Re: Why did Richard P. Feynman say, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians"?

On Aug 14, 3:28 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" <t...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008, PD wrote:

Excellent fodder for discussion.

I tend to view science as the activity rather than the product of the
activity. (One could also fret over the same distinction with
architecture, art, medicine, or plumbing.)

But I entirely agree with you that the common presentations of the
scientific method do over-distill a highly complex, variable, and
essentially human process. Hunch and pure insight play an essential
role, as does a rather poorly grasped esthetic sense that is used to
gauge or inspire ideas at the germination point. Also completely under-
represented are the various rules, workflows, and metrics by which
experimental results are collected and judged -- this is perhaps one
of the squishier areas in science. And it is also true that purely
humanistic aspects do influence science, even over longer periods of
time than the "scientific method" promises a cure -- these include
moral imperatives and collegial reputation.

But, and this is a big "but", the distilled "scientific method" as it
is taught to high school students everywhere, represents the
*essential* components that must be there for it to be recognizable as
science.

It depends on which version of the distilled "scientific method". The
version, which is a common one, focussing entirely on hypothesis ->
experimental test -> accept/reject theory is far too narrow. For starters,
this would exclude much observational astronomy, geology, biology from
being science. It would certainly rule out almost all mathematics (but
then, some people are happy to call mathematics a non-science).

This is of course, right. Science teachers often make the mistake of
saying that observational or experimental evidence is constrained to
contrived experiment with controls and variables and all that. There
is a whole class of science in which there is observation but no
experimentation. In this category, there are at least two
subcategories.

The first is taxonomic, where the objective is to discern order from
categorization. Of course, an echidna does not worry whether it is
classified as a mammal by virtue of its glands or by a different
grouping distinguished from animals that give live birth. Likewise,
Pluto isn't concerned whether it is a planet. It is interesting,
though, how something like The Tree of Life can *shift* according to
whether the categorization is according to genetics or morphology,
both yielding useful information based on a wholly human taxonomy.

Second, there is the application of a physical law in the framework of
"if such-and-such conditions are met, then so-and-so will be
observed," coupled with the expectation that the universe is large
enough that almost any set of conditions are met *somewhere*. This is
the basis of black-hole physics. GR *permits* black holes, and it even
insists that they are the inevitable result of conditions that we know
are present in the universe. However, we do not create black holes in
the lab (not even LHC). We just look in every place we can for where
those conditions are likely to occur.


It reminds me of psychology (and disciplines that imitate, sometimes
successfully, the research methodology of psychology). The dominant
paradigm is statistical hypothesis testing, the core of the above
distilled method when faced with noisy data. But, e.g., I'd call Piaget's
work science, even if he watched children playing rather than performing
experiments.

This is what enables distinguishing science from philosophy,
from craftsmanship, from art, from mathematics. If what one does not
*somewhere* invoke all the aspects of the scientific method, then
another can fairly say that it ain't science, bub.

This is part of the reason why I distinguished science from the
production of science.

Cataloging stars and nebulae, describing new species of insects, etc.
is science, and can be very important science. (It's even Baconian!) But
the usual versions of the scientific method only include such activity as
a small part (perhaps the sometimes not-even-mentioned initial
observation) of the process. If it's only a small part, is it science?

But the work contributes to science. Is it science? That would depend on
how you define science.

But consider the activity of scientists, when working to contribute to
science. Much of it is not science, per se (and I'm talking about the work
intended to contribute, often quite directly, to science, not
administrivia). For example, rejecting/accepting a paper as a reviewer is
not science, per se. Requiring that the authors make changes to make the
paper more useful to the scientific community isn't science.

This is where I think I disagree. This pertains to the part of the
experimental process that is glossed over, having to do with some
vetting of the quality of the *methodology* in the research by peer
review. This I distinguish from endorsing the result or even the
importance of the result. Sadly, teaching this peer review process is
easy to do in class but is rarely done -- except in English classes!

Overall, it's a valuable question to ask WHY the scientific method is
so central (central, not spanning) to science, and I believe the
answer to this is wholly pragmatic: because it is highly optimized and
seems to work well, despite glitches here and there. And all those
practices that are essential to what makes it work well, including
independent experimental verification, peer review of methodology,
conferences, collaboration -- all these are part of the scientific
method.


It's hard to both precisely and compactly/simply define something complex
(why are papers describing new species so long?). Just recall the tale of
Plato's Man (and I'm most pleased to have been able to quote it in a
paper): Plato was in full swing, and profoundly defined Man as "a
featherless biped". At which point, Diogenes the Cynic got up and went to
the marketplace. Returning shortly with a plucked chicken, swinging it
around, proclaiming that "Here is Plato's Man!", he forced Plato to amend
his definition: "Man is a featherless biped with broad fingernails."

Now, if they'd had chimpanzees for sale at the marketplace ...

I think if the teacher understands what science is about, they can give
the compact potted summary of the scientific method, and then discuss it.
Why do we call this the scientific method? Is it a good definition? Can we
do science in other ways? What other ways? Alas, a teacher who can only
read the textbook won't manage this :(

This last point is most irritating to grandstanding cranks, several of
whom have posted to this thread, who alternately whine that they have
the right to define what science is as much as anyone, or that if
that's what science is then they want no part of it and science is
doomed, or that scientists have created the scientific method
specifically to exclude amateurs who don't know how to use the method.

They allow amateurs to build their own houses. Said houses need to meet
building codes, pass inspection etc., just like professionally build
houses (I heard a fun story about the trouble a mud-brick house caused).
Houses are usually meant to last for 20-100 years (well, around here
anyway; in parts of Europe and Asia, and elsewhere, they built to last).
Science is meant to last longer than that. Nothing wrong with reasonable
standards (and reasonable can mean high standards).

There's a wide-open field in science for amateurs: risky, long-shot
research. It will almost certainly fail. It's hard to get grants for it,
since grant assessors know it will almost certainly fail [1]. You can't
give it to a student as a project (ethically), since it's probably a bunch
of crap. You probably won't get any publishable results. So professional
scientists won't do it. But amateurs, if keen on the idea, only have their
time (and probably some money) to lose. They aren't employed to produce
useful science, so it doesn't matter if they don't.

But if they want to contribute to science, they had better produce
science. At least some of our long-term cranks on the ng did science. I
might not have agreed with it, or the whole point of what they were doing,
but at least, sometimes, it was valid science, despite being from cranks.
Alas, most cranks around here just display their ignorance of how science
is done, basic calculus, or just their emotional response to relativity or
QM. Surely, an amateur who does it properly can contribute, and they do.
Especially in observational astronomy - looking for new comets etc is
unlikely to pay off, so it isn't so attractive to professionals. For the
amateur who combines science with the fun of looking at the sky through a
telescope, why not?

[1] A case can be made that a small, but not insignificant percentage of
government research funding should be made for this kind of thing.
Stop frauds from sucking at the govt teat, and go for it!

--
Timo Nieminen - Home page:http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints:http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits:http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html

.

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