why science is lacking

Ok, I have a hard time articulating my thoughts, and I usually get rammed in arguments so i'm gonna try to make this short and sweet.

I created a simple image to show why science is lacking in its ability to explain reality


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/866f8c5f5b04.jpg[/atsimg]

Science, in our times, has the ultimate say of what is "true" or "real".
it has to be measurable, observable, and able to be repeated in order for it to fall in the category of science/truth.

so anything that isn't able to be measured, observed, and repeated simply cannot be true or real (in the name of science). in otherwords, it will not be accepted by the wider science community. for example, if some new age nut says i can heal you with energy... it cannot be considered real.

now i understand that science needs to be strict in what it accepts and rejects cause otherwise it would be a bunch of postulations. but what i have a hard time figuring out, is how people think that ONLY science can provide truth. i believe that science, while it is a very good tool... is very inadequate. looking at the pic above, i think that it only grasps about 1% of our reality/truth.

so there needs to be something else. something... else. not religion. i dont have an answer to this, but i think people need to start thinking outside of the science bubble.

if 2 scientists are in a lab and witness an increase in heat when a thermometer is placed near a flame, they can conclude that the flame gives off heat.

but if 2 people stare at someone's electromagnetic field (aura or whatever you want to call it) and agree that they both see a chakra closed or they see a certain color... it is easily dismissed. but why? does it make it untrue? just because it is not observable, measurable, or repeatable by someone else doesn't necessarily mean it is BS.

anyway, as you can see i can't articulate my thoughts that well. i'd like to hear some feedback from the science oriented and atheists. agnosticism is welcome too but i'm sure they have an easier time agreeing with my stance

reply to post by dannyfal


It's not that it's BS...it's just not science.

It shouldn't bother you that you can't label certain things as scientific. Subjective experience is the stuff of life, and not being able to attach a label to it shouldn't diminish anyone's experiences.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THE DOUBLE POST MONSTER HAS EATED ME!

[edit on 6-8-2009 by '___'eviant]

Hello!!

I guess I'm the New Age Nut that heals with Energy. Nice box You made for me. I like it! =)

This is a very interesting topic full of great potential for breadth and scope in both a subjective and objective format. We shall see. Hmmm.....

S+F for You!

In Lovingkindness

=)Namaste

Erik

As a fan of science, I feel obliged to reply. I agree to an extent with your description of the methods and thus implicated shortcomings of science; but I do not agree with the extent of those shortcomings, or at least the alleged source of the shortcomings.

In my opinion, science is the tool you say it is, and we have to accept it as one; not a tool to tell us the truth, but one to study it. Of course this differs quite radically with your description of science as something that has the ultimate say of what is true or real. You are referring to the way the collective uses science, so in a way you're completely right about it. But in my opinion, it's not science that's lacking here; it's us. For example, when a newspaper publishes the results of a science experiment, they usually leave out some critical pieces of information (methods, statistic significance of the results, acquisition of the population sample) - and 'rewrite' the conclusions to be a bit more spectacular. People who quote the newspaper article often do the same, thereby reducing the actual information being spread once more. Eventually we end up with a lot of blahblah and very little actual information.

When someone says 'science has proven X', I always feel the urge to say 'meaning; the hypotheses have not been falsified, therefore we hang on to this theory'. Apart from the most exact of sciences, there is always some movement going on with the theories - that's how science works, it expands. To quote wikipedia's hypothesis page:

Hence, failing to falsify a hypothesis does not prove that hypothesis: it remains provisional. However, a hypothesis that has been rigorously tested and not falsified can form a reasonable basis for action, i.e., we can act as if it is true, until such time as it is falsified. Just because we've never observed rain falling upward, doesn't mean that we never will—however improbable, our theory of gravity may be falsified some day.

en.wikipedia.org...

We learn to understand one principle, then we learn to study the anomalies, derive principles from those anomalies, and there we go again. This is an essential part of science, though often overlooked or misunderstood.

I'd also like to point out that science is not only experimental; empirical data is valid as well. For example, we can study a tsunami; we do not have to reproduce it.

