This is an archive of past discussions about Science. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Please change the obsolete definition.It sounds arcane and does not resonate with the larger audience.
The following - taken from The Cambridge Dictionaries online - could be useful
Science
Definition• [U] (knowledge from) the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities— Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.214.202.248 (talk) 05:47, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Use of all bold is even more offensive than use of all caps. Please read our verifiability (WP:V), reliable sourcing (WP:RS) and weighting (WP:WEIGHT) pages for why we are unlikely to use a dictionary to define an object of scholarly study, which in this case is also a scholarly discipline. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:08, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Everyday Science
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The article on science is very historical. With texts offering 'Intelligent Design' and similar pretenses at science, the public needs a good definition of science: how strict it must be (predictions) and how flexible it can be (methods).
My suggestion is that those aspects of science that have confused people be clarified in this article. Natural scientists seem to have done a bad job at defining their field of study, and I feel I may have done worse--for this article's audience is scientists, not the public. Here are some ideas for a good science writer to draw from when clarifying science.
I think of a natural science as the positivist study of regions of the universe, with the goal of prediction. Scientific theories change continually, as one surpasses another. Some scientists confuse science with truth (some philosophers, such as Popper, as well), leading to unnecessary, heated battles with a few vocal churches. Science is not a strive toward truth: founders of thermodynamic theory continued to use caloric theory because its data was more readily available and it predictions 'close enough'.
I can write only of the geological sciences and some branches of physics. Even these have different goals: experimental physicists strive toward prediction, while geologists toward explanation. Explanation has two definitions. The first is a complex, psychological process leading to satisfaction; and the second (used by geologists) is the prediction of an observation already known (Carnap). This latter definition again emphasizes prediction.
Both geologists & physicists can begin with observation and measurement, guide errors in current theory to more observations & creative hypotheses by inductive & other reasonings, then test the use of these hypotheses for prediction, the purpose of science.
A more formal statement of this particular method is the recognition of natural objects by the discontinuities in their properties, a classification into equivalence classes, the duality of a concrete rock and its theoretical genesis. Given this use of classification (a fundament of science), one can map a region of earth and see whether its genesis makes sense. Biology considers theoretical objects, genus & species, as fundamental; geology reverses this. Scientists always anticipate better theories, and numerous methods are used to find these. Duhem had long killed Bacon's 'crucial experiment' before Popper tried to revive it. Science is best evaluated when interpreted as a formal, logical theory. Quantitative mathematics is not needed for this. Science is one view of reality; but much is left out: science is not philosophy (this should be made clear.)
This article is broad enough that you ought to be able to fit your statements in. But they appear to apply to a specific realm. Where might they fit in this diagram?
I think the way the science article reads is reasonable and as broad as what science actually is. The fact that the breadth of the sciences extend from the natural to the social sciences means that science is not exclusively about strict predictions and flexible methods. Each field has many limits and constraints and to try to exclude a few concepts leads to the demarcation problem. For instance in all the social sciences there is not much predictability capacity (anthropology - how many cultures have existed and how many will exist in the near future, economics - what countries will have strong economies and how long will they sustain the strength; when will the next fall of Wall Street occur, sociology - what future generations will believe on diverse topics, political science - predicting the future of politics, etc). In the natural sciences you have similar issues (chemical emergence problems, when will a species deviate from a population and when will it classify as a different species, what diseases will be hurting future generations more, when and where new solar system will form, etc.)
In reality science is philosophy - natural philosophy to be precise. I would argue that it is literally a branch of epistemology because science means "knowledge" from Latin. Previous natural philosophers dealt with the issue of certainty of knowledge. When one tries to reduce science to certain principles one can find that many more exceptions exist to any of those given principles. The fact that scientists do not follow the scientific method in any strict sense, when they do their research, shows how broad science really is at the core. Its a human invention. I hope no one confuses nature with science since both are not the same.
From the original post, which said that science should be equated with pragmatism, not truth, and building on top of other theories, I think that this does not need to be mentioned because it applies to many other fields such as theology and general philosophy. Obviously people try to look for new ways to make their lives better and easier and new ideas emerge and get combined just like it is done in the sciences, but just like with the sciences, many old ideas were good already so these would not be discarded. In the end, all fields of study are progressive - meaning that they can built upon further. Just my thoughts. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Feyerabend
Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Did Feyerabend really say there are no "*useful*" methods, or simply that there is no single, universal method? I don't think Feyerabends point was that science has no use, just that it is not necessarily special compared to other methods of finding things out. It seems there needs to be some kind of citation in this section! 81.103.237.86 (talk) 21:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Consensibility
Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 11 years ago35 comments9 people in discussion
Does this article not give undue weight to criticism of science? 99.9% of sources aren't critical of science and this leads a lot of undue weight to these ideas by Jung (who was an advocate of pseudoscience like astrology) etc. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
A rather obscure series of articles etc of obscure postmodernists and scientists in the US doesn't have weight here either. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:27, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree with deletion. Jung's opinions on science are irrelvant, and mentioning them violates WP:WEIGHT. Same for Barzun and Adorno. The rest was basically just special pleading. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
No, please strike that: the question is whether this article can have a criticism section. Apparently you believe it can, and so you wish to argue that 100% of the current sourcing is WP:UNDUE on account of one (or two?) bad apples.—Machine Elf 173522:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Support removal You've phrased that in an odd way: The question is, does the criticism section, have due weight to be in this article about science? One subsection is predominantly about the views of Carl Jung and someone called Sixel. The other subsection gives undue weight to the views of particular philosophers. Philosophical critiques can be mentioned in Science#Philosophy_of_science (i.e Feyerabend), but it should give the responses from other philosophers of science. Invariably, if you pick up a book related to science, it's not going to have a lot of critical content the way this article does. The section is undue. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:05, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment: No, you argued: "Does this article not give undue weight to criticism of science? 99.9% of sources aren't critical of science and this leads a lot of undue weight to these ideas by Jung (who was an advocate of pseudoscience like astrology) etc." You clearly implied that science appears to be beyond reproach because 99.9% of "sources" aren't critical. Please don't attempt to subvert the question... you did not justify your deletion of the entire section by iteratively supporting a claim that each of the cited authors are undue. You mentioned Jung only, which was a very minor part of the overall section. I have no objection to moving appropriate material under a Philosophy of Science section, but that's not the only valid source of academic criticism and, apparently, you don't even have a problem with Feyerabend in that regard... No, the question is: if you pick up a current encyclopedia, should it have any criticism at all? You weren't merely trying to reduce the amount of criticism, you sought to eliminate it entirely.—Machine Elf 173522:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Support removal. A mix of irrelvant opinions by non-experts and special pleading, clearly violating WP:WEIGHT. Also find the formulation of the RfC prejudicial, perhaps enough to skunk this RfC. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:13, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, usually people are expected to discuss having an RfC and the precise wording. IRWolfie- (talk)
Comment: Curious that such abject malarkey had escaped the attention of the editors here for so long... Care to provide any basis for your allegations? Your failure to WP:AGF is unfortunate... I'm trying to establish by consensus that a criticism section does, in fact, have a place in this article. Whereas some of the sources that you support deleting are clearly leading voices in regard to the legitimate, academic criticism of science, I would not be averse to follow up RfCs regarding the weight that should be given to each.—Machine Elf 173522:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I've been intending to deal with it for some time, but haven't gotten around to it. There is also a section at Scientific method which is named "Philosophy and sociology of science" but is mostly a list of arguments that science is subjective. Arc de Ciel (talk) 04:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
For the record, I'm also not sure how you interpreted this from my comment, as I didn't mention that paragraph at all. I think comparing the weight of viewpoints in that section to the philosophy section in this article would show what I meant. Arc de Ciel (talk) 04:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
RfC comment. I don't edit this page, and I came here from the RfC notice. I understand science, as well as "criticism of" material, pretty well. I have read and understood what both views behind the RfC are, and I am not misled by how the RfC was worded. The correct approach here is described at WP:Summary style. The criticism section as it is on the page when I write this comment is indeed much too long, per WP:UNDUE. On the other hand, this page should acknowledge that criticism exists. I suggest retaining a brief criticism section here, with the existing hatnote to the main pages, but to prune the text of the section down to about 10% of what it is now. The details should be left to the linked pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment - Trim the criticism section I have examined the article and the criticism section and it is pretty much all of criticism of science copy and pasted here. I agree with Tryptofish above that the criticism section should be trimmed to 10% of what it is now. We must remember that Science emerged from alchemy and philosophical explorations into the nature of the world, how things work and how to harness the elements. So there should be pointers to philosophical criticism, but all of that criticism ought not be here. It should alert to the existence of philosophical criticism and link to the main article on criticism of scienceWhiteguru (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Support trimming per Tryptofish. There is certainly room for different perspectives on science and philosophy of science issues. I suggest putting more emphasis on philosophy of science and the various viewpoints on what is and is not science, and less on bald criticism, which is almost entirely a fringe perspective. aprock (talk) 16:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
What do you think of putting the comments by feyerabend into the philosophy of science section, with the rest of the philosophy? IRWolfie- (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, well I see the philosophy section has an NPOV/OR problem: "Most contributions to the philosophy of science have come from philosophers, [not that they could come from a scientist qua scientist] who frequently view the beliefs of most scientists as superficial or naive—thus there is often a degree of antagonism between working scientists and philosophers of science." Even so, Feyerabend fits right in.—Machine Elf 173521:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and integrated that in since it doesn't appear to be disputed. I've also removed the antagonism part because I don't think it's true. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Section on measurement
Latest comment: 11 years ago17 comments2 people in discussion
