Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken G
But one must avoid falling into what might be called "google science", where you skip the organizational principles and just search over observational results. You could certainly do science that way-- observations would still be motivated by any absence in the database, and predictions would be possible via interpolation. But one of the key goals of science would be lacking-- the goal of achieving simplification and understanding of our complex reality.
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I'll just clarify that I'm not suggesting that we just make random observations. My suggestion is basically just a shift of point of view; currently in science (at least in astronomy) there is strong emphasis on theories, and I would prefer more observation driven process.
I understand your point of view, but I disagree with it somewhat. I don't think we would lack the goal you are talking about, we would just get there very slowly, and in smaller steps. Currently we are trying to create set of theories that explain everything, then put all our resources studying that set of theories, and if that fails we do the same for the next set of theories. In my opinion, we are all the time dramatically wrong because we try to take it all the way (at least sort of) at once. If we would do it my way, we would be all the time quite correct, but we wouldn't "know" that much.
Mind you, I haven't really thought this through, and I'm also quite outsider when it comes to making science, so these are just idle thoughts I'm airing here, and there might be some traps in my suggestion I haven't realized yet.