What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[CrossofChrist]

Now I have this sneaky suspicion that you would like to redefine the concepts. I think that you would like to redefine the “naturalist” to mean something else - namely that nature is the only thing that exists.

Naturalism: the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. – Oxford English Dictionary

 

[Shaolen]

Naturalism: the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. – Oxford English Dictionary

Thank you! I’d love to see this thread get out of the word/terms game its in and get back on track

 

[Shaolen]

Again, you are free to simply prove me wrong by giving substantial answers to the posts that I cited. There is nothing to prevent you from doing so, no?

So he never did respond to those did he? I guess that was one of the big ones I would mention. A limitation of scientific method is it cant answer where objective morality comes from.

 

[Al_Moritz]

No, my friend, if you wish to be taken seriously, you need to give substantial evidence that there is a God, and moreover, that this God is something like the one depicted in the bible, with all the horrors of the old testament.

No, my friend, if you wish to be taken seriously, you need to avoid this kind of posts. This must be one of the most miserable weazel-out attempts ever committed.

Now I have this sneaky suspicion that you would like to redefine the concepts. I think that you would like to redefine the “naturalist” to mean something else - namely that nature is the only thing that exists. I am afraid I cannot allow you to do that - unless you will redefine “theist” to mean that God is the only thing that exists. Have to play fair, right?

Ouch. Redefining, really?

Naturalism: the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. – Oxford English Dictionary

Thank you.

That’s more like it.

 

[Al_Moritz]

So he never did respond to those did he? I guess that was one of the big ones I would mention. A limitation of scientific method is it cant answer where objective morality comes from.

No, he didn’t. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it.

I found post # 497 particularly damning. At least he could have answered that one.

 

[Al_Moritz]

No, my friend, if you wish to be taken seriously, you need to give substantial evidence that there is a God, and moreover, that this God is something like the one depicted in the bible, with all the horrors of the old testament.

No, my friend, if you wish to be taken seriously, you need to avoid this kind of posts. This whole post must be one of the most miserable weazel-out attempts ever committed.

Now I have this sneaky suspicion that you would like to redefine the concepts. I think that you would like to redefine the “naturalist” to mean something else - namely that nature is the only thing that exists. I am afraid I cannot allow you to do that - unless you will redefine “theist” to mean that God is the only thing that exists. Have to play fair, right?

Ouch. Redefining, really?

Naturalism: the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. – Oxford English Dictionary

Thank you.

That’s more like it.

 

[Al_Moritz]

So he never did respond to those did he? I guess that was one of the big ones I would mention. A limitation of scientific method is it cant answer where objective morality comes from.

No, he didn’t. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it.

I found post # 497 particularly damning. At least he could have answered that one.

 

[Al_Moritz]

O.k., Hee Zen, I have re-read your post #695 and understand now better what you try to get at.

Nonetheless, I stand by my prior assessment:
This whole post must be one of the most miserable weazel-out attempts ever committed.

 

[Latias]

Please explain what do you mean by this phrase? What does it entail, and how is it different from some “other” methods? What are the precise steps one must take to find out if a proposition about the external reality is true or not? What are its alleged limitation?

Please be specific. Thank you.

For a thread that is about the scientific method, I found it surprising that “Feyerabend” and only a few mentions of “falsification” or “falsifiability”. Or “instrumentalism” or “antirealism” Regarding Feyerabend, I do not like any philosophy of science that can be used to endorse the view that astrology is a legitimate scientific discipline (in contemporary times) or that the term “scientific” cannot denote anything substantial about a body of knowledge.

Isn’t the OP begging the question when he/she asks about finding out what is true about external reality? It assumes scientific realism, which, admitted, is the common sense position. However, there are other viable epistemological alternatives to scientific realism, such as scientific instrumentalism, which I avidly subscribe to. There does not seem to be any necessary reason why “successful” scientific theories/hypotheses must refer to ontologically real entities, nor do I believe that science must make ontological claims.

Also, I am not sympathetic to the idea that “falsifiability” for a specific body of knowledge to be considered “scientific” or that "falsifiability’ is the distinguishing quality of science.
One major reason is the difficulty of identifying what precisely has been “falsified” if a particular test has not yielded the predicted result. (This is just a manifestation of the Duhem-Quine thesis.) If one says that “our current scientific knowledge is incorrect or incomplete” when an experiment does not give the expected result, then it is trivial to say that a given hypothesis or body of knowledge has been “falsified” because one’s cannot every completely understand a phenomenon. If one makes predictions and formulate hypotheses based on one’s understanding of a scientific theory and phenomenon, then it is inevitable that some experiments testing these predictions will deviate from the predicted result. Roughly, I think a scientific body of knowledge or hypothesis must be potentially* and feasibly be subjected to rigorous and systemic empirical testing, instead of just being conceptually fecund (as there are many papers published on string theory), consistent, or elegant. “String theory” can accommodate many parameters and experimental results, and can be easily reformulated to fit any experimental result.

