--- allwyntc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Only that the science has not changed. It was >empirical, it still is empirical. The problem I have >with modern science is that there is too much special >interest driving it. >
As you can see, the statement made earlier by Allwyn that medical science is not a science, and all the scare quotes around science and scientists, appear to have stemmed from a deeply held personal belief that "too much special interest is driving it". None of it was based on a proper objective understanding of what is really meant by science. The idea that any science is not a science because it is empirical i.e. based on objective observational evidence, is laughable. Indeed, it is the dependence on evidence for confirmation or falsification of scientific hypotheses that makes science powerful and of practical significance. The technological achievements of all natural sciences can be attributed in large part to the fact that they are empirical. BTW, in his previous post Allywn might have created the impression, perhaps intentionally to somehow belittle me, that only medical science is an empirical science. Actually, all natural and social sciences are empirical. Only Mathematics and Logic are non-empirical or formal sciences. On the matter of proofs, the implication that a science is somehow deficient because it cannot prove anything with absolute certainty is equally wrongheaded. Absolute certainty and truth is clearly not required to build and fly an airplane, communicate electronically across continents, oceans and interplanetary space, completely cure someone from tuberculosis or typhoid, eradicate small pox, and so on. The stark reality that empirical evidence leads to new discoveries cannot be hidden from the public by abstract arguments of axioms and proofs. Interestingly, in mentioning axioms and proofs the value of disproving or falsification was conveniently left out by Allwyn. Empirical evidence is a powerful tool to disprove or falsify something with a high degree of confidence, as the agnostic dualist Karl Popper showed. Empirical observations disproved the notions that the world is flat and the atom is indivisible, just as today they have disproved the substance dualistic belief that the mind, self and consciousness can exist independently of the brain. Cheers, Santosh
