Which Sciences Are the Most Useful?

[brimstoneSalad]

When is claiming you've discovered something worth the risk? Almost impossible to tell.

Don't take the risk. That's what peer review it for. Say "hey guys, is this anything?" and then wait for your peers to say you've discovered something for you.

[Red]

Or, equivalently, you could be very wrong and refuse to trust me because my ideas seem alien to you.

The irony is too immense in this statement.

Er, no, it's always a fallacy.

A logical fallacy is whenever there is a plausible situation in which the premisses are true but the conclusion is false. Looking for a qualified authority decreases your chances of being wrong (assuming you are looking for the right credentials, which is often not trivial, as many people, for example, think doctors are qualified to talk about nutrition, which they aren't), but that doesn't make it not a fallacy.

You obviously don't know much about logic or fallacies.
From Wikipedia:

An argument from authority, (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam is a form of defeasible argument in which a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion. It is well known as a fallacy, though it is used in a cogent form when all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context.

Focus on that last part there.

It is well known as a fallacy, though it is used in a cogent form when all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context.

Do you understand now? (I doubt it)

And what's the difference?

Answer my question.

You have to define what you mean by 'accident.' Do you mean that the discoveries themselves were accidental, or what sparked interest in their discovery were accidental? I'm assuming you mean the latter with these examples you gave.

We can discuss this at length, but I don't know enough about it (and neither do you) to make a solid case. It honestly isn't important or relevant to what we're even talking about. We have to agree on definitions, and even if we take the latter definition, you still need to provide evidence of your argument.

Calculus goes way back to Ancient Greece.

No, only some concepts that would be adapted, utilized, and expanded upon in Calculus. I was (obviously) referring to it in a modern sense.

Do we agree that there is a difference between "The risk is high and hard to estimate." and "It's certainly not worth the risk."?

That's not what I was saying.

Some things are. Most things aren't.

So you're admitting you were wrong when you said:

Why? All science being wrong is unlikely, yes, but it's conceivable.

Science doesn't make things purely mathematical,

Yes, I know. Especially in Biology and the soft sciences (though some mathematics can be applied).

If science were purely mathematical, my math showing airplanes contradicted the Torricelli's law would have been absolute proof airplanes didn't exist.

No, you were just wrong.

Well, yes. What's wrong with that?

Nothing I guess, though if you are one, you can never say you know for sure. If you are going to advocate for Solipsism, just know that it's a bit of a moral issue.

How exactly?

How familiar are you with some of the most basic history?

Use some basic deductive reasoning. After you've read up on some history, that is.

For all I know, it seems that the Croatian politicians are doing their best to work for the interests of people in a system that's deeply flawed (they don't have even remotely enough time to thoroughly research the effects of the laws they are passing).

I'm not equating corrupt politicians with incompetent politicians.

But not every biologist since the early 1900's believed in Mendelian genetics.

I know that.

Lysenko was a qualified biologist, he didn't believe that and he was quite vocal about that. So, Stalin and Mao were misled by that, thinking it was the majority of biologists who rejected Mendelian genetics.

Clearly not, he was a quack promoting pseudoscience in favor of actual science.

For crying out loud, Lamarckism/Lysenkoism is not the only example of people being misled into thinking most scientists believe something they don't.

You keep making the same mistakes, and have seemingly forgotten the point of this particular argument. AND also, you keep ignoring what I'm writing.

How many people think most psychologists believe polygraph is reliable, when almost no qualified psychologist (but the most vocal ones) believes that? How many people think most of the psychologists admire the Freud's psychoanalysis, when most psychologists (but the most vocal ones) believe it to be pseudoscience?

Right, a lot of people can be misled into thinking scientists believe something they don't. What's your point? People believing the scientists say something does not make it a theory.

Then what are you saying? I guarantee you, having studied English for 12 years,

Then your studies have failed you. It seems as though your English is too poor to participate in this forum, given this conversation and past ones. I suggest you go and study it more, then come back.

that's how most English speakers would have understood you.

