bluefugue

As for Ptolemy, I don't know much about the details of his theories, so everything I say has to be taken with a big grain of salt. The idea of perfectly circular orbits was maintained even by Copernicus, wasn't it -- it wasn't until Kepler that elliptical orbits were proposed? I don't know what data this change was based on, but I think that, thanks to the work of Tycho Brahe, Kepler had a much better set of data to work with than any prior astronomers had had. So maybe earlier astronomers were partly hampered by observational limitations and holes in data. (I have no idea, however, whether Brahe's observations led to Kepler's hypothesis of elliptical orbits.)

Perhaps Ptolemy's failing was a refusal to use Occam's razor. He was able to posit various complications in his model of cosmology (i.e. all the epicycles, etc.) in order to shoehorn it into his preconceptions. Still, it seems to me that the fact that Ptolemy tried to reconcile his theory with observed data, indicates a mindset that was at least partially scientific. He added wrinkles to his model (the epicycles) in order to account for observed data (retrograde motion). Isn't that a big part of what a modern scientist does?

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Vorkosigan

Yes, now that you've put it that way, I quite agree. I think Sagan's Kalahari hunters show the kind of analytical capabilities all humans have, but not protoscientific thinking -- they didn't construct mathematical models of the world, for example.

Oolon Colluphid

Need more / better examples, V. Unless you're implying that it ain't really science till you can put it into mathematical language? Surely simply constructing and testing the models is good enough to qualify? Did Darwin use maths? Or Kekulé? (Nearly said Mendel too .)

I'm not sure what the distinction might be between protoscientific thinking and the 'analytical capabilities' of the Kalahari chaps, and, though it's a while since I read it, I thought Sagan's whole point was that science is what people just tend to do when getting on with the world, and modern science just formalises it.

Or not?

Cheers, Oolon

Dr.GH

What is Vanderzyden’s example, from the start of the thread, but a unjustifiable false characterization of materialism. Let me take the word “uncaused.” By this I suspect that Vanderzyden means uncaused by supernatural beings. However, uncaused means “without cause” which is the antithesis of materialism. Materialism posits that there are determinable causes for all phenomena, and that these causes are not the whim of supernatural phantoms.

“Random” is an idea that confounds many creationists. They are told (incorrectly) that evolution is random. Mutation, or in the words of Darwin: descent with modification, is
undirected, not random. The physical and chemical properties of DNA and RNA control, and to a degree limit, the possible modifications that can occur within the genome. Far greater restriction on changes to the genome is the really significant discovery of Darwin: natural selection. This is not a random process either in the sense that under stable environmental conditions genetic variability is minimized.

Now, Vanderzyden did get one out of three right, materialism is “wholly material” but s/he has not added that it is also wonderfully successful at describing the Universe.

Edited to add:

Observation most certainly need not be direct. Much of modern chemistry and physics is conducted through instrumental procedures. For many decades after its existence was generally accepted, the electron could not be directly observed. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is the formal statement of the limits of observation in physics with electrons as his example. As to your irrelevant comment regarding consciousness, introspection as a form of inquiry, or observation, has a quite respectable tradition in science and philosophy. Descartes’ “cognito ergo sum” must be the most fundamental example.
Vanderzyden, do you supose the last 60 years of research in psychology has not addressed the notion of consiousness, or perhaps you are not familiar with psychology as a science?

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DMB

It is quite ludicrous to suppose that when Dawkins says "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose", he is proffering it as a definition. It is a slightly mischievous description; no more.
{edited to correct my crap typing -- again!}

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RogerLeeCooke

Puh-leeze!!! That naive description of scientific method was found in my junior-high-school science book back in 1954. It's so far from the reality of scientific practice that it's useless. By far the majority of scientific progress comes from simply trying to cover more facts with fewer hypotheses. And the idea that an experiment tests only one hypothesis is just puerile. The instruments used in modern laboratories function in incredibly complex ways, and their functioning is interpreted in terms of *theories*. By your description we'd need to do experiments to test the theories that explain our experimental apparatus before we could ever use them. What instruments would we use to do that?

Bialar Crais

What I'd like to know if is the "naturalistic bias" of science should be excluded everywhere, or just in regards to biology.

I mean, the germ theory of disease is clearly contains naturalisitc bias. As does the theory of gravity. Why reject, a priori, that faeries makes objects falls to the earth, or that angels pushes planets in their orbits?

Demon possession should be a valid option to the naturalistic psychology, as alcehmy is to chemistry.

So, should the ousting of "naturalistic bias" in science cover all areas of science or only evolution/abiogenesis/comsology?

Autonemesis

Has the hit-and-run twit left the building yet?

Vorkosigan

Well, let's say "formal modeling," then. Plus, I think Sagan and others often neglect that modern science has a social aspect that no other science had prior to it: a whole class of people with a socially distinct role "scientists" whose vocation is knowledge production using shared methodologies and values, with a commitment to share that knowledge with others and society at large. There's more to science than formal models and analytical thinking, at least at the social level. I suppose there might be some level where you could call the Bushman "scientific," maybe at the level of particular acts -- empirical observation and deduction. Plus, are those Bushman formally committed to methodological naturalism

Fair enough?

bluefugue

Yes, of course back in the Greek days, "scientists" were indistinguishable from "philosophers." And to the extent that the Mayan culture had scientists, they were I suppose also priests.