My pet peeve, Science is everything

Mark Schmitt said:
Re: that science is the *only* way to arrive at the "truth" -

You can 'arrive' many ways, but science is the best means (and in certain specific ways the only way) to determine what is true. You can guess or make a 'faith-based' argument or test and observe...each of these may give you something you perceive as valuable. Science is important in that it shows what is reproducibly and demonstrably true.

Mark
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The use of the word "best" is a subjective value judgment and un-scientific, unsubstantiated opinion.... hype.
 
I'll even go a step further, the ones who hype science are usually the least scientific of the bunch. They hide behind the hype, and are mostly concerned with the superficial trappings and appearance of science,... walking the walk and talking the talk.
 
I tend to agree that we need to beware bad science. Confirmation bias, corellation/causation mistakes and other fallacies are far too easy to let stand. And I think peer review, examination of evidence and thorough skepticism of new claims are incredibly important to correct those. Basically, I think the only effective way to correct bad science is with good science.
 
I have a differnt pet peeve - dismissing science and sound metallurgy as "hype" and embracing a bunch of vodoo, tall tales and sappy romanticism as a means of seducing the gullible.

Thankfully, I don't see that much.

Roger
 
RogerP said:
I have a differnt pet peeve - dismissing science and sound metallurgy as "hype" and embracing a bunch of vodoo, tall tales and sappy romanticism as a means of seducing the gullible.

Thankfully, I don't see that much.

Roger
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ditto
 
The truth is way beyond science...

Will science ever get there?,... I think it's very doubtful... however, given enough time,....................... I don't think it or anything else is entirely impossible. The problem is that when it reaches that point, it will no longer be science in the classical sense.

The nerd in me is fascinated by science itself, and I consider myself a student in that area, “scienceology“, the study of science itself... not to be confused with "scientology".
 
RogerP said:
I have a differnt pet peeve - dismissing science and sound metallurgy as "hype" and embracing a bunch of vodoo, tall tales and sappy romanticism as a means of seducing the gullible.

Thankfully, I don't see that much.

Roger
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Hype is hype.

"Sound metallurgy" is great!... but has it's own limitations as well.

"Scientismistic metalurgy" is also gulity of seducing the gullible.... we see it all the time.
 
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The thing that irks me abOut science is the occasional lack Of common sense people sometimes show around it. For example the notion that because something has not been described or discovered by "science" that it does not exist. Or that the food pyramid is based in science.

Knife making is great because it combines art and science. You can pretend you are being artful or scientific all you want but you cant get away from either when making a knife.
 
TILLER said:
Knife making is great because it combines art and science. You can pretend you are being artful or scientific all you want but you cant get away from either when making a knife.
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I agree with that. :)

Art has awlays included science. However, art is a path to the truth, which "scientism" won't/can't accept.
 
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The third link:
"Humans are reduced to “objects”"

... and the art of knifemaking is reduced to a science.

I'll fight to stop that from ever happening... even if it means getting ugly. :)
 
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It's time that "scientismistic knifemaking" with it's various camps and cults is exposed for what it truly is.... a complete sham!... that prays and feeds on the minds and hearts of the under educated and/or misinformed.
 
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I don't just say so, I observe so.... If you can't see it yet, I'll do my best.

Read the links. It's philosophically nothing new.
 
RogerP said:
A distinction without a difference.

Roger
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Only because you haven't observed it yet.

It isn't geared towards anyone in particular. It's not personal, but could apply to anyone. It's philosophical.

This is a philosophical discussion... hint hint hint. ;)
 
I'm just curious Tai, and would like some sort of concrete example of what you are talking about. You say "It's time that "scientismistic knifemaking" with it's various camps and cults is exposed for what it truly is.... a complete sham!... that prays and feeds on the minds and hearts of the under educated and/or misinformed." You must be talking about the science of metallurgy. Do you have problems with any specific heat treatment method espoused by someone, or with the general vocabulary of steel structure? Do you think that the problem is that the focus leans heavily on HT science with knives in some circles?

