Science is the only valid source of knowledge!

>Science is the only valid source of knowledge!
>Oh ok. Can you point me to the paper that scientifically proves that statement?
>Wow dude you don't need science to prove that, it's just common sense that all knowledge is from science!

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Other urls found in this thread:

dictionary.com/browse/fact
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#In_science
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
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So far, there has not been better alternatives to science when trying to model and understand the natural world around us. Yea, science cannot justify itself, but if it mantains predictability and applicability, what else should we consider? Obviously drawing and interpreting conclusions is really difficult and science itself is not a method that clears that out but the process of gathering data through controlled experiments is kinda common sense. Aristotle did thatz there wasn't really a lot precision apparatus at the time, but people still observed and infered from observation.

Is understanding the regularities of the natural world the only form of knowledge? If I post here about my opinions you're gaining knowledge about what I think about things, but you're not using the scientific method to discern my thoughts, are you? Scientism is really dumb when you get down to it

Yes, but I doubt most people in science are being that reductionist when talking about science and knowledge, aka they are not adhere to "scientism" they just don't underatand the deeper philosophical questionz about knowledge. And I doubt they are thinking about your meme example. It's usually concered with people whl justify new age crap who missuses scientific terms and criticise mainstream scientific theories while holding them as a justification. I suppose I also agree a lot of people just repeat arguments and cannot abstract if their life depended of it, but you are like the thousand faggot who says this as if we are supposed to rlly think and conclude... Mmm I don't even know what you want me to conclude? That you can gain knowledge multiple way? Well yea obviously, a better question would be, are there better/alternative ways to model natural phenomena?

The first statement could well be interpreted as stipulative, i.e., defining "knowledge" to be models that predict future observations accurately.

>If I post here about my opinions you're gaining knowledge about what I think about things, but you're not using the scientific method to discern my thoughts, are you?

This is actually a bad example, because we acquire a model of what words mean from repeated observations, which indeed are corrected when misunderstandings occur (that is, hypotheses about what an utterance was meant to communicate). A better example might be deductive, logical, mathematical knowledge.

Communicating through language is not done via a scientific methodology and claiming it is is really stretching over backwards.

It's certainly not done through institutional science, if that's what you mean, but it absolute is done through empiricism. If you'd like to restrict the term "science" to a very specific kind of empiricism, then I agree with your claim that scientific knowledge isn't the only knowledge. But that's not really the interesting question to me. The interesting question is whether or not there is knowledge (or "true" knowledge) which is not empirical.

There is far more knowledge obtained through inductive reasoning than empiricism. Is it a person typing this or an AI? You know the answer through applying logic, not through any actual sensory information obtained from the author.

>scientifically prove
So you don't even understand how science works? Nothing is proven in science, things either keep working or they fail and are discarded. The same is true for science itself. If science as it currently exists stopped working it would be discarded and replaced with a new process which would be called science. Empirical knowledge is not absolute, thus there is no need to have an absolute method for finding empirical knowledge.

>Being a pedant
This doesn't make you look intelligent. It makes you look like those 15 year old facebook commentors who say "Well ackchually they sky can be red and orange, not just blue". You know that "prove" meant "present evidence supporting" but launched into your autistic tangent anyway, don't do that.

Science is both inductive and empirical. Try learning about what you're trying to talk about before doing so.

It's not pedantry. It goes to the heart of your confusion, that science fails to "prove" itself. Science succeeds on the exact same standard as theories within science. Learn how to read.

Science is based on an axiom that cannot be verified through the scientific method. It's a non-falsifiable hypothesis and the scientific method can't be used to verify hypotheses that cannot be falsified.

>If I post here about my opinions you're gaining knowledge about what I think about things
How do I systematically demonstrate that I've attained such knowledge?

not a lot of people describe their trust in science so absolutely, usually it's more like "science is the best tool for gaining knowledge that we know of" and people usually point to the observable utility of science (i.e. being able to make accurate predictions based off scientific theory that is confirmed through multiple researchers, thus removing the likelihood of bias/error distorting the results)

You don't need to. The fact that you've attained knowledge is enough.

>"science is the best tool for gaining knowledge that we know of"
Nobody who has read any psychology or sociology papers would believe that statement.

