Jayashankar wrote:
I am still confused with what is right and wrong in this world of
research where the point of reference changes with time and condition.
Some body made me to accept that science and philosophy are verymuch
different? Are they ?
No, they are not.
However the situation is not helped by the fact that most scientists are
woefully ignorant of the philosophy of science. Some people still think
Kuhn is pretty neat. Otherse are still citing Popper's falsification.
And, unbelievable as it may seem, some crystallographers are still
behaving like 18th century positivists and think a structure is right
just because it 'fits' an incomplete set of dodgy observations!
But more seriously, one of the fundamental problems is that the people
get a bit confused over the concepts of 'right' and 'wrong'. The most
important thing to remember is that everything a scientist says,
including me, you and everything on this board, is subjective and
determined by a whole load of social factors, as well as scientific
ones. At the same time we are all desperately trying to talk about
something objective, some absolute external reality.
Good scientists are aware of their subjectivity and take every step
possible to test their viewpoint by theory and experiment, and then
having done so to carefully critique their own conclusions.
Asking questions is an excellent thing to do. But if you do so, be
prepared to follow the arguments and carefully weigh the contradictory
answers that you receive.
