On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]>wrote:
> > > > On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 1:18 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 5/21/2014 3:44 PM, LizR wrote: >> >>> Yes, I was indeed thinking of the superhero Bicycle Repair Man when I >>> wrote that. >>> >>> However I'm not so keen on deifying the Wright brothers when they were >>> just two in a long line of people in many countries who gradually developed >>> powered flight. They did make a significant improvement, of course, but >>> there were plenty of others who helped pave the way to modern aeroplanes >>> (including one somewhat dubious claim from New Zealand) >>> >> >> Interestingly in the context of this thread, one of the Wright brother's >> main contributions was their systematic (dare I say "scientific") approach >> using a wind tunnel to study air foils. >> > > It is perhaps good to make a distinction between "science: the method" and > "science: the game". Although honest scientists will attempt to focus on > the former and avoid the pitfalls of the latter, honest scientists are > human beings with human emotions and bills to pay. So the end results is > always some combination of the two. I think this is unavoidable, but good > to be aware of, especially in times when the needle moves to much to the > game side. > > "Science: the method" is all about generating hypothesis and testing them. > Generating hypothesis is a creative process, and I don't think that > academia was ever a particularly good environment for creativity. It's > relationship to it is a bit bipolar: it eventually glorifies the successful > creative thinkers, but it fights creativity every step of the way until > then. Part of this behaviour is for good reasons, but part is pathological, > I would say. This is also true of the relationship between academia and > art, if you look at how the major artistic movements of the XX century were > received at first. > > So it's not so surprising that academia is side-stepped to achieve > invention, which doesn't mean at all that "science: the method" is thrown > out of the window. In fact, academia tries very hard to create a monopoly > on "science" but this is perverse. Anyone can apply the scientific method. > It doesn't care about formal qualifications, institutions, or even > scientific journals or peer-review. It will wield its results regardless -- > and that is beautiful in my view. A bit like the hacker's ethos in the 80s > that lead to a lot of the permission-free innovation in computer systems > that we enjoy today. > Coincidently, this just showed up on my facebook wall: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761 It's an exaggeration, but I think it illustrates the science as method / science as game distinction. Telmo. > > >> >> Brent >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
