At 11:00 AM 3/4/2007, you wrote:
By the way, regarding the question of whether more findings support
a position than another one, note that science is not a matter of
democracy and of number of votes.
True in the sense that some evidence counts more and thus not all
evidence has an equal "vote". But, I do believe that science is a
process of building a case. When you have two competing explanations,
you go out and gather evidence. And the more evidence you collect,
the more confident you can be in your conclusions. In some situations
the evidence is clearly pointing to one explanation rather than
another. But, in other cases, the evidence might be mixed. Sometimes
it supports one explanation, but other times it supports an
alternative explanation. As more evidence is collected either one
explanation begins to have more support or (perhaps more likely) the
explanations change to accommodate the new information and in the end
do a better job of explaining the data.
So, no it isn't a democracy where we put it out in front of the world
and determine which is correct by popular opinion. But it is a
process of building evidence and support for (and against) certain
claims. To feel that one study is all that is needed on any topic (be
it for or against) seems to loose sight of the fact that we can (and
frequently are) wrong. The findings of science are tentative and
subject to change... the stronger the case is (ie the more evidence
there is) supporting a finding, the harder it is to change. You can't
blindly hold on to any belief as the evidence piles up against it...
but likewise, you shouldn't jump into a belief (or let one go)
without sufficient evidence. Now, what that level of evidence needs
to be does seem to vary for different people.
- Marc
=============================================
G. Marc Turner, PhD, MEd, Network+, MCP
Senior Lecturer & Technology Coordinator
Department of Psychology
Texas State University-San Marcos
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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