how successful he is at learning things outside of his
college program.

Some do, some don't. The ones who don't tend to see everything through
that filter, and to be very defensive about it.

--
Ed Huntress

--
Ed Huntress

Chemistry before 1800 - easily with the Church -
and with their high priest - Alchemy and early chemistry.

e.g. in May 1653, alchemist William Backhouse entrusts
royalist 'Intelligencer' Elias Ashmole with the true
secret of the Philosopher's Stone. And with that under his
belt, begins a rise in fame and fortune - Becoming the most
knowledgeable man in England, Founder member of
the Royal Society, Windsor Herald, Astrologer to the King,
fosterer of science and inspiration to Isaac Newton (his student).

Known a Magus and preserver of his country.

A good book on this man is ISBN 0954330927

Martin

On 1/12/2012 7:35 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Ed wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:48:10 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...
In the social sciences, psychology has more success at it than, say,
sociology, but there are models and testing going on in all of them.
It's just a lot more limited part of those sciences, which tend to be
more about observing phenomena and measuring them than testing
hypotheses.

As I said, where chemistry was before 1800. Passive observations couldn't
prove or disprove competing incorrect hypotheses like Caloric, Phlogiston or
the AEther. We honor the early scientists for their contributions but their
flawed ideas were discarded after precise experimentation led to the correct
ones. At that time Adam Smith was as (or more) scientifically valid as
Joseph Priestley, IOW chemistry was then where economics is now. We have
seen the maturation process and know the intermediate stages.

My main point is that since they are still at the observational stage and
demonstrably incapable of accurate prediction, social scientists shouldn't
impose their unproven conjectures on us as though they were the laws of
nature.

I accidentally took a statistics class meant for social scientists once.
The
mathematical rigor fell drastically short of what I expected and needed,
but
it was very interesting for the insight into sampling algorithms and the
many intentional and inadvertent ways to bias the results, such as calling
homes during the daytime when only unemployed people will answer.

That must have been a long time ago, and you didn't get very far with
it. Even when I studied it (statistics and behavioral research
methodologies in three different university departments, including
both math and social science), those biases were well-known and the
methodologies either avoid them or develop correction facors based on
additional research.

I aced it effortlessly. This is what was skipped that I needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_thermodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis

jsw

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:35:12 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:48:10 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...
In the social sciences, psychology has more success at it than, say,
sociology, but there are models and testing going on in all of them.
It's just a lot more limited part of those sciences, which tend to be
more about observing phenomena and measuring them than testing
hypotheses.

As I said, where chemistry was before 1800. Passive observations couldn't
prove or disprove competing incorrect hypotheses like Caloric, Phlogiston or
the AEther. We honor the early scientists for their contributions but their
flawed ideas were discarded after precise experimentation led to the correct
ones. At that time Adam Smith was as (or more) scientifically valid as
Joseph Priestley, IOW chemistry was then where economics is now. We have
seen the maturation process and know the intermediate stages.

Ha-ha! There's an instrumentalist for you.

You're engaging in a self-aggrandizing definition, Jim. First you
decide what you do best, then you define that as the best thing there
is to do...then you pat yourself on the back for being the best thing
going. g

As I said to Dan, the physical sciences are very good at dealing with
dead things and things that never lived. Because the things they deal
with are mechanistic and behave according to some relatively simple
natural laws, the whole process of physical science behaves like a
mechanism.

That makes it simpler to conduct an instrumentalist approach. But that
does not justify co-opting the entire field of science, or of applying
a self-congratulatory definition to the relative importance or the
relative quality of the enterprise.


My main point is that since they are still at the observational stage and
demonstrably incapable of accurate prediction, social scientists shouldn't
impose their unproven conjectures on us as though they were the laws of
nature.

I don't know of any social scientist who is in a position to impose
anything. Who are you thinking of?


I accidentally took a statistics class meant for social scientists once.
The
mathematical rigor fell drastically short of what I expected and needed,
but
it was very interesting for the insight into sampling algorithms and the
many intentional and inadvertent ways to bias the results, such as calling
homes during the daytime when only unemployed people will answer.

That must have been a long time ago, and you didn't get very far with
it. Even when I studied it (statistics and behavioral research
methodologies in three different university departments, including
both math and social science), those biases were well-known and the
methodologies either avoid them or develop correction facors based on
additional research.

I aced it effortlessly. This is what was skipped that I needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_thermodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis

jsw

Very good. Regression analysis today is an essential part of
econometrics, and the methods of econometrics, as a couple of us
stated early on in this thread, are being adoopted by several of the
social sciences.

