Buridan

Good question.

Let me show with a few words how I think one should approach this question:

"The Scientific Method" is hard to put on a rigid formula/algorithm, and it does differ depending on the kind of science one is doing (Physics, Geometry, Biology, History...). However, broadly spoken it consists of areas like

1: Data gathering
2: Hypothesis forming
3: Hypothesis testing

and one may add
4: Peer review

Of course, in reality 2 and 1 may come in a different order and hypothesis may be based on whatever one believes or finds possible based on one's philosophy, experience, religion, creativity or whatever. There are no rigid rules here.

The area with most rules is testing, even if methods, tools, equipment and precision may change over the years.

And one's peers may not always understand one's science - especially if it differs radically from former "paradigms" .

However, what distinguishes "science" from "natural philosophy" are (again broadly spoken) good definitions of terms, quantifiable parameters and controlled tests.

Now, Kepler is an interesting combination of Scientist and Natural Philosopher. He started with some beliefs or hypothesis based on his readings of "giants", his philosophy and religion. He used Brahes data (and some of his own) to test some of these hypothesis mathematically, and generally make sense of the data.

He used both systematic approaches and more "random" ones. He left some of his own pet theories as the data did not fit them. He was "peer reviewed" by later scientists who did find his quantifiable results ("laws") very usefull.

With Bruno it is about a different approach. He was a Natural Philosopher and definitely no Scientist. AFAIK (I do not read Italian :notworthy ) he gathered or used no quantifiable data, he did not test his hypothesis with sound mathematics and he was not found usefull by later scientists.

The difference between people like Bruno and Kepler is not so much in the area of forming hypothesis. Rather is is about the the ability and willingness to test, and change, one's hypothesis based on quantified data.

Ciao :Cheeky:

Lafcadio

You already spent a lot of your time googling to face this discussion, so this attitude is hypocritical. It's amusing how much effort you invest in picking and distorting the facts to match your agenda. However, as reading this reply from yours it seems your tone went more civil I am willing to have this chat with you

You claim that he formulated a specific area calculation method (Archimede's) for circles, then changed the shapes into ellipses and preserved the same area calculation method based on the assumption of circles?? But needless of this rhetoric you already accused him of using the same method of Archimede. If you ever opened that book whose cover you pictured you'd know your claim is false.
As for what Kepler did, he realized the orbit is not necessarily a circle before he formulated the Second Law. He disagreed with many astronomers of this time (even before becoming Brahe's assistant) in not taking the models as granted, but in using mathematics to model the existing observations.

Nope, because I already refuted them (and waiting for your counter-arguments, but reading your reply it seems I'll be still waiting). So it can't be a straw man as you haven't proven anything regarding your earlier claims.
The only pill I should take is the pill of patience.

Straw man. Quote me talking on Kepler as a "perfect scientist".

Googled on one and you found the other? Natural philosophy doesn't start with Francis Bacon. Nor exactly with Roger Bacon, but that guy is symbolic enough for the origins of natural philosophy in Western thought. Talking of "renaissantist taxonomies" :rolling:

They are expressed as distinct ideas.

Which sometimes was called magnetism. Also a distinct idea of these three laws. This "guilt by association" argument seems the only argument based on evidence (to diminish Kepler's scientific attitude by emphasizing his mystical thoughts). Pity it's fallacious and short-sighted.

I dare you to prove I am not thinking. While it's so much easier for me to prove you don't have the necessary knowledge of the history and literature to think correctly on this issue. I already did in some accounts, depends on my patience and how much you stick around to show that most of the data you displayed here are googled-gathered and matched to your agenda. Thinking without knowledge cannot create meaningful results. So improve your knowledge to actually have something to say here.

You guess wrong. The 12th grade understanding was dedicated to you (you haven't proven so far to handle any non-google knowledge, I am still waiting for that signal - those Kuhn quotes indicate at least a book in your bookcase , but I won't invest so much trust in you at once) as it was an answer to you. However you can't deny it pictures the things fair enough.

He actually continued his observations during his work and after his work. You assume him to be only a mathematician when he was also an astronommer.
While for that google-found cover and that google-found quote, do they prove anything else than his intellectual integrity? What would you expect? To deny the importance of Brahe's observations?

No, Buridan told you - John of Salisbury. If you mean who made that quote famous to the average joe in the modern world, I don't care - I know it from studying western medieval thought, and as long as it was my paraphrase on this metaphor, I think that's all that matters.

I'm talking on a more approximate level than you regarding names and years, because I'm talking from memory, while you're talking from google. But addressing your whining: if you're interested in certain parts of history, knowing some names and years is a must. If you're not interested, what the hell are you doing on this topic, anyway?