While I agree that measurement and SI units are very important, especially to natural scientists and engineers, the section on measurement seems to be a little overkill for an article that attempts to provide broad overview of science. Except for textbooks on physics, chemistry, engineering, and to a lesser extent, biology, you won't find an exhaustive discussion of measurements and SI units in many other areas of science (e.g., psychology, economics, philosophy of science). It just seems to be a little out of proportion here. I would like to suggest condensing this section down to one paragraph or less and moving the rest to the Natural Sciencemeasurement article instead where it fits better. Thoughts? danielkueh (talk) 00:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I hope that the concept of the unit of measure can be introduced somewhere. Measures are examples of operational markers, a more general concept, used for example, by Antonio Damasio,in his somatic markers. There need to be markers which we (in a community) can agree upon in order to make progress in communication (in that community). One example is the use of Green fluorescent protein for use as Selectable markers. Otherwise we get the spectacle of parties agreeing to steps, policies, and results which are incommensurable, as in our current social systems. Markers, signs, symbols, definitions, etc. are fundamental points that get ignored all too easily. It is not just a philosophical point, but a practical point. C.S. Peirce wrote about this ("How to make our ideas clear"), but he was by no means the first to bring this up. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)05:12, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I am not disputing that measurements are important. But the section is very specific and highly relevant to physics, chemistry, and engineering, and to a lesser extent, biology. If there has a description, it need not be so detailed and exhaustive but should provide a general overview of why measurements are in important in science for the very reasons that you brought up. danielkueh (talk) 05:19, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Also, I think the best place to introduce a short description of why measurement is important would be in the section on Mathematics and formal sciences. Introducing measurements in the first paragraph (2-3 sentences max) would allow readers to understand that it is possible to quantify science and as a result, explain why mathematics and statistics are indispensable to science. danielkueh (talk) 05:24, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
It can't be just math. There have to be operational elements to tie back to the science. Otherwise formalism takes on a life of its own. Surely there can be an independent place in the article for things like lab technique. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)05:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Another potential location would be the section on Certainty and Science. I am open to suggestions but I would caution that this is an article on science, and not natural science and engineering. If there is to be a description of measurements and its importance to science in general (including the social sciences), it should be broad and conceptual and not bogged down with all the details on SI units, etc. danielkueh (talk) 05:42, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I can't understand why a section on Certainty would be a good location either, as scientific results are definitely not certain; it would be better to state that a scientific result has an error, up front; measurement and error are intimately tied together, along with the unit of measure. Now if there were a section on Uncertainty and error, I would agree that some general sentences on measurement could live there. Otherwise a casual reader would get the idea that Certainty and Science go together. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)06:14, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Stating that scientific results are either uncertain or certain would be an overstatement either way. Putting it in a section on certainty is not to suggest that scientific results are always certain. It is just finding an appropriate location in this article that has sufficient context to introduce the topic and describe it. Rather than quibble over locations, how about you tell me what it is about measurements that you would like to see described in this article. Once we settle on content (what to put in), then we can settle on context (where to put it). danielkueh (talk) 06:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Vitruvian man as an example of proportion, with the head as the unit of measure
I think I figured out an accessible approach to 'unit of measure'. My example illustration is Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian man. His rule applies to the proportions of grown people. In the drawing, the head of the average adult human being is the unit of measure, the body being roughly 6 heads high, with the navel at the center of the body. For infants, the body is smaller, say 4 heads high. For heroic figures, the body is even larger, say 7 or 8 heads high. This style of drawing is taught in classes for sketching. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)19:38, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry but it won't work. It is too esoteric and its relevance to specific units of measure is tenuous. It is not the units of measure that is of great importance here. It is the rules and conventions that are shared among scientist that are important. We cannot have a whole section dedicated to just measurements. Especially not in an article on science in general. We can however, have a section on "shared conventions, rules, values, tools, etc" and that specific agreed-upon measurements (e.g., IS units) are examples of these shared conventions. That is be the big picture that we should be getting across. At the moment, I don't have any secondary sources handy. If you do, that would be the best place to start. danielkueh (talk) 19:55, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
A picture of a well-known subject is accessible to all, and is hardly esoteric. It appears that when you refer to rules and values, you are talking about the shared interests of a specific community. The shared interests drive the values, etc. The problems are what draw the community together. Otherwise they wouldn't bother to share. In Leonardo's example, he analyzes just what it is that makes a human figure believable. That is a problem shared by fellow sketchers. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)20:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Galileo measured the period of a swinging lamp with his pulse; he measured the elapsed time of a falling body with the weight of flowing water as the analog of the flow of time. I think it is clear that Galileo's creativity in measuring previously unknown quantities broke open his subjects of strudy. Afterward, things were codified (SI etc.), but the science lies in the creativity of the researchers, to coin a phrase. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)20:25, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
You're asking readers to make an inference about the use of specific units of measure among scientists based on a picture. Think this through. That is not a trivial point to make and is a lot to take in. The picture itself is accessible but the larger point that you're trying to make is not. At least not like this. So it is not picture, but the way you are presenting a point that is esoteric.
I think you are drifting off to different topics about problems and who sets rules, etc. What I am getting at is "what is the point of discussing units of measure?" It can't be just to have a list of interesting units just for show? Instead, units of measure should be used to illustrate some of the rules and conventions shared among scientists. Just as there is a consensus among scientists about the use of specific units of measure, there is also consensus about the use of the same type of instruments, the same set of assumptions, etc. Isn't that why we are here? danielkueh (talk) 20:35, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Save labor for what end? How about we get back to your original rationale above on using standard measurements. As you say, "Otherwise we get the spectacle of parties agreeing to steps, policies, and results which are incommensurable, as in our current social systems." I think that is a very reasonable starting point for discussion as it is mainstream and has ample secondary sources to draw from. danielkueh (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
A Topic of Consideration
Latest comment: 11 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Keeping in mind the human being's natural tendency to bias, whether or not he or she wishes to avoid, learn from, and correct his or her mistakes, I would like to bring our attention to the theme of "European Scientists" in this article. The History of Science, as written here, appears to elaborate on the theme of European Scientists to the point where the article itself appears to be no more than an explanation of the various European ideas which have influenced Science as a whole. There appears to be a touch of Arabian influence in the entry, at most. Aside from retitling this page "A History of European Science", one may consider summarizing the history of Science in each respective category: race, civilization, continent, and time period (any or every one). Regrettably, on many timelines the dates arrogantly leap from the Ancient Chinese and Greek/Roman Scientists to the Early European (Renaissance and beyond) Scientists, often minimizing or otherwise entirely leaving out thousands of years of significant contributions from Africans to American Indians to Muslims to Hindus to Australians. Sadly enough, the Scientific discussion and coverage in this article appears centered in the European scientific contribution to the Great Conversation of Ideas which has spanned the history of mankind. I hope this article, and many others like it, will expand their range of historical, racial, and religious figures, ideas, and inventions to not only European scientists but people of all civilizations, cultures, races, religions who have and have not contributed to European scientific authority.
Greetings Abdullah H. Mirza, any intercultural contributions you may want to add are most welcome! I encourage you to contribute in the history of science section in this article because here it would not hurt to note contributions by Middle easterners or Asians or other cultures which have contributed to the enterprise of the sciences through time. It would also be ok to create regional "subheadings" in sections to note important contributions for different regions or cultures, if you like. There are great sources for Middle eastern and Chinese contributions that I have read, for instance. Their inclusion would not be a problem here. I say go for it. --Ramos1990 (talk) 03:31, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Per Ancheta Wis' link, there is quite a bit of transcultural material there. For this Science article, I would suggest you include some major contributions or major movements mainly. I say this because this article is about science in general so for more detailed treatments you can refer people to more detailed articles. For instance, if you wish you can add more specific "See Also" or "Main article" or "Further Information" links to this article such as Science in the Islamic world if you mention Ibn Sina's contributions. It should be ok. --Ramos1990 (talk) 01:55, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Collage Image
Latest comment: 11 years ago17 comments11 people in discussion
Glurpingfrog, your edit was camouflaged by the blank lines you introduced in a previous section but you may wish to suggest several names for the collage. History of science is replete with names you may wish to highlight. I hope you can discover some suitable images for the collage. Some names are so early in the history it would be quite remarkable if an image of the scientist has survived. Perhaps you might find an image of Shen Kuo, for example, or to name a 9000 year-old example, the domesticator of maize, or even the first person to inscribe the first accurate calendar. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)03:37, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I propose Freud be replaced with Emmy Noether to even out the gender imbalance, since it is debatable if Freud's important contributions to psychiatry constitute science. 183.90.103.132 (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Why should the page on science have a montage of scientists? Wouldn't the montage better fit on the page of "scientist"? Also having the "influential" scientists reinforces the questionable view that science is mainly done by influential scientists. I suggest instead having a graphic of a large questionmark. Here is a possible picture to use:
Khaydock, it is customary to append new comments to the end of the talk thread, so your edit belongs in time order. What would you think about embedding the faces of the scientists in the detail of the question marks? Say, for example, each face replacing the 'pixels' of the question marks? --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)14:57, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Ancheta Wis, It would be very difficult to fit so many faces in a question mark, and still have them recognisable! Also, the point of the question marks is to imply that science is based on questioning - and questioning the answers and the questions. I cannot think of a more appropriate image for SCIENCE. Why not put the scientists under the entry for scientists? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khaydock (talk • contribs) 12:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Whole-body PET scan showing a hidden cancer as a result of its metabolic uptake of a positron-emitting radiotracer.
