Yer wot? (Incidentally I have read and admire Karl Popper.)

D

David Ballard

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-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pentcho Valev
Sent: 19 August 2006 18:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: RESTORING HONESTY IN SCIENCE

--- David Ballard <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Of course they are, but you are talking in quite an
> abstract way, quite
> removed from the issues. While that is not
> necessarily a mistake, you are
> not making the relevance that you mention plain
> enough for me to follow.
> 
> You are also quoting yourself a lot in the links
> that you are posting and
> not connecting what you say to a wider community of
> thinking. 

http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
"There is a popular argument that the world's oldest
profession is sexual prostitution. I think that it is
far more likely that the oldest profession is
scientific prostitution, and that it is still alive
and well, and thriving in the 20th century. I suspect
that long before sex had any commercial value, the
prehistoric shamans used their primitive knowledge to
acquire status, wealth, and political power, in much
the same way as the dominant scientific and religious
politicians of our time do. So in a sense, I tend to
agree with Weart's argument that the earliest
scientists were the prehistoric shamans, and the
argument of Feyerabend that puts science on a par with
religion and prostitution. I also tend to agree with
the argument of Ellis that states that both science
and theology have much in common, and both attempt to
model reality on arguments based on unprovable
articles of faith. Using the logic that if it looks
like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a
duck, it must be a duck: I support the argument that
since there is no significant difference between
science and religion, science should be considered a
religion! I would also agree with Ellis' argument of
the obvious methodological differences between science
and the other religions. The other dominant religions
are static because their arguments are based on rigid
doctrines set forth by their founders, such as Buddha,
Jesus, and Muhammad, who have died long ago. Science
on the other hand, is a dynamic religion that was
developed by many men over a long period of time, and
it has a flexible doctrine, the scientific method,
that demands that the arguments change to conform to
the evolving observational and experimental evidence.
The word science was derived from the Latin word
scientia, which means knowledge, so we see that the
word, in essence, is just another word for knowledge.
An associate of mine, Prof. Richard Rhodes II, a
Professor of Physics at Eckerd College, once told me
that students in his graduate school used to joke that
Ph.D. stood for Piled higher and Deeper. If one
considers the vast array of abstract theoretical
garbage that dominates modern physics and astronomy,
this appears to be an accurate description of the
degree. Considering the results from Mahoney's field
trial that showed Protestant ministers were two to
three times more likely to use scientific methodology
than Ph.D. scientists, it seems reasonable to consider
that they have two to three times more right to be
called scientists then the so-called Ph.D. scientists.
I would agree with Popper's argument that observations
are theory-laden, and there is no way to prove an
argument beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, but at
the very least, the scientist should do more than pay
lip service to the scientific method. The true
scientist must have faith and believe in the
scientific method of testing theories, and not in the
theories themselves. I agree with Seeds argument that
"A pseudoscience is something that pretends to be a
science but does not obey the rules of good conduct
common to all sciences." Because many of the dominant
theories of our time do not follow the rules of
science, they should more properly be labeled
pseudoscience. The people who tend to believe more in
theories than in the scientific method of testing
theories, and who ignore the evidence against the
theories they believe in, should be considered
pseudoscientists and not true scientists. To the
extent that the professed beliefs are based on the
desire for status, wealth, or political reasons, these
people are scientific prostitutes."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/00/engtot.pdf
pp. 1-8

Pentcho Valev 



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