• “potentially” is tricky, since it may be possible but not practical to test certain hypothesis. String theory, for instance, may be clear predictions or at least allow one to distinguish between a precise version of string theory, if one can run experiments using a particle accelerator that can go reach the grand unification scale, which is many magnitudes too high for the Large Hadron Collider. But this seems to be a physical limitation of testing string theory. Would financial or ethical limitations prevent certain hypotheses from being “scientific”.

Due to the religious nature of this forum, pretty much most of the discussion has focused on naturalism (as opposed to supernaturalism). (Come on, there is more to the philosophy of science than issues directly related to theology!) This is difficulty to address with brevity because “naturalism” or a “natural process” must first be rigorously defined. A quick and dirty aspect (and not the only facet) of naturalism is that its entities and processes must be restricted and limited in some way. For example, in particle physics, nothing cannot be faster than the speed of light; fermions cannot occupy the same quantum state, and free energy is conserved. This aspect of naturalism imposes some limitations of what can possibly happen within a theoretical framework and the behavior of theoretical entities and the phenomenon that is subsumed by the theoretical framework. Importantly, this would almost always exclude “supernatural” entities, particularly, the deities of monotheistic religions as those religions often emphasize the ineffability and mystery of God and that God is not constrained by anything.

The success of scientific theories that (perhaps by definition) only purport the existence of “natural” theoretical entities that have certain properties and limitations would support the position that these entities only exist and that only natural processes mediated by these theoretical entities are all there are to any phenomenon. It is an ontological view supported by the apparent success of science, but it does not exclude supernaturalism.

 

[tonyrey]

For a thread that is about the scientific method, I found it surprising that “Feyerabend” and only a few mentions of “falsification” or “falsifiability”. Or “instrumentalism” or “antirealism” Regarding Feyerabend, I do not like any philosophy of science that can be used to endorse the view that astrology is a legitimate scientific discipline (in contemporary times) or that the term “scientific” cannot denote anything substantial about a body of knowledge.

Isn’t the OP begging the question when he/she asks about finding out what is true about external reality? It assumes scientific realism, which, admitted, is the common sense position. However, there are other viable epistemological alternatives to scientific realism, such as scientific instrumentalism, which I avidly subscribe to. There does not seem to be any necessary reason why “successful” scientific theories/hypotheses must refer to ontologically real entities, nor do I believe that science must make ontological claims.

Also, I am not sympathetic to the idea that “falsifiability” for a specific body of knowledge to be considered “scientific” or that "falsifiability’ is the distinguishing quality of science.
One major reason is the difficulty of identifying what precisely has been “falsified” if a particular test has not yielded the predicted result. (This is just a manifestation of the Duhem-Quine thesis.) If one says that “our current scientific knowledge is incorrect or incomplete” when an experiment does not give the expected result, then it is trivial to say that a given hypothesis or body of knowledge has been “falsified” because one’s cannot every completely understand a phenomenon. If one makes predictions and formulate hypotheses based on one’s understanding of a scientific theory and phenomenon, then it is inevitable that some experiments testing these predictions will deviate from the predicted result. Roughly, I think a scientific body of knowledge or hypothesis must be potentially* and feasibly be subjected to rigorous and systemic empirical testing, instead of just being conceptually fecund (as there are many papers published on string theory), consistent, or elegant. “String theory” can accommodate many parameters and experimental results, and can be easily reformulated to fit any experimental result.

• “potentially” is tricky, since it may be possible but not practical to test certain hypothesis. String theory, for instance, may be clear predictions or at least allow one to distinguish between a precise version of string theory, if one can run experiments using a particle accelerator that can go reach the grand unification scale, which is many magnitudes too high for the Large Hadron Collider. But this seems to be a physical limitation of testing string theory. Would financial or ethical limitations prevent certain hypotheses from being “scientific”.

