Quantiative Science Before Galileo
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From: Bret Cahill on 13 Jul 2010 21:03 > > > > > > > > > > Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on > > > > > > > > > > the planet are in on a conspiracy? > > > > > > > > > That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the > > > > > > > > > Earth. > > > > > > > > > When did who believe that? > > > > > > > > > Bret Cahill > > > > > > > > Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose. > > > > > > > Please define "scientist." > > > > > > Please don't. > > > > > > > I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists," > > > > > > sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues > > > > > > regarding the hard sciences. > > > > > > Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th > > > > > hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified > > > > > to comment on. > > > > > Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to > > > > comment on the "hard sciences"? ...particularly those that are not > > > > well understood? > > > > I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require > > > the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based > > > upon various sociology methodologies is a necessary part of a large > > > part of hypothesis testing and verification. > > > Just putting "hard" into quotes shows some dependency. > > I use quote marks to quote someone and sometimes to "spotlight" a > phrase. The issue wasn't _your_ use of quotes but just about everyone putting those terms into quotes, and for good reason. .. . . The only thing the wiki article below got right was hard science has more sig figs. > > Has anyone even bothered to precisely define or list the differences > > between "hard" and "soft" sciences? > > Its one of those distinctions so common and old that we forget that > new people have to learn it also. > > Hard science and soft science are colloquial terms often used when > comparing fields of academic research or scholarship, with hard > meaning perceived as being more scientific, A more "scientific science" . . . That reasoning goes in a circular circle. What the author should have said is hard science uses more explicit calculations . . . that it is more _quantitative_. > rigorous, Right now there are some physicists laughing at that one. > or accurate. As stated before, more sig figs. > Fields of the natural or physical sciences are often described as > hard, while the social sciences and similar fields are often described > as soft. Examples ain't definitions or qualities. > The hard sciences are characterized as relying on > experimental, empirical, Hard sciences are more theoretical and therefore _less_ experimental than "soft" sciences. The most important "hard" science paper of the 20th Century required no lab work. Those meta studies in JAMA. . . there's your soft science. > quantifiable See the header and below. Before Galileo everything was treated as a soft science. > data, relying on the scientific > method, and focusing on accuracy and objectivity. Publications in the > hard sciences such as natural sciences make heavier use of graphs than > soft sciences such as sociology, according to the graphism thesis. That should be true but it's probably not. For one thing any idiot can make a graph out of anything. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science > > I mentioned sig figs in "hard" vs epidemiological studies in "soft." > > > Before Galileo there was no distinction. > > > Some believe Galileo made science into a science. Bret Cahill "The value of a calculation to humanity is inversely proportional to the number of possible sig figs." -- Bret's First Law of Tweaking
From: John Stafford on 14 Jul 2010 07:42 In article <0210acfa-652b-4446-94c2-a8fe411b7bf4(a)u36g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, Immortalist <reanimater_2000(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jul 13, 5:31�am, John Stafford <n...(a)droffats.ten> wrote: > > > (attributes lost - sorry!) > > > > Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to > > > > comment on the "hard sciences"? �...particularly those that are not > > > > well understood? > > > > > I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require > > > the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based > > > upon various sociology methodologies > > > > Peer review is not based upon any social science whatsoever. A person > > chooses those to review an article. > > Peer review is based upon social science methodology and statistics, a > soft science. When, for example, a mathematical theory is reviewed, a chairperson chooses the reviewers. That is the method.
From: John Stafford on 14 Jul 2010 07:49 In article <0210acfa-652b-4446-94c2-a8fe411b7bf4(a)u36g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, Immortalist <reanimater_2000(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jul 13, 5:31�am, John Stafford <n...(a)droffats.ten> wrote: > > > (attributes lost - sorry!) > > > > Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to > > > > comment on the "hard sciences"? �...particularly those that are not > > > > well understood? > > > > > I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require > > > the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based > > > upon various sociology methodologies > > > > Peer review is not based upon any social science whatsoever. A person > > chooses those to review an article. > > Peer review is based upon social science methodology and statistics, a > soft science You apparently are trying to abstract peer review into something it is not in practice. You can study peer review and call the study part of social science, but that does not change how peers are selected, nor how the process works. See what happens when you try to fit your views into Copy/Paste material?
From: Bret Cahill on 14 Jul 2010 11:57 > > > > > Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to > > > > > comment on the "hard sciences"? ...particularly those that are not > > > > > well understood? > > > > > I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require > > > > the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based > > > > upon various sociology methodologies > > > > Peer review is not based upon any social science whatsoever. A person > > > chooses those to review an article. > > > Peer review is based upon social science methodology and statistics, a > > soft science. > > When, for example, a mathematical theory is reviewed, a chairperson > chooses the reviewers. That is the method. Math ain't science. Bret Cahill
From: Darwin123 on 14 Jul 2010 12:56
On Jul 10, 7:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...(a)peoplepc.com> wrote: > > That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the > > Earth. > > When did who believe that? > > Bret Cahill The Bible makes several references that can be interpreted as meaning the sun goes around the earth. The target audience was obviously people who thought the sun may go around a flat earth. However, most of the Bible was probably written down earlier than 700 BC. In my searches, I have found only one person after 700 BC actually wrote that the sun goes around the earth. Herodotus, the Greek/Egyptian historian, wrote a history on or about 650 BC. He describes a Persian explorer who tried to circle Africa. This explorer found the angle of the sun a bit anomalous. Herodotus thought the explorer misinterpreted his data. Herodotus proposed another model where the sun is close to flat earth. There were Greeks in Herodotus' time who thought that the earth was round. Herodotus said that those Greeks were obviously wrong and were just trying to attract attention. Although Herodotus was wrong, he was scientific. The odd anomalies Herodotus describes prove that the Persian explorer really made the trip. Herodotus also proved that the issue of a spherical/motionless earth was still controversial in 650 BC. There was also a Greek/Egyptian astronomer who claimed, on or around 50 BC, that the sun went around the earth. I forgot his name and exact date. However, his ideas were not picked up again till Copernicus. |