If you think that book of Einstein is over the books mentioned in this topic you obviously haven't read any. That book contains (almost) no physics, no maths, just various considerations regarding different issues (science, life) in a very informal and friendly way.

Post hoc. You haven't proven anything. You fallaciously connected theories like that of the 5 solids with his three laws, though it's obvious one is not derived from the other. That they were two alternative theories it slipped from you.

If you could tell me what're exactly the scientific grounds of Einstein distrusting quantum mechanics you would make such a great point here.

Arguments from Book's Front Cover must be the latest breaking news in fallacies world. Have you at least noticed that there's no "only" in your counter-evidences?

I'm sure all biologists know to prove to the tiniest details all the physics otherwise how could be they so mystical and absurd to take it as granted. Not to say about those stupid theorists who do not double-check the data gathered in decades of experiments. In fact, any scientist knows to prove the entire science he relies on, not to say that he also experimented it all.

Yeah, mathematics in science, that's such a preposterous thing. They should've used poetry.

The hypotheses should be some self-evident things, otherwise obviously they couldn't be scientific because too much luck it's involved. I mean, how could one assume exactly that and not something else?

I see forgot to mention things about dealing with evidence, testing and prediction. Well, in time, when you'll find about them I hope you will mention them.
From all these, indeed, I have no idea about what Philosophy of Science while you know them all!

You forgot an emphasis. That means to deal with the evidence. Random is a relative world. One can say the attempts to create the model of the atom were random, that doesn't rule them out as scientific. Forming a hypothesis always contains a degree of randomness. No randomness, it means they were already known - no hypothesis.

Now don't make Kuhn a god in others' biographies. Kepler worshipping the sun? Be serious.
While about the apparent sphere of science, apparent is a good word.

Why do you whine? You were the one claiming that Kepler did a certain way and not other. You were the one opening this discussion about Kepler. Is my fault you make hazardous claims without having a proper background? Is my fault you patronize your opponents while your claims are on thin ice?

I am still awaiting from you to tell me how Kepler used only the Archimedean method to calculate areas.

So, you found Kuhn. We're talking about science and scientific method for few pages already, and only now you discovered Kuhn and keep him mentioned here

Stop repeating this post hoc and do actually prove it. I already argued that in Mysteria Kepler discussed both models. Can you prove that Kepler chose heliocentrism for his mystical beliefs and not for the mathematical elegance (which is an equivalent of the principle of parsimony)? That Kepler did not choose heliocentrism because it had less problems in explaining certain facts - why Mercur and Venus are never observed at a too large distance from the Sun, for instance? This goes also for you and also for Kuhn. Are these too be ignored and consider Kepler's mystical formation as a single cause for his preferrence? I don't think so.

How come? Kepler said that heliocentrism and geocentrism are (almost?) equivalent from mathematical pov. Don't you think he could arrive to heliocentrism through his mathematical attempts in a similar fashion he arrived to elliptical orbits? It's finally a matter of time, hard work and luck. Of course, this is a huge speculative "what if". But you can't say "had he kept -> the end".

Indeed. But amazingly this assumption we have even today in science (with another - or without, depends on pov - justification). That universe is ruled by mathematic non-contradictory laws. Do we have proof? No. Did Kepler have proof? No. He chose his god as a proof. Now to consider all Kepler's work tributary to neoplatonism because he thought that mathematics can explain the Universe it seems a bit too much. This was an assumption, a premise (an important one, of course). It was not the evidence of his work.

IIRC p->q can be rendered in causal logic. But on topic, between the formation of his ideas, between the publishing of his books, there's a time passing there. Ideas on paper are implications, in reality they are caused events, as they succeed in different moments of time (and in our case, we can say even life).
I was indeed superfluous in my accusation.

I was not trying to make from magnetism his idea, or that it was his first idea he had about solar system's dynamics, just to point you out that even you try to diminish his role by emphasizing his non-scientific ideas, beyond that, he was still open to, and perhaps he was even looking for naturalistic explanations.
You can take a good laugh at him giving life to Sun, but when you'll read his other alternatives you'll realize that he was looking for a drive for his model. That's why Newton said he owed so much to Kepler.

Oh no. I even accepted several times already that I have absolutely no problems with his mystical ideas. Just that they don't make his approach less naturalistic, less scientific.
There were a lot of things to be known in his time, for some you could take a naturalistic approach, for some you couldn't. Kepler correctly identified the Moon as source of tides, but I don't emphasize on that because I don't think he had a scientific justification for it, it had a similar weight with his ideas about solar system's drive.