Due to the religious nature of this forum, pretty much most of the discussion has focused on naturalism (as opposed to supernaturalism). (Come on, there is more to the philosophy of science than issues directly related to theology!) This is difficulty to address with brevity because “naturalism” or a “natural process” must first be rigorously defined. A quick and dirty aspect (and not the only facet) of naturalism is that its entities and processes must be restricted and limited in some way. For example, in particle physics, nothing cannot be faster than the speed of light; fermions cannot occupy the same quantum state, and free energy is conserved. This aspect of naturalism imposes some limitations of what can possibly happen within a theoretical framework and the behavior of theoretical entities and the phenomenon that is subsumed by the theoretical framework. Importantly, this would almost always exclude “supernatural” entities, particularly, the deities of monotheistic religions as those religions often emphasize the ineffability and mystery of God and that God is not constrained by anything.

The success of scientific theories that (perhaps by definition) only purport the existence of “natural” theoretical entities that have certain properties and limitations would support the position that these entities only exist and that only natural processes mediated by these theoretical entities are all there are to any phenomenon. It is an ontological view supported by the apparent success of science, but it does not exclude supernaturalism.

It’s very refreshing to read a post in which the top of the box is removed and the limitations of the prevailing scientific concept of reality are clearly exposed. It is significant that “nature” has never been defined.

What exactly does “natural” mean? Is it limited to what science investigates? Are scientists natural objects? Can they - or are they attempting to - explain themselves down to the last detail ? Is that the ultimate goal of the scientific method?

 

[Hee_Zen]

Naturalism: the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. – Oxford English Dictionary

Sure. As such it is not the **opposite **of theism. Which is:
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures. - Oxford English Dictionary.
The logical negation of theism is not naturalism and vice-versa. They are “sort of” opposites, but not as an “A” vs. “~A”.

O.k., Hee Zen, I have re-read your post #695 and understand now better what you try to get at.

I wonder if you did. Theism is the belief that a god, or some gods exist. The rest is all fluff. Even if there is a god, it does not follow that “natural” events do not exist.

Nonetheless, I stand by my prior assessment:
This whole post must be one of the most miserable weazel-out attempts ever committed.

Empty insults are not arguments. At the very least you should have pointed out “what it tries to weasel out from”. I could (but I will not) respond that YOUR post is “one of the most miserable weasel-out attempts ever committed - to avoid a meaningful answer”. It is very common around here to use “one-liner rebuttals”. But, as I said, I will not, because I do not wish lower my standards to the level of those opponents.

Of course the first part was not to be taken **completely **seriously. Now, using the **real **definition of naturalism, there are still problems for the “antagonists”. The most fundamental one is the demand that one should show - in a logical fashion - that there is no “stupidnatural”. (Yes, the pun was intended, as a courtesy to give you further excuse to “play” upset and avoid response.) Those, who make such demands conveniently “forget” that “formal proofs” can only happen in axiomatic systems. Naturalists cannot “prove” that there is no god or gods - without having a concise and precise definition of “god”. And no, to say that God is the creator of the universe, who intervenes in it and maintains a personal relationship with his creatures - is NOT a definition. It describes what this God allegedly did or does, but it does not describe what this God actually IS. I keep asking to enumerate the attributes of God, along with a description of what those attributes are - but so far, no response.

Naturalism does not make such a strong claim. It simply says that there is no need for pointing toward something “beyond” nature. Naturalism cannot be “proven”, because there is no way to prove a universal negative. It can be substantiated, however, and every successful scientific theory adds another “brick” to the foundation. The realm for the God-of-the-gaps is constantly shrinking.

Now, on the other hand, the proponents of the “supernatural” are in an enviable position. All they need to do to prove their stance is to “grab” their respective deity god by “the scuff of the neck” and present them for consideration. That never happens, even when their alleged god can “don” a “temporal suit”, is able to manifest itself in a physical form and prove once and for all that it exists. At the same time it can give precise and unmistakable instructions of what he expects from us, what are we supposed to do to “please it”, and what we must avoid to do if we do not want to “upset it”. The miserable weasel-out attempts from this “proving process” are almost endless.

So you had better get off from your “high horse” and stop throwing your bricks at me, since you live in glass house. Finally, I would be pleasantly surprised if I received a detailed answer to this post. But I do not count on it.

 

[Gorgias]

Empty insults are not arguments. … It is very common around here to use “one-liner rebuttals”. But, as I said, I will not, because I do not wish lower my standards to the level of those opponents.

Hee_Zen:

Gorgias:

Right: so, ‘belief system’, then.

Just like baldness is a hairstyle. Which part of “lack” don’t you understand?

Nope! Not you. No, sir! That’s a level that you just don’t stoop to, ever!

