[MD] Alternatives to the scientific method

Tue Jul 31 04:26:04 PDT 2007

Ok so Kepler says we must measure things, but I can measure anything I like!
I may be open then to criticisms of the quality of my measurements, but thats a different story. My answers will keep changing, but thats no different from trying to measure the position of a particle, each time you ask the question the situation is changed, so you cant perform the same experiment twice. Repeatability is context dependent, and varies in its impact on the quality of the data. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
> [mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org]On Behalf Of 
> Platt Holden
> Sent: 30 July 2007 18:12
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Alternatives to the scientific method
> 
> 
> Jos:
> 
> [Jos}
> > Please confront the below process head on:
> > 
> > Scientists agree on what the scientific method is, I use it 
> exactly as
> > intended and propose a hypothesis to explain some observed 
> phenomena. I
> > subject the hypothesis to repeated experiment and fail to 
> dis-credit it. I
> > accept my hypothesis pragmatically as valid. This is what I 
> have done and
> > this is the conclusion I draw. I have arrived at it 
> scientifically, so in
> > what way was this not science? 
> 
> Seems to me you may have left out an important criteria of 
> the scientific 
> method, namely, measurement. From:
> 
> http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_scientific_met
> hod.shtml
> 
> that  outlines the steps of the scientific method. Among the 
> steps are: 
> 
> "Construct a Hypothesis: A hypothesis is an educated guess about how 
> things work:
> "If _____[I do this] _____, then _____[this]_____ will happen."
> You must state your hypothesis in a way that you can easily 
> MEASURE, and 
> of course, your hypothesis should be constructed in a way to help you 
> answer your original question.
> 
> "Conducting an Experiment: Analyze Your Data and Draw a 
> Conclusion: Once 
> your experiment is complete, you collect your MEASUREMENTS 
> and analyze 
> them to see if your hypothesis is true or false."  (emphasis added)
> 
> I don't remember Pirsig setting out any measurements that 
> were repeatable
> much less agreed upon. Sure, you can roughly rate static 
> quality patterns 
> on a scale of 1 to 10 or A, B, C etc., but individual 
> assessments would 
> vary all over the lot. I give my Buick a quality rating of A, 
> but my next 
> door neighbor would give it a C- compared to his Honda. Such 
> would hardly 
> qualify as a scientific study.
> 
> >From an historical perspective, measurement is also key in 
> the scientific 
> method. From Ken Wilber in "Eye to Eye:"
> 
> "But there is one other point in regard to Galileo and 
> Kepler, and the 
> most important point at that, the very heart of the matter. 
> We saw that 
> others before them had carefully used the eye of the flesh; 
> and others 
> before them had, in a crude sense, used a type of induction, 
> trying to 
> validate their theories in several circumstances. But Galileo 
> and Kepler 
> hit upon the real and essential secret of empirical-inductive 
> proof: in a 
> scientific experiment, one desires to see if a particular 
> event occurs; if 
> it does, something changed. In the physical world, change necessarily 
> involves some sort of displacement in space-time; displacement can be 
> measured. Conversely, if an event cannot me measured, it 
> cannot be the 
> object of an empiric-scientific experiment; and as far as science is 
> concerned, it does not exist."
> 
> Obviously, Pirsig's Dynamic Quality cannot be measured. Little wonder
> science refuses to acknowledge its existence. But, they can't 
> deny Quality 
> exists since they consider the scientific method to be very 
> good indeed.
> 
> Platt
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