--
Ed Huntress

"Martin Eastburn" wrote in message
...
Chemistry before 1800 - easily with the Church -
and with their high priest - Alchemy and early chemistry.

e.g. in May 1653, alchemist William Backhouse entrusts
royalist 'Intelligencer' Elias Ashmole with the true
secret of the Philosopher's Stone. And with that under his
belt, begins a rise in fame and fortune - Becoming the most
knowledgeable man in England, Founder member of
the Royal Society, Windsor Herald, Astrologer to the King,
fosterer of science and inspiration to Isaac Newton (his student).

Known a Magus and preserver of his country.

A good book on this man is ISBN 0954330927

Martin

http://www.ashmolean.org/

jsw

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:35:12 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...We have
seen the maturation process and know the intermediate stages.

Ha-ha! There's an instrumentalist for you.

Ed Huntress

Don't deprecate what you can't duplicate.

jsw

On Jan 12, 9:23*pm, Ed Huntress wrote:


Regarding engineering, this is also the reason I got out of it. There
are few college programs that are narrower or that have less allowance
for electives in fields other than engineering itself and the
peripheral prerequisites and so on. Although the result is a very high
level of vocational training, the education of an engineer depends
mostly on how successful he is at learning things outside of his
college program.

Some do, some don't. The ones who don't tend to see everything through
that filter, and to be very defensive about it.

--
Ed Huntress


Depends on the college. The college I know the most about, had very
loose requirements on what was required. Although I know one friend
that changed from engineering to physics in order to take a course he
needed to get into med school.


Dan
--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
Regarding engineering, this is also the reason I got out of it. There
are few college programs that are narrower or that have less allowance
for electives in fields other than engineering itself and the
peripheral prerequisites and so on. Although the result is a very high
level of vocational training, the education of an engineer depends
mostly on how successful he is at learning things outside of his
college program.

Some do, some don't. The ones who don't tend to see everything through
that filter, and to be very defensive about it.
Ed Huntress

I have to agree with you here. I took theater classes (conveniently next
door to the Chem building) to satisfy the humanities requirements and
quickly saw that I could learn about small-unit management by running the
set building crew and watching the directors convince tired actors give
their best efforts over and over.

In chemistry, management amounted to giving the researcher a goal and
checking in two weeks later, almost like an artists' colony. The contrast
between chemists' and actors' interests, world views, motivations and work
habits could hardly have been greater.
[Can't find relevant Sir Francis Bacon quote]

Once on a business trip to Detroit we went to supper with the auto engineers
and their wives. One of the wives commented on how unlike her stereotype of
a narrowly focused electrical engineer I was. I'm usually a listener who
doesn't lead people outside their comfort zones and hadn't really noticed.

jsw

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:35:54 -0600, Martin Eastburn
wrote:

Chemistry before 1800 - easily with the Church -
and with their high priest - Alchemy and early chemistry.

e.g. in May 1653, alchemist William Backhouse entrusts
royalist 'Intelligencer' Elias Ashmole with the true
secret of the Philosopher's Stone. And with that under his
belt, begins a rise in fame and fortune - Becoming the most
knowledgeable man in England, Founder member of
the Royal Society, Windsor Herald, Astrologer to the King,
fosterer of science and inspiration to Isaac Newton (his student).

Known a Magus and preserver of his country.

A good book on this man is ISBN 0954330927

Sounds interesting, but...

Amazone: 1 used from $331.75 thud

--
Make awkward sexual advances, not war.

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:01:37 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:35:12 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
...We have
seen the maturation process and know the intermediate stages.

Ha-ha! There's an instrumentalist for you.

Ed Huntress

Don't deprecate what you can't duplicate.

jsw

I'll suggest that works both ways. And when you define what you do as
the thing most worth duplicating, you've feathered yourself a very
comfortable, self-definitional nest.

An extreme example of this whole discussion is what Clarke said, that
if a discipline can't produce falsifiable models, it isn't science.

That's a fairly recent idea -- maybe a century or a century and a half
old -- and it was a case of scientists working in fields in which that
part of the scientific method was producing useful (instrumental)
results decided that was "science."

I'll say it again: Historically, there is no justification for it. The
word "science" means "knowledge." Instrumentalism is an *approach* to
science -- the very instrumentalism that produced that definition.
Scientific realism, in contrast, is focused on knowledge, not on
instrumental processes, and, while it also seeks verifiable models, it
puts knowledge on top, as the ultimate goal. Methodology is a means to
it but the instrumentalists have made it the goal itself.

I will not get into the metaphysical questions of science beyond this:
Instrumentalism attempts to solve the epistemological question of
justification for belief by narrowing it all down to experiment and
falisification. Scientific realism retains a broader understanding of
"knowledge," and allows room for such things as probing into nature
(with microscopes, space probes, statistics, and other tools) to find
out what is there. Instrumentalism doesn't care much about what is
there, right now, in nature. It cares about whether it can predict
what will be there at some time in the future.

