What is science?

What do you think science is?

You would think these days that would be an easy question to answer, but when I actually question people I get a great variety of answers. Everyone seems to think they know what science is, but few actually fit the traditional definition.

That's why this is not in the 'science' subforum - I'm not looking for the traditional definition, if I wanted that I could just look in the dictionary. What I want to know is your belief, so I put it here.

For example: I believe science is a method for expansion of consciousness - an expansion that transcends through the meditation of study and examination of phenomena outside our immediate sphere.

In that spirit, I want to know what you believe.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Kioma

What do you think science is?

You would think these days that would be an easy question to answer, but when I actually question people I get a great variety of answers. Everyone seems to think they know what science is, but few actually fit the traditional definition.

That's why this is not in the 'science' subforum - I'm not looking for the traditional definition, if I wanted that I could just look in the dictionary. What I want to know is your belief, so I put it here.

For example: I believe science is a method for expansion of consciousness - an expansion that transcends through the meditation of study and examination of phenomena outside our immediate sphere.

In that spirit, I want to know what you believe.

Sorry, your definition of science does not resonate with me.

Some people claim some of the jobs I was involved in resonated with science: at the time I never thought so.

For example, one job I was involved with, modified a large radar antenna to do 'work' it was not designed for. I had to design firmware to control a radar antenna so as to not 'see' things far away, but 'see' things in a very close distance such as 100 to 200 feet away. This project was used to test jets, etc. to see how invisible they can become to radar.

I had to rely on previous experiences that involved such things as coming up with algorithms that could
move a large mass to a specific location at a very fast rate of speed.

Some would say this was science, I looked at it as a job.

[inavalan]

A few quotes about "science" from Seth / Jane Roberts (from 40-50 years ago):

"Science worships skepticism, unless skepticism is applied to science, its hypotheses, procedures, or methods. What we need are more skeptics who are not afraid to judge the claims of science with the same fine discrimination used to examine other alternate disciplines and fields of endeavor. Like The New York Times, science publishes “all the news that’s fit to print,” meaning all of the news that fits into the officially-accepted view of reality. That news is already invisibly censored, and yet we’re supposed to live our lives in accordance with that official definition of experience."
—TMA Appendix D

"Science arose out of a religious world that was filled with “witchcraft.” It began as a protection from, and a defense against, some of the mysteries of the natural world. It has since found itself denying the realities it arose to tame."
—TMA Appendix D

"Scientific truths have always been rewritten through the centuries."
—TMA Appendix D

"It is fairly easy to recognize the ways in which organized religion discouraged vigorous intellectual speculation. It is more difficult, perhaps, to see that science fears the unofficially directed intellect quite as much as it does the unofficially directed intuitions."
—TPS5 Deleted Session July 12, 1979

"When children are taught science, there is no criticism allowed. They are told “this is how things are.” Science’s reasons are given as the only true statements of reality, with which no student is expected to quarrel."
—TPS5 Deleted Session July 12, 1979

"In a fashion, at least in your time, science has as much to fear from the free intellect as religion does, and (with irony) any strong combination of intellectual and intuitional abilities is not tailor-made to bring you great friends from either category.

Science has unfortunately bound up the minds of its own even most original thinkers, for they dare not stray from certain scientific principles. All energy contains consciousness. That one sentence is basically (underlined) scientific heresy, and in many circles it is religious heresy as well. A recognition of that simple statement would indeed change your world."

—TPS5 Deleted Session July 12, 1979

"The church can excommunicate you. Science in its position of authority can mock those who disagree with it."
—TPS6 Deleted Session April 20, 1981

"The leader of Jonestown was at heart an idealist. When does an idealist turn into a fanatic? (Long pause.) When can the search for the good have catastrophic results, and how can the idealism of science be equated with the near-disaster at Three Mile Island, and with the potential disasters that in your terms exist in the storage of nuclear wastes, or in the production of nuclear bombs?"
—NoME Chapter 7: Session 848, April 11, 1979

[Mathew James]

my brother asked me this, I am a very God created everything and he is a very reality guy, So we have conflict with this question. I love science and studied geology at the University of Texas, which is all about finding the oil. So there is a area of were facts meets fiction. It comes down to what you believe and that it not something that facts can change.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Kioma

What do you think science is?

The answer might be embedded in how we use science.

For example, let's say we want to build a two story building in which the downstairs will have
no supporting interior walls and the width of the building will be 25 feet wide. No steel will be used,
only timbers. Textbooks generally claim a free standing building can have a width of 14 feet using wood.

Can we still build the building?

Will science provide us with any solutions?

[hallow]

Science is proof, until proven different. But science keeps improving through new discoveries. 2019 science is far more advanced than 1960s science. Just look how many times it changed since then. It's a never ending storyline.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by hallow

Science is proof, until proven different. But science keeps improving through new discoveries. 2019 science is far more advanced than 1960s science. Just look how many times it changed since then. It's a never ending storyline.

What are you talking about?

I talked to one chap yesterday and he did not realize back in the 60's, if you wanted a
computer to do anything, you showed up with a box of IBM 'Hollerith' cards.

Yelp, things change.

Originally Posted by BigJohn

Sorry, your definition of science does not resonate with me.

Some people claim some of the jobs I was involved in resonated with science: at the time I never thought so.

For example, one job I was involved with, modified a large radar antenna to do 'work' it was not designed for. I had to design firmware to control a radar antenna so as to not 'see' things far away, but 'see' things in a very close distance such as 100 to 200 feet away. This project was used to test jets, etc. to see how invisible they can become to radar.

I had to rely on previous experiences that involved such things as coming up with algorithms that could
move a large mass to a specific location at a very fast rate of speed.

Some would say this was science, I looked at it as a job.

How interesting! Radar is how I first learned electronics, in the USAF back in the '80s. I was a radar technician, working on a large search radar for years, one of the last of the old JSS sites.

Your project sounds interesting because of the limitations involved. I can see the difficulty with a monostatic system, as duplexer recovery time does leave you with a significant blind range. A phased array system would have made things much simpler, IMO, as you can vary the focus and they tend to use ferrite circulators. Personally, if it were me, I would have just put the radar a mile or so away. Problem solved. I know the government has plenty of land to do such things.

And yes, that very much is science! It was no less than Einstein himself who helped in the early development of radar.

It is very much conventional science, which is only partly what I am talking about. As I said, this thread isn't just about conventional science per se, it is about people's views of science, which have been most interesting so far.

[inavalan]

Originally Posted by hallow

Science is proof, until proven different. But science keeps improving through new discoveries. 2019 science is far more advanced than 1960s science. Just look how many times it changed since then. It's a never ending storyline.

So you're saying that some of the 2019 "science' is wrong ... We don't know now which of it is wrong, but we should feel content because in 60 years we'll "know" which, excepting ... if that will be still wrong, and we won't know that. In that case we should be content even 60 years form now, because in another 60 years we'll know which part is/was wrong, excepting ... :)

I liked your joke :)

[hallow]

Originally Posted by inavalan

So you're saying that some of the 2019 "science' is wrong ... We don't know now which of it is wrong, but we should feel content because in 60 years we'll "know" which, excepting ... if that will be still wrong, and we won't know that. In that case we should be content even 60 years form now, because in another 60 years we'll know which part is/was wrong, excepting ... :)

I liked your joke :)

Yup, just like some were in the past. New technology happens everyday. Improvements are made everyday. It's not uncommon for a scientist ooops this was wrong. Because of this new tool I have. The science of a given topic is the study of a given topic.