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A New Kind of Science

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A New Kind of Science

ManiacJack
aka W

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Posted 08/02/08 - 03:52 PM:	#11
First... enkidu wrote: Global warming is more a conclusion than a theory (in the scientific sense of the term), and it is not exclusively, not even primarily, based on correlations, but rather on well-developed mathematical models directly issued from physics. The uncertainty as to the results of these models does not come from statistics, but merely from the fact that these models are stochastic. The general public however may get the impression that these conclusions are exclusively based on correlations, but it's not true, it simply is easier to convey these results in terms of correlations, the real science behind it being much too complex to be of any use to the public. Then... Science is still suffering from the positivist myth which says that it is rooted in observation, and solely in observation, entertaining the idea of science as the mere, almost natural, expression of truth. This is obviously absurd to anybody who has considered this problematic a bit, but it may not be for most people. And in a market driven world, most people have their say, they are the one, indirectly who decide of what is important (worth financing) and what is not. I believe this is the locus of the problem. Most scientists are very well aware that data collections and statistics do not make science, they know that speculation is the key driving force of science, that systematization, theoretization is a necessary requisite for the progress of knowledge, but the market ignores that, and it is mostly the market that allocates the funds, that finances the research. The market indeed only thinks in terms of utility, not in terms of truth (from its point of view, it's actually the same thing). So you disagreed with my statements, yet reiterated my sentiments. Statistics are a forced correlation, are they not? Any theories based on statistics are innately fallible at best. Any statistics based from theories are self-fulfilling at best. It appears to me that the inconclusive methods of sociology and psychology are being used as a foundational basis for anthropogenic global warming. Despite this, as you say, the Market pushes onward. Science has left truth in these matters for the joy of advertising. Which Science will save the world first? I saw 'Green Movement' ads Before the Dark Knight recently. Green = Environmentalism = Global Warming, Right? Any Science not concerned with Truth is No science of Mine.
Future Tense Passed Relief the Escapist wrote: Bullshit, self-deception, self-aggrandizement. Explains everything, really...

DJPavel
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Posted 08/03/08 - 08:51 PM:	#12
Hi Kwalish Kid, Kwalish Kid wrote: DJPavel wrote: 1. Cantor’s infinities. It doesn’t matter that you can’t picture one infinity “greater” than the other. You must accept such counterintuitive notion because it works. In fact, you can’t even deny it because in doing so you’ll contradict yourself. I'm not sure that this has anything to do with science, let alone your take on its methodology. What is the application of Cantor's infinities that you have in mind I can’t think of any direct applications. After all, modern science treats physical systems as discreet entities, but there are plenty of indirect applications in topology, group theory, or computer science to name a few. For example, Turing Machine, the idealization of Von Neumann’s architecture deals with infinity. And once you have one infinity, you have others (as now you deal with sets of sets). It’s really irrelevant though. My point was that there are some well established things, such as Cantor’s infinity, that do not have to have to be intuitive or visualized to be accepted to be true. The methodology I refer to is reductio ad absurdum, the standard method of proving theorems. Cantor’s diagonalization proof was based on such derivation, which is based on the law of excluded middle. Kwalish Kid wrote: Yet we cannot even "do the math" without some narrative. We have to describe the proper experimental set-up, we have defined entities in the theory that serve as the locus of determining what calculations to perform. We may not have a complete understanding of these entities, but we still use them. Right, but we can describe the proper experimental set-up with statistical correlations as well, which is besides the point. The point here is not how you test the predictions of the theory, the point was, How do you conceptualize the theory itself? To quote Feynman again, “Atoms on a small scale behave like nothing on a large scale, for the satisfy the laws of quantum mechanics”. So, if I understand the physicists correctly, our accustomed ways of perceiving and categorizing reality are evolved for a specific scale. Just like we can’t intuitively appreciate the processes that take millions of years, we can’t visualize the processes that take place on the quantum level. To point this out, I believe, was exactly the purpose of Shrodinger’s Cats. So, under “standard” interpretation of QM, we are advised not to try to visualize how quantum world works in a way we like to visualize atoms as planetary models. We’re asked just to do the math. My question was, can we proceed with math only and no pictures or causal models? Kwalish Kid wrote: This might deserve its own thread, because your take on the anthropic principle, like the take of many starry-eyed physicists who want to go beyond the currently available observations, is simply wrong. There is nothing that the weak anthropic argument forces us to accept. It is only certain assumptions about what universes or areas of the universe are "typical" and what the probabilities are for the initial conditions of the universe or areas of the universe. Assumptions in these areas are, to my mind, completely unwarranted as of yet. Ok, I’ll open a new thread on this as soon as I free up a bit, as this is a very interesting topic. One note though. With all due respect, I’m not really interested in your opinion on who the starry-eyed physicists are and how I should interpret what the Anthropic principle says. There are more credible sources for that kind of judgment easily available on the Internet. This being a philosophy forum, I’m more interested in speculation and exploration. I’m well aware that the inference of multiverse via the principle is a highly contentious speculation among the pros. But I prefer playing the sport of philosophy to watching it and talking about it. So, let me tell you how I reason in favor of the Anthropic principle and you tell me your reasons in response without presuming any conclusions. DJP

