Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Trust in Science

http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2006/09/trust_in_scienc.html

excerpt:

"Science is a subjective process with an objective goal. Genuine objectivity is beyond the reach of any individual scientist, or any community of scientists, as we are all human and subject to biases of many different kinds. The scientific endeavour achieves something that approximates to objectivity only over time. Scientific theories receive popular validation when they result in technology, or when sufficient time has passed for the most effective explanations to prove their worth (as we saw previously in the case of continental drift).

Trust in science is a metaphysical belief..."

'Genuine objectivity is beyond the reach of any individual scientist, or any community of scientists'
Agreed - Anything anyone does including scientists has to come through the
filter of our individual brains, our conditioning/teaching and our pre-conceptions, ergo all science is actually subjective. We are frequently told by scientists that this or that is the way it is or that something is good or bad for us only to be told sometime later that this is no longer the case.
''Trust in science is a metaphysical belief..."
In the final analysis everything is only what YOU think it is.

Love and light,
Faune

So, if I think a car will just go right through me and I will be unharmed then I should just walk right out onto any highway, right?

Of course not.

If you want to mentally masturbate, you can go into solipsistic arguments. You can ask how do we know that we know until absolutely nothing is certain. While it may be an entertaining game, it's nothing more than playing with your own mind, pushing symbols around in accordance with certain rules.

We all know that cars exist for real and that walking out in front of one going 60 mph will likely get you mangled and/or killed. I know this for certain, because my brother did it while on drugs that made him think, delusionally, that he'd be ok. Well, guess what? Reality 1, Belief 0. Luckily, my brother is still alive, but his body has been screwed up and he's got brain damage. Or maybe he hasn't. Maybe that's just my subjective experience.

There are certain facts of life that for all practical purposes are objective. Emphasizing that because we experience these objective events through our subjectivity is useful only in that it helps us be on guard against errors in judgment caused by the fallibility of our perceptual apparatuses. It is not carte blanche to believe any old crazy thing you want and, worse, say that it is just as valid as beliefs based on empirical evidence.

Would you inject yourself with some drug simply because somebody decided to believe, based on their own subjective criteria, that it would help you? Or would you want some scientific proof that the substance would help you instead of harming you? But wait... that's all just subjective brouhaha, right? So the studies and the crazy ideas of a lunatic are exactly the same....

Please.

You are surrounded by the validity of scientific thought in your everyday life. You might even have been dead by now were it not for this supposedly subjective pursuit.

Trust in science is based on evidence and reason. We have ample evidence to prove to us that the scientific method is necessary. One reason is that we're not perfect and that we don't know everything. So, we have to experiment, play around, and see if our guesses about the world are right or wrong.

There was once a demonstration by Tesla on electricity and the body. If he grabbed power lines with high voltage at 60 cycles per second it would assuredly kill him.

He theorized that if the same power were raised to 300 cycles per second that he could safely handle it. He went on to prove this very thing by grabbing high voltage live power at 300 Hz and walking away intact.

To me this demontrates that the possibility exists you could safely walk out in front of a speeding car if you could change the frequency of the car or yourself. If you cannot, then you most assuredly will suffer some damage or death.

It is great having pie in the sky Beliefs but having the technics to make them reality can be a big stumbling block. The answers are always there to make Beliefs become reality.

Hi Baba ,

Check out Master Lins book - Born a Healer.
As Jeffd says you can change your reality if you have the knowledge, trust and belief.

However the discussion point was whether science can be objective.
My answer is that everyone is subjective and everything, including science is coloured by the scientists own subjectivity. Previous experience, hopes, expectations etc always have some bearing on the results.
Most scientific studies are biased , whether to achieve something or more often to make a profit for someone.
You might argue that some tests are carried out on machines or computers but men designed the programmes so subjectivity always is inherent.

I don't discount the benefits which science has bought to our lives but I do take it with a pinch of salt.
Science may 'prove' something this year but next year that 'proof' is rebutted.
You say you wouldn't take a drug without scientific backing? Try smoking nicotine? Thalidomide? PPA? Vioxx? etc. US NIA report Oct 2003 states 7.8 million Americans killed by Organised Medicine. There are loads of cases.( I have 26 years of working with people with disabilities)

This is my answer and is of course highly subjective based on my knowledge and experience.
Your reality is probably competely different.

Love and light,
Faune

Tesla could do what he did because he knew how things worked. He didn't expect reality to conform to his beliefs.

He understood the nature of electricity well enough to do what he did. It wasn't because he indulged in pie in the sky crap and expected the world to conform to his beliefs. He learned from the world well enough to do what others thought impossible because others didn't have his depth of understanding.

How did he learn what he did? Well, I think attending to reality might have something to do with that, don't you?

Getting from point a to point b by doing what is necessary is a result of being grounded in reality, and I see nothing wrong with that.