 

[Shaolen]

Sure. As such it is not the **opposite **of theism. Which is:
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures. - Oxford English Dictionary.
The logical negation of theism is not naturalism and vice-versa. They are “sort of” opposites, but not as an “A” vs. “~A”.

I wonder if you did. Theism is the belief that a god, or some gods exist. The rest is all fluff. Even if there is a god, it does not follow that “natural” events do not exist.

Empty insults are not arguments. At the very least you should have pointed out “what it tries to weasel out from”. I could (but I will not) respond that YOUR post is “one of the most miserable weasel-out attempts ever committed - to avoid a meaningful answer”. It is very common around here to use “one-liner rebuttals”. But, as I said, I will not, because I do not wish lower my standards to the level of those opponents.

Of course the first part was not to be taken **completely **seriously. Now, using the **real **definition of naturalism, there are still problems for the “antagonists”. The most fundamental one is the demand that one should show - in a logical fashion - that there is no “stupidnatural”. (Yes, the pun was intended, as a courtesy to give you further excuse to “play” upset and avoid response.) Those, who make such demands conveniently “forget” that “formal proofs” can only happen in axiomatic systems. Naturalists cannot “prove” that there is no god or gods - without having a concise and precise definition of “god”. And no, to say that God is the creator of the universe, who intervenes in it and maintains a personal relationship with his creatures - is NOT a definition. It describes what this God allegedly did or does, but it does not describe what this God actually IS. I keep asking to enumerate the attributes of God, along with a description of what those attributes are - but so far, no response.

Naturalism does not make such a strong claim. It simply says that there is no need for pointing toward something “beyond” nature. Naturalism cannot be “proven”, because there is no way to prove a universal negative. It can be substantiated, however, and every successful scientific theory adds another “brick” to the foundation. The realm for the God-of-the-gaps is constantly shrinking.

Now, on the other hand, the proponents of the “supernatural” are in an enviable position. All they need to do to prove their stance is to “grab” their respective deity god by “the scuff of the neck” and present them for consideration. That never happens, even when their alleged god can “don” a “temporal suit”, is able to manifest itself in a physical form and prove once and for all that it exists. At the same time it can give precise and unmistakable instructions of what he expects from us, what are we supposed to do to “please it”, and what we must avoid to do if we do not want to “upset it”. The miserable weasel-out attempts from this “proving process” are almost endless.

So you had better get off from your “high horse” and stop throwing your bricks at me, since you live in glass house. Finally, I would be pleasantly surprised if I received a detailed answer to this post. But I do not count on it.

Who claimed that natural events don’t exist? I don’t know any theist that would say natural events don’t exist.

I’m sure this thread has to have at some point covered that God isn’t of the material universe so we can’t just “grab him by the scuff of the neck”.

This thread is too long for me to search if you gave an answer to this already so forgive me but Hee_Zen how do you explain there being something rather than nothing? And I don’t mean something appearing from a low energy field or a quantum potential, but literally nothing. You mentioned the big bang starting from the singularity and then changing but the singularity doesn’t explain itself so must be contingent on something else and what caused it to change in the first place?

 

[Shaolen]

Also how do you explain objective moral truths?

 

[Hee_Zen]

Isn’t the OP begging the question when he/she asks about finding out what is true about external reality?

What “begging”? (for clarification: it is a he…) There are only two possible approaches. Either one subscribes to the idea that there is an external, objective reality “out there”, or not. The second one is solipsism, which cannot be held in a rational fashion. As soon as the solipsist opens his mouth to say something or to eat something, he refutes the idea that there is nothing “outside” his mind. As such solipsism can be discarded.

When one accepts the existence of the external reality, then the question arises: “what is the nature of this reality” (metaphysics)? And how do we find out about it (epistemology)? The first step is empiricism. We use our senses (and their extensions) and gain information about the external world. The next question **might be **- and some philosophers actually present it as if it were a valid question: “how do we know if our senses give an accurate picture of the reality”? Of course this is a nonsensical question. What instrument would the philosopher use to validate the information from the senses - if not the senses themselves? The “assumption” of the validity of the senses (the raw data provided by them) must be accepted as a basic, unquestionable principle. (The evaluation or interpretation of the raw data is a different matter, of course.)

When we deal with propositions (of any kind) the number one question is: “does the proposition evaluate to true, or not?”. The answer is contingent upon the nature of the proposition. Some propositions evaluate to true, others evaluate to false, some cannot be decided, some might even be totally nonsensical.

