Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Maniax on August 01, 2008, 07:41:41 pm
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I recently got into an argument with a friend over the expansion of the universe and astronomy in general, which centered over what good any of our scientific observations about the universe actually are. He made the claim that "no long-term predictions made with science as a base have yet to pan out." He was citing faulty climate change projections and oil estimations from the 70s as evidence, which I didn't find too relevant to the astronomy discussion, but even still it got me thinking about what 'long-term' predictions of science in general have indeed been confirmed true? I think I know some, such as those made by general relativity, but I'm not sure if that's one of the better examples out there.
Does anyone have some really obvious ones that are staring me in the face but I can't see them?
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E=MC^2 ring a bell?
If you really want to go long term how about flight? Didn't De Vinci predict that? Or Earth revolving around the sun. That took quite a while to prove.
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How long-term are we talking?
But given that he's starting with that as a base, I would just find a way to gracefully quit talking to him about the subject. He obviously has no concept of science whatsoever and needs to take some science classes on his own or read a good book (A really, really good book) on science. Either that, or he's playing ignorant for the sake of jerking you around.
Science will always be wrong and that's the whole point of science. An "atom" is the fundamental building block of matter. Oh no, what's that? Well I guess it isn't. But it works well for our purposes, so let's keep on using that model for this stuff, and use the more advanced model for the really advanced stuff, like quantum physics.
There's no point in bashing science for being wrong because science will always be wrong. Science is not God. Science is not omnipotent. Science is the idea that we're going to make a guess at how things work out and if it's wrong we'll change it and come up with a new explanation.
At the point that science knows everything and can predict everything with 100% accuracy, it's not science anymore, it's just plain ol' knowledge.
I would say that so far, the sun hasn't exploded. The planets have remained in much the same orbits. The planets have been where people thought they would be. The astronomical phenomenon that people have discovered have been postulated beforehand in some cases (black holes) and explained afterwards in others (pulsars). Gravity has remained unchanged. As FUBAR implicitly referenced, relativity has been proven largely correct. Sound waves continue to travel through air. Light waves continue to bounce off of objects in much the same way that they have for centuries. And you know what? Science would predict that all of these things would happen.
But science isn't about some guy in a lab coat coming up with equations out of thin air. Something that's an official scientific theory has been proven through experiments. Meaning, the prediction has already come true. Anything that isn't proven is just a hypotheses. And you can have a lot of hypotheses for the same thing. So, at the point that we're all dead because of global warming, someone can state that, yes, it is a proven scientific theory that global warming is a danger to the human race. Up until that point it's still just an experiment-in-progress.
But even then you might have people who would dispute the evidence and provide reasonable reasons that the findings of the evidence weren't correct.
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Does anyone have some really obvious ones that are staring me in the face but I can't see them?
Aerodynamics. We had workable aircraft designs long before we were able to actually make them fly; we didn't have a power source. You could probably say the same thing about spacecraft.
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The atomic bloody bomb.
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The atomic bloody bomb.
That is E=MC^2 in action.
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Yes!
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pi=c/d :P
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Existence of neutrinos. Basically theory predicted an extra particle being generated in nuclear reactions than were observed, and (IIRC) Wolfgang Pauli was the one who first suggested that a neutral, very weakly interacting and thus difficult to observe particles were being generated in nuclear reactions. Enrico Fermi termed the hypothesized particles as neutrinos; this happened in the 1930's. Detection of neutrinos was first published in 1956, and although neutrinos have had some surprises to offer to particle physics - primarily, neutrino oscillation - they are essentially pretty much like Pauli hypothesized them to be like.
Formation of solar system from accretion disk around the star. Obviously going to past to check out if this applies to our solar system is right out, but with increasingly powerful telescopes, it's possible to find infantile solar systems in different phases of developement, and the observations seem to in fact suggest that solar systems are born much like hypothesized.
Space-time curvature due to gravity, predicted by general theory of relativity and confirmed with both starlight bending observations during lunar eclipses, gravitational lenses and the travelling perihelion of Mercury's orbit.
Speciation - Darwin pretty much predicted that isolated populations of same species can evolve into separate species, and there have been a number of observed instances of speciation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5).
