Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 19:46:57 -0400
From: mark <whitroth@5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] How our botched understanding of 'science' ruins everything
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist@KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
Here's one certain sign that something is very wrong with our collective
mind: Everybody uses a word, but no one is clear on what the word actually
means.

One of those words is "science."

Everybody uses it. Science says this, science says that. You must vote for
me because science. You must buy this because science. You must hate the
folks over there because science.

Look, science is really important. And yet, who among us can easily
provide a clear definition of the word "science" that matches the way
people employ the term in everyday life?

So let me explain what science actually is. Science is the process through
which we derive reliable predictive rules through controlled
experimentation. That's the science that gives us airplanes and flu
vaccines and the Internet. But what almost everyone means when he or she
says "science" is something different.

To most people, capital-S Science is the pursuit of capital-T Truth. It is
a thing engaged in by people wearing lab coats and/or doing fancy math
that nobody else understands. The reason capital-S Science gives us
airplanes and flu vaccines is not because it is an incremental engineering
process but because scientists are really smart people.

In other words \342\200\224 and this is the key thing \342\200\224 when people say "science",
what they really mean is magic or truth.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://theweek.com/article/index/268360/how-our-botched-understanding-of-science-ruins-everything>

I was thinking about this article, and have one disagreement: to me, science
and engineering are the inverse of each other. Science takes raw data, or
rules and raw data, and derives new rules. Engineering takes the rules, and
uses them to build.

And then there's my own pet peeve, "theory", which *really* means heavily
tested by multiple groups who replicate the results", and does *NOT* mean
"I had too much beer and pizza last night, and had this crazy dream".

              mark