I also don't like the idea of a question mark at all. "Science" means "knowledge." The entire purpose of the discipline is to answer questions (though never fully or with perfect certainty). Still it answers questions well enough to do various types of engineering and other tech, which is well enough!
Let me add my vote of using the nice collage of scientists to illustrate the scientist article, which (now) has a lede photo that isn't nearly so good as this one. I think I'll be WP:BOLD and copy this one over there, at least.
And while on the collage, I might as well comment on the idea of political correctness. Under women in science there was a photo that was ostensibly of a woman scientist doing science. Wrong. It was a female chemistry student in the Dominican Republic being incompetently trained (Where's her eye protection? As a chemist it made me cringe). I fixed it with a photo of Vera Rubin, who couldn't get into Palomar Observatory due to their being only one bathroom (when she finally did, they opened a small door and said: "And here.. is the famous toilet!"). In the collage, at the end, you have token Neil de Grasse Tyson who is a great explainer and I'm glad he exists, but he does not pretend to be a noted scientist who changed the field. If you need somebody in that spot, put in Percy Julian, who did influence the whole field of plant natural product chemistry and deserves to be better known.
What photo do we have for science? It's hard to illustrate an intangible. Photos of big science are impressive, and you can put in the Large Hadron Collider detector. 3-D positron emission (PET) scans also epitomize to me the application and power of science, and look cool. Article illustrations need to to be esthetic. Find something that is. SBHarris23:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Of course questions are asked in order to be answered, but the problem is, how can a question be answered unless it is asked? I think we need to emphasise the importance of asking questions and figuring out which questions to ask.Khaydock (talk) 08:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Edit request on 18 March 2013
Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
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Under "Scientific method" the article at the moment uses the phrase "causational relationships", which links to the article Causality. The article Causality itself does not use the word "causational". It is an odd seldom-used word. I think it was a simple mistake on the part of an editor, and should be replaced by the common and in that location logical wording "causal relationships".
Latest comment: 11 years ago12 comments4 people in discussion
The Science Council has worked out a definition of science in collaboration with A. C. Grayling.[1] According to The Guardian, it took them one year to develop it.[2] The definition is as follows, wikilinks added by me:
In my opinion, this is clearly superior to the definition in the article as it stands. Of course, scientific methodologies are not ultimately created through systematic methodologies based on evidence and such processes are thus by definition outside the definition of science, but, I guess, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Narssarssuaq (talk) 15:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
The Council's definition is consistent with the current definition. In fact, it is saying the same thing. I don't see a need to change it. danielkueh (talk) 15:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I do not agree that they are equivalent, and I am pretty sure that Mr. Grayling would not either. For instance, application, understanding and social are not mentioned in the article. Narssarssuaq (talk) 15:28, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Does the word "universe" not include "social"? How can you "build and organize" knowledge if you don't "understand" it? Besides, this is WP, not the mouthpiece of the UK Science Council or A.C. Grayling. danielkueh (talk) 15:46, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Let me sum up. There are two interrelated problems with the introductory sentence: (1) it does not place science into a larger context, (2) it defines science as an act which resembles an unmoved mover or an actus purus. The only constraint placed on it, "systematic", comes from within itself, i.e. the scientific method. In this sense, science is described as a kind of perpetuum mobile. That places an impossible constraint on the scientist, namely that he must have no will of his own, a kind of robot fulfilling science's every demand. As you are a scientist yourself, you will know that this is not how science works in practice. On the contrary, a strong-willed scientist is often respected among peers, and is more likely than not to make valuable contributions. It may be contended that it is not the process of science that builds and organises knowledge, scientists and the scientific literate do. I think the term "understanding" allows the human dimension to appropriately enter the stage. Narssarssuaq (talk) 18:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Interesting, but that is beyond the scope of the lead paragraph, let alone the lead definition. Perhaps you might want to consider the Philosophy of Science section or article? Regardless of what you might think, the current is very well-sourced and has been discussed extensively. Plus, the lead sentence needs to be simple and accurate enough for the reader to understand (see WP:LEADSENTENCE), which it is. danielkueh (talk) 21:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm still not getting the difference. WP's definition talks about a [human] "systematic enterprise" that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the "universe." "Human" is implied, as nobody things this is an animal enterprise like a bird nest, and machines don't have enterprises. The English Science Council definition talks about a "pursuit" and application of knowledge and understanding of "the natural and social world" (= "universe") following a "systematic methodology based on evidence." But our "systematic enterprise" is certainly more or less a "pursuit following a systematic methodology." Same thing. In fact the "systematic methodology" of the Science Council definition involves generating "testable explanations and predictions" which is what our WP one says. That fact that it's a human enterprise is not really left out, and the effort involved in doing all this is not explicitly mentioned in either definition, but is implied in both (enterprises require effort-- they are human endevours).
All I can see that is different really between the definitions is that the WP definition leaves out the "application" (applied sciences, like engineering) and the English definition mentions it in that one sentence. We can put in "application" in the first sentence Instead of "builds and organizes" knowledge, we could say "generates, organizes, and applies" knowledge. I don't like "builds" anyway. However, the second sentence of the WP article is the one that really addresses applied sciences and reliable demonstrable knowledge, since (historically) that is where sciences originated in both meaning and practice-- from engineering and application (technology). So all that is necessary to mention anyway to get into the history of the term. The knowledge (scientia) historically was APPLIED knowledge. One sentence isn't going to really do this distinction justice. But we have two. So it's okay. We're better. SBHarris02:05, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
If we are going to change "build," then let's change it to "create."It sounds better and simpler than "generates.""gathers" as it is the term that is used in E. O. Wilson's definition, which the current lead definition is based on. Also, should we just change "enterprise" to "undertaking" to remove ambiguity? That is what we mean to say anyway. danielkueh (talk) 02:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. 'Gather' connotes less effort than it took to for Einstein to create General Relativity from 1907 to 1915. 'Enterprise' is also a better word for the Royal Astronomical Society's effort to test GR when planning a voyage in 1917 to view the eclipse in 1919 at Principe . That is what it took to get the world to accept GR. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)10:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand the first objection. "Gathers" means to "accumulate" or to "amass." How does that imply "less effort?" I don't understand the second objection as well. It's still an undertaking, albeit a formidable one. danielkueh (talk) 13:41, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
I get the objection to "gather" as it sounds like collecting rocks. Science at its most difficult is like "gathering" a victory in a chess match against an opponent that is often better than you. Which is to say gather is the wrong word. Gathering gold in Dungeons and Dragons where you can be toasted has the same idea, but not really the same sense of confusion followed by the same public dunce cap if you put out your best explanation and it turns out wrong. Only people who publish know this feeling of high wire act with no net. Gather does not describe it. Enterprise is okay. SBHarris15:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I'd like to note that I just did a simplifying edit of the first paragraph. Here are the important things I did: (1) remove some parenthetical statements -- these hinder the reader and should be used sparingly; (2) unlink a bunch of common terms -- there was way too much blue there; (3) remove a reference to Aristotle. Since "science" is a Latin word, Aristotle could not possibly have defined it. Relationships to Greek terminology should be dealt with elsewhere in the article. The main thing is that there is an unfortunate tendency for cumulative editing to steadily complicate the prose of an article, and for vital articles like this it is essential to fight that tendency, even if it hurts a bit. Looie496 (talk) 15:57, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Illustration of science-- very large to very small
Latest comment: 11 years ago31 comments9 people in discussion
In a WP:BOLD move I've replaced the montage of scientists, which now serves a better function as the opening illustration of scientist. What to put in place of it? My best thought was to be Carl Saganish and go from astronomy to atoms. We need illustration, and I thought the space telescope in orbit would illustrate the doing of science better than any number of astronomical objects, which are just things we see. At the other end, one can go down to diagrams of quarks but they aren't very visually/graphically interesting. DNA is as small as you can get and still have something visually complex-- and it is the code of life itself. And this is not a photograph, but a molecular structural diagram, so again it represents something artificial, like the space telescope. One is an artifact/instrument for gathering data, the other is the picture we have of our genetic heretage at the atomic and molecular level. So, those are my two choices, yielding data describable by general relativity and quantum mechanics.