>Science is based on an axiom that cannot be verified through the scientific method.
Which axiom is that exactly?

>It's a non-falsifiable hypothesis
What is the hypothesis though? Science is simply the name of the system that produces demonstrable empirical knowledge. The description "system that produces demonstrable empirical knowledge" is not a hypothesis in the first place. Only a specific hypothesis can be falsified, and if it was falsified we wouldn't be able to call it science.

>The fact that you've attained knowledge is enough.
I don't see any such fact, since you haven't demonstrated it to me. Your personal "knowledge" is not knowledge to me. Might as well be hallucinations.

>Oh ok. Can you point me to the paper that scientifically proves that statement?
I don't understand this argument. How is building models and validating them using experimental data not the only valid way to affirm something to be true?

>Science is the only objective form of knowledge!
FTFY
cross-sectional studies exist so you could actually test this

>Which axiom is that exactly?
That there is a physical objective world that exists outside of the mind of the observer. Science is based on the presupposition there is an objective world that can be measured in the first place.

Are you arguing that facts have no reality until you've proven them to another person? Seems silly. You don't need to prove to me you've gained knowledge for it to be a true statement, you don't need to prove it to anyone.

>That there is a physical objective world that exists outside of the mind of the observer.
If that assumption did not allow us to produce useful results, then it would be discarded, but it does.

Facts are not reality, they are demonstrable models of reality. You are confusing facts with truth.

So? Most of our knowledge comes from asuming some sort of consistency of the outside world. Following that axiom has led to models that are true to some extent. Falling to solipsism leads to nothing. Or do you have an alternative way of dealing with what we observe? Should we also not trust math because it uses axioms?

Ok, but it's still an assumption and something that itself cannot be verified by the scientific method. That the fundamental block that all scientific inquiry is based off is an unfalsifiable statement of the nature of reality is a killing blow to scientism which makes it all the more strange that people still buy into this idea of scientific inquiry being the sole source of all useful human knowledge instead of a very limited set of tools that can identify natural regularities and not much else.

I'm not the one claiming science is the source of all useful knowledge. If you agree with me that it's not then it's not an issue, is it?

What's the alternative, that everything is the will of Allah? That we are in a simulation?

I'll stick with the null hypothesis.

>Ok, but it's still an assumption and something that itself cannot be verified by the scientific method.
The fact that it's useful IS verification by the scientific method. How many times do I have to explain this to you? Science does in fact bootstrap itself.

You are claiming someone does, I don't know who is claiming that.

Facts are true by the nature of being facts. Truth doesn't stop being truth if only one person knows of it. Truth doesn't need to be spread to be truthful. You are confusing truth with verification.

Scientism, the stance that science is only source of useful knowledge, is quite popular these days.

>Facts are true by the nature of being facts.
Facts are shown to be false all the time.

>Truth doesn't stop being truth if only one person knows of it.
There is no such thing as personal truth. I have no way to know absolutely that you are a person with a personality talking to me. It could just be a hallucination. Empirical truth is unattainable, which is why you need science.

Quite popular? No, people who call out pseudoscientific bullshit and charlatans are not people who adhere to "scientism", and redditor atheists are not, in any way, a representative of the population.

Science is the only source of useful empirical knowledge.

>Facts are shown to be false all the time.
Then they're not "facts" by definition. Something being true is a necessary condition for something to be a fact. Please don't play word games if you don't know what they mean.

>and redditor atheists are not, in any way, a representative of the population.
Not representative of you personally, sure. They are representative of the population though

>Then they're not "facts" by definition.
They *were* facts, by definition. But they weren't true. Hence your argument fails.

>Something being true is a necessary condition for something to be a fact.
Wrong. A fact is a repeatable careful observation or measurement. A theory is made up of facts. Any fact can be falsified at any time, falsifying the theory. Please don't play word games if you don't know what they mean.

What population? Considering that religion is more popular than atheism everywhere it seems you have the delusion Veeky Forums and reddit is the population. Also
It's just fucking semantics.

>It's just fucking semantics.
It's how our system of empirical knowledge works, it's the opposite of semantics you ignorant slut.

