What is Science?

[maddog]

Originally Posted by SidewalkCynic

Logic is compromised in secular society.

A profound statement. Care to back that statement up with evidence or examples of
where a secular society has been compromised by "Logic" ???

Originally Posted by SidewalkCynic

And these are "renderings" of how Dewey, or the gaurdians of the DDC, and I "view" how knowledge is arranged in society for recognizing how to access the information/technology sought (map, taxonomy).

Why do you mention those numbers which are no longer used (?)

...
510 Mathematics

511 General principles
512 Algebra & number theory
513 Arithmetic
514 Topology
515 Analysis
516 Geometry
517 Not assigned or no longer used
518 Not assigned or no longer used
519 Probabilities & applied mathematic

Where is the fields of

Logic, Calculus (I suppose this could be in Analysis), ... ?

520 Astronomy & allied sciences

521 Celestial mechanics
522 Techniques, equipment, materials
523 Specific celestial bodies & phenomena
524 Not assigned or no longer used
525 Earth (Astronomical geography)
526 Mathematical geography
527 Celestial navigation
528 Ephemerides
529 Chronology

Where is Stellar or Galactic Astronomy (Astrophysics), or Cosmology ?

530 Physics

531 Classical mechanics Solid mechanics
532 Fluid mechanics Liquid mechanics
533 Gas mechanics
534 Sound & related vibrations
535 Light & paraphotic phenomena
536 Heat
537 Electricity & electronics
538 Magnetism
539 Modern physics

Where are Maxwell's Equations within 537 or 538 ? Where is Special Relativity, and
General Relativity ???

Originally Posted by SidewalkCynic

Do you see this as having an order that is easily recognizable, or do you begin to see a better pattern if we clean it up, and not confine ourselves to a base-ten classification system?

Yeah, I see a better one. One that is used in major libraries at Universities around the
world -- Library Of Congress System. I grant you it's numbering system may seem
wacky. It does make more sense to relegate all of Mathematics to QA1 - QA999 than to fit within 510-519 !!! The same goes for QB1 - QB999 for Astronomy, and
QC1 - QC999 for Physics (some of the later Physics journals went beyond 3-digits). The
DDC (Dewey Decimal Systems) works fine for High School Libraries and maybe some small
Community Colleges. When you have over 10,000 books on a single subject, this is Not
going to fit with 10 points. Not without being even more confusing.
I should know. I learned the LOC system while shelving books a the university Library
(both main and Math/Physics) while attending there. I got to do a lot of reading while
shelving books, journals and papers.

Originally Posted by SidewalkCynic

As you may have noticed, mathematics and philosophy of science are not contained in my rendition of Naturology, but then I have not revealed the entire system because of intellectual property concerns. Besides, it is in everyones best interest, if someone else can make the claim that they thought independently and reconized some errors in the DDC; otherwise I, your humble idiot, is the avant gourde - you don't want that - I'm homeless, and don't understand science like a scientist does.

My sympathies as to being homeless. If you want MHO, were I to use the DDC, I would
use 5-significant digits 00000, not 3 or 4 (maybe even 6).

This whole thread is quite simple. What is Science ?
It is the application of the Scientific Method as first laid down by Sir Francis Bacon
(in it's entirety -- though even he stands on the shoulders of others)
There is a desire to corroborate or identify something. The steps are as follows:
1) Form a hypothesis.
2) Gather evidence to form a theory.
3) Lay out the theory.
4) Run experiments, calculate results.
5) Write down your theory.
6) Publish.
7) Defend your theory amongst your peers.
8) Based upon criticism go back to an earlier step or think up a new Hypothesis...

Science is the application of this. Most of the other posts have said this in some form or
fashion. Not that difficult.

maddog

[alexander]

Originally Posted by sidewalk

Besides the library, people can use my system to organize their computer documents storage systems based on the system of their choosing - most likely their local library's system would be used.

I take it you are not a comp-sci person... well, those things you are describing are called file systems, they are pretty complex pieces of code that organize files on the hard drive, and they have structures that are far beyond your currently shown grasp of that concept... there are unequaly ballanced trees, hashes, and a ton of things you shouldn't concern yourself with, just that they are massively complex systems.

expecting me to convey all my work and analysis to you over a very limited publication network of an Internet forum discussion

Well, that would be nice of you... oh you don't want to do this, well then how about a wiki page? millions of visitors every day, get your name to be known, prove you are not BSing, fill in the blanks and prove your point... kills what 3 birds with one publication... and you can do it now, if your patent paper work is in (as you seem to imply), and the office accepted your claim, you are already protected by the patent laws, now arent you...