May I ask one favor, and that is, if you don't like these and decide to modify or replace them with somethign else, replace them with something you think is better. Don't just revert to the montage of scientists. I think most people would agree that THAT serves better someplace else. No? SBHarris02:26, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
I still think the questionmark of questionmarks would be the best illustration. There was no very good argument against it.Khaydock (talk) 18:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
And how would that differentiate science from philosophy, esthetics, ethics, religion, fine arts and humanities? Every last field of education other than science is full of questions. Science differs in that it actually provides demonstrable answers. Place your bets. SBHarris19:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes, science does provide demonstable answers (demonstrable through observation of physical reality), but even those answers can be questioned. Questionmarks would differentiate science from religion because in religion beliefs tend more to be based on authority and faith than on questioning. But it will not really differentiate science from philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and humanities - to the extent that these are social sciences. And we should be including social sciences under the heading of science, so it is fine. Fine art is a little different, although it also has some similarities to science, and I would agree that one similarity is that art also includes questioning - but perhaps not to the degree that science does - science cannot occur without questioning.Khaydock (talk) 19:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I created an illustration for branches of science that could fit into this location. The advantage of it over the hubble and DNA pictures is that it captures all of science in one graphic. The disadvantage is that the content could be perceived as subjective and not aligning with the article. I am interested in feedback in favor or opposing. See here: The scale of the universe mapped to the branches of science and the hierarchy of science— Preceding unsigned comment added by Efbrazil (talk • contribs) 03:50, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
My defense is wrapped up in the question mark after string theory- that's meant to convey the "we don't know" aspect of it. The goal here is to have an introductory slide that hits on all the major topics. I'm open to pulling string theory and parallel universes entirely if there's debate on having them in there, but I'd rather not fall back to something more obscure like M Theory. What do you think?--Efbrazil (talk) 17:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Comment: In terms of ecstatics and concepts, I really like the newly proposed figure by Efbrazil. My only complaint is that the current figure gives the impression that the subject matter of biology and ecology is restricted to the cellular level, which is very misleading. Biology spans over many levels (see Hierarchical_organization) and I am not sure if the distinction between biology and the social sciences is just a matter of different levels of analysis (see biopsychology or biological anthropology). Plus, these fields tend to overlap with each other quite a bit. danielkueh (talk) 17:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Daniel! The connectors from scale to scientific branches are meant to identify the fundamental building block for each scientific discipline. All of physics is built on particle behaviors and stuff that happens on the atomic scale, even though physics describes the behavior of galaxies. All of the life sciences are built on cells, and all of psychology and social science is built on the human brain as the basic unit. I'm not sure how to improve the diagram to convey that reasoning- I was hoping people would intuit the reasoning, but your objection maybe means I was wrong about that. Let me know if you have ideas for conveying the "building block" concept visually...--Efbrazil (talk) 21:35, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I have two suggestions. The first suggestion would be to simplify this diagram by removing either the left (scale of the universe) or the right panel (hierarchy of science). If you retained the left panel, then I recommend that you draw a horizontal dash line between two labels (e.g., molecules and cells) on the scale and use a figure legend to allows readers to know that the line merely demarcates a starting point for a specific discipline/field. Alternatively, you can use brace texts instead. The second suggestion would be to combine physical and life sciences into "natural sciences," which is more common and more inclusive. Plus, it will solve the problem of not having other categories such as Earth Sciences (referring to below comment by Mikernoton). Overall, I like the idea of building blocks but for a variety of reasons, I don't think it is a good idea to fix these blocks on a scale of the universe. danielkueh (talk) 22:48, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I tried to resolve the mapping from scale to disciplines by having the images as building blocks, then connecting the scale to the blocks and not the category. I also added earth science and kept it with formal sciences as a visual image without the building block view. I do not want to eliminate the scale or hierarchy as I think they are both important in terms of connecting science to the physical universe and presenting a holistic view.--Efbrazil (talk) 18:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
It looks better, but could you post a link to the previous file so that I can compare the two? I know only a short time has passed but I have a bad memory. :D Thanks for all your hard work! danielkueh (talk) 19:04, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
If you click the image and then scroll down, you can see the history. There's a lot of uploads as my browser cache was refusing to acknowledge the upload.--Efbrazil (talk) 17:11, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Comment : By covering many but not all sciences, the diagram may lead to objections from those not included such as the Earth Sciences (I'm a geologist so naturally it was the first thing that I noticed), but I quite like the concept.
Mikenorton (talk) 22:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Earth science is difficult in any taxonomy I think, and Wikipedia itself is conflicted about where to place it. In importance it's a top level natural science, in a taxonomy view it's just a special case of planetary science, and in terms of building blocks the science is interdisciplinary. My prior solution was just to leave it out, but that probably was to keep the diagram pretty. I took some time to wedge it in.--Efbrazil (talk) 18:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Comment: (edit conflict) I like the idea a lot, but here's a few thoughts:
At a size that's suitable for the lede, all the text will be unreadable. Maybe a simpler version (like only the green section) for the lede and the whole thing in larger further down?
I somehow like the length scale, but people could say it puts undue weight on physics and astronomy, since big parts are not covered by other fields.
How about arranging the main fields in a circle, connecting back from the brain to the abstract topics?
There is a way to incorporate these ideas; it involves using danielkueh's suggestion, but omitting the right side (which does not scale because of the font sizes), and instead using the arrows between the length ladder and the 4 realms (the pictures). The arrows from the ladder to the realms then serve as illustration of a kind of observatory or microscope, depending on the relative size of the interaction. _Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)10:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! For lede sizing I just did a few things. I resized fonts so that there is a "large" font and a small one, with the large font visible if the image is a 400px thumbnail, and the smaller font good for when the image is zoomed in. To allow for the large thumbnail, a solution is to have the science category listing at the top and the image second, as I did for Branches of science. This works as the image is next to the TOC and doesn't get in the way. I don't want to strip out content, as I think the value here is having the image be used as an introductory slide for science.--Efbrazil (talk) 18:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for the response! I had to take time on replying so I could digest the feedback and attempt to incorporate it.--Efbrazil (talk) 18:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I think there is perhaps too much going on with the image; it's awkward to follow and the middle part seems a bit arbitrary. Why try squeeze everything into one image, why not two? IRWolfie- (talk) 22:37, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry you think it is too busy, you're probably right, but it's my best shot at capturing all of science and how it maps back to the universe in a single view. When introducing science it's important for people to understand what it's based in (universe mapping) and conceptually organized (the hierarchy). As multiple slides the overall mapping would be removed and I think the effect would be weaker. I am hoping the image will be used by teachers when introducing science or scientific subjects. To help with confusion, I expanded the descriptive text you see when clicking the image to help explain it.--Efbrazil (talk) 17:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Most of the feedback has been positive so I pulled the trigger and went live with this. I hope the image is not too controversial and can stay. If you want changes to the image, please let me know here and I will try to incorporate them.--Efbrazil (talk) 17:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Fine. If you can I would expand the thing in size a little (in theory it can cross the entire page if we put it under the header box). And add one more science-branch, which takes the scale all the way from Earth to the biggest things we know, which is astronomy. Gotta have that, for that reason. Otherwise, as I said before, I like it a LOT. SBHarris00:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I didn't want to go too much into non-standard sizing as it would generate controversy. The image is now legible in thumbnail view and easily clickable for a zoom, plus it will appear in google search results for searches on an image for "science". Also, I don't list astronomy as a fundamental branch because it is typically treated as a fork off of physics. Under physics I list astrophysics and particle physics. I agree it's strange that physical science doesn't link to astronomical systems, but my rationale was that I want to focus attention on the "building block" concept and not clutter the diagram. It's awkward though, so I'll noodle a bit more on this to see if I can get the mapping fixed cleanly. Thanks again, I have a fragile ego and feedback like this makes my world go round!--Efbrazil (talk) 17:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Good! Now remove the arrow between biology and Earth science. Probably you need one or two connecting lines up the right side bypassing the life sciences and connecting chemistry to Earth science, and physics also to astronomy. The scales do make a loop there as we use particle physics to study the Big Bang. And before that also the reverse (Zel'dovich remarking that the Big Bang is the poor man's particle accelerator).SBHarris17:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again for the feedback. See the update above. I didn't remove the connector from biology to Earth Science- Earth Science includes both the biosphere and the interaction of life and earth through time, and space science is all about finding life these days. I agree with a direct connection back to physics and chemistry though, as that is a key differentiator with the social sciences. I didn't want to complicate the diagram too much though- at some level all sciences are interdisciplinary and the connectors turn to spaghetti. I decided to connect both chemistry and physics to geoscience and then on up to astronomy from there. I think that strikes the right balance between complexity and correctness. Look good to you?--Efbrazil (talk) 19:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for putting so much work into this Efbrazil - you'll never satisfy all of us, but I think that it's looking very good. Mikenorton (talk) 19:47, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Shameless plug- I submitted the Cosmic Calendar graphic I came up with previously as a "Featured Picture Candidate" and need people to review it. I'd be very appreciative if you voted for or against the graphic here: Featured_picture_candidates#Cosmic_Calendar_v3. Thanks!--Efbrazil (talk) 02:24, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
On page 3 in the philosophical turn to human things section, the word "deducing" in the last sentence should be changed into "inducing" Universal rules are induced, not deduced from data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bas Defize (talk • contribs) 11:40, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Relative Positions of Countries in the World of Science
Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Interesting link, but being on Arxiv.org with no mention of a journal or peer review suggests that it's not actually a published paper, but a preprint awaiting review. This is a topic which Wikipedia ought to have an article about it, but that source may not be suitable yet. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Specifically, science is a sphere of knowledge within the sphere of philosophy. The two topics are not part of a dichotomy as it is often thought. Rather, philosophy plays a dominant role in reshaping what is termed science and consequently, the scientific method. This point can be demonstrated by considering how modern theories regarding what is typically thought to be a scientific discipline, is radically reshaped by philosophical revelations. An example of this can be demonstrated with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is the dominant school of thought concerning quantum mechanics. In this instance, what is typically though of as a strictly scientific discipline, has been radically altered due to philosophical findings. Specifically, it is the Schrödinger's Cat thought-experiment that explains that, defying what is traditionally believes to be scientifically impossible, a cat is both dead and non-dead at the same time.