I don't think that stuff gets in the way of the art or soul of making knives. In fact, the only reason why I don't have a nice knife oven and some salt pots, etc. is I haven't the money to invest yet. But, if knifemaking was only about science to me I'd quit entirely and just let industry make them for me. To me it's about human creativity and our long symbiosis with fire and metals. (Not biological, whatever.)

I just hear you railing a bit vaguely (IMO) about "scientism." Think you could spell it out for us?
 
I doubt I could make it any more clear without blowing a gasket. :D.

... it's just talk ok,... ?

Not fact... facts are boring. :)

It's not about the facts!
 
Questions are important. It's the art of questioning that might be problematic.
 
Tai Goo said:
... Isn't it about time we put science itself through the same kind of scrutiny that it puts on everything else?...
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/rant on/

"Good" science DOES this. Good science IS this. Science is a methodology for identifying, creating, and communicating information. THAT'S IT.
It is a method of identifying what you do (think you) know in a way that can be represented, evaluated, and repeated by others. It is a methodology for creating new knowledge that can also be represented and repeated and evaluated by others. The scientific method withstands scrutiny by its own methods. This is its great power. Scrutinizing knowledge by non-scientific methods may produce doubt, but not *information*.

A human can learn skills, procedures, art (broadly defined), but cannot transfer those skills effectively to others through modern means (aka 'writing') without the recipient developing an enormous amount of experience on his own. Scientific methods distill what CAN be communicated via writing. Science demands precise definitions and boundaries. This is its great power, as it means we can all be talking about exactly the same thing. It provides a foundation for further inquiry.
Science is first and foremost about INFORMATION.

Art is not about information, it is more than that (and sometimes less). Art is about integration, skill, beauty (to which science is only seldom applied). Art is about decisions, history, foresight, execution, and making the whole more than the sum of the known parts. Science can never take away the ART of execution by a human, because the experience, encoding, skill, and execution are PART of the artist's neural composition. Art is quite literally part of you. Art is application.

Humans develop applied skills of all kinds through training neural networks. The advantage of neural networks is that they can solve incredibly complex problems, optimizations etc. They incorporate non-linear feedback loops, and are exceedingly adaptable. This is VERY COOL. However... You cannot look inside a neural network and get the information OUT. Its encoding is mush - this is true of both biological AND computational neural networks.
The power of neural networks is not to be underestimated. Look at any work of complex art. Look at the action required to produce the perfect Hamon with an interrupted quench. Look at the kinematics at play in fielding an incoming grounder and throwing out the runner at first. It is SO HARD to even APPROXIMATE this sort of behavior in procedural software (i.e. intentionally encoded scientific information) that it's really a boondoggle to even try.

Science is procedural - The information can be identified, extracted, communicated, debugged, and changed. This is HUGELY valuable.
Integrated Human skills are encoded differently. They allow a single organism to solve infinite problems of STAGGERING complexity (including something as 'simple' as picking your nose).

Scientifically obtained information is useful as an input into the Human learning processes.

There IS NO ARGUMENT.
Science isn't wrong because science is a METHOD of producing information. Science DEMANDS the revision of information produced by scientific methods when NEW information is obtained. The information can be wrong - so then fix it! 'Science' insists!
Human skill and development isn't wrong - it's a means of APPLICATION. Claiming that one is fundamentally superior is a basic misunderstanding of the topic.

Applying scientific methods to human art is not demeaning. It is not destructive. It is about deriving INFORMATION from knowledge encoded in a neural network so that SOME of that knowledge may be communicated and applied in more general ways. Science cannot "know everything". It can merely aspire to identify what IS known, so that it can be shared.

Science is information.
Art is application.

They are best friends. I wish everybody would stop trying to get between them.
I blame Descartes.

For a modern version, try Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

/rant off/

-Daizee
 
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What attracts me to knives and knifemaking is it is "Artistically Applied Science"
 
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