The e-mails I get...

[RedKGB]

Except you haven't shown a damn thing that's relevant.

I guess the idea of testimony is a foreign concept to you. That is to provide firsthand knowledge of an experience to others; it can be either written or spoken.

You even admit not knowing anything about the subject, and still call bullshit.

[burgingham]

Seriously though, that's particularly a question that should never be giving any bearing on the results because it fundamentally demolishes scientific-method and makes any "science" into nothing of value.

Just because something is posing a problem to the methods of cognition natural science uses we better ignore it and just go about our business as though that fact does not exist? Oo

See that is exactly the problem. Modern scientists just ignore that blind spot and act like they are the incarnated apostels. If these simple questions pose a threat of the magnitude you are acknowledging there to science ("nothing of value"!!!) then science has a serious problem and should better start dealing with that right away.

P.S.: I am not saying the results of certain experiments are outright wrong. I am saying scientists do not acknowledge the fact anymore that every piece of communication about those results is highly subjective since communication is a product of the human mind.

[Amanda44]

@Amanda: Don't mind the speed of the debate too much. I often hit "send" just to see half a dozen posts have been made too. What you have to say is still valid and still matters though.

Next time it crops up - when i feel the need to interject - i'll just try to be quicker.
For now though, the moment has passed, but thanks Burgi.

The world would be a very boring place if only those who studied something have anything of interest to say...

I wholeheartedly agree.

[naosnule]

Thing is natural science should be more self-observant and also should learn to incorporate other sciences into its own patterns. Then it can regain its aspiration to explain the world. We must never forget that everything we know is ultimately something we ourselves constructed through our ways to communicate it.

Excellent. This is exactly the problem with Dawkins (and even Hawking).

"So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering." Einstein said this a generation ago and today it sometimes seems that it is worse than ever.

You mean same Einstein who said "God does not play dice?" .

[Flame]

Mmh... all of you know that write this things, this ideas, in this topic and with this speed/confusion/changing topic every 3 posts... means that all this 34 pages are useless?

All of you could have a good point, a good idea and lots of things to say, but the way you're doing it now it's just like throw a bucket of paint over an already dirty draw, full of thousands colors.
Nothing of what is said in this topic will have an end or a concretization.

Is barely possible UNDERSTAND what's happening.


Should we follow a single topic and debate on a single matter?
Otherwise, keep using this topic as Social Anti-stress

[marvi]

The question that natural science often forgets to ask these days is "Who observes the observer?" and what conclusions could be drawn from that?

I am highly critical towards how uncritical people deal with the results from scientific research these days. As I mentioned it is regarded as modern day's holy grail. That can quickly lead to extremism.

Sure, you should bash a certain scientific research then. Or bash attitude of masses. Attributing all this to the natural science itself feels just silly... Have you read books of Richard Feynman? It's not an authority reference. But I think it provides some insight to things that constitute science.

[BloodyGuestUsers]

Of course not, if something presents a problem, we deal with the problem as best as we can. A problem however was never presented, you did mentioned "there are problems" but that can be said of literally anything.

More importantly presents of blind spots don't invalidate the whole thing, if we, simplifying awfully, knew 90% of facts there is to know about nature/nurture that wouldn't mean for a second we can discard what we already know, that would only mean remaining 10% can still turn the whole thing around, we they are learned.

And notice how i've never claimed something is nurture entirely for this exact reasons of presence of fact we are do not yet know.

And indeed real science, as it always been, and as it always will - relies on "truth" as in proven facts of existence, if it stops doing that and will be simply a refuge for some people who are fond of long words and who produce some material to support whatever political doctrine is in charge now, it will indeed be nothing of value. And no that doesn't mean science has any problems in this regard. That's how it functions.

I am saying scientists do not acknowledge the fact anymore that every piece of communication about those results is highly subjective since communication is a product of the human mind.

And to display that you completely disregarded any experiments and simply forced your point of view based on nothing as to show travesty of it all? Clever. A bit random, but clever. I bow.

[burgingham]

@Ken: Well, I am not claiming that what I am saying goes for any natural scientist or that nobody from the other sciences is making similar mistakes. Of course there are good natural scientists aware of such problems. Yolan's Einstein quote shows that. And of course there are sociologists or philosophers who have fallen victim to the exact same problems I am discussing here.

Problem is that the mainstream discours has had quite a problem with this blind spot attitude as of late imo. Especially when it comes to universities and the way professors teach there.

@Bloody: I am sorry, but I don't understand quite a bit of what you are writing there. Especially the last part. Do you want some empiric survey on how science has a problem? If so, then that is hilarious. Fight fire with fire ^^
This is a normative problem, not an empiric one.

Your whole speech there does not seem to address my main point though which was evolving around the problems communication and judgement over the meaning of results causes.

Proving the truth just for the sake of proving the truth (often) has no inherent value. Might as well go and eat an ice-cream instead of conducting an experiment then.

Edit: Btw this is drifting away from the former topic a loooot right now and I am not sure I actually want to have this debate in more detail as i am aware I will be getting a lot of flak for this opinion. As I pointed out earlier natural sciences are considered the holy grail these days and attacking it will cause similar extremism as telling a religious person his or her god is a pig or does not exist.

[Flame]

You all are arguing about some scientific theory, when a theoyr it's called so 'cuz it's not sure?
I'll make this Easy for you.

There are many humans. Are races? Differents?
If yes - It's wonderfull. Anyone have his characterist different from others. So a black man is taller or smaller? Stronger or weaker? I'm fashinated from it. It's called Nature,something that i'll respect and something that people should be proud of.

If not - Well, nothing bad. Less racist reasons, for who is fool enough to think that being racist is something of any use.

Scientist will proof this some day but for now ther's not a sure answer, so all of you can freely choose to love each one personal characteristic or think that those characteristic have nothing to do with races.
Surely, racism is useless in both times.

[burgingham]

The science discussion we have is not about race Flame. It is about science itself.

We have been drifting away from the original topic of racism and ethics and such quite a bit...I did not really want that to happen tbh. I knew how dangerous it was to attack the holy grail of natural sciences ^^