[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

But its philosophical importance is that this position undermines the notion of scientific 'certainty'.

I'm curious to know who you think actually holds this position? Some badly written science textbooks perhaps?

You apparently 'hold' that it's 'certain' that the earth goes round the sun. So, end your curiosity, look in the mirror, switch on, start reading more widely, pay attention to what I'm writing, and don't look for 'badly written science textbooks', but search closer to home with your 'badly written posts'.Enlightenment might follow.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

If we believe that humans can collective control the economy, and there will be an end to private property, we must believe that humans have the capacity to collectively control their science.

But why do YOU believe those thing are possible? On what basis? Did Allah tell you? Or you just felt it to be true?

DJP, I've assumed that up until now that you are a comrade and a Communist, and I've been patiently explaining to you, on that basis.I must say, I don't like the tone of your post, and if you don't desist in taking the piss, and engage in a comradely and constructive fashion, things might well change.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Say once, just once, that 'we are not certain' that the earth goes round the sun

As the creationist said to the evolutionist: admit that you are not certain that the theory of evolution is right …. so that creationism can be taught as an equal possibility. See this from an Islamic scholar (a contradiction in terms, I know):http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/essays-articles/philosophy-theology/has-evolution-been-misunderstood-revelation-science-and-certainty/Here's his opening gambit:

Quote:

Over the past few decades there has been a growing discourse on science, evolution and its compatibility with Divine revelation. This discourse can be summarised in the following way: the theory of evolution has been established as a scientific fact therefore a believer in a particular revealed text, such as the Qur’an, must reconcile evolution with their holy book. If there is no hope for reconciliation there are three main outcomes: the religious text is discarded, evolution is renounced, or a hope for a better understanding of the religious text and evolution in the future. However, in this growing discussion there is a hidden premise. This premise is that science produces certainty, evolution is fact and science is the only way to establish or verify truth claims. This premise is assumed in the popular discussion amongst many religious people, popular scientists and even the media, and by not bringing this premise to the forefront of the debate many Muslims (and fellow theists) have been left confused and disheartened.It is not the scope of this article to enter into a discussion concerning the various approaches taken by scholars and thinkers to reconcile evolution with revelation. What will be discussed is what can be described as a foundational approach to the discussion or what is sometimes referred to as an epistemic approach. We believe that this approach exposes the false assumption that the theory of evolution is a fact, or is certain. Therefore, the need for reconciliation is not entirely necessary. By understanding the scientific method and the philosophy of science, and applying the concepts and principles to evolution, it will be evident that it is not a fact, and thus does not reach the level of certainty. This is also true for many of the intellectual outputs of science[emphasis added].

You're on dangerous ground here. I  suggest a hasty retreat on your part might be advisable.

Look, the Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc., etc., can all understand the developments of science during the 20th century. And it opens up a gap for them to take advantage of.But it's no defence for us Communists to stick our collective heads in the sand and ignore those developments. We have to build a defensible science which is impregnable to their attacks. That 'defence' is not 'science produces the truth'. We, and they, now know that it doesn't. The cat's out of the bag.Our defence of science must rest upon Communist foundations, including the democratic control of all aspects of our future society: economy, polity, science… and ideology (including religion).That's the one thing that neither bourgeois atheists nor religious scholars (of any faith) can accept. But its a certain foundation for science. If we believe that humans can collective control the economy, and there will be an end to private property, we must believe that humans have the capacity to collectively control their science.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

But to deal with your question, I'd say that the theory that the Earth goes round the Sun is very much more "certain", than its opposite (because of its explanatory and predictive power) just as the theory of evolution through natural selection is very much more certain than divine creation. In other words, while science doesn't (can't and doesn't seek to) produce absolute certainty it can produce an acceptable degree, even a very high degree, of "certainty", for all practical purposes.

Well, I agree with this.But its philosophical importance is that this position undermines the notion of scientific 'certainty'.Thus, methodologically, we can see that physics is no different from, say, sociology.This prevents the bourgeois argument that when Communists use sociology to understand the world (including 'science') they are not using 'real' science (which is always claimed to be 'physics', which, in contrast to the mere 'OPINION' of sociology, is held to use a method which produces real 'TRUTH').I've said all along that my purpose with pursuing this line of argument is to provide a unified basis for the sciences – and to me, this includes physics to sociology (and all disciplines inbetween).If we don't do this, any attempt to argue that communists employ the scientific method to analyse and understand society (and its activities like science) is always conter-acted by the argument that 'sociology' (or history) isn't 'really' scientific, because 'science' produces the truth, blah, blah, blah…To finish, your words above, in effect if not in form, agree that it is possible to regard the 'sun going round the earth thesis' of the 17th century as 'true', in its time. This is an argument about 'knowledge' and its historical and social production, not an argument about 'what's most likely'.A second finally – if we accept the common sense belief in science as producing 'truth', why not accept the common sense belief in the market as producing 'free choice'? I always think that it's easier for Communists to come to understand the difficulty and importance of taking this step, because they've already done a similar thing when ideologically ditching capitalism for communism.At root, this is an ideological argument about power in society – who controls 'science'?