Hygiene - especially medical hygiene; Semmelweis, Lister et al predicted - even without exact knowledge of what was going on - that filthy conditions might have something to do with infections and diseases in general, and it actually worked when it was practiced. Similarly it was predicted that something, whatever you wanna call them, causes diseases and infections, and they aren't in fact the scource of God or somesuch nonsense. And indeed bacteria and viruses and parasites were found when research methods become sophisticated enough to see them.
The (recorded) concept of spherical Earth emerged during the 6th century BCE, and Erastothenes of Cyrene measured the circumference of Earth within 10% error bars. The fact of spherical Earth was ultimately confirmed by Fernão de Magalhães (much like Cristóbal Colón is known as Cristopher Columbus, Magalhães is known as Ferdinand Magellan) when he commited the first recorded sailing trip around the world.
Also, it was long speculated that asteroids and comets might sometimes hit planets, but proof of this was only recorded in large scale when Jupiter was hit by a comet and the event was recorded (it's pretty spectacular footage, too). Dunno if that counts as prediction being confirmed... :p
The problem with really long term predictions is obviously that while it can be predicted very accurately that, for example, Sun will render Earth uninhabitable in 500-1000 million years, it's difficult to confirm that with experimentation in individual cases because of obvious reasons. However, it is possible to observe similar stars in different stages of their developement, build a general model of stellar life cycle based on observations, and predict within certain error bars that the Sun will grow too hot for water to stay liquid on Earth in 500-1000 million years, and that it will continue brightening until at some point about 4.5-5 billion years in future it will expand rapidly, then contract to white dwarf star, likely after blowing it's outer surface into space to form a planetary nebula.
Other predictions? Well, Moore's law seems to be eerily accurate thus far. And while the transportation and life in general is not quite like they envisioned in the 50's (no moon hotels, plastic bubble houses and flying cars), some aspects of society - like computation and communications - have developed surprisingly unsurprisingly. Broadband video calls? Check. Personal communicator devices? Check. Personal communicator devices with video calls? Yeah, very soon. Computation has developed pretty much as expected after the introduction of Moore's law; previous expectations have actually been largely surpassed.
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Wait... only 500 million years?
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Some Russian called Immanuel Velikovsky came up with the theory that certain events in antiquity came about due to the nature of the universe. According to him:
1. The Nile ran blood because Venus broke apart from Jupiter at that time and bypassed Earth, leaving a slipstream of dust and gases;
2. Venus tugged Earth off its axis, giving the Persians three days of light and darkness;
3. Freak electromagnetic and gravitational forces from Venus caused the water on the Red Sea to pile up on both sides;
4. An electric charge came between Earth and Venus, causing the waters of the Red Sea to down the Pharaoh's army;
5. The calendar was revised because Mars came too close to Earth and shared an orbital conflict.
Among these explanations, Velikovsky also said that Venus had a heavier atmosphere and was hotter than Earth, and had a comet-like tail, and that Mars had a surface of craters, and that its atmosphere contained neon and argon.
This theories he put forward in 1950, and everyone derided him because it defied accepted scientific principles and Darwin's theory of an ordered evolution. However, it seems that space travel confirmed his theories.
The abovementioned was taken from The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries, published by Octopus Books. I'm not too certain as to the factual accuracy of their texts...
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Depending on how you describe confirmed...
Black holes were described in the late 18th century. Its theoretical evidence was discovered in the early 20th century even though it's own author didn't believe it was real. And from then on more and more theory was added to the point that it was proved that they are a necessary feature in our modern understanding of gravity.
Then almost 200 years after they were first described and over 50 years of its theoretical evidence being discovered, the first black hole was "sighted".
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Did they announce that they discovered 30 billion Earths several years ago?
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Among these explanations, Velikovsky also said that Venus had a heavier atmosphere and was hotter than Earth, and had a comet-like tail, and that Mars had a surface of craters, and that its atmosphere contained neon and argon.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
True, that. :yes:
Now that I'm looking at my own post being quoted, I see many instances of "and".
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Yeah, Androgeos, I gotta say, most of those predictions of his were absurd. But he did get the Venus atmosphere thing right, correct?