How does this connect to science studying only a selection of phenomena? Well, seeing as we get further and further, continuously extending our theories, the box in which science is playing around will keep increasing in size; slowly, but very surely.
Of course your argument is that as a collective, we should have a tool that looks outside the box. My fear is that there is no way to 'construct' a tool for this purpose. A tool consists of methods, and to be outside of the box, it has to be a bit more lenient than the scientific method. But what does that mean? Is it a tool without theories? Without hypotheses? How could it build on itself -expand- if it has no such structure?

In the example of two persons experiencing the vision of aura's, a few decades ago we did not have the proper equipment to see what's going on in one's brain. Now, we can definitely study those phenomena, and there probably have been quite some experiments (although I can't find them at the moment). There is nothing preventing one from formulating a scientific hypothesis and/or theory explaining why some people can see aura's at some times, why experienced colors differ, etc. Even if it appears that one of the subjects sees an aura at the time the other does not, and vice versa, one could formulate an hypothesis to explain that. Even if that hypothesis gets falsified, one could formulate a bigger theory to explain how sometimes the principle diverges from its normal implications.
Of course, the bigger the theory gets, the more hypotheses there are to be tested; and the less information we have (be it empirical or experimental), the less conclusions we can draw - about the hypotheses, the theory, and most probably, the truth.

In the end, even though I believe the perceived shortcomings in science are really the shortcomings of people (both scientists and others) formulating and interpreting results, hypotheses and theories. I guess we're in the same box; we feel science is being mis- and/or abused.

reply to post by scraze

When someone says 'science has proven X', I always feel the urge to say 'meaning; the hypotheses have not been falsified, therefore we hang on to this theory'. Apart from the most exact of sciences, there is always some movement going on with the theories - that's how science works, it expands.

Well i'm glad people are getting the drift of what i'm trying to say. The above statement puts it very well. We get it crammed into our heads that correlation is not causation... yet many times we are forced (for lack of better words) to believe that A causes B just because it happens 100 times in a row. But what about the 101st time when something different happens?

The experiment with the photons going through the splits is a perfect example, where the observer effects the results.

In short, when a hypothesis is not falsified... it gets passed as truth. In a way, this weakens science (as a tool). As agnostics like to say about the issue of god... whats wrong with just saying "i don't know"?

To explain myself better, I was thinking of this in relation to human health and our understanding of how things work. Consciousness is not fully understood and I believe it plays an integral role in curing and helping people.

Science is missing VERY IMPORTANT things. That is why I made the science box so small. There is VAST amounts of information that can be gathered... but we don't pay it any attention cause (usually) the source has to be credible.

Ok, I got a better way to illustrate my point:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9b1ce610d6f0.jpg[/atsimg]

One of those illusion things. You stare at the dot in the middle long enough and the blue boxes dissapear. Now I believe that scientists are staring at that dot. And that is all they stare at. And if you stare at that dot and only that dot you are not going to be able to see the other truths.

And honestly, if your brain can play a trick like THAT on you, how are you going to base your entire structure of picking what is "real" and not by what you perceive? We all clearly percieve things differently (subjectivity)

I have no idea how many scientists/academics are in this community but I for one can say: yes, there is objectivistic science. In humanities however (where you can find religion-studies, philosophy, media studies, communication etc.) there's a lot, if not all, attention for subjective experience and the implications of quantum physics on/as art for example. Humanities uses both quantitative and qualitative research, as well as different methods for analysis (though different of course than in 'hard science').

This site for example is very interesting for me as a 'discourse'. It is interesting and funny to see how science, religion, ideologies, psychology etc. are invoked and mixed up here. I think you are really underestimating science in perceiving and approaching it as rigid thinking. It is actually quite the opposite.

I often find that people arguing that science is a little in-box-thinking amidst truth, especially when they propagate to be 'out-of-the-box'-thinkers themselves by using 'old' (meta)physical research that finally reached the masses, have often never seen a university inside for themselves.

As mentioned earlier: science is a tool, a method, for understanding 'reality'. Do you think you would have been able to do online research for ufo's, quantum physics, the illuminati etc. without scientific and technological accomplishments?