[alexander]

Science is the application of this. Most of the other posts have said this in some form or
fashion. Not that difficult.

but its not a verb, i have been saying this over and over again, its the result that you get after application of the scientific method to study a subject matter, thus the data... this could be the formula or the result of the plugging in 2 numbers into it, it's not the search for the formula, that would be scientific research... Oh i know more people are going to have a problem with this definition and this statement, so to put it plainly, science consists of nouns...

[Mercedes Benzene]

Originally Posted by maddog

Yeah, I see a better one. One that is used in major libraries at Universities around the
world -- Library Of Congress System. I grant you it's numbering system may seem
wacky. It does make more sense to relegate all of Mathematics to QA1 - QA999 than to fit within 510-519 !!! The same goes for QB1 - QB999 for Astronomy, and
QC1 - QC999 for Physics (some of the later Physics journals went beyond 3-digits).

Yup. I was there the other day. I put in a request for call number QP517.P45 D96 2005. I got it in about 20 minutes. Not bad turnaround for a collection of 140,000,000 items, with 10,000 books added daily, if you ask me.
That should at least give some perspective as to this system's effectiveness.

[SidewalkCynic]

Originally Posted by maddog

A profound statement. Care to back that statement up with evidence or examples of where a secular society has been compromised by "Logic" ???

The current state of the United States is an example of society suffering the ill effects of integrating and ultimately compromising logic systems, and the symptoms are that people make the claim that, "...things are messed up." Although they cannot specifically define the problem, because it is very complex, and compounded, over the course of several centuries of misguided political, and of course, church driven ideologies to maintain their respective organizations' ability to control the course of events (power).

My theory is that the USA was founded on the concept of allowing people the opportunity to organize states (governments) under the auspices of peaceful conditions that a union of states can provide with a strong military defense mechanizism. Up until the founding of the USA it appears that nations were founded by authoritarian, and otherwise military occupation of colonies.

Now, the Founders of the USA could not explicitly define that the states were to be founded on strict philosophical systems (logic, morality, etc), because that would lead to problems of explaining it to the people who were not as well educated as the Founders, and the Founders were hardly as sophisticated as we are now, and so it is difficult to be certain if they recognized the consequences of secular society as we can. Certainly, their anticipation was that reason would win the day.

So, as the years have gone by, and states have joined the union, they have all essentially contributed to the ever expanding integration of various logic and morality systems (religions), and we are where we are - kids are shooting-up their schools because they are unhappy, others are shooting-up their work places, or shopping malls; the popularly elected President has to be gaurded by a secret service. Those are examples of chaos, not tranquility, which is the balance of chaos and order.

So, my theory is that a better information classification system will lead to people developing a better sense of logical inference, and recognizing that some premises, such as theism and atheism, or free will and determinism, are too opposed to be able to correctly progress without segregating them.

Originally Posted by maddog

Why do you mention those numbers which are no longer used (?)

Please, if they were not indicated, you would ask what happened to them. All I did was copy and paste off the Internet - I'm not going to go through and remove them, because I want to be sure I account for them.

[SidewalkCynic]

Originally Posted by alexander

I take it you are not a comp-sci person... well, those things you are describing are called file systems, they are pretty complex pieces of code that organize files on the hard drive, and they have structures that are far beyond your currently shown grasp of that concept... there are unequaly ballanced trees, hashes, and a ton of things you shouldn't concern yourself with, just that they are massively complex systems.

I'm talking about the personal documents (My Documents), or if you are on Linux, the Home folder, but it doesn't really work perfectly because the home folder stores a bunch of application customization which would go in a category that is buried in the classification system, but it's not that big a deal, because I am on Ubuntu and so I store all my documents on the Desktop and when ready I file them into my classification system on a USB partitioned for each domain. It's excellent.

Originally Posted by alexander

Well, that would be nice of you... oh you don't want to do this, well then how about a wiki page? millions of visitors every day, get your name to be known, prove you are not BSing, fill in the blanks and prove your point... kills what 3 birds with one publication... and you can do it now, if your patent paper work is in (as you seem to imply), and the office accepted your claim, you are already protected by the patent laws, now arent you...

I'm probably going to do that, but I have no way to put money on my PayPal. And, I am holding off on my application for a patent because I have not finnished the essays for the book and this allows me the opportunity/time to check the stability of deep categories - which are difficult to stabilize because they are so specific and my understanding of them can be limited. And the defining of science is one of those loose ends, but I'm sure I've located it's category, and it is not a primary domain as Dewey and the Library of Congress make it - that's for sure - I gaurantee it - you can take it to the bank.

And it is on you, scientists, for allowing such to perpetuate and contribute to the delinquency of society.

