[MD] Alternatives to the scientific method

[ian glendinning]

Hi Jos, et al ... from way back on 30th July ... (DMB mentioned).

You are being "tricky" as you say, playing with your definition of
"science" and a point I keep raising ...

Restricting a definition of science literally to the basic emprical
method (the 1,2,3,4 numbers game) is the same as restricting rational
debate to syllogistic logic.

100% accurate, 100% useless you say (or 10/10; Useless, as an old boss
of mine used to say .... all of 30 years ago, in engineering !)

The good news is enlightened science has spotted this dilemma, the bad
news is not enough wider scientific debate is so enlightened yet.

Sounds like you've reached the same point in your personal debate as I
have, enough thinking, enough debate, just write something (as
Pirsig's own supervisor advised in Chicago.) The alternative is
madness.

Join up the dots of your use of "pragmatism" below with DMB's recent
epiphany on the subject.

Ian

On 7/30/07, Laycock, Jos (OSPT) <Jos.Laycock at offsol.gsi.gov.uk> wrote:
> Hi Platt, (Ian's view also sought)
>
> Not much point picking over every statement, I can see what you're saying.  -
> My entire point can be summed by saying that this thread is about the method of science, not its discoveries and I contend that this "method" is the same one that philosophers use to think with. You seem to see the method as inseparable from the culture and there might well be something in that.  Really I'm being tricky by asserting that scientists who do something other than according precisely to "the method" aren't really "proper" scientists and I thus exclude them from by dwindling elite. Like with much of the pap I find myself typing here, this position is absolutely accurate but absolutely useless, which probably says something about the whole clash between Pragmatism and Objectivism.
>
> Anyway
> The first pair of statements is interesting: You offer me the choice of a given "cause" being either "natural" or "supernatural", could you define either of these categories please?
>
> I think that I would say that things occur because they have a preference to do so, I would also say that this is "natural" and that I consider this view to be a scientific one.
>
> In particular, as I'm currently spending time attempting to contrive thought experiments that might be potentially confounding to this view but am making no progress whatsoever, it must now be time to move on to stage 4 and seek peer review.
>
> Any thoughts?
>