90.206.142.34 (talk) 23:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Criticism of "Practical impacts of scientific research" section
Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
This section list the research on The Germ Theory (1700), and refers to Vaccination as one of its practical impact.
Even though I don't doubt the importance of The Germ Theory in further development of vaccines (especially in the 19th century),
the relationship between early (smallpox) vaccine development as described in the Wikipedia article on Edward Jenner and Vaccination
and The Germ Theory (1700) seems to be nonexistent. It appears to only be an evolution of the long standing practice of inoculation.
"In 1796, Edward Jenner, a doctor and scientist who had practiced variolation, performed an experiment based on the folk-knowledge that infection with cowpox, a disease with minor symptoms which was never fatal, also conferred immunity to smallpox.[10] Jenner induced cowpox infection by transferring material from a lesion on one patient to another, thus infecting the second patient with cowpox. He then demonstrated that the latter was immune by exposing him to smallpox. The principle had been demonstrated some years earlier by Benjamin Jesty, who had not publicized his discovery. Jenner described and generalised the process and then arranged to propagate cowpox for therapeutic use and he is credited with the discovery.[11] Vaccination took over from variolation.
Jenner, like all members of the Royal Society in those days, was an empiricist.[12][13][14] The theory to support further advances in vaccination came later."
"Building on Leeuwenhoek's work, physician Nicolas Andry argued in 1700 that microorganisms he called "worms" were responsible for smallpox and other diseases.[2]"
"The smallpox vaccine was designed in 1796 by the British physician Edward Jenner, although at least six people had used the same principles several years earlier.[8]"
"The breakthrough came when a scientific description of the inoculation operation was submitted to the Royal Society in 1724 by Dr Emmanual Timoni, who had been the Montagu's family physician in Istanbul. Inoculation was adopted both in England and in France nearly half a century before Jenner's famous smallpox vaccine of 1796.[25]"
"Inoculation was already a standard practice, but involved serious risks. In 1721, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had imported variolation to Britain after having observed it in Istanbul, where her husband was the British ambassador"
"Noting the common observation that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox, Jenner postulated that the pus in the blisters that milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected them from smallpox."
I suggest to either change the date (1700 to something more recent such as 19th century) and mention the impact as the "further improvement of vaccination" or simply remove vaccination from the list all together. Dumou (talk) 17:16, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
I turned to Wikipedia to explore the older and wider meanings of "science" in hopes of getting an ostensively "objective" and "historical" as well as a "theoretical" and "ideal" understanding of the broadest and most general use of the word/concept "science"... And so I searched for "Sciences", knowing full well that the word simply meant an organized regular body of human knowledge.
I find my research stymied by the biases of Scientism when the broader concept of "Sciences" is reduced and redirected to "Science"...That was disappointing... The disappointment is somewhat mitigated by the traces of the broader humanistic conception of "science" evidenced in some of the text and in the graphics, where partial references to non-Natural Science sciences are included.
However, an encyclopedia is expected to be "unbiased", "exhaustive", "comprehensive" and non-partisan with regards to social and disciplinary struggle. To find this article informed by the reductionistic propaganda of Scientism reduces the credibility and usefulness of our Wikipedia project.
I have neither the time, energy, expertise or wherewithal to do the work myself... But I thought I'd share, to the best of my ability, my experience of trying to use Wikipedia in a scholarly pursuit, only to end in failure and disappointment. That's part of the process of refinement... I hope that it is remedied some day. All the best, Emyth (talk) 13:08, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Emyth. Systematic human knowledge is not restricted to science. The academic disciplines of history, theology, mathematics, jurisprudence, or philosophy are not covered by the term science. --Hokanomono✉06:30, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
I would submit that the clear primary topic of "Sciences" is "Science". Although there is a hatnote link to Science (disambiguation), it is not at all apparent that the disambiguation page holds anything useful for a search for other meanings of "sciences". bd2412T01:05, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Interwiki-Links
Latest comment: 11 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion
So what does Wissenschaft connect now? I am not sure this is a good idea. If science always equated to natural science in English we would not have two articles. There is, i think, only a tendency towards such equation.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:01, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
Fine, but the term "science" as defined by science excludes humanities, therefore Wissenschaft should not link here. Maybe there is no corresponding term for Wissenschaft in english, maybe science would be the correct term, but the article "science" is only about natural science. As long as science and natural science both describe the same thing, there is no way to get the interwiki-links right for both articles. --Hokanomono✉12:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
That way we have written this article, please note, specifically points out that Science has a broad meaning which is also the older meaning. This is of course the one which is quite close to Wissenschaft. So our science and natural science articles are not about exactly the same thing at all, even if they overlap. I think this is creating a problem where this is none.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:45, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
That's a good point, but my problem is the following: I see that the word science may also be used in a broader sense, but then it does not refer the topic of this article (or the article should be considered very incomplete). Compare the following example: The german word "Kleid" can mean "clothing" (including dresses), but—I think—you would not want the article clothing to link to de:Kleid, because de:Kleid is about dresses. The article does give a hint to other uses of the word Kleid, but the topic is dresses.
I was just trying to make an improvement. If you are convinced that it's better to undo the change, then do so, but I am not convinced.--Hokanomono✉ 17:32, 19 October 2013 (UTC) (changed Hokanomono✉17:34, 19 October 2013 (UTC))
I think your example only strengthens the impression that this is not a real problem. Dress in English can also mean clothing (e.g. "form of dress"), but in less ambiguous speech "clothing" is more normal. This is closely parallel to German with Kleid and Kleidung, and our clothing article links to Kleidung. Surely it is highly problematic for German "Wissenschaft" not to link to any other languages except Bavarian? Concerning the issue of whether this English article is incomplete, indeed maybe it is, and maybe the German article can help future authors to distinguish this article from Natural science. It is quite remarkable, looking at this discussion, that the final section of the German article uses common English terms to list out a common categorization scheme of sciences, including entries such as "Social Sciences (Sozialwissenschaften)".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Portal technology for featured candidacy
Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 10 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
This section needs a lot of work, not only with NPOV, but also with clarification and sentence structure. It reads terribly, it makes a lot of vague assertions (gendered metaphors?), it jumps around randomly, and it just generally feels incoherent. Going to try and poke at it for a bit, but I'll probably need help. Titanium Dragon (talk) 12:32, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
I cleaned the section up considerably, eliminating a lot of the repetition and the more rantish bits and working to make it more structured and coherent. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:06, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
I applaud your efforts but I think we should retain some examples of famous female scientists (e.g., Rosalind Franklin). I believe readers will those informative. danielkueh (talk) 16:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
As I look at the current version of the Women in Science section, I can't be but feel that this is a rather "sanitized" version. I think it is a major disservice if there are no details on how difficult it was for women to enter science in the past and to lesser extent in the present. Also, science continues to be male-dominated. Saying that itscience "was" male-dominated is incorrect. danielkueh (talk) 23:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
Heh. At least the photo of Vera Rubin is still there. When she finally got up to Palomar in 1965 after being denied access to the telescope for years on the pretext that it had no separate "female restroom" (what it did have was a little unisex room), they took her down to the thing and opened it up with a flourish, and said: "And HERE... is the famous toilet!" I don't want this article to be a rant, but discrimination against women in the sciences has happened. Example: the first scientist to suggest nuclear fission in 1934, was Ida Noddack. She was ignored. Which you wouldn't think would be the case, since she was at the time one of the few living people who had discovered a chemical element (another was Marie Curie, of course). So the NEXT scientist to come up with the idea of neutron induced fission, in 1939, was Lisa Meitner. She wasn't ignored, but also she didn't get a share of the Nobel prize that was given for fission. Which I think she deserved more than Rosalind Franklin, especially considering Meitner's role vs. that of Frisch. SBHarris03:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
A joke on himself. Fermi was quite a character. At Los Alamos they tried to interest him in fly fishing and he wanted to use a live grasshopper. They told him no, it specifically was a sport of artificial lures. "I see." says Fermi, "So... it is a battle of wits?" SBHarris03:14, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Is peer review defining characteristics of science?