>Wrong. A fact is a repeatable careful observation or measurement
dictionary.com/browse/fact
>something that actually exists; reality; truth:
Truth is in the definition of fact. If it's not true, it's not a fact, period. Stop playing dumb semantic games.

The definition of "fact" is semantics retard. That we use s"cientific facts" as the best explanation the scientific community has for some phenomena is not generally what people understand by the word "fact". Yea, aristotelean physics were facts and they change, but a lot of people use it as synonymous of truth
>hurr durr they are using it wrong
That argument falls in the category of semantics and it is inconsecuential to the core argument of the validity of science which come from different approach .

Gee, it's almost as if when there are multiple meanings to a word context matters?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#In_science

>Truth is in the definition of fact.
The wrong definition.

>If it's not true, it's not a fact, period.
All of these theories were based on facts but were superseded: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories

Because an observation is only as good as the methodology, it's not truth.

>So far, there has not been better alternatives to science when trying to model and understand the natural world around us.

According to what? Science? That's weird, because according to my ass, my ass is the best way to model and understand the modern world. Stop question begging.

>The definition of "fact" is semantics retard.
If you go back to the first usage of the word "fact" in this discussion then you will see it is not semantics. Personal observations are not "truth".

>That's weird, because according to my ass, my ass is the best way to model and understand the modern world.
You'll have to demonstrate that scientifically.

Well propose your ass and argument why it is a better alternative. No one is denying posibilities, but for some strange reason, we haven't really changed how we do, or we actually do, because "science" is a fucking umbrella term. What you are actually doing is arguing from ignorance while scientists literally just try different methods and approaches. Again, what non orthodox way of knwing do you propose?

You don't need independent verification for the truth to be the truth. The truth is what it is, whether one person knows or a hundred. Once again you're confusing truth with verification. It's not a necessity for me to be able to convince anyone else of the truth for it to be true.

Your ass doesn't get results.
>inb4 lmao scientifically prove that!!! LOL

Philosophy has added more to the repository of human knowledge than science ever will.

Such as?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
Go hog wild

Yea I know it is an academic subject, but how has philosophy apported verifiable models of natural reality, that give predictions and are useful and exploitable?
>b..but natural philosophy
Academic philosophy, aka what we call philosophy today has nothing to do with what was called "philosophy" back when academic categories werent really separated. Dealing with questions of metaphysics ontology, ethics aesthetics is important, but I fail to see how that helped to derive the laws of electromagnetism.

There is more to knowledge than natural reality. I could just as easily point out that science has added absolutely nothing to the field of ethics because it turns out that quantifying natural phenomena doesn't really give you any insight into how to behave ethically. Pretty slimy tactic to try and redefine all knowledge into the box that science has purview over, it didn't go unnoticed though.

Everyone here is talking about empirical knowledge about the natural world. You are the one moving the goalpoasts.

>You don't need independent verification for the truth to be the truth.
Woopdeefuckingdoo. The truth is the truth but without knowing what the truth is you have no knowledge.

>The truth is what it is, whether one person knows or a hundred.
Yeah, except 0 people know.

>Once again you're confusing truth with verification.
You're confusing truth with knowledge. If you don't know what the truth is you have no knowledge. How do you know? Through verification. And knowing the truth does not mean you have obtained the truth, it means you have the best guess possible at what the truth is.

>It's not a necessity for me to be able to convince anyone else of the truth for it to be true.
If you can't distinguish between reality and fantasy then you have no knowledge. How are you distinguishing what is true and what is false? Hint: verification.

Actually the entire point of the thread is that there is more than just empirical knowledge about the natural world. Did the point in the OP fly over your head or what? Science is not the font of all knowledge, that's the entire point.

Philosophy does not create knowledge. There is no such thing as true philosophy and false philosophy.

>How are you distinguishing what is true and what is false? Hint: verification.
If you're arrested for a crime you didn't commit and put on trial and the jury finds the evidence compelling enough to find you guilty, does the truth become you did commit the crime? Do you reason to yourself that it must be you who is wrong because the facts of the case were considered by other people and they came to the opposite conclusion?

What a very strange worldview you have, where truth is malleable based on who and how many people agree with it.

