Is planet earth f**ked and should scientists be impartial?

ajm":xbs4r37g said:

Bram J":xbs4r37g said:

Science can't be bent, it is also self-correcting. Plus in most cases scientists working in the industry have to come up with stuff that simply works, so it has to be correct. Scientists at universities will neither be likely to bend science. Only scientists who do research on request of politicians might apply to your idea. But they can't bend the facts either, facts are simply that.

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Your faith in science is touching, but sadly misguided. Scientists working for universities (and everywhere else for that matter) are very likely to bend science; whether consciously or not, every scientist has their own opinions and worldview and that affects every single thing they do and see.

You say that facts are facts and can't be changed... however bare "facts" are actually not that easy to come by. The same evidence can be viewed by two scientists with completely incompatible theories as supporting or proving their own pet theory correct, and yet both may be completely wrong; it often happens that several stories (theories) can be made to fit the bare facts.

Scientists work under a system of organised peer pressure where in some fields, having a minority opinion or worldview is enough to ensure that they will never receive funding and will be effectively unemployable. Sadly if you read enough science history you will find that all-prevailing scientific theories held as indisputable fact have actually been completely wrong and it is only years, decades or even centuries later that the tide turns.

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B77":3tdffvbb said:

I honestly don't see how you can bend science, or to put put another way bend established scientific fact.
Water boils at sea level at 100°C
Objects on earth fall at 9.81ms/s
how can you actually bend these facts ?

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The use of the word faith is a bit bizarre, it kind of implies a belief in something.

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ajm":dgcyiv7e said:

B77":dgcyiv7e said:

I honestly don't see how you can bend science, or to put put another way bend established scientific fact.
Water boils at sea level at 100°C
Objects on earth fall at 9.81ms/s
how can you actually bend these facts ?

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Well, you can't easily - these are the bare facts I was talking about. These are useful facts, the accuracy of which can be ascertained by repeated experimentation; this is the kind of science that (once engineers get involved) leads to useful improvements in technology.

The use of the word faith is a bit bizarre, it kind of implies a belief in something.

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Not at all; now we come to Bran's second reply; he believes that Charles Darwin's ideas have been _proved_ correct by due scientific process.

This is nothing like true - if anything, real science has uncovered unimaginable levels of complexity in the most basic building blocks of life which make the gaping holes Darwin himself saw in his theory look like microscopic pinpricks. And yet... lots of otherwise rational scientists believe in his basic theory - why? Because it's their worldview (religion.) They don't want to accept anything as existing that they cannot measure, and so they _believe_ that what exists must have come by plain statistical chance from what already existed (even if we know scientifically that there must actually have been a beginning to all material things.)

It doesn't matter that rational scientific and statistical analysis of the issue says that it is impossible on a range of different levels; they will insist that because life exists as we know it, the statistics are wrong! It's circular reasoning based on the worldview (=faith) through which they interpret everything they see and measure.

Their stories on how we came to be, and on how life around us will continue to develop are NOT facts at all; they're opinions, theories, philosophy.

EVERYBODY has a framework through which they interpret the actual facts which they find, whether they realise it or not. Real science is and will always be simply unable to answer a lot of the very big questions in life and scientists are at best fallible human beings with their own agendas and prejudices.

(I have worked in academia and had my own research published in the past, so I'm not just spouting 3rd hand "knowledge" here - I'm pleased to say it was real science which was and is open to proof or disproof through repeated experimentation ;-) )

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B77":286y2x7o said:

Bram, have you read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan ?

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