Latest comment: 10 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
Welcome late-comer, if science can't decide its category I don't know which can, you talked a lot about rules without focus on content I hope you are not imagining things!
"and Peer review certainly "relates to" Science"
Oops, looks like there is no link to the policy on my top post. Here, WP:OVERCAT, for the lazy.
Your unusual and confusing habit of repeating (with indention) parts of what you are responding to continues to make it more difficult to respond to you, but that aside, your link to WP:OVERCAT remains inapplicable: "One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics." (bold added by me). We are not discussing the categorization for an article, but the form of a category hierarchy, for which the link I provided applies. 63.251.123.2 (talk) 22:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Confusing habit of repeating? You don't know what quoting is? I am not saying my formatting style is good, but I hope you can be less emotionally charged and please WP:FOC.
"One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics."
So, you insist that peer review is defining characteristic of science? Why don't you explain yourself?
How could that be, let me quote from you, as you quoted from WP:OVERCAT, "One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics." (bold added by me) --14.198.220.253 (talk) 22:46, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
the lead diagram is misleading, incorrect, original research
Latest comment: 10 years ago15 comments7 people in discussion
The graphic is a thesis about the interconnection of various sciences, and implies relationships that are dubious at best and obviously false at worst. This is especially true of the right-hand column of the diagram "hierarchy of science". The arrows "building-up" from logic to mathematics and then to physics are absurd. Does mathematics 'emerge' from logic? NO! The two domains of inquiry are intertwined and no consensus exists as to the relationship between logic, mathematics, predicate calculus, and physical reality. It would be just as deceptive to show mathematics emerging from neuroscience; after all, humans practice mathematics and build machines that can compute mathematical truths.
And to have "physics" constrained to the 'physics of the very-small' (particle physics, QFT, etc.) is really objectionable. Is not "physical cosmology" still physics? What about general relativity? Was Einstein not a physicist? The problems do not end there. Having a size scale on the left of the diagram makes a very controversial point about physical reality, namely that local reductionism is a correct description of the material universe. Quantum non-locality, Bohmian mechanics, universal wave-function interpretations of QM all go in opposition of this thesis.
I thought the collage of scientists was a pretty good lead image, but I wasn't attached to it. Replacing that image with one that is entrenched in very dogmatic conceptions of space, time, emergence, etc. is a huge disservice to readers. By far the most glaring problem, IMO, is that micro-scale physics looks like it emerges from mathematics. Yes, it's very interesting that transistor circuits implementing Boolean algebra can compute numerical solutions to algebraic problems, giving rise to the rich field of computer science, but the relationship between mathematics and the rest of nature is profoundly mysterious. An uninformed reader might see that graphic and conclude that nature is, at its most fundamental, logic of the variety practiced by humans- talk about original research.
-140.160.233.152 (talk) 23:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
I think the diagram is supposed to be generic about different fields of science. The scientist collage was good, but science is about topics more than it is about individuals. Individuals play roles, but science it the substance they produce and the article is about that--Ramos1990 (talk) 00:48, 14 October 2013 (UTC).
The point of the hierarchy is not to say that one topic emerges from another topic, but that the topic beneath is required for understanding of the topic built on top. In other words, physics requires math, but the obverse is not true. There are many conceptions of a hierarchy of science that mirror this one (just Google the topic). As for scale and physics, physics are rules that are in play at a small scale, including relativity. The fact that they play out at a large scale as well is obviously true and physics is called out as foundational for astronomy and cosmology, but it's not like we change to different physical laws when we are studying phenomena at that scale, just as we don't change to different rules for mathematics when modeling large scale behaviors. Gravity may become the dominant physical force at large scales, but nobody has argued that gravity doesn't exist at some smaller scale. With any graphic there are pros and cons, but this one went through a long vetting process. It is certainly a far better conceptual introduction to science than a picture of a bunch of dead white men. I think perhaps this feedback would be more constructive if it focused on specifics with the graphic.--Efbrazil (talk) 20:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
"Just as we don't change to different rules for mathematics when modeling large scale behaviors"- you're simply mistaken. Many, many equations used in physics are so-called "phenomenological", meaning they are useful in a particular context and not otherwise. e.g. Lagrangian mechanics, the Bloch equations, kinematic equations, drag equations in elementary fluid dynamics, equations for friction, and even Gauss' law, Coulomb's law, the Eikonal approximation, ideal gas laws, I could go on... In fact, new mathematics was needed to go from Kepler's laws of celestial motion to Newtonian. Newton essentially discovered (perhaps independently of Leibniz) calculus. This is all without discussing quantum mechanics. There is a threshold of "quantum decoherence", when the wave function for an object becomes negligibly small we can treat the object according to classical equations. Introducing relativity into sub-atomic physics has been fraught with problems. If you get a chance to study abstract algebra and its application to particle physics, gauge theories, etc. you will come to understand that even algebraic operations familiar to people with secondary education in mathematics are re-conceptualized, re-axiomatized, and brought to bear on physical problems. Now you might cite digital computing as evidence that similar mathematical techniques are used across all sciences, and as I mentioned in my first post, this is an interesting development. Digital computers use recursive numerical methods when they solve math problems. Many very brilliant mathematicians and scientists have spent careers developing numerical algorithms to address problems that are fundamentally not numerical. There are problems in mathematics that aren't strictly numerical, the value of pi is an elementary example, but there are many others. That long-winded point about application of math in different domains of science aside, I don't think an interpretation of the arrows as 'necessary for understanding' is any better than one asserting emergence. In fact, emergence is probably closer to the truth. If we are talking about necessity for understanding, then I think it would be appropriate to have the arrows coming out of biology and neuroscience/psychology. The reason I say this is because a "biological agent" is the only kind of entity we know about that has any need for understanding in the first place, because biological organisms are the only things we know about that have desires, desires to warp material reality to their advantage. I would also argue that all our knowledge of physics does not lead us to the sufficient conditions for life. But I don't want to go one proselytizing. Your graphic is good. It takes an idealistic philosophy of metaphysics (the logic as the base), one with local reductionism, and puts it in a very clear, straightforward, and aesthetic presentation. I don't want to take that away from you. I also share your concern about the racial/cultural bias in the montage of scientists, although there were some women included and some non-europeans. It is true however that 'science' as the term is commonly understood today, was championed (in the 17th-20th centuries) by europeans... well, the chinese were ahead of the game for a long time, but I digress. You are correct that any graphic will have pros and cons. I suppose my pragmatic suggestion would be to remove the arrows and otherwise leave it unchanged, but as the current iteration is the result of a 'long vetting process', I will not belabor the point. I have tried to state my reasons for disliking the arrows, but ultimately I am just one person who believes the very top of an article as important as this, on a resource as important as wikipedia, should avoid presenting controversial hypothesis as fact. Cheers. -67.170.2.67 (talk) 05:14, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
67, as one of the voices who supported the arrowheads, I feel a responsibility to the other editors to help out. So, what might you think of a compromise? Namely, that we substitute a question mark in place of the directional arrowhead? That might symbolize the difference between "what we know" and "what we think we know". Another proposal might be to interpolate a "?" as a label on top of the connecting lines to symbolize that there is a difference between "hard" and "soft" facts. Another possibility might be to "gray-out" the arrowhead to suggest the connection. __Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)11:47, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Just removing the 2 arrowheads above logic and mathematics would be a vast improvement. It would remove the most contentious implicit statements of the graphic, namely that logic is more fundamental than mathematics and that physics emerges from formal sciences. Best. -67.170.2.67 (talk) 02:27, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
First, let me say I really appreciate this feedback and how balanced it's been, despite the rather eye popping title of the talk topic. Let me try to justify the connective tissue between logic, mathematics, and physics. Logic is at the base because all of science is based on the fundamental ideas of cause and effect and reasoning. If the world didn't follow deducible rules then science would not exist. Similarly, mathematics is about dealing with quantities of cause and effect and describing how quantities interrelate, like distance and force. This is also reflected in computer science, with the fundamental units being boolean algebra and then building up to numbers and then finally programs, or systems that interact. I understand the frustration with putting physics on top of mathematics on top of logic if you think in terms of emergence. Nobody has found a way to say that physical laws are a natural outgrowth of logic, although some have tried by way of saying quantum noise produces all parallel universes exploring all physical laws and ours being one of the few stable outcomes. Going back to computer science, a programmer is required to take the capabilities of boolean logic and produce mathematical functions and then on top of that program software that does something. Before this turns into a discussion about proving that God exists and is a programmer, let me say the intent of the hierarchy is far more prosaic- it provides teachers with a relatively simple visualization for introducing the breadth and structure of science, beginning with logic and working their way up. It pairs nicely with a flowchart of the scientific method. The problem of arrows is common across hierarchy of science graphics- some point them in the opposite direction for instance (which I personally hate). While I'm clearly attached to this graphic and think it's important to have out there, I would understand if somebody wanted to bump it down in the article and elevate a flowchart graphic of the scientific method.