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Relativity, as seen in time dilation.
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He made the claim that "no long-term predictions made with science as a base have yet to pan out."
Just out of curiosity he doesn't also happen to be somewhat religious (or a republican, or both for that matter), does he?
Existence of neutrinos.
I'll add to this by mentioning the whole slew of particles that were predicted by the standard model turned out to be dead on, all that's left to find is the higgs-boson.
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Among these explanations, Velikovsky also said that Venus had a heavier atmosphere and was hotter than Earth, and had a comet-like tail, and that Mars had a surface of craters, and that its atmosphere contained neon and argon.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Unless it's a 24 hour clock or broke by hitting 13. :pimp:
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If a clock strikes thirteen, I might buy it. ;)
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Then there's the Periodic Table of Elements.
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Among these explanations, Velikovsky also said that Venus had a heavier atmosphere and was hotter than Earth, and had a comet-like tail, and that Mars had a surface of craters, and that its atmosphere contained neon and argon.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Unless it has one of its hands torn off.
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In that case, Eagle, then it'll either be right twice a day, or TWENTY-FOUR times a day. ;)
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1-12:-- isn't a time of day, just like --:0-59 isn't a time of day.
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Unless it's digital.
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Then there's the Periodic Table of Elements.
Can't believe I forgot about that one, especially since Mendeleyev was the answer in a quiz yesterday. :D But yes, when the periodic table was first drawn up by him he noticed that it made more sense if he left gaps for elements which hadn't been discovered yet. Mendeleyev then predicted the properties of the missing elements and was pretty much on the money when they were discovered.
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I didn't know the Periodic Table was a scientific prediction... :cool:
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Mendeleyev made some pretty impressive predictions based on it too.
http://www.rsc.org/chemsoc/visualelements//pages/history_iii.html
That Mendeleev realised that he had discovered, rather than designed, the periodic table is shown by his attitude towards it. First, he left gaps in it for missing elements. Leaving such gaps in tables of elements was not in itself new, but Mendeleev was so sure of himself that he was prepared to predict the physical and chemical properties of these undiscovered elements. His most notable successes were with eka aluminium (= Gallium) and eka-silicon (= germanium). Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered gallium in 1875 and reported its density as 4.7g cm -3, which did not agree with Mendeleev’s prediction of 5.9g cm -3. When he was told that his new element was Mendeleev’s eka-aluminium, and had most of its properties foretold accurately, Boisbaudran redetermined its density more accurately and found it to be as predicted, 5.956 g cm -3. There could be no doubt now that Mendeleev had discovered a fundamental pattern of Nature.
Secondly, Mendeleev was prepared to place elements in his table in apparently the wrong group. Thus the oxide of beryllium had been reported to be Be2O3 by none other than the great chemist Berzelius. Later workers claimed it to be BeO. The former gave the element a valency of III, the latter II. Mendeleev had a vacancy in his table for an element in group II, and so he had no hesitation in placing beryllium in it.
Thirdly, Mendeleev was prepared to place elements in his table in the wrong order of atomic weight. The anomaly here was that tellurium (atomic weight 128) should come after iodine (127), whereas the group for Te is clearly the one before I. Mendeleev presumed that the atomic weight of Te had been determined wrongly. However, fresh analyses confirmed the original value and this anomaly remained as a puzzle for chemists until the discovery of isotopes. Where I has only a single isotope of mass number 127, Te has eight stable isotopes of mass numbers 120 to 130, and the most abundant is 130Te (32%). This results in the high average atomic weight of 128.
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Trial-and-error is an ancient, cheap, but fail-safe way of doing stuff. ;)
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Here's a really primitive one: Air. Probably goes back millions of years of speculating before someone figure out a way to prove that air does indeed exist.
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Here's a really primitive one: Air. Probably goes back millions of years of speculating before someone figure out a way to prove that air does indeed exist.
I wonder how they proved it back then. :drevil:
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Fire and caves?
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I don't recall if anyone mentioned this earlier, but.... Atoms were predicted to exist long before their existence was proven.