enkidu
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Posted 08/04/08 - 07:03 AM:	#13
ManiacJack wrote: So you disagreed with my statements, yet reiterated my sentiments. Statistics are a forced correlation, are they not? Any theories based on statistics are innately fallible at best. Any statistics based from theories are self-fulfilling at best. It appears to me that the inconclusive methods of sociology and psychology are being used as a foundational basis for anthropogenic global warming. Despite this, as you say, the Market pushes onward. Science has left truth in these matters for the joy of advertising. Which Science will save the world first? I saw 'Green Movement' ads Before the Dark Knight recently. Green = Environmentalism = Global Warming, Right? Any Science not concerned with Truth is No science of Mine. No, I think I must clarify something here. In the first extract you quote, I say that global climatology and its most famous conclusion: Global Warming, is not exclusively, not even mainly, based on statistics. When you see climatologists referring to some probability of this or that happening, these probabilities are not issued from statistics, but simply from stochastic models. There is a difference between statistics (which is indeed the collection and manipulation of data, and their correlation, without reference to a causal link, while they may lead to the hypothesis of one) and probabilities which are employed in many other fields besides statistics. Probabilities occur whenever you encounter an indeterminate variable that varies randomly, this indetermination may be due to the limitation of our ability to measure, or to something more fundamental (such as in Quantum Mech. according to some interpretation). In climatology, we cannot measure all the variables that enter the computation of the mathematical model (based on thermodynamics, fluid mechanics,...), but all are important so some variables are taken to vary randomly over a range, and probabilities are carried in the final results (that's a very simplistic presentation, but I hope it is roughly correct, I welcome any correction or precision). In the second extract, I specifically address the issue of statistics alone, and I don't know any hard science where a statistical approach is exclusively used; while some scientific domains, such as econometry, do exclusively use statistics, that is data collection, and correlation without asserting a causal link, without basically providing any explanation for the data set to evolve in one way or another, while they say that such an evolution into a precise direction is estimated as likely. But this is clearly not what global climatology is doing, global climate models are based on known hard science, which links causally various states, even though these links are tampered by probability, this one has a very different origin than in statistics.

Kurt_Godel
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Posted 08/04/08 - 11:42 AM:	#14
Co-signing everything enkidu said. I don't think that statistical correlation would qualify as a 'new kind of science'. Its simply an inclusive complementary method. And even that is driven by the core fundamentals of science identified by OP in the first post. The 'end of theory' and speculation/hypothesizing would be an end of science itself. That said, I haven't read the article, but I find it hard to believe that an article espousing statistical correlation as a 'new science' is receiveing so much attention.

Kelby
Cognitive Philosopher

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Posted 08/04/08 - 11:54 AM:	#15
It's an article in Wired and though I agree with you Kurt-Godel, people are actually talking about this at my work. haha
Embodied Cognition: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/embodcog.htm#H2

Kurt_Godel
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Posted 08/04/08 - 01:51 PM:	#16
Meh. Pop-sci makes everyone feel smart. But Wired = Now I remember. I saw the article in my subscribed copy, but immediately disagreed with the suggestion.

Carbon Based
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Posted 08/06/08 - 03:46 PM:	#17
The Scientific Method did not pop into existence complete as we know it. It was built up over the years, each "tool" refining and fulfilling a need of a coherent method in which to explore our world/universe and to know we weren't lying to each other about it. Statistical correlation, is just another tool that may be or not, be integrated into that tool box at some point depending on it's utility to the whole. Edited by Carbon Based on 08/06/08 - 03:51 PM

Simple Occam
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Posted 08/19/08 - 10:55 AM:	#18
Information overload is exacerbated by a profound lack of interpretive theory to make any sense out of it. One of the most crippling legacies of empiricism is the notion that all the data of sensation are connected only by habits of association. It's as if we would have to know EVERY fact (an obvious impossibility) to be sure of ANYTHING. What passes for science these days IS simply statistical correlation. The idea that science could discover intelligible structures underlying the objects of ordinary experience tht explain not only their existence but what we come to experience them as we do is a bankrupt notion that began it's deaththroes following the birth Einsteinian physics. We so comfortable with the idea that the world is not intelligible at the bottom or the top that we view anyone claiming to have such a truth as dangerous and delusional... a modern day witch. Lee Smolin's claim that "Physics should be more than a set of formulas that predict what we will observe in an experiment; it should give a picture of what reality is." There is no possible "picture" of the paradoxical twin who is both older AND younger than somebody who is their same age. Nor is there one of a "statistical entity", quantum indeterminacy or n-dimensional space. Mathematical formulas that define unintelligible "things" yet enable precise measurements and predictions are the new impossible objects of faith that the not-so-new science seems to herald. The fact that there is an actual debate about anthrogenic global warming only illustrates my point. Even scientists are fair game for the relativizers who find their findings to be economically and politically disadvantaegous at the present time and so discredit them in the eyes of the non-scientists who do most of the buying and voting. That there are otherwise intelligent people in this forum who buy into that line is even more illustrative... and scary.

DJPavel
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Posted 08/19/08 - 07:17 PM:	#19
Hi Simple Occam, It's interesting that you mention global warming. I was actually thinking of an example that shows that we do need "pictures" of reality, at least in some situations. Statistical correlations just won't be enough; I have to agree now with some of the posters here that say we need both. The example is the statistical correlation between the historical record of Earth's temperatures and the amount of CO2. It's still debatable which one is the cause and which one is the effect (if there's some causal relationship in the first place), but the point is that we need to develop a causal model to see if we can or cannot control global warming by reducing the CO2 emissions. Clearly, statistical correlation by itself will not help us come up with regulations that will make our lives better, but a "picture" (a causal model) will. DJP

Simple Occam
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Posted 08/21/08 - 11:22 AM:	#20
DJP, Statistics is just a way of keeping track of observations or other sorts of empirical data. Statistics do not explain the data or why we observe what we do. It just organizes and categorizes the data in various ways we might find useful. A causal explanation would account for why the data are what they are, not just how we organize it.

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