--Efbrazil (talk) 17:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm glad you didn't take the rather coarse topic header personally, I didn't mean to disparage your work. I can tell we are on the same page when you write "Before this turns into a discussion about proving God exists and is a programmer..." Indeed, teleological approaches to the thesis of a fundamentally information-like universe often invoke a 'programmer god'. The simulation argument (SA) is of this persuasion. Frankly, I'm agnostic about whether nature at the most fundamental is material-like or idea-like. Reality involves both, though I'm not a substance dualist. There are serious academics who have produced diagrams not dissimilar to yours: see The central science. That does not mean such a thesis is correct nor widely-enough accepted to warrant the treatment it currently gets in the lead image. There's no reason for me to delve back into the state of affairs in theoretical physics and the philosophy of science. I accept that your position is "far more prosaic". You want people approaching science as novices to understand that practicing science involves logical reasoning. Logical reasoning itself can be considered a scientific endeavor. The thing is, the science of the universe seems intractable with logic alone (see Many-body problem and Transcomputational problem). Something more is needed: the pragmatic problem-solving of life. Quantum fluctuations and the many-world interpretation aside, science is about learning the true patterns of nature, whether you can express that knowledge in numbers or not. It would be shame if students came to think science is synonymous with mechanistic logic, just as it would be a shame for them to think science is only done observe>hypothesize>test>analyze>conclude. It is living, breathing people who propel science forward. The most significant breakthroughs have mostly come from people willing to think in new ways, to turn difficult esoteric problems over in their mind like a child studying an eye-catching stone. Logic is not the heart of science, curiosity and a desire to solve problems is. -67.170.2.67 (talk) 06:58, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
I just checked, and actually the scientific method article lacks the obvious flow chart, and like you say the flow chart should include inquisitiveness and curiosity of people as part of the process. If I have time after a project I'm working on I'll look to create something interesting, and maybe that could bump down the lead picture in this article. Regarding science being mechanistic, it depends on your perspective. At present there's nothing to suggest that the human mind is anything other than an information processing machine, just like a computer. Our software and hardware is just better tuned to pattern recognition. So if we're mechanistic then all of science is in mechanistic, and science is maybe about the universe becoming consciously self aware.--Efbrazil (talk) 21:31, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
(Indent reset) "...Just like a computer." Let's be precise. Do you mean to suggest that a human brain operates in the same manner as an electronic computer using binary transistors? Humans are more like wolves, or monkeys, or ants, than we are like an iPad (or a Turing-complete implementation of some high-abstraction-level computer program). We are forced to purposely engineer stochastic processes into our digital computer models (e.g. Markov process, Fuzzy logic, etc.), because mathematics must be deterministically repeatable to be useful for us. When scientific problems cannot be addressed with precise, discrete operations alone, people have built up probability theory, have implemented probability theory within the familiar logical systems of arithmetic and algebra. It is these latter systems, the Boolean regime included, to which I refer when I write "mechanistic logic". Using "mechanistic", in reference to, for example "quantum mechanics", is a different use of the word altogether. Scientists are actively working on, and have been modestly successful at, exploiting properties of matter at the quantum scale to build 'quantum computers'. The implementation of quantum computing is at the fringe of theoretical computer science, and we need not go there. In a human brain, quantum mechanics is part of the deal, just as classical physics is also. The hardware and software, to use your analogy, are inseparable. At no scale is that more obvious than the molecular scale of mRNA, peptides, neurotransmitters. Going back to this point: "At present there's nothing to suggest that the human mind is anything other than an information processing machine." You'll find much support (Gazzaniga, Dawkins, Dannett) for the assertion that the BRAIN is an information processing machine. What the MIND is, exactly, is still a matter of much debate. The mind and brain are certainly related: the living, wakeful brain clearly gives rise to the mind, but I'd hesitate to say the mind is a "machine". The information processing capabilities of the brain (you mention pattern recognition, an excellent choice) serve the interests of biological life. We don't think that inanimate matter has any use for information processing, only evolving living matter does. It is still the beating heart of the electrical engineer, and the software designer, that gives rise to the digital computing technology we use today. It is the intrinsic motivation of life that has caused every and all technology, from the simplest hammer to most complicated super-computer. -67.170.2.67 (talk) 15:36, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
Regarding the lack of a flowchart in the scientific method article: It is true that scientific method allows work by ordnary humans to be incorporated into the body of science. Ludwik Fleck called this vademecum science, which is the everyday progress that laymen take for granted. What does not show up, and for which a flowchart does not yet exist, is the individual acts of creativity and imagination that are required for the scientific method, and which has not yet been flowchartable. Jacob Bronowski's thesis is that these individual acts of creativity and imagination are identical in kind to the creativity and imagination required for art, as well. So the lacking flowchart needs to denote not only inquistiveness and curiosity, but also creativity and imagination. Might I recommend the works of Antonio Damasio, who writes of the role of self in his description of brain action situated cognition (viz. The Feeling of What Happens). --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)19:35, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, I have read only a little Damasio, and none of Bronowski's work, and I may now do so. I appreciate your tone (and I am impressed by your contributions to the encyclopedia). I'll share a quote I find compelling and leave it at that: "One who has struck out on his own, either ignoring or challenging the fashions of the day, will not, if he is sober, be certain that everything he has gradually come to believe is true. I am very sober. Yet there is one belief that I have come to hold very firmly. One cannot arrive at a dialectically adequate realism without recognizing that the world's form exists. Logic is but a reflection of the world's form. Hence, one cannot fully articulate one's realism without ontologizing logic." -Gustav Bergmann -67.170.2.67 (talk) 03:17, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't and fail to read all of the text which I hardly understand, but the editors SHOULD NOT overlook that there is WP:FLAT and we show exactly what scientists think about science. That is our blind-spot, scientists look for laws of nature and we only write things that is correct, but Wikipedia is different, the bleeding-edge facts come next and the lead section should be the conventional wisdom(or consensus..) of scientists. There are controversy, philosophy or technical difference, but to say even mathematics and social science being a branch of science (on the lead section) is way too far. The text is fairly accurate, the graph should be removed. --
14.198.220.253 (talk) 21:13, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're saying is not conventional wisdom in the graph. Social science is not a branch of science? Formal sciences aren't science?--Efbrazil (talk) 22:05, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
The IP needs to read the article and learn something. Science doesn't must mean "natural science" although it is often used (loosely and colloquially) as a short form for it. But we do have political science and library science and these are not misuses of the word, as this article points out. SBHarris01:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
Distinction from philosophy
Latest comment: 10 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion
The note at the top of the main page says that this article "refers to experimental sciences", so the definition of science given in the article should be consistent with this.
The current definition of science given in this article, namely, "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe" is so broad that it includes the whole of philosophy, which definitely isn't an experimental science. Neither are philosophers called "scientists".
Science is completely different to philosophy, and needs to be clearly distinguished - for the sake of both philosophy and science. Philosophy created the scientific method, but philosophy is not itself science (insofar as we use the word "science" today).
For this reason the opening sentence should specify "empirically testable" rather than just "testable".
Mathematical theories, such as string theory, are not science unless they may at some time be empirically testable.
It's an interesting point; the article places experiment under test (i.e., experiment IS-A test), and test is a comparison between expectation and observation (i.e., between an unknown, but knowable, future state and a known present or past state). There are some forms of philosophy which are nihilistic, but a science tends to be more constructive than nihilism, and rationality (i.e. rational discourse) is a prerequisite for a science.
In philosophy a particular philosophy is tested by means of a logical test, and all philosophies are therefore testable in this way.
Therefore the current definition of science used in this article does include all of philosophy, and it is mistaken in doing so.
Any comparison between an expected future state and an observed present state is in fact an *empirical* observation, and for this reason the term "empirical test" should be used in the definition.
Also compare the archived discussion Talk:Science/Archive_6#Interwiki-Links! There is a discussion at d:Talk:Q336 whether science should be linked to pages about Wissenschaft/Scienca/Scientia/Nauka which are about notions including not onlys science but also humanities and philosophy! Please contribute to the discussion there! --Hokanomono✉13:45, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
If pure mathematics is science then philosophy is also science, since pure mathematics and pure philosophy are on a very similar abstract level. But I've never heard of a philosopher referred to as a scientist, and only rarely have I heard a pure mathematician referred to as a scientist.
What is the difference between science and natural science then? Are computer science and other formal sciences science? Could it be that the articles science, exact science and natural science should be merged? Alternatively, should this article be changed to reflect the old meaning of science?--Hokanomono✉07:48, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
If we use the old definition of science then the natural and experimental sciences are merely a part of science.
In my view this article should be changed to reflect the old and broad meaning of science.