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I don't recall if anyone mentioned this earlier, but.... Atoms were predicted to exist long before their existence was proven.
Well the hypothesis (first documented in ancient India, most known to be supported by Democritus) was that world is built of atoms, which would be the smallest possible entity... atomos means "undividable", or fundamental building block that cannot be split into smaller parts.
Atoms as we know them were named as such in a bout of arrogance assuming that they would not have internal structure and further components. So, as such, atoms themselves actually didn't fulfill that prediction. I wouldn't credit that to the plethora of particles that the standard model of particle physics introduced. But things like string theories that suggest that everything is some kind of composition of entities called "strings", then I would be more than willing to accept the re-designation of "strings" to "atoms" and re-name current "atoms" to something else, like stoichions (stoicheion = element or letter in Greek), which would mean something like elemental particle, which would refer to the elements in the context of current terminology (the elements in periodic table).
...at least until strings are proved to consist of something. :lol:
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No one has done a scientific prediction about probability yet, have they? ;)
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No one has done a scientific prediction about probability yet, have they? ;)
Radioactive decay comes to mind as probably the oldest example.
It's all about probability; it defines the half lifes of active substances. A nucleus has 50:50 chance to split during one half-time. And as a consequence, half of the active nuclei will decay during one half life. ;7
Quantum physics introduced a lot more concepts depending on probabilities.
Interference of photons, electrons or any particles in a double-slit experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment) can also be explained by probability; a single particle willl end up on some points of film with larger probability than other points, but it can end up everywhere. It's just that the probability of ending up on places that will eventually form a diffraction pattern is higher than particles ending up somewhere completely randomly. Of course, on a more fundamental level the diffraction of single particles is usually explained either by wavefunction of the particle interfering with itself, or the wavefunction interfering with the same particle's wavefunction in a parallel universe where the particle happened to travel through the other slit... :nervous:
Confusingly, recent experiments seem to point to parallel universes being more probable explanation to a lot of phenomena that happen with photons. It's rather... fascinating, as Spock would say.
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Evolution has held strong for 150 years with new evidence continually supporting it. I think its one of the top three most important scientific principles of all time. Calculus, Evolution and relativity. But evolution isn't a predictive science though.
Anyway, those arent long-term scientific predictions but I think your friend misses the point of science. Its an interpretation of the world given a certain volume of information and when you try to map out something as complex as weather patterns your margin of error gets wider with every moment into the future.
The oil supply example is pretty shaky because those estimates didn't take into account the new reserves found and the new technologies developed to get the oil out of the ground/sands/shale.
Right now I can only think of one example of a predictive model that works extremely well. Its a speciation/island size theory in ecology which states a direct relationship between the number of species on an island and the size of the island.
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Calculus isn't science, it's math.
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=Calculus isn't science, it's math.
Well, mathemathics is a science too...
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/purity.png) (http://www.xkcd.com/435/)
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No it isn't.
Math doesn't follow the scientific method. Theory in science has a different meaning than theory in math.
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Well, that analogy makes sense up to, like Secondary 1.
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Q: What is the difference between a Ph.D. in mathematics and a large pizza?
A: A large pizza can feed a family of four...
An engineer and a physicist are in a hot-air balloon. After a few hours they lose track of where they are and descend to get directions. They yell to a jogger, "Hey, can you tell us where we're at?" After a few moments the jogger responds, "You're in a hot-air balloon." The engineer says, "You must be a mathematician." The jogger, shocked, responds, "yeah, how did you know I was a mathematician?" "Because, it took you far too long to come up with your answer, it was 100% correct, and it was completely useless."
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No it isn't.
Math doesn't follow the scientific method. Theory in science has a different meaning than theory in math.
Now you're generalizing natural sciences to mean all science. Which they don't. Mathematics is in my opinion a science just as much as physics; it just researches abstract concepts rather than sticking to describing reality... natural sciences just pick the tools from mathematics that fit best in describing their theories in a formal sense most accurately. Good example would be Einstein using Riemannian geometry in General Relativity.
