I don't think so. It can be a feature of science, but I don't think it is at the core.
From thinking about it just for a minute, I'd say (good) science is something like true premises + internal consistency + predictability. Some times we maybe will have to settle for imperfect premises when we model things, but I think a correct premise is always preferable to an incorrect premise in the realm of science.
Curious to see what everyone else thinks.
Science is about making sense of reality by determining cause and effect relationships. People can use this knowledge to explain past events or make predictions about the future. The more complete the knowledge, the more accurate the explanations and predictions become. I don't know if you have read The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov, but it is somewhat relevant to your question and it's a great (short) read anyway.
I see science as a particular approach to better determining what's "out there". It is a tool that we use to overcome our natural tendency to form beliefs and seek only to confirm them, similar to how mathematical proofs give confidence beyond what we could do through thinking alone. Science gives us a ratchet effect, solidly falsifying things so that we don't waste further time on those things.
There are four kinds of science:
1. Predictable, observable, repeatable, controllable - Typical laboratory operations
2. Predictable, observable, non-repeatable, non-controllable - Ellipses, planetary motion
3. Non-predictale, observable, non-repeatable, non-controllable - Earthquakes, random particle motion
4. Non-predictable, non-observable, non-repeatable, non-controllable - Action of intelligent beings, human action, purely random occurances, evaluation of testimony, ex post facto application of scientific methods to evidence collection.
Thanks to Stanton Friedman
http://youtu.be/cDbhSQaqYXM
Relevant to any discussion on the nature and study of science:
gotlucky: Science is about making sense of reality by determining cause and effect relationships. People can use this knowledge to explain past events or make predictions about the future. The more complete the knowledge, the more accurate the explanations and predictions become.
Science is about making sense of reality by determining cause and effect relationships. People can use this knowledge to explain past events or make predictions about the future. The more complete the knowledge, the more accurate the explanations and predictions become.
gotlucky answered, I just want to embellish a bit. explanation and prediction are two sides of the same coin, they both speak to a logical (cause/effect) relationship in the real world.
Why does quantum mechanics supposedly yeild incredilby accurate predictions, yet lack scientific rigor in terms of establishing cause and effect, consistent definitions, etc. (as I've heard some on this board claim - I lack the expertise to judge the science in any way tbh).
I understand an understanding of cause and effect yeild greater predictability. But is the opposite true? Are there not mathematical relationships and algorithms or whatnot that are used soley for prediction? What would these be considered a category of? technology?
I've heard Milton Freidman claim that even models with false premises can be useful in terms of prediction. But is this science? It seems to me it's not, but does the mainstream disagree? What is the mainstream position on what constitutes 'science'.
Thanks for the replies, guys. I will be sure to check out anything linked here. Any of you know a good place to start (philosophers, texts, etc) in terms of getting familiar with the philosophy of science?
One of the points Asimov was making was that wrong theories can still have usefulness, which is why certain wrong theories have lasted sometimes for centuries. This doesn't mean that we should just use wrong theories for the hell of it. The point is that scientists should continually refine these wrong theories to make them less wrong and therefore more useful. However, it will rarely be useful to use a wrong theory when there is a better theory available. So yes it is science, but that didn't always make it correct.
Right, makes sense. I haven't read the paper, so I'll do that before I ask anything else. Thanks.
NonAntiAnarchist: I understand an understanding of cause and effect yeild greater predictability. But is the opposite true? Are there not mathematical relationships and algorithms or whatnot that are used soley for prediction? What would these be considered a category of? technology?
Statistical models are often used to make forecasts. Statistical models are used when underlying causal relationships between independent and dependent variables are not known. Correlations between variables and patterns are used to construct the models. As an example, we observe that people consume more energy on hot and cold days. Is this a causal relationship? Not really. These is an underlying casual relationship you can hypothesise to justify the use of the correlation in your model.
NonAntiAnarchist:Why does quantum mechanics supposedly yeild incredilby accurate predictions, yet lack scientific rigor in terms of establishing cause and effect, consistent definitions, etc. (as I've heard some on this board claim - I lack the expertise to judge the science in any way tbh).
Because they use tricks like renormalization and other fudges to match the empirical data. It's not as if they started out predicting some specific, unknown data then when the data appeared it turned out to match theory, which would be impressive. It's totally finessed.
Random example among many others: http://milesmathis.com/gf.pdf
Why anarchy fails