>Actually the entire point of the thread is that there is more than just empirical knowledge about the natural world.
There is no other knowledge about the natural world. Logic and math are not knowledge of the natural world.

They can be used as tools to derive knowledge about the natural world though.

>Do you reason to yourself that it must be you who is wrong because the facts of the case were considered by other people and they came to the opposite conclusion?
A court room is not a scientific laboratory. It does not produce truth or knowledge. It settles disputes. Try again.

>They can be used as tools to derive knowledge about the natural world though.
Yes, that's called science.

Are we defining science so broadly that simple use of logical induction is enough to fall under it's umbrella now? Philosophy is science I guess?

If repeated high quality scientific studies falsified my long held personal belief, I would abandon it. Is that what you were trying to ask? Because you were doing a piss poor job of it.

We're talking about truth, not beliefs. Keep up.

>A court room is not a scientific laboratory. It does not produce truth or knowledge.
A scientific laboratory doesn't produce truth or knowledge either though?

Everyone then explained that usually academics talk about the natural empirical world, and they are not making far reaching conclusions, besides he just quoted something no one defeneded and thought was a reasonable position.

No, simple use of inductive logic from empirical premises about the natural world to a conclusion about the natural world is science. If your premises are not empirical then you are not saying anything about the natural world. Saying 1+1=2 does not say anything about the natural world until you connect it to real objects.

If you don't believe that you are innocent then hopedoes the analogy work? Truth to you is what you believe to be true. Try to keep up.

>If your premises are not empirical then you are not saying anything about the natural world
The existence of black holes was accepted based on math long before we had any empirical evidence they existed.

A scientific laboratory produces knowledge.

>Truth to you is what you believe to be true
No it isn't. What you believe has zero connection to what the truth is. You're either innocent or you're not, what you believe doesn't factor into it at all

>The existence of black holes was accepted based on math long before we had any empirical evidence they existed.
Are you actually this illiterate? What was the math about? Known laws of physics, specifically gravity and general relativity. No wait, you're right, physics is not science and gravity is not an empirical premise, my mistake.

If a scientific laboratory published a peer reviewed paper about how you were guilty you'd accept that your personal experience of not committing the crime was wrong?

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Not all inductive reasoning based on empirical evidence is science. Philosophy existed just fine doing exactly that.

>No it isn't.
OK, so you don't believe that you didn't commit murder today?

>What you believe has zero connection to what the truth is.
So your personal observations have no connection to what the truth is, thanks.

>You're either innocent or you're not, what you believe doesn't factor into it at all
Your belief that you are innocent doesn't factor into it at all.

If it was repeated and the study was high quality, then yeah. Your personal belief does not trump evidence.

>Not all inductive reasoning based on empirical evidence is science.
Wrong.

>Philosophy existed just fine doing exactly that.
So you think black holes are philosophy?

>use science to prove science
That's cirular you retard

Yes, almost as if scientific inquiry is not the be all end all of human knowledge and we should acknowledge and incorporate the richness of human experience into the calculus of understanding reality

And who is limiting that? What do you mean by "human experiance"?

Qualitative aspects of reality. 90% of your day to day life is experience that cannot be quantified but science completely ignores this facet of how we experience reality for expedience.

How do you know that? Maybe 90% was just an eyeball but how much can or can't be explained? Certainly a lot is given an explanation through anatomy and medicine, even a lot of my thoughts. It may not be complete in any sense or form, but qualia is a different issue alltoghether. Yes fundamently each of us is alone in our minds, and we cannot trust our visual experience, but how does that particular problem of philosophy can be incorported in a succesful way into our scientific models? Philosophy is as far reaching as any other academic subject and it's influence is limited. What people do or take for granted has never reflected the ivory tower and no one is constantly considering these issues. I grab milk if I'm thirsty and I don't go through neither a scientific or philosophical question, every time I do it, but when I am in the context of physics I will assume less and discuss in a language that while it assumes some metaphysical stuff, I'm not losing sleep over it, and sometimes I do lose sleep over it, try and understand fundamentally why it seems to work, and discuss it, but they are different contexts. Making your blank statemnts to sound profound are called useless, because in the actual process lf doing science, there's many other important and difficult things to consider.