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

Hold on please. There's a difference between accepting the absolute of the earth going round the sun and accepting the whole field of science as an absolute. Science is in a state of flux and always will be which is itself an absolute and also a certainty, however there are some fields of scientific discovery which we would accept has an absolute and a certainty.

[my bold]'We'?I wouldn't accept this, for one, and I don't think Pannekoek would either, given his now 'famous' quote!Could you describe the method used by those 'scientists' who produce 'absolute and certain' 'knowledge', please, Brian?[ps. hint: you're still using the 'discovery' method, which Pannekoek warns us against]

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

How many times do we have to say that we do not subscribe to the the "science as absolute certainty" or "science as discovery of reality as it is" theories?

[my bold]Say once, just once, that 'we are not certain' that the earth goes round the sun, and we're there!Then, we can start to address some of the other issues, which you and other posters have reasonably raised, with a discussion of the 'social subject' (unless someone wants to argue for 'individual' or 'elite' subject).[ps. will read your link later]

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Rovelli wrote:

But answers given by natural science are not credible because they are definitive; they are credible because they are the best we have now, at a given moment in the history of knowledge. (p. xvi)

But what is it about a theory that makes it the "best we have now"?

That's precisely what I'm trying to get onto, comrade!But whilst there is any retention of an outdated belief in a 19th century scientific method that supposedly produces 'The Truth', an unmediated account of 'Reality', the eternal, objective truth, we can't go forward.I've tried to show that, according to science itself (Einstein, etc.) and philosophers of science (Marx, Pannekoek, Kuhn, Lakatos, Schaff) and commentators (Marks, Rovelli), this view cannot stand. Science is a social, and thus historical, activity done by humans, with all the difficulties that that implies.I should add that no-one is trying to 'destroy' science, and I'm not a 'relativist' (at least, not in the postmodernism sense of 'there is no truth', 'it's all down to the individual's own view'). But we have to address what science has taught us during the 20th century, and take this scientific knowledge forward.It's my opinion that this opens up an opportunity for Communists to clarify just what 'science' is, and to attract scientists to our ideas about free-access communism, both because we are scientific in our method, and because only Communism can provide the resources to take humanity forward, both in the 'socio-economic' and 'scientific curiosity' senses.This might be a difficult process, and it may involve jettisoning some dearly held 'beliefs' about 'science' and the form of 'knowledge' it produces, but, in my opinion, it will be worth the struggle in the end.Lastly, it seems that you, ALB and Brian have already taken the most difficult steps, with your acceptance of most of what we've discussed about object and knowledge, but the final step is to let go of 'science as certainty'. But… it's a scary act…Saying that we are not 100%, cast-iron guaranteed, certain that the earth goes round the sun, can be replaced by 'But, we are 99.999 recurring certain!'It's the 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% bit of doubt that will allow us to unify the method.Then, it just becomes a matter of determining socially what we consider the percentage of doubt to be in all disciplines.But, we now know that 'doubt is eternal'! It's a position that undermines authority, and calls for participation by all humans, and allows us to argue for democratic decision-making within the wide range of human activity called 'the sciences'.Let's take our discussion forward, onto the issue of the nature of the 'subject'. All 'individuals', expert 'individuals' only, or each 'society'? That is, postmodernism, elitism, or communism?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Rovelli wrote:

 Newtonian physics, despite its immense effectiveness, is actually wrong,

So what makes it false? The fact that people don't believe that it is true?

You really have to start reading things in their full context, DJP.In fact, the answer to your question is in the third extract above, from Rovelli's introduction:

Rovelli wrote:

But answers given by natural science are not credible because they are definitive; they are credible because they are the best we have now, at a given moment in the history of knowledge. (p. xvi)

A historical, and therefore social, approach to the issue of 'what is the scientific method?'.If you have a method that tells you that Newtonian physics is eternally TRUE, rather than a human social construct based upon our interaction with the external, really-existing, world (and therefore can be explained historically), please describe your method.Pannekoek, as we have seen (numerous times so I won't quote him yet again), agrees with this socio-historical approach, as does Marx. It's called Historical Materialism, not 'Discovered once and for all, and done with!'.If you don't agree that Historical Materialism does this or, more profoundly, that it doesn't apply at all to the method of science, say so.

[LBird]

Some further info, and another book, as food for thought for comrades, especially if they think my sun/earth views are radical:

Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and his Legacy, wrote:

This reading of scientific thinking as subversive, visionary, and evolutionary is quite different from the way science was understood by the positivist philosophers… (p. xii)Facile nineteenth-century certainties about science— in particular the glorification of science understood as definitive knowledge of the world—have collapsed. One of the forces responsible for their dismissal has been the twentieth-century revolution in physics, which led to the discovery that Newtonian physics, despite its immense effectiveness, is actually wrong, in a precise sense. Much of the subsequent philosophy of science can be read as an attempt to come to grips with this disillusionment. What is scientific knowledge if it can be wrong even when it is extremely effective? (p. xv)But answers given by natural science are not credible because they are definitive; they are credible because they are the best we have now, at a given moment in the history of knowledge. (p. xvi)

[my bold]http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Scientist-Anaximander-Legacy/dp/1594161313

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Far more logical to take Brian's misunderstanding of your position and say that before 1700 it was believed to be "true" that the Sun moved round the Earth.