Faune,

Changes occur in science. Yes. This means that science is continually updating its body of knowledge. Would you prefer a scientist to simply decide on an answer and then stick to it no matter what? That's more like faith, not science.

In the cases of drugs like Vioxx, it's obvious that these drugs are not being tested well enough. This is not a problem with science. This is a problem with the drug industry's influence and the policies of the FDA. I think you're confusing issues here and missing my point.

I know what the topic of the conversation is about, and my points were intended to address it.

Science is an empirical system. Hypotheses are tested against reality. The criteria for accuracy of an idea involve testing the idea against what is, not some well formedness conditions based on criteria that have nothing to do with the real world.

Studies that are biased are unscientific, by definition.

A scientist does not set out to prove a hypothesis, he or she sets out to see if he or she can disprove it in order to learn more about the world. This kind of interaction with reality is the basis of most of the progress we have seen in the world.

It's not subjective.

To the extent that subjectivity creeps into science you have bad science. Get it? Otherwise, science is just what you want it to be, and things just don't work that way. Water isn't going to boil at 60 degrees fahrenheit at sea level just because you want it to. You see? If science were subjective, it would say, sure, if you feel like it, man, sure water boils like that. But it doesn't, because science is based on objective facts.

My reality is no different from yours. We both live in the same world. Gravity and the laws of thermodynamics work the same for you and I because we both inhabit the same reality. While our reality is the same, our PERCEPTIONS of it are different. While two people may have different reactions to a piece of art, the piece of art remains the same. It is an object outside of the two individuals. Saying my reality is different from your reality is like saying that the two people are looking at different works of art. No. They are looking at the same work, it's just that their experiences of it are different.

You can say that, well, since their reactions are so different you *might as well* say that they are looking at two different works of art, but you'd be wrong. You'd be neglecting the facts. They're both looking at the same thing even though their reactions are completely different.

This is an important distinction that a lot of people just don't seem to make.

Our "realities" are the same. There are no realities, plural, there's just reality singular. Our perceptions of reality are different. Our perceptions of reality do not change the very nature of reality itself. Reality remains constant. Part of being alive and maturing as individuals and as a species involves being able to learn more and more about the world so that we can survive and pursue our goals.

Well you can boil water at 60 degrees at sea level if it's under a vacuum, it's done all the time to make distilled water from sea water.

In all truth I Believe that what you are talking about is alot less complex than
the hard and fast rules of Science that you outline.

There are people who can get results and there are those who throw the whole process of scientific research in the way because of economics and many can't seem to achieve anything.

From my experience if you attempt to follow a stringent set of rules to prove or disprove a result, you will never make it happen. There will be some variable in there that cannot be planned for. Therefore no perfect test can ever be performed in this reality. It is a organic energy universe with consciousness and you will not be able to ride that horse until you come to an amicable understanding of each other.

I Believe that Tesla was able to perform what he did because he was a partner with the physical universe, working in harmony, and together they achieved some spectacular results. That is how his reality unfolded.They had a language they both used to communicate.

I Believe that Einstein was of the same mind with regards to reality. It wasn't so much that he did this or he did that. He was in harmony with the universe and could see things unfold. He communicated the best he could about his discoveries at that time. Tesla took it to the race track and walked the talk.

'Our "realities" are the same. There are no realities, plural, there's just reality singular. Our perceptions of reality are different. Our perceptions of reality do not change the very nature of reality ' Well this is developing into the old optimist v pessamist theory.
I agree with you to a point but would argue that it is the very difference in our perceptions which creates our reality.
Liquid is in a glass to the halfway point we all agree on that BUT what is your view?

Is the glass half full or half empty? Therein you have YOUR reality

Also what is your feeling on Quantum Physics . What if the universe is not what you think it is but only vibrational patterns decoded by your brain? What if you and everyone else is a hologram? Or are you so convinced that your view is the only 'right' one and that no one else can possibly have the answer?

You have all banged on about Tesla but chose to ignore my point that Master Chunyi Lin Qigong Master also held live high voltage cables in his hands and ran the electricity through his body. Read - Born a Healer.

HT You say we should view the universe as it is? How does one do that when there is no real consensus about what the universe is, how it was created/big bang or what? If all the scientists in the world can't agree or don't know then I don't think it is currently possible.

Coyote you started this thread what is your view on the debate?

Love and light
Faune

Babayada,
I was going to put this in the previous post and have now decided to do so.
You talk about art and two people viewing a picture but what if one of them is blind and their experience of it is by touch? Is their experience - their reality -discounted by you because it is not what you deem valid?
You say the picture is the reality but in the end it is the viewers perception which is that persons reality.

What a sad world it would be if we were all the same and saw everything in black and white with strict rules on how everything should be.
I'm glad to be flexible and like my dictionary definition of Reality "Property of being real, what is real, what underlies appearances, the real nature of"

Love and light,
Faune