Straw man. You previously talked about the 5 solids as being the reason of his laws, which is wrong and you abandoned it. Now you focus on his mathematical-ruled universe as a proof that his theory is neopythagoreic. On that reasoning, our entire science is neopythagoreic
He could've believed in IPU for all that matters, his work shows scientific approach. He's one of those guys that created the "scientific revolution". The history was written, Kepler was analysed. What are you trying to show? That he was no atheist? Well, he wasn't. That he had his many assumptions? Yes, he had. So? That makes him less of a scientist? No. It's just your mistunderstanding of the term.

Your brief on Kepler's work pictured Earth as one calculation and Mars as an independent other.

I don't understand what are you asking. Please rephrase/clarify.

I don't understand what are you asking. Please rephrase/clarify.

It isn't? So when you gather data what do you do with it? Just store it? How do you analyze data in other way but searching for relations? Good thing we already came where we are, if science and naturalistic inquiry would have followed your ideas we'd still be in stone age

Is his model not explanatory? Wasn't his model most accurate, best predictive models up to modern times? Oh, it didn't explain gravity? It didn't explain the star formation, and the size of the universe? He didn't intend to, he had no idea what gravity is, how large is the universe (that was practically impossible to observe).

He did that too. But he did many others and you're still ignorant on them.

No sir. You labeled my "natural philosophy" term as "renaissantist taxonomy" and you're wrong once. Scientific revolution took place mostly after Renaissance and you're wrong twice. We weren't talking about Scientific Revolution but about Kepler vs Bruno, evocating various guys since ancient Greece to their times, and you're wrong three times.

Not quite, but he had a naturalistic approach.

... and ignorance shows its ugly head. Dude, if you don't know history just refrain to talk about it. This is no parody, but lack of knowledge. You have a problem with monks? You can't accept that much of modern science was developed by religious persons? Spare me of such anti-religious bias!

I'm not the one bringing "sun's soul" and the 5 solids in a discussion about science, so I guess I'm not the one targetted about your accusation. If dealing with evidence, modelling, prediction are not part of scientific method, then I don't know what is.

Straw man. I was not talking (nor you replying to, in case you haven't realized until now) about various views on astrology he had, but about a certain one - how the astrology (he practices) is the foolish daughter of the mathematical astronomy, and the necessity of him practicing it to earn his life. You claimed that the astrology I quoted is the astrology practices by sharlatans/idiots and you were shown wrong when the quote was revealed in its complete form. End of story.

Nonsense. You admitted yourself that he was aware and took this idea from Gilbert.

Why don't you go back and see how I tried to keep my discussion with spin free from ad hominems and how I refused repeatedly to answer him just to avoid the long chains of ad hominems from both sides. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how spin writes, and I read many of his posts on regular basis, but you'll see that often he challanges also the persons he debates, especially when they disagree with him. Sometimes is funny, sometimes is annoying.
While about me, you could see that at least on this thread I had some civil exchange of replies with some of the participants (and even some with spin) though we disagreed. So your prejudice is just shown false.
And even it had been true that's not an excuse for casting the first stone. You did it, now you face the consequences. You want it otherwise, change your approach. You can already notice that my tone sweetened once yours did, so perhaps this is a way for you to follow. The choice is yours.

You don't get it. Nor you know what this fallacy is about. Even creationist sites have references (you think they don't quote Darwin?) and PhDs.

Your deeper problem is that you don't know history, nor logic.
What if future evidence will not support your point? What then? The line of reasoning is as you don't know with certainty if future evidence will support you, there's absolutely no logic necessity for your claims to be true. Hope is not an argument.
Above you created a straw man, a fallacy of composition and several others. You reduced a case of uncertainty to a case of certainty by choosing only one possibility.

No, it was just a rhetoric to point at your straw man. Everyone means more than your office mates. When you'll get out of your room, you'll realize that.

Lafcadio

IIRC Bruno did not consider any evidence but some writings of others. IMO can't be considered a natural philosopher.

Buridan

I think you may be right, depending a bit on one's definition.

Natural Mysticist?

Ciao :Cheeky:

Lafcadio

I'm bothered by "natural" not by "philosopher"

Buridan

Mystical Philosopher, then :Cheeky:

He may in many ways be compared to New Age propagandists like Capra and Chopra.

spin

I can understand that.

mata leao

possession is nine tenths. The Christian West has done rather well for itself. Old proverb: when using a tested recipe, be careful what you take out or add in that isnt in the original-you may not like the result.

NOGO

Where did Kepler use the scientific method?

My point is that the scientific method is used very little in astronomy.
We cannot experiment with exploding stars and black holes.

If one calls science only knowledge obtained through the scientific method as Lafcado suggests then much of what is science today would have to be thrown out.

Buridan

NOGO: There is no such thing as THE Scientific method. The methods one uses will to some degree vary from science to science. However, the game is still to form hypotheses and check them against data.

Astronomy is a science, even if it so far has been proven rather difficult to create stars in laboratories :Cheeky: