Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: The Sophist (sophist_at_brown.edu)
Date: 03/11/05 

Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:56:20 -0500

Albert Wagner wrote:

> There is a huge difference between prediction and explanation. Standard
> Theory explains little and predicts a lot. It's hardly even a theory in
> the normal sense of the word, but rather a bunch of kludges and patches
> stacked on top of each other all the way back to Newton. Standard
> Theory has no center, no cohesiveness, no overarching view of Nature.
> It has sacrificed the Scientific Method on the altar of Mathematical
> Correctness. It is mathematically correct only for small periods of
> time, until the next anomaly is pointed out by engineers, at which time
> a desperate search for yet another patch commences.

Have you ever read the work of Pierre Duhem? It would seem that you are
criticizing scientists for following what he called the method of the
astronomer rather than the method of the physicist. But, as Duhem
expertly argued in his analysis of the history of science, only the
method of the astronomer has ever produced anything worthwhile. You're
free to whine that it's leaving something out, that you want a theory of
the nature of things, as Adrastus and Theon sought two and a half
millenia ago, but the progress in the search for that has been
completely non-existent, despite the many fellow travellers you've had
in the centuries since. 

-- 
Aaron Boyden
The main division between the so-called Continental and Analytic 
traditions has been disputes over whether the task of being unclear 
should be carried out in natural language or in a formal system.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... It is mathematically correct only for small periods of ... > a desperate search for yet another patch commences. ... Have you ever read the work of Pierre Duhem? ... method of the astronomer has ever produced anything worthwhile. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... It is mathematically correct only for small periods of ... > a desperate search for yet another patch commences. ... Have you ever read the work of Pierre Duhem? ... method of the astronomer has ever produced anything worthwhile. ...
    (sci.cognitive)
Quantcast