Friday, June 20, 2008
The Art of Science
Pseudo-Polymath quotes Michael Polyani on how science is often done, well not done:
Another problem is the adaptation of the scientific method to decidedly non-scientific phenomena and therefore calling those fields of study "science." The study of human behavior, while conducted in a scientific fashion, is not and can never be science, in the real sense of the word. Human behavior is simply not repeatable enough to qualify.
Then of course, there is the advent of computers and the use of computationally heavy, empirical statistical analysis in the place of genuine, "aha-insightful" model building. Just because something is likely to occur does not a repeatable phenomena, or a satisfactory scientific model make. Not to mention the role assumed pre-conditions play in such statistical modeling.
Nope, true scientific objectivity is rare, and only possible in very limited areas of study, much more limited than what is currently referred to as "science."
Science is an art, and I would argue the real art of it lies in knowing its limitations. I am a buffoon at the creative arts. My wife is a different story, and has I have watched her work, I have noted how the tools she is using, "her medium" radically affects the results. Watercolor has limitations, as does the computer, as does photography, as does markers, as does oils. By knowing the limitations, she can create beauty by staying within them.
Science is capable of the same thing, but it needs to know the limits. It is no panacea.
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Science Is Not Objective -- Is the fundamental theme of a book I’ve just obtained. I think he’s right. This book, mentioned earlier in the context of John Polkinghorne’s Quantum Physics and Theology is Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post- Critical Philosophy. In it he begins:We are not people that divide up our lives well, and one of the hardest things there is to do is to be a passionate, emotive human being and work in a highly objective fashion in science. Many scientists are very stunted individuals emotionally, and the result is often anything but objective science.This is primarily an enquiry into the nature and justification of scientific knowledge. But my reconsideration of scientific knowledge leads on to a wide range of questions outside science. I start by rejecting the ideal of scientific detachment. In the exact sciences, this false ideal is perhaps harmless, for it is in fact disregarded there by scientists. But we shall see that it exercises a destructive influence in biology, psychology and sociology, and falsifies our whole outlook far beyond the domain of science. I want to establish an alternative ideal of knowledge, quite generally.
Hence the wide scope of this book and hence also the coining of the new term I have used for my title: Personal Knowledge. The two words may seem to contradict each other: for true knowledge is deemed impersonal, universally established, objective. But the seeming contradiction is resolved by modifying the conception of knowing.
Another problem is the adaptation of the scientific method to decidedly non-scientific phenomena and therefore calling those fields of study "science." The study of human behavior, while conducted in a scientific fashion, is not and can never be science, in the real sense of the word. Human behavior is simply not repeatable enough to qualify.
Then of course, there is the advent of computers and the use of computationally heavy, empirical statistical analysis in the place of genuine, "aha-insightful" model building. Just because something is likely to occur does not a repeatable phenomena, or a satisfactory scientific model make. Not to mention the role assumed pre-conditions play in such statistical modeling.
Nope, true scientific objectivity is rare, and only possible in very limited areas of study, much more limited than what is currently referred to as "science."
Science is an art, and I would argue the real art of it lies in knowing its limitations. I am a buffoon at the creative arts. My wife is a different story, and has I have watched her work, I have noted how the tools she is using, "her medium" radically affects the results. Watercolor has limitations, as does the computer, as does photography, as does markers, as does oils. By knowing the limitations, she can create beauty by staying within them.
Science is capable of the same thing, but it needs to know the limits. It is no panacea.
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