Quantiative Science Before Galileo
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From: John Stafford on 15 Jul 2010 09:10 In article <09169636-eef7-45df-aac6-3d64b96491d8(a)u4g2000prn.googlegroups.com>, Immortalist <reanimater_2000(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Actually peer review was only one of many examples of how hard science > depends upon soft science. Whether I can convince you or not that peer > review is social science doesn't do much to my original argument. You may call the method by which you study peer review as a social science, but that does not mean that peer review is a social science, nor does it mean that peer review is guided by principles of social science. Peer review can be as idiosyncratic as the discipline. In mathematics the outcome of peer review is quite different from very many disciplines. There is no room for interpretation, conjecture, philosophy, or soft-sciences of any kind. As I wrote, you may employ social science to study peer review, but peer review is not social science, nor does it look to social sciences for its performance, organization or method. The map is not the territory.
From: Bret Cahill on 15 Jul 2010 11:21 > > > > > > > > > > > > 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 > > Embarrassing You wouldn't be so embarrassed if you got a Pell Grant and got some book larnin'. Bret Cahill
From: Bret Cahill on 15 Jul 2010 11:23 > > certainly if 97% of instutionalized climatolgists believe > > that "global" warming is not an oxymoron, misnomer and/ > > or a nonsequiter, down to modelling a simple glasshouse > > at some lattitude, I could infer a similar conclusion > > about the Department of Einsteinmania -- the shelves > > of your local library, or bookstore -- The Musical Dept. > > Can't see much sense there. Having him post here is better than having him out on the street. And he can't possibly be crazier than the rightard winger dingers. Bret Cahill
From: spudnik on 15 Jul 2010 13:13 a-hem; ** yours, bro, two. and, no; it certainly is far from better. mister Banerjee cannot take any criticism, such as to bother to look anything up that is not immediately adjacent to him in a googolplex or wookypoopeya search; oh, well, or even that, I suppose. but, what does his formula, mean -- e=mVV(N-k)N? (not "sumorial" .-) > Having him post here is better than having him out on the street. --les ducs d'oil! http://tarpley.net --forsooth, the Queen of the quadrivium! http://wlym.com
From: Bret Cahill on 15 Jul 2010 14:30
> One can go farther. No formal logic, no science. Therefore, no > logical philosophy, no science. Scientists have to work together with > each other and with society. So no political science, no hard science. A lot of "hard" scientists are very politically astute. > Hard scientists need good pictures and good diagrams. So no art, > no hard science. Artists and musicians pay for much of the technology > that scientists develop. So no art or music, no hard science. > So I acknowledge that scientists don't live in a social vacuum. > However, this is irrelevant to the point. People outside the science > field, who can not understand science as conventionally practiced, do > not have the judgment to tell hard scientists what is real in their > field. A populist might want as many as possible to contribute to any debate but it would be batty crappy insane.to listen to someone without any college level math comment on developing or active complex scientific fields like AGW. Giving AGW modeling source code to a libertarian, for example, would be like handing a screwdriver to a chimp. There's no such thing as a "cut taxes starve gummint and utopia will break out" looneytarian who ever passed a college level linear algebra course. Not one. This is easy to know because libertarianism consists of denying that relationships exist. Not only are all equations linearly independent in Libertaria, but variables in one equation never appear anywhere else. Bret Cahill "Math is applied logic." -- Nietzsche |