[freeztar]

As much as I'd like to address your last sentence, this whole thread has careened off topic.

Let's please keep this thread on topic. If you'd like to discuss something other than "what is science" then do so in another thread.

[Jway]

Originally Posted by maddog

This whole thread is quite simple. What is Science ?
It is the application of the Scientific Method as first laid down by Sir Francis Bacon
(in it's entirety -- though even he stands on the shoulders of others)
There is a desire to corroborate or identify something. The steps are as follows:
1) Form a hypothesis.
2) Gather evidence to form a theory.
3) Lay out the theory.
4) Run experiments, calculate results.
5) Write down your theory.
6) Publish.
7) Defend your theory amongst your peers.
8) Based upon criticism go back to an earlier step or think up a new Hypothesis...

Science is the application of this. Most of the other posts have said this in some form or
fashion. Not that difficult.

If this is science, which I don't really disagree with, I would just note it is the restricted view according to myself and Wikipedia.

At any rate, I am one who thinks, strongly, that technique and practice is, in many human endeavors, the application of science and even method. IMO, after a theory has been: published and tested to see that it works, and is accepted with much consensus, then further application of the theory may not look like experimentation, but I believe astute humans are approaching it with that in mind. They (or we) are open to the further development of the theory, and if something were to pop up on the radar, it would then go back and be fed through the prescribed methodology.

An example that comes to my mind on this is what occurs each (I would say every) time I visit the doctor. IMO, he/she isn't doing methodology, or if he/she it, it seems very shortened and steps are being skipped. I realize this may be where you say methodology is for research, but I think one can follow the integrity of that research, and thus methods, while doing the more important parts AFTER theory has been validated, which is applying the experimental information in a way that facilitates understand and streamlines process(es).

So application after publishing / sharing of results is, as I see it, further validating (or invalidating) the theory, and can (often does) lead to more hypotheses and thus expands human understanding.

While I am advocating in the direction I am speaking about, I do see holes in it as far is, "is this what science, and only science, is really up to?" But at same time, I think validation and research is not restricted to methodology. In fact, I would argue, have argued, that it is not restricted only to the prescribed methodology and that human understanding, typically, expands via the process of application that comes after publication / sharing. Personally, I see it taking off exponentially from that point forward.

[modest]

From Karl Popper's 1959 "The logic of scientific discovery":

The task of formulating an acceptable definition of the idea of an ‘empirical science’ is not without its difficulties. Some of these arise from the fact that there must be many theoretical systems with a logical structure very similar to the one which at any particular time is the accepted system of empirical science. This situation is sometimes described by saying that there is a great number—presumably an infinite number—of ‘logically possible worlds’. Yet the system called ‘empirical science’ is intended to represent only one world: the ‘real world’ or the ‘world of our experience’.

In order to make this idea a little more precise, we may distinguish three requirements which our empirical theoretical system will have to satisfy. First, it must be synthetic, so that it may represent a non-contradictory, a possible world. Secondly, it must satisfy the criterion of demarcation, i.e. it must not be metaphysical, but must represent a world of possible experience. Thirdly, it must be a system distinguished in some way from other such systems as the one which represents our world of experience.

But how is the system that represents our world of experience to be distinguished? The answer is: by the fact that it has been submitted to tests, and has stood up to tests. This means that it is to be distinguished by applying to it that deductive method [the scientific method] which it is my aim to analyze, and to describe.

‘Experience’, on this view, appears as a distinctive method whereby one theoretical system may be distinguished from others; so that empirical science seems to be characterized not only by its logical form but, in addition, by its distinctive method. (This, of course, is also the view of the inductivists, who try to characterize empirical science by its use of the inductive method.)

The logic of scientific discovery - Google Books

Don't let this quote fool you that Popper was supporting inductivism. In the book he's very critical of it. I agree with the quote, and it's something that is voiced throughout the thread. Science is not only only knowledge (i.e. information), and a logical system of understanding that knowledge (or, as SidewalkCynic might say: "defining it"), but also a particular method (the scientific method) for assuring that the system works consistently with our world of experience.

~modest

[SidewalkCynic]

Originally Posted by modest

From Karl Popper's 1959 "The logic of scientific discovery":

Don't let this quote fool you that Popper was supporting inductivism. In the book he's very critical of it. I agree with the quote, and it's something that is voiced throughout the thread. Science is not only only knowledge (i.e. information), and a logical system of understanding that knowledge (or, as SidewalkCynic might say: "defining it"), but also a particular method (the scientific method) for assuring that the system works consistently with our world of experience.

~modest

Looks like a good read, thanks.

Now then, is scientific method a deductive process, or would it be better described another way?