As for the “true” nature of reality, the answer is simple: whatever we perceive is the “true” nature. Of course the proponents of the “Matrix” and such will object. But they don’t have a leg to stand on. If it is impossible to find out if we actually live in the Matrix, or we are simply a figment of some god’s imagination, or we are simply “vats” in a crazy scientist’s lab - it does not matter. It would be crazy to ask questions to which there can be no answer.

It assumes scientific realism, which, admitted, is the common sense position. However, there are other viable epistemological alternatives to scientific realism, such as scientific instrumentalism, which I avidly subscribe to.

So how does one decide if a proposition is true or not on the basis of “instrumentalism”? As I said in the OP, please be specific.

Also, I am not sympathetic to the idea that “falsifiability” for a specific body of knowledge to be considered “scientific” or that "falsifiability’ is the distinguishing quality of science.

The same question is presented. How do you decide if a proposition evaluates to true or not?

One major reason is the difficulty of identifying what precisely has been “falsified” if a particular test has not yielded the predicted result. (This is just a manifestation of the Duhem-Quine thesis.) If one says that “our current scientific knowledge is incorrect or incomplete” when an experiment does not give the expected result, then it is trivial to say that a given hypothesis or body of knowledge has been “falsified” because one’s cannot every completely understand a phenomenon.

I think you have a typo here. The last sentence should read: “because one cannot ever completely understand a phenomenon”. If this correction stands, then you lost me. What does “complete understanding” mean? As long as one has enough information to make predictions and/or use the information as a constructor, we have sufficient understanding. And how do you find out if your “understanding” is sufficient or not? Yep, by making a prediction and attempt to verify / falsify it. What else is there?

Importantly, this would almost always exclude “supernatural” entities, particularly, the deities of monotheistic religions as those religions often emphasize the ineffability and mystery of God and that God is not constrained by anything.

No, actually it does not. IF the proponents of these “supernaturals” would assert that the physical world is totally and completely separated from the supernatural one, if they would contend that there is not and cannot be any interaction between the two realms, THEN it would exclude the discovery of the existence of the supernatural. But in this case, who would care? However, the proponents do contend the opposite. They contend that there is an ongoing relationship between the realms. As such it places the “supernatural” into a position where it can be examined by natural means. Too bad for the supernatural that every experiment comes back with a “not found!” result.

The success of scientific theories that (perhaps by definition) only purport the existence of “natural” theoretical entities that have certain properties and limitations would support the position that these entities only exist and that only natural processes mediated by these theoretical entities are all there are to any phenomenon. It is an ontological view supported by the apparent success of science, but it does not exclude supernaturalism.

Indeed, it does not logically exclude it. It merely makes the supernatural assumption useless and superfluous.

But, be as it may, thank you for your actual response. Too bad that I had to wait 40-some pages to get it.

 

[Bahman]

Who claimed that natural events don’t exist? I don’t know any theist that would say natural events don’t exist.

I’m sure this thread has to have at some point covered that God isn’t of the material universe so we can’t just “grab him by the scuff of the neck”.

This thread is too long for me to search if you gave an answer to this already so forgive me but Hee_Zen how do you explain there being something rather than nothing? And I don’t mean something appearing from a low energy field or a quantum potential, but literally nothing. You mentioned the big bang starting from the singularity and then changing but the singularity doesn’t explain itself so must be contingent on something else and what caused it to change in the first place?

There is no real singularity. What appear as a singularity is the result of being cognitively closed to subject matter. This doesn’t only appear in science but theology as well. Consider the case of one eternal act that manifest itself into creation and many diverse acts and forms.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Nope! Not you. No, sir! That’s a level that you just don’t stoop to, ever!

Criticism accepted. If you would make a statistical analysis of my posts, you would see that such dismissals are very rare, and they only happen when - eventually - I get frustrated.

 

[Shaolen]

There is no real singularity. What appear as a singularity is the result of being cognitively closed to subject matter. This doesn’t only appear in science but theology as well. Consider the case of one eternal act that manifest itself into creation and many diverse acts and forms.

Forgive me for I may not be on the same level as most people on this thread. Could you explain this in more laymen terms for me?

 

[Gorgias]

such dismissals… only happen when - eventually - I get frustrated.

Me too. It’s all good.

 

[Shaolen]

Criticism accepted. If you would make a statistical analysis of my posts, you would see that such dismissals are very rare, and they only happen when - eventually - I get frustrated.

I think any discussion that lasts this long where parties don’t come to mutual understanding or agreement will end up with frustration and insults. This happens to me and my Baptist brother whenever we get into discussions. No matter how hard I try to be charitable it ends with name calling and insults.