It's a great method. But it's only a method. It works great with
brainless dead things and things that never lived. It's less great
with living things, particularly human beings. Given identical
conditions, electrons in the aggregate will do the same thing over and
over. The phenomena stand still. Humans don't. There are layers and
layers of variables, and the science of studying humans in a social
contest is far more difficult as a result.

We should mention that experiments go on all the time in sciences
other than physical sciences. They're limited. They rarely reach
sweeping conclusions, such as the conclusion that electrons are
attracted to a positive charge. Psychology does better experiments and
better predictions than most of the other social sciences.
Econometrics has the best tools, which are being applied fiercely to a
host of questions as we speak. They are still limited in producing
broad generalizations. There are very few of them because experimental
conditions can only occassionally be controlled.

With all due respect to the engineering mind -- and I do have great
respect for it -- Clarke's comments reveal how that mindset, and the
mindset of many physical scientists as well, deals with the question.
They simply dismiss anything that doesn't fit into their definition
and their model of how science works. Their method defines, for them,
what is worth knowing. It's the extreme example of the
instrumentalist's approach to knowledge in general.

I reject it, and I have good reason for doing so. As Stephen J. Gould
put it, they're dealing with different "magisteria" while defining and
evaluating other scientific activity (other magisteria) through their
own, monochromatic filter. It's narrow-minded, ahistorical, and it
ignores what is essentially different about studying the science of
human beings versus the science of charged particles, for example.
It's what happens when you don't take enough out-of-field electives in
college. d8-)

I'll go off on a tnagent here, with apologies for self-indulgence,
because it will give you a sense of where I'm coming from with this
issue. Of all the things I've ever studied, the most important to me
is the history of ideas, or, "How in the hell did we wind up HERE?"
g I came to it suddenly one day in 1969, when I was sitting in my
academic advisor's office and he embarrassed me more thoroughly than
any embarrassment I had ever suffered. He had a classical education
and I had a typical public-school and land-grant university education.
His father was a renowned professor of epistemology and he had degrees
from Oxford and Princeton. In just a few words, he made me realize
that I didn't understand anything important because I didn't know
where our ideas come from. Everything I had learned was the result of
walking into the middle of a conversation. And it left me ignorant and
incapable of putting anything, from politics to mathematics, into
perspective.

It turned my life around. I read Isaiah Berlin, Michel Foucault,
Aristotle... I picked up old classic books at random and read until I
decided if there was anything worth reading further. I went through
half of the Harvard Classics series. This went on for roughly 25
years.

And that's where I am -- a little dilettantish, but always looking for
the big picture and the historical context. That puts me at the
opposite end of the telescope from many of the people I've worked with
over the years, in engineering-related fields, and with a five-year
stint involved with medical writing and editing.

The irony is that I respect, and even envy in some ways, those people
who have been so focused and have acquired deep understaning of their
subjects. But I look at how they think and I'm glad to be a bit of a
dilettante. I think that this instrumentalist approach to science that
is so common today is almost comically narrow and misguided, however
many great things it has produced. It's a magnificent tool. It is also
fairly mindless. It is not all of science. It isn't even the best
part, if your highest value is knowledge.

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:56:16 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
Regarding engineering, this is also the reason I got out of it. There
are few college programs that are narrower or that have less allowance
for electives in fields other than engineering itself and the
peripheral prerequisites and so on. Although the result is a very high
level of vocational training, the education of an engineer depends
mostly on how successful he is at learning things outside of his
college program.

Some do, some don't. The ones who don't tend to see everything through
that filter, and to be very defensive about it.
Ed Huntress

I have to agree with you here. I took theater classes (conveniently next
door to the Chem building) to satisfy the humanities requirements and
quickly saw that I could learn about small-unit management by running the
set building crew and watching the directors convince tired actors give
their best efforts over and over.

In chemistry, management amounted to giving the researcher a goal and
checking in two weeks later, almost like an artists' colony. The contrast
between chemists' and actors' interests, world views, motivations and work
habits could hardly have been greater.
[Can't find relevant Sir Francis Bacon quote]

Once on a business trip to Detroit we went to supper with the auto engineers
and their wives. One of the wives commented on how unlike her stereotype of
a narrowly focused electrical engineer I was. I'm usually a listener who
doesn't lead people outside their comfort zones and hadn't really noticed.

Ha-ha! I wonder if that engineer's wife thought that *mechanical*
engineers were models of the Renaissance man. g

--
Ed Huntress