[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> If it only occurs once then it isn't scientific
> -- yet. You have to reproduce it. If you cannot
> reproduce it, then eventually you must conclude
> that you did not see it.
Using your own words, that's absolutely ridiculous!
Tell that to all those pesky UFOs that come flitting in and out of our
tiny sphere of influence.
Those are observations, not experiments. The rules are different for
observations, when we have no power to trigger or influence events.
Astronomy is also observational, since no one can trigger a super-nova.
(Astronomers would LOVE to trigger one if they could!) Astronomers can
improve their instruments and devise new tests, and new ways to parse the
data. The study of UFOs will not progress, and doubts about the existence
of UFOs will not be laid to rest, until the people studying UFOs devise
better instruments to capture the events in more detail, more reliably, on
more occasions. In that sense, reproducibility does play a role even in
purely observational sciences.
Tell that to all the witnesses who saw what they saw, but cannot offer any
reproducible proof of what they saw in a repeatable format.
As Francis Bacon pointed out, the unaided human senses alone are not a
reliable source of information. Until the events are recorded on
instruments they will not exist as far as science is concerned.
What a convenient way to disregard valuable information.
Alas, it is the only way to make sense of any information. It is a shame we
cannot elucidate the nature of things from the human senses and experience
alone, but experience teaches us that experience is not reliable. If acute
intelligence, keen observation and astounding intuition were a reliable
guide to nature, people would have devised starships thousands of years
ago. People have always had these mental abilities, but they never did us
much good until we harnessed them to instruments, machines, logic and
objective methodology.
- Jed