This is entirely reasonable, as long as we now say that in 2013 it is believed to be 'true' that the Earth moves round the Sun.So, the earth/sun relationship is related to the society that produces that knowledge. We then have a social and historical account of the sun/earth relationship, and ditch the 'discovery science' which claims to 'really know' the absolute, once and for all.'True' either relates to the 'object', or it relates to 'knowledge'.If you have a method that gives 'objective truth', please tell us what it is.At least I'm trying to describe how science actually works – you and DJP just seem to be claiming that what I'm saying 'can't be correct', without any attempt to describe an alternative method.

Quote:

So, before 1700, it was not "true" that Sun moved round the Earth and it is a mistake to say that it was.

But we can only say this now, which is the point. Then, it was 'true'.'Truth' relates to socially produced knowledge. We have to have a historical account of science, and not see it as a method of 'discovery', which then ends.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

…frankly, you're making yourself look a bigot and a fool.

Don't like what you see in the mirror, eh, Hrothy?

Hrothgar wrote:

As far as I can tell, I have answered each and every point put to me, as reasonably and as articulately as I can manage.

That's what we keep pointing out to you – you can't see that you're unreasonable and inarticulate, and you're managing very badly. Why don't you read what we're writing?

Hrothgar wrote:

I have also 'listened' to all the replies and I have taken on board certain comments where appropriate. Where I disagree, I have explained why I disagree. You may not like my reasons for disagreeing, but that's no reason to insult me like a spoilt child, is it.

But if you keep acting like 'a spoilt child', we've got no choice have we? You don't listen, disagree unreasonably, with frankly ludicrous 'explanations' – it's nothing to do with 'not liking', it's to do with careful adult reflection upon child-like claims.

Hrothgar wrote:

So, when you say I have "refused to engage with [your] reasonable questions and listen to [your] explanations", you are not being entirely truthful, are you.

'Truth'? Racists don't know what that is! That's why you can't recognise that you're refusing to engage or listen – you live in a racist dreamworld, son.

Hrothgar wrote:

If I have missed anyone's questions or points, then you should feel free to highlight this with specificity. I will then go back and deal with the points. However, no-one has informed me of any such omission.

Big letters for the 'hard of thinking': GO BACK TO THE START, AND READ WHAT WE'VE ALREADY TOLD YOU.Right, get back to us when you've rejected your racist ideology, and then we can have a reasonable conversation.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

For instance, and just for completeness, you might want to share with us your views on soldiers, let's say, or students. Don't hold back.

Since I've been both, I'd rather share my views about you, something that I've never been: you're a racist.And it's not meant as a compliment, you tool. I'm downright prejudiced about your 'special needs', dimwit.I've had you sussed from the start, when you refused to engage with our reasonable questions and listen to our explanations of why your statements are nonsensical drivel, and why you idiotically hold to them. You've just kept reiterating your unthinking racial bullshit.Why don't you just go and talk to someone who's likely to listen to your fairy stories, uncritically? Someone who has no experience of the world, neither as a soldier nor as a student.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

Does this mean you are in agreement with DJP post 316?

See my reply to DJP in post 318.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

So all I mean is that absolute certainty is something that cannot be gained but given the vast amount of interlocking pieces of evidence that now support the theory that the earth goes round the sun anyone who asserts otherwise is really talking out of their hat.

[my bold]I agree.Because I take cognisance of the word 'now'.But the 17th century was 'then'.So a similar statement made then:

a different society wrote:

So all I mean is that absolute certainty is something that cannot be gained but given the vast amount of interlocking pieces of evidence that now support the theory that the sun goes round the earth anyone who asserts otherwise is really talking out of their hat.

…was also 'true'.So, unless you are going to argue for 'ahistoric absolute certainty', I think we agree, DJP.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

I plead guilty to counter-revolutionary relativism and post-modernist revisionism.And I'd like one count of 'capitalist-roadster-ism' to be taken into consideration, too.

But you are guilty neither of being a "counter-revolutionary" nor a "capitalist-roadster", so these charges have never been brought. We all know you are a "free-access communist".Brian, to help you understand the whole debate, have a look at this:http://voices.yahoo.com/7-steps-understanding-characteristics-postmodernism-3730670.html?cat=4

The whole 'post-modernist relativist' accusation, aimed at me, is bollocks!Post-modernism is defined by the ideological concept of the 'isolated individual', as your link shows.I've just posted arguing against that very ideological assumption.Anyone here who wishes to defend the ideology of 'I'm an individual' is closer to post-modernism than me! Bastard postmodernist relativists!

[Author]

Posts