Of course mathemathics isn't an empiric science, but as for not following scientific method... I have to disagree on that, mathematicians can also have hypotheses and conjectures and they have to confirm them with experimenting (calculations) with the set variables or axioms - the only difference is that experimentation doesn't happen in real world but rather within the abstract set of rules defined in the hypothesis. For example Fermat's last theorem (actually a conjecture until it was proven) is a good example of a hypothesis that wasn't proven to be true until several hundred years after it's postulation (because the original proof didn't fit into the margin of the page).
Proving something with mathematical logic can be just as tricky as setting up reliable experiment to negate unknown variables to prove some physical hypothesis... it's just a bit different kind of science.
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Now you're generalizing natural sciences to mean all science. Which they don't. Mathematics is in my opinion a science just as much as physics; it just researches abstract concepts rather than sticking to describing reality... natural sciences just pick the tools from mathematics that fit best in describing their theories in a formal sense most accurately. Good example would be Einstein using Riemannian geometry in General Relativity.
Of course mathemathics isn't an empiric science, but as for not following scientific method... I have to disagree on that, mathematicians can also have hypotheses and conjectures and they have to confirm them with experimenting (calculations) with the set variables or axioms - the only difference is that experimentation doesn't happen in real world but rather within the abstract set of rules defined in the hypothesis. For example Fermat's last theorem (actually a conjecture until it was proven) is a good example of a hypothesis that wasn't proven to be true until several hundred years after it's postulation (because the original proof didn't fit into the margin of the page).
Proving something with mathematical logic can be just as tricky as setting up reliable experiment to negate unknown variables to prove some physical hypothesis... it's just a bit different kind of science.
Science is an attempt to describe reality. Mathematics makes no such attempt therefore incapable of being described as science. Science makes use of mathematics, but as a tool, not as an adjacent field.
Regarding the scientific method, no, mathematics doesn't use it. Theories in mathematics are not falsifiable (Fermat's last theorem as you stated, wasn't a real theorem, it was only dubbed as such because it was such highly regarded) and therefore cannot be regarded as scientific theories (again, to express the point, it isn't science). Yes, they are similar but not the same.
Regarding dificulty, it's not really the point is it? I'm by no means trying to demean either science or math. Just pointing out they are not the same and one isn't a field of the other.
P.S.
And to make matters worse, the words theory, conjecture, hypothesis, axioms and so on have different meanings in mathematics and science.
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(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/science.jpg)
The graph is data from the COBE mission, which looked at the background microwave glow of the universe and found that it fit perfectly with the idea that the universe used to be really hot everywhere. This strongly reinforced the Big Bang theory and was one of the most dramatic examples of an experiment agreeing with a theory in history -- the data points fit perfectly, with error bars too small to draw on the graph. It's one of the most triumphant scientific results in history.
COBE mission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBE)
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Science is an attempt to describe reality. Mathematics makes no such attempt therefore incapable of being described as science. Science makes use of mathematics, but as a tool, not as an adjacent field.
Natural sciences are an attempt to describe reality. Formal science such as mathematics and logic are different, their working methods and sujects of research are different, but it doesn't mean that they aren't science. I'm not trying to say that mathematics is a natural science, but you are apparently trying to say that if something is not natural science, it's not science at all, which is at best ignorant of origins of the term "science" and at worst downright insulting to every science maker not researching natural sciences because apparently their work is not science...
No disrespect but I dislike it when people overgeneralize things. It is unfortunate that the term science has managed to galvanize itself as synonyme to natural science in English language and subsequently in many others as well, but in my opinion it would be a good thing not to synonymize science and natural science, and rather keep science as an umbrella term. I don't make languages, but this practice doesn't make much sense to me since quite obviously there are a lot more branches of science than natural science...
Regarding the scientific method, no, mathematics doesn't use it. Theories in mathematics are not falsifiable (Fermat's last theorem as you stated, wasn't a real theorem, it was only dubbed as such because it was such highly regarded) and therefore cannot be regarded as scientific theories (again, to express the point, it isn't science). Yes, they are similar but not the same.
Yeah, but again that's only because scientific method is defined as a method used by science, specifically natural sciences. I see circular logic or something here - science is science because it uses scientific method; scientific method is the only way to make science because it's scientific; therefore anything that doesn't use scientific method cannot be science?
