Russell Coker wrote:
On Sun, 12 Aug 2012, David E Payne<spyder.king@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
Science Week 2012 is from 11th to 19th August. Perhaps science week is a good time to consider precisely what is intended by the word 'science'. My experience at various public lecture forums, has led me to believe there is surprisingly; little general agreement in this. In consequence there seems much confusion regarding the difference between technology, which has existed for millennia in many different cultures and science which is a fairly recent invention, predominantly of Europe. The adoption by technology of scientific language, perhaps for unanimous, precise and unambiguous specification, exacerbates this confusion. It also largely overlooks the need in the linguistic foundation of science for a way of defining words; which enables objectively falsifiable statements to be constructed. Unfortunately current linguistics seems to treat language as just a 'natural phenomena'; rather than a 'social artifact one of whose purposes is communication' . The consequence is that it has essentially nothing to say regarding the purpose of definitions; and dictionary definitions in particular. I would contend that for artifacts defined in terms of their purposes; falsifiable statements are possible.
http://www.scienceweek.net.au/
Possibly one of the more controversial parts will be Ian Enting's Tuesday 14th public lecture disputing climate change denial. http://www.complex.org.au/c_events.php The following paper may be of interest.
Abstract
Although nearly all domain experts agree that human CO2 emissions are altering the world’s climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientific evidence. Let's read ' altering the world' s climate ' as ' climate warming'; we are still far from a unanimous operational operational definition of the term. Hypothetically allow that such a definition does exist; we may then be able to conclude that the hypothesis of 'climate warming' is thus far consistent with the objectively observable evidence that , that hypothesis asserts. Whether the 'majority of scientists', 'domain experts' or 'peers' agree is irrelevant; down that path lies scholasticism. With scholasticism: ' the epistemological theory that the credibility of knowledge, must depend on the authority of it's source' It may further be possible to show that the hypothesis of 'global warming', is consistent with " human CO2 emissions". Thus far and no further can science go. Whether 1/ something should be done and if 2/ what ; are the domain of ideology and politics. Notice that extremely divergent views on 2/ may be possible
......snip..... Endorsement of the free market also predicted the rejection of other established scientific findings, such as the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that smoking causes lung cancer.
"Endorsement of the free market"; could mean 1/ having the opinion that 'a competitive free-market'; results in higher per capita production than some form of control economy; Which would seem to be broadly consistent with history but it could also mean 2/ having the opinion that an 'unregulated competitive free-market'; best supplies the needs of society; ..Adam Smith's 'invisible hand Which some like me would contend is a pathetic unfalsifiable irresponsible delusion. regards Rohan McLeod