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Is science based on circular reasoning?

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
paarsurrey said:
Science is based on circular reasoning as much as earth is round.
Regards

You mean the following?
The astronomer Arthur Eddington once told a parable about a fisherman who used a net with a three-inch mesh. After a lifetime of fishing he concluded there were no fish shorter than three inches. Eddington’s moral is that just as one’s fishing net determines what one catches, so it is with conceptual nets: what we find in the ocean of reality depends on the conceptual net we bring to our investigation.​
http://www.uni.edu/coe/jrae/spring2002/geisertspring2002.htm
or something else.
Regards

sounds like he was talking about the same thing there yes
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member

Did you mean the following circular Scientific Method?
upload_2015-11-1_14-45-8.png


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Sure it is, not only one but two.

Regards
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
And what would that be? It appears to me that God must be explained because he is said to be supernatural, but natural isn't. Yet something must form the multiverse/universe, and I am asking what 'thing' is. How do you vision it?
Whatever G-d (not Jesus) created/s is termed as natural, G-d is Creator not the created. Supernatural is not a term of the truthful Religion.
Regards
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
So science starts from faith and ends with faith?
That makes circular reasoning. Isn't it?
Regards
I'm not sure if it ends in faith. I'm not even sure what it means that something would end in faith. It does start with faith though. Everything we do, think, feel, or trust in the world, being science, religion, language, society, sports, weather, it all has to be grounded in some faith in oneself and that the world is real and has some form of continuance and permanence.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Why would I need to provide scientific evidence that science doesn't use circular reasoning? You can't test concepts of language. That's like asking somebody to test a noun.
So, you are not among eulogizers of science who think science solves all the problems related to humans. Right?
So language is out of science.
Somebody else from science, please.
Regards
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Phew! you got out of that one nicely :p
Yeah. I know. LOL!

But the world is to be investigated.
And what then is reality, what nature, what natural? If i say it is supernatural, I would have a host of replies asking for an answer. I just pose the question to you. Do you accept, Sir?
If supernatural exists and is real, then it's an extension of reality and the nature. Otherwise supernatural would be unnatural. But if the supernatural is beyond and more than natural, then it must be natural at its foundation.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Say, if one is blind and cannot see. Does it change nature?
Regards
Some think it does.

But the assumption has to be (for science and religion alike) is that there's a objective reality "out there", independent of ourselves. And the assumption is also that it doesn't change (or change too much or too fast, otherwise whatever we learn about it today might be wrong tomorrow).
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
By definition, that from which everything comes. I don't discount the supernatural (I've worked as a research consultant in studies on what is generally regarded as pseudo-science). I simply don't see the merit in dividing what we regard as natural to what exists in science fiction, religious beliefs, etc., and then interpret extensions of the former as somehow anything that speaks to the latter.

I agree with you, if I have correctly understood you.
Regards
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
And what would that be? It appears to me that God must be explained because he is said to be supernatural, but natural isn't. Yet something must form the multiverse/universe, and I am asking what 'thing' is. How do you vision it?
The "thing" is what exists objectively outside of our own "minds". It can't be understood fully subjectively. If we could, we would have to be objective minds, minds outside our own minds, which is a contradiction.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
paarsurrey said:
Science is based on circular reasoning as much as earth is round.
Regards

You mean the following?
The astronomer Arthur Eddington once told a parable about a fisherman who used a net with a three-inch mesh. After a lifetime of fishing he concluded there were no fish shorter than three inches. Eddington’s moral is that just as one’s fishing net determines what one catches, so it is with conceptual nets: what we find in the ocean of reality depends on the conceptual net we bring to our investigation.​
http://www.uni.edu/coe/jrae/spring2002/geisertspring2002.htm
or something else.
Regards
I'd say it's more a question of the subjective vs objective. We can only deduce things about the world on a subjective level/view, and have to assume (take on faith) that the objective world, "out there", exists independent of ourselves. It's not necessarily circular, in my opinion, maybe it's just the choice of words (circular definition meaning something that is tautological). *shrugs* It's all good anyway. :)
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Did you mean the following circular Scientific Method?
View attachment 11361

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Sure it is, not only one but two.

Regards
Ah. You're referring to the "feedback loop" of knowledge. Yes, it's "circular" in that sense. It builds upon previous knowledge. This loop is more about the repetition of the actions of research and investigation. Just like computer technology today is built upon knowledge from yesterday, and that was built upon knowledge and technology from the day before. It's building upon what we know from before.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
I'm not sure if it ends in faith. I'm not even sure what it means that something would end in faith. It does start with faith though. Everything we do, think, feel, or trust in the world, being science, religion, language, society, sports, weather, it all has to be grounded in some faith in oneself and that the world is real and has some form of continuance and permanence.
You mean the scientific data that is collected to start an experiment its facts are taken on faith. Right?
Regard
 
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Deathbydefault

Apistevist Asexual Atheist
When dis science surface and the scientific method and the first scientist? Please
Regards

The form of science we know of should've been created as soon as someone started wanting facts on how things worked.
Even if a God was real, spirits existed, the universe was in multiples, there would be a science behind it.
There would be a want to know. Which is much different from wanting to think you know.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
You mean the scientific data that is collected to start an experiment its fact are taken on faith. Right?
Regard
Sure. And the axioms (premises, basic assumptions) for science that I listed earlier are taken on faith. Basically, it's like trusting that Euclidian geometry would be the one and only true geometry for space (which is apparently isn't, space is curved). Who knows, maybe some of the physical laws that we see here on Earth don't apply the same way at the edge of the universe? As an example of how local knowledge suddenly are thrown upside down is the evidence of dark matter and dark energy. They're messing with the laws of gravity. But maybe there isn't any dark matter or energy. Perhaps the laws of gravity isn't a simple Newton formula? So we trust that things are uniform, and go from there. But what else should a scientist do? If we can't trust some fundamental axioms of nature and science, then science would be nothing but random ramblings.
 
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