Formal sciences like mathematics and logic use a priori methodology rather than the scientific method used by natural sciences, but science originally meant knowledge (and technology meant art or skill), and mathematics certainly is knowledge. I don't see a problem in saying that mathemathics is a science, and sociology, and anthropology and whatever, as long as one differentiates between natural sciences and formal sciences and social sciences.
Regarding dificulty, it's not really the point is it? I'm by no means trying to demean either science or math. Just pointing out they are not the same and one isn't a field of the other.
True and I agree that they aren't the same. Which is exactly why I think using an umbrella term like science as synonyme to just natural sciences is a bit narrow view on the matter. I don't think that the term science should be limited to natural sciences just because the linguistic definitions say so.
Summa summarum, we agree on the facts but disagree on terminology, it appears.
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This issue has been debated for hundreds of years and there is no clear answer to it. You might find this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreasonable_Effectiveness) on it interesting. Depending on how you look at it, math can be seen as either a science, an art or both.
As for experimentation, that is actually common in math. A theorem is an irrevocable fact, but the process of actually discovering that theorem is essentially experimental. One way to think of a published proof is a set of instructions for a reproducible experiment that anyone can carry out and get the same result.
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Natural sciences are an attempt to describe reality. Formal science such as mathematics and logic are different, their working methods and sujects of research are different, but it doesn't mean that they aren't science. I'm not trying to say that mathematics is a natural science, but you are apparently trying to say that if something is not natural science, it's not science at all, which is at best ignorant of origins of the term "science" and at worst downright insulting to every science maker not researching natural sciences because apparently their work is not science...
No disrespect but I dislike it when people overgeneralize things. It is unfortunate that the term science has managed to galvanize itself as synonyme to natural science in English language and subsequently in many others as well, but in my opinion it would be a good thing not to synonymize science and natural science, and rather keep science as an umbrella term. I don't make languages, but this practice doesn't make much sense to me since quite obviously there are a lot more branches of science than natural science...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_science
However, many scholars oppose including formal science as a branch of science. They admit that formal science is a very powerful tool to natural and social science, but it does not mean formal science is science. Most importantly, they define science as the discipline using scientific method which bases on observation and empirical study. As knowledge in formal science is a priori and always constructed by rules of deduction from axioms and definition without any empirical study, they refuse to classify formal science as a branch of science.
Basically what I've been saying all along.
Yeah, but again that's only because scientific method is defined as a method used by science, specifically natural sciences. I see circular logic or something here - science is science because it uses scientific method; scientific method is the only way to make science because it's scientific; therefore anything that doesn't use scientific method cannot be science?
Formal sciences like mathematics and logic use a priori methodology rather than the scientific method used by natural sciences, but science originally meant knowledge (and technology meant art or skill), and mathematics certainly is knowledge. I don't see a problem in saying that mathemathics is a science, and sociology, and anthropology and whatever, as long as one differentiates between natural sciences and formal sciences and social sciences.
See above and again, if a scientific theory isn't falsifiable, it isn't scientific in the first place.
Also, every branch of science uses the scientific method. If it doesn't use it, what does it mean to be a science? Sociology uses the scientific method, anthropology uses the scientific method. Therefore they can be regarded as science.
True and I agree that they aren't the same. Which is exactly why I think using an umbrella term like science as synonyme to just natural sciences is a bit narrow view on the matter. I don't think that the term science should be limited to natural sciences just because the linguistic definitions say so.
Summa summarum, we agree on the facts but disagree on terminology, it appears.
I think it goes a bit beyond that but, yes it's basically that.
In the end, it seems we aren't the only ones who disagree with even mathematicians disagreeing about this. :p
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Im glad that my misnomer has generated such an interesting debate but let me clarify my point. I used the example of Calculus because without it physics, chemistry and much of biology wouldn't exist. I believe mathematics is a form of science because it is a logical approach to explaining the nature of the universe. Just because much of the modern mathematics doesn't seem to apply to "Real life" doesnt mean the rest of math has no use in explaining the natural world. In other words, I fail to see the difference between modern physics and math.
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I like the xkcd panel.