No, I don't think so. Everyone else reading this thread, did you interpret my statement as Teo described?

Also, why do you think pseudosciences would disappear if they are being censored? For all we know, they might end up being even more widespread because of that. If saying "Marihuana can cure lung cancer" wasn't illegal to say, don't you think people would end up hearing both sides of the story and that fewer people would believe that nonsense? And how come Christianity survived hundreds of years of censorship in the Roman Empire?

That isn't how it works. This is discussed in the thread I linked that you didn't bother to read. You don't even have to read the entire thing; Can't you do a simple CTRL + F search?

Let me guess, they just didn't do censorship the right way, you know how to do it better.

I honestly find this rude and insulting. You're accusing me of something I didn't even say or imply, and you're making me look to be the bad guy. You haven't changed at all in the past 3 years, unfortunately.

So, what's that video about? What is it that the thread actually end up being about? I thought it was about censorship of pseudoscience.

You would've known that had you even skimmed the thread.

OK, now, I though this was something everyone on a forum called Philosophical Vegan would be familiar with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotatio ... Fx3vHOkHRE

And yet you accuse me of an appeal to authority?
I don't trust Bite Size Vegan (and most of us here don't), she's kind of a woo, and supports a lot of bunk science.

What exactly would it take to change your mind?

Regarding what?

No, why would I?

Because the answer isn't very difficult to find, especially when I pointed you in the direction to go.

If there was something useful there, you could have summarized it in a few sentences. You are doing what's called homework fallacy.

It wouldn't take much longer than 10 minutes.
And it is not a 'homework' fallacy, you obviously don't know what that is. A homework Fallacy is when you make a claim and haven't provided evidence of it, and instead are telling the other party to look it up for themselves. Here, I've already provided evidence which is in this very thread. It is just a click away, and you're just too lazy to perform a simple click. It would only be a homework fallacy if I just said 'Just look up what a soft science is!' But I pointed you in the direction you need to go, and you're refusing to head in it. By your own logic, you've committed a homework fallacy by just linking me the Bite Size Vegan video and not explaining it in detail. Hell, this extends out to anyone who has ever cited a source has committed this fallacy. Do you honestly not see the stupidity in what you're saying?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

You are doing the same error I was doing in the Flat Earth thread when I asked you to read the thread in which I supposedly explained my arguments for believing the Earth is flat.

What are you talking about? I am not brimstone. That's someone else.

You likely have a wrong conception of what is social science, thinking that it's always something about politics. Social sciences rarely have anything to do with politics. Ones that have something to do with politics are indeed often unreliable (politics corrupts everything). But what does the field of the Croatian toponyms have to do with politics? Very little, if anything.

You would've known my rebuttal if you were to read the first few pages of this thread.

[carnap]

Literally the only dangerous idea here is promoting lay people dismissing established science. That's where we get anti-vaxx and any number of other things that legitimately harm people.

The history of science is filled with people outside of the scientific community making significant contributions to science and there are numerous cases of what was once viewed as "established science" harming people. Dissension and questioning are a critical component to scientific progress. Science isn't a dogma upheld by some unquestioned authority, its an intellectual process.

Or you're of the magical thinking mindset that if you just give people information they'll be able to reason what's right. Let them hear both sides! Evolution AND creation! Civil rights AND white nationalism! No way that can go wrong...
It's insidious.

Not sure what magic you have in mind but you're right...but I support intellectual freedoms 100%. Not just for the intellectual community but for the general population as well.

Rarely. And less and less as time goes on and the knowledge and resources required for advancement grow.
More often these people just waste time and resources, and do harm.

It hasn't been rare, in fact, most significant scientific advancements have been made by people outside of the mainstream.

By you, and your behavior here across multiple threads.

So, as I said, established by yourself and as usual without any evidence.

[brimstoneSalad]

The history of science is filled with people outside of the scientific community making significant contributions to science and there are numerous cases of what was once viewed as "established science" harming people. Dissension and questioning are a critical component to scientific progress. Science isn't a dogma upheld by some unquestioned authority, its an intellectual process.