Science is neither all nor nothing.

reply to post by Thymos


Well the reason this topic fascinates me, is because I spent a couple years working at a mental health research facility myself. And ultimately the results that come from the research that was conducted was complete BS. Everything from the experiments, to the observations, to the scales used to measure, to the bias of the doctors running the experiment completely obliterated any objectivity that was possible. I can understand why scientists grasp onto the scientific method as if it were their bible, but it is NOT sufficient in any way.

You said it best by stating

Science is neither all nor nothing.

I believe that eventually we're going to be accepting things such as auras and the astral plane of existence so we might as well hurry up and start investigating these things academically, whether it can be put to the scientific method or not. There is a lot of ways humanity can benefit from understanding "non ordinary reality" and it really bugs me that we look for cures for cancer in the physical realm when it is possible to cure ailments in other non traditional methods.

Another question I posit... If two scientists astral project and see the same thing, is it valid scientifically? Is it an "objective" observation?

The problems of Science and Truth of any researched subject nowadays is the 'Grant System' and having to publish to stay on the tit of the government grant program. When you are on the payroll of a certain corporation or government agency, your not likely to go against those that pay you if their agenda is different than what your research results have found! It's not science any more it's result driven consensus, much like the Global Climate Change debacle. The money is driving the results, not true scientific research!
Zindo

The scientific discipline that studies the Big Box is called metaphysics, which includes paranormal studies.

ATS is a conspiracy theory and metaphysical site

reply to post by ZindoDoone


As 100% correct you are, I will even up you one a bit. The research company I worked for was PRIVATELY owned. Now this led to one hell of a mess when we needed to whore ourselves out to drug companies to get funding. It wasn't so much trying to skew results, but more of doctors and research techs/assistants increasing the amount of variables in the research design to the point that the whole research was pointless. For example, we HAD to have a certain amount of participants to keep a study going. So if someone wanted to go home we either A) kept them super drugged up, B)blamed the experimental medicine on it, or C)had cops send them to the loony bin. How this is in anyway good research I have no idea.

And if one wants to say that this is only one place and that not everywhere operates this way, the simple fact of the matter is there is HUMAN ERROR in ALL SCIENCE

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[edit on 18-8-2009 by pasttheclouds]

reply to post by pasttheclouds


i dont quite understand what ur saying, could u please reiterate and speak in complete sentences? i feel like u got some deep sh%$ to say so i'd like to hear it. just not in your weird talk please

reply to post by dannyfal


I agree 100%.

I love science, but science is a tool.

And people that take science as religion are fools!

I think he [pasttheclouds] means the opposition between externalism/objectivism/rationalism versus internalism/subjectivism/emotion (affects, feelings, the 'physical' as lower than 'ratio').

[edit on 18-8-2009 by Thymos]

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[edit on 18-8-2009 by pasttheclouds]

reply to post by pasttheclouds


The 'truth' behind 'symbols' (language, discursive formation etc.) is what metaphysics try to analyze in 'ontology'; the being of beings. For Heidegger it is nothing(-ness), for Hegel it is Spirit, for Freud the unconscious etc.

To be able to communicate with others about the 'truth' (which you implicitly argue as 'objective' here) you need common symbols, concepts, language and agreements to try understand it.

I think your arguments mixes a lot of incommensurable discourses (using evolution in the same sentence as the bible for example) and the way you use language makes it hard to understand what you're saying *exactly*. That's where science (empirical 'proof'), philosophy (concepts) and art (affects, subjective experience), come into play to be able to communicate and collectively understand, as far as possible.

I think your question is: 'is truth representable?' (in symbols, art, science etc.) And that's an ontological question. However, with a lot of assumptions (objective/subjective truth, how and why does a subject perceive, are we tricked by our own feelings such as love as just as tool for reproduction etc.).

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[edit on 18-8-2009 by pasttheclouds]

reply to post by pasttheclouds


Oh, never mind. I thought we were having a dialogue but it turns out to be a (potentially micro-fascist) monologue.

I hope you will find your love eventually.