Re: The Intellectual Origin of Positivism

From: Abakus (abakus_at_ntlworld.com)
Date: 07/15/04 

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 20:19:50 GMT

"Lester Zick" <lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:40f54d9f.6541670@netnews.att.net...
> On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 20:05:49 GMT, "Abakus" <abakus@ntlworld.com> in
> comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>
> >
> >"Lester Zick" <lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> >news:40f3fc31.60344270@netnews.att.net...
> >> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 20:08:30 +0000 (UTC), Neil W Rickert
> >> <rickert+nn@cs.niu.edu> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
> >>
> >> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> >Hash: SHA1
> >> >
> >> >lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) writes:
> >> >
> >> >>Science has no interest in the speculative, whether metaphysical or
> >> >>philosophical in nature.
> >> >
> >> >This is clearly mistaken. There has long been a significant
> >> >component of speculative theorizing within science.
> >>
> >> Scientists take a great deal of interest in speculative theorizing.
> >> Science - the bottom line - does not.
> >>
> >> Regards - Lester
> >
> >This opinion seems to stem from a rather obsolete and long deceased view
of
> >how science operates. It is obvious to anybody who's done science that
> >science most of the time involves a two-step process. First a certain
> >hypothesis is concocted. Then the hypothesis is tested. The generation of
a
> >testable hypothesis involves a lot of speculation, imagination,
> >inventiveness and ingenuity. It is not uncommon to see that many
scientific
> >papers end up by saying things along the lines of "it can be speculated
that
> >[...]". And this speculation on the present results tends to end up being
> >the embryo for a hypothesis which is the basis for a following paper.
>
> So what? The bottom line in science is still the science and not the
> speculation.

You are not trying to understand. The speculation is an integral part of
science.

regards
Abakus
> Regards - Lester
>

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Book-able view of ID as speculative science
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