I already explained this, and it just demonstrates your general ignorance of the hard sciences that you do not understand it.

Rarely. And less and less as time goes on and the knowledge and resources required for advancement grow.
More often these people just waste time and resources, and do harm.

Try taking a few classes in a hard science like physics or chemistry, then look a the quality of non-mainstream "work" available. It's a waste of time. Very unlikely to see any innovations among the flat earth and electric sun advocates. Possible? Maybe. But it goes against parsimony.

Not sure what magic you have in mind but you're right...but I support intellectual freedoms 100%. Not just for the intellectual community but for the general population as well.

Well that's not surprising. Of course you're one of those.
And you don't care much about all of the children who have to die of preventable disease, or the domestic terrorism these radical groups create, do you? Proliferation of bad ideas is more important than human life to you.

[Red]

Well that's not surprising. Of course you're one of those.
And you don't care much about all of the children who have to die of preventable disease, or the domestic terrorism these radical groups create, do you? Proliferation of bad ideas is more important than human life to you.

He might be one of those 'It's not the government's job' type of people.
I remember discussing the issue of the government silencing anti-vaxxers, and my libertarian friend who I was discussing with said that the government's only job is to protect the rights of the citizens, and has no business silencing people, even if they are wrong and can cause major harm (yes, he actually said that). Eh, I don't think there's convincing some people.

[brimstoneSalad]

He might be one of those 'It's not the government's job' type of people.

But this isn't about government intervention, it's about recognizing that it's wrong to proliferate these beliefs which have such a high chance of doing harm and such a low chance of containing any credible grain of actual knowledge or wisdom.

Whatever your stance on government intervention, you can recognize the moral wrongness of promoting those ideas, and the value of a sentiment that rejects ideas from these lay speculators by default and focuses on those with more relevant formal education.

I don't think government intervention is what Carnap is opposing, but the very idea that we should be uniquely skeptical of ideas coming from these non-expert sources and discourage them (on an interpersonal level, not with legislation). He'd rather bad ideas proliferate on principle and kill people than trust legitimate authorities on these matters... and that's no surprise, he's a mother lode of bad ideas himself.

[carnap]

I already explained this, and it just demonstrates your general ignorance of the hard sciences that you do not understand it.

You didn't explain anything, you just claimed basically that its "different now". But there is no reason to believe that and the sciences aren't isolated to just the "hard sciences".

Try taking a few classes in a hard science like physics or chemistry, then look a the quality of non-mainstream "work" available. It's a waste of time.

I've taken plenty of courses in the sciences and your comment is rooted in a hind-sight bias. Its impossible to know what current works will unfold into important scientific advancements in the future. Also a large amount of "mainstream work" in the sciences ends up being a waste of time as well.

And you don't care much about all of the children who have to die of preventable disease, or the domestic terrorism these radical groups create, do you? Proliferation of bad ideas is more important than human life to you.

Naturally you're just trying to attack me again rather than address the topic. Of course I care about children that die of preventable diseases ,etc but I don't believe denying intellectual freedoms are a good way to address those issues.

Denying intellectual freedoms rather quickly leans to dogma which can have far more dire consequences.

[carnap]

He might be one of those 'It's not the government's job' type of people.

Right, I don't think its the governments job to censor what people can say and think. Censorship rather quickly turns to dogmatism because its a rather powerful political tool and this is why free speech/expression is widely supported by human rights groups etc.

[Jebus]

I've taken plenty of courses in the sciences

LOL. You must have been a stellar scholar.

[carnap]

LOL. You must have been a stellar scholar.

You guys are amusing....but this is like a homeless man telling someone he is broke. You guys are clearly not well educated yet drip with arrogance. Of course most of you are young and haven't had a chance to get a quality education so hopefully you folks will immature intellectually. Though arrogance and dogmatism tend to be brick walls to education....hard for professors to penetrate.