As usual, Ken, there are some points where I think you've misunderstood me, and some where we simply disagree, but I also have a couple of questions. I think I'll start with the latter.
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Originally Posted by Ken G
I view objectivity in science in a different way, based merely on making the dichotomy objective vs. subjective. What is objective is simply the other side of the coin of what is subjective, so it is all based on separating the observer from the observation. That separation is at the heart of science, and as soon as you make it, you see what "objective" means in science. [...]
For example, some ancient Greeks trusted their own reasoning power, and distrusted observations as being based on frail senses, could still reach a great degree of consensus about how the world "had to be". But they were not being objective, because they did not separate themselves from the object of their inquiry-- they were only learning about themselves, even if in a consensus way.
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First question: Would you then say that psychology is not a science? After all, in psychology the subject and the object coincide.
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Originally Posted by George
Ken is correct regarding Galileo. Galileo's work on gravity was based on objective experiments. His counterparts were not enthusiastic about it, however. When a colleague professor dropped balls of different weights and found a slight discrepancy in their impact time, they were quick to criticize Galileo. He responed by pointing out that their common consensus view that came from Aristotle - a subjective idea of the mind - was off by a far, far greater amount than his. [Aristotle claimed that objects fall at a rate proportional to their weight.]
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My question about Galileo seems to have been misunderstood. It was very specific. Ken's claim is that objectivity consists of separating out the subject from the object as best as possible. My question was simply: did Galileo ever say that? Did he even use the words 'subject' and 'object' with this meaning? That would surprise me greatly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by George
I am curious about how a scientific fact is defined. Is this one area a consensus helps?
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It's funny that you asked that. I've been thinking of that question lately, because of some recent discussions of ID. You know, like when we insist that "evolution is a fact and theory" (and in a recent debate Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss even went further: they stated that evolution is a fact, period).
I guess I must come off as annoyingly philosophical to many posters here, but oddly enough there are some things where it is I who am occasionally annoyed by the scholasticism of ([bow]true[/bow]) scientists. For example, the insistence on the distinction between a "law" and a "theory" that physicists love so much, or the claim (with respect to evolution and other hot button pieces of science) that the public "is just ignorant about the meaning of theory" -- when the popular meaning of the word is actually as valid as the scientific one (just open any dictionary), and probably more ancient -- these are things which often come off as pedantic, petty, and beside the point to me.
But, this long preamble aside, I have come to agree with Dawkins and Krauss. Yes, we can say that evolution is a fact. The way that I can understand this is by regarding "fact" and "hypothesis" (or replace with "law", "theory", etc.) as methodological, rather than absolute terms. In science, it's often useful to distinguish between what we take for granted (the facts) and that which we allow ourselves to put into question. But what is a hypothesis today may become sufficiently supported by evidence that we eventually stop questioning it -- it may become a "fact" tomorrow. Like evolution. More rarely, the opposite also happens: yesterday's "fact" can cease to be taken for granted today. One example I can think of is the absolute status of time and space, which were "facts" for all those physicists from Newton until the 19th century, but became "questionable" with Einstein.
In case I'm being too obscure, to me "fact" and "hypothesis/law/theory" are relative terms in science. Facts are the things we don't question at present (can I tease Ken and call them "science's axioms"?
), while the rest are what is under discussion, what's "on the table", to use a term from business.
P.S. I posted this reply before noticing George's quote of Moti Ben-Ari. I'm glad to see that he agrees with me.