In this case the statement at the top of the article that the article "particularly refers to experimental sciences" would be wrong. This article should be particularly about the whole of science, and not just the experimental sciences. In other words the "science" referred to in this article would specifically include pure mathematics and philosophy.
Hierarchy of Science image: Law and Economics subdivisions of Sociology?
Latest comment: 10 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion
I realize this image (at the start of the article) is probably only supposed to be a rough conceptualization of the sciences, but still it is ridiculous that Law and Economics are basically listed as subdivisions of Sociology. Looking at the right column of the image that is clearly what it is implying, if you look at any of the other boxes they list a Science in bold and clear specializations underneath it (eg. Functional Biology has physiology, medicine and ecology as specializations). The Sociology box lists Law and Economics underneath it. However the implication that Law and Economics are specializations of sociology is highly dubious even in lofty conceptual terms, in actual practice it is ridiculous. The "Science of Institutions" as Durkheim defined it may study Law and Economics but it does not contain them. The Sociology textbook won't tell you the first thing about Law or Economics 101 and uses a different array of methods and completely different models. Economics and Law are both much older than Sociology as organized fields of study. They have their own professional associations, the American Sociological Association does not have an Economics subsection (merely an "Economic Sociology" subsection, which underlines my point that the relationship between the subjects is one of overlap rather than overarching subject and subcategory), the Economists have their own professional association (indeed the Economics one precedes its Sociological counterpart by two decades). By contrast, the American Psychological Association does have a subsection dedicated to Social Psychology, because that is a genuine specialization of Psychology.
Law and Economics are also more applied than Sociology, many organizations have positions specifically for Economists such as "Chief Economist", and obviously Law is studied in large part to be of use to practicing lawyers. I am not pointing this out to try to imply that Sociology is somehow inferior, just to note that Law and Economics are completely different subjects to Sociology. I realize correcting this would require completely remaking the image, which is otherwise very good, so don't expect a change overnight. But I just thought it should be noted on the talk page that portraying Law and Economics as specializations of Sociology in the same way as particle physics and thermodynamics are specializations of Physics is a completely misleading categorization. Ultimately it might make more sense to simply have "Social Science" as both a category in the middle "Branches of Science" column and a box in the right "Hierarchy of Science" column (and then include Psychology in it). Not as neat and consistent but definitely more accurate.--146.90.245.55 (talk) 23:16, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm no expert, but it may take more than a correction to the image to make this right. Economics, for example, has an article that begins, "Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services." Law is a bit different, since its article very honestly begins, "Law is a term which does not have a universally accepted definition, but one definition is that law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior." I started to change the template, but when I read these blips in the associated articles, I decided that this may need more discussion and input from other editors. Joys! – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!03:08, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Law is indeed very ambiguous, probably best to leave it out of a diagram of the sciences entirely for that reason. If we need another example of a social science that ultimately derives from Human Psychology (as Sociology and Economics do, I think the diagram is correct in showing that) then the obvious example is probably Political Science, not Law.--146.90.245.55 (talk) 03:23, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Not sure I understand you, Daniel, because the main heading already is "Social sciences", and Sociology is the last entry under that heading. Let me also note that this is the talk page for the content of the Science article, so maybe this discussion is better moved to the talk page of the template? – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!04:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Paine Ellsworth, my mistake. I missed that as I was focused on the points made by 146.90.245.55 and did not review the picture before making my comment. Perhaps omitting Sociology would be better. Cheers, danielkueh (talk) 05:34, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
That is even more puzzling... you want to omit Sociology from the template? From its article's lead: "Sociology is the study of human social behavior and its origins, development, organizations, and institutions. It is a social science which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social actions, social structure and functions."
Back up a bit. Are we talking about the same image here? I am referring to the image with the scale of the universe, etc. That is what this discussion is about. You are talking about a template and referring to an article lead on sociology. I think we are not talking about the same thing. danielkueh (talk) 07:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The Philosophy of science section of this article is supposed to summarize the content of the Philosophy of science article, but it currently does not. For instance, the section here contains an entire subsection on "Certainty and science," but the actual Philosophy of science article does not even contain the word "certainty" (or related words featured prominently in the subsection here such as "fallibilism").
I suppose this reflects the disconnect that exists between science practitioners or enthusiasts and practitioners of philosophy, but it is not appropriate for an encyclopedia.
Instead of harmonizing the section with the article, one alternative would be to no longer refer to the Philosophy of science article as a sub-article of this one, but instead to change the "Main" template underneath the section header to a "See also" template. My preference, however, would be an overhaul of the section here. -Hugetim(talk)22:07, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
I think this article can improve only if there is a clear decision on what the article is meant to be about. (See also Science (disambiguation)) Some paragraphs refer to science as a very broad term (from the Latin word scientia), the disambiguation hint lets the reader expect experimental science and the illustration draws yet another view of science. This article is not the disambiguation page, so this page should describe one meaning of the word science. If there is enough material for more than one of the meanings of "science", there should be distinct pages.
--Hokanomono✉10:31, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
This article is inconsistent in itself. Replacing the article by a redirection to simple:science would be an improvement, but we should quest for an even better solution. --Hokanomono✉10:25, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
No, it wouldn't be, as simple:science is wrong. Simple:science is actually about natural science, not science in general. Simple science is not about library science, computer science, political science, or the formal sciences. If you read the SIMPLE article you will question whether library science and computer science are "really" sciences, which is what simple people do. At Wikipedia, we try not to reduce the world to simple, but wrong, ideas.
As for the idea that this article expands a dab page, it doesn't. There exists of course a science (disambiguation) page that includes many other meanings besides the "discipline" meanings covered in science. The idea that this page should be reduced to a dab because it covers different types of science that have their own pages, is akin to suggesting that the article on animals should be reduced to a dab, because all the different type of animals described have their own pages already. Dab'ing and deleting and redirecting pages about different members of a category (kinds of animals, kinds of science) is not the WP:SS style.
Now, having said that, I think the present science article is overbalanced in favor of natural science material that should be moved to the natural science article, and summarized here. Once the present article explains the divisions and history, the discussions of the separate disciplines (starting with natural science) should be summaries, each with appropriate main articles, and no more. SBHarris20:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
How Should Science be Learned in an Orderly Sequence?
Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
One of the users has a very interesting way of putting science into various orders. I came across this while I was researching some of the users here on Wikipedia. Does anyone have any suggestions as to if this would be a viable way to study science? Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NormaGehring— Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.53.198.51 (talk) 20:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
I request that the first sentence of this article: "Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge"[1]) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." be removed. And instead be replaced with "Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge"[1]) is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge by systematically testing logical explanations and predictions about the universe."
My reasoning: While the current wording is not incorrect, it can be misinterpreted by the reader as meaning to convey the idea that "only explanations which hold up in the face testing are considered to be part of the scientific enterprise", which is clearly not the intended meaning, as explanations and predictions made during the process of science are continually tested, and refined based on the outcomes of those tests, but subsequent, more accurate predictions do not exclude prior iterations or precursory predictions from the overall enterprise of "science", and indeed logical hypothesis subjected to the scientific method which turn out to lack evidence-based support should not be designated an "unscientific", but rather as hypothesis disproved by science. The currently listed references for this sentence should sufficiently support this change in wording.
Morahed18 (talk) 16:01, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I would like to restore John Locke's picture to the section on philosophy of science, as an adherent of the philosophy behind science. It should be easy enough to add text to show his relationship to the spirit of his time, and the Enlightenment which followed. OK?
For example,
Locke 1689 A Letter Concerning Toleration: "For the truth certainly would do well enough if she were once left to shift for herself."
While searching for citation needed tags, I found a weaselly sentence which I tagged 'discuss', and propose to strike. Additionally, there is a claim about Lakatos which I also propose striking. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)14:18, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
"There also can be[discuss] an element of political or ideological bias on all sides of scientific debates". This line should not be deleted. Followers of four elements theory are proof of ideological science. Elimination of polio through oral drop-vaccination in a country is science, but use of religion against this betterment is a political science, because religion is a kind of social science. Science does never wrong - misunderstanding is our own. Nannadeem (talk) 20:51, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
External links
Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Thank you for posting the link. It would be better to use it in a citation for content in a section, such as Science#Certainty and science, or Science#Science and society. The article states clearly that it is a misuse of a scientific finding to assure certainty, for example. (That is a kind of confirmation bias; another way to stay away from arrogance or dogma; there are a lot of ways to state the points in the link, such as 'demystifying the process'.) The review of the Curiosity book contains a nice secondary citation for the judgement that scientific findings accumulate and subsume other explanations, a point which is stated in other articles on science in the encyclopedia. I encourage you to incorporate such a sentence with the link as a citation. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)03:57, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
IjonTichy . Thanks for coming to the talk page. I will leave aside my promotion suspicions for a second, and explain here my concern with whether the proposed external link satisfies WP:EL. I would draw your attention to point 13 in the 'Links normally to be avoided' section. In particular, this statement:
Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject.
In other words, the external links section should be reserved for content that is of the same scope as the wiki-article. In my view your proposed addition does not meet this criterion. While the wiki-article is about science in general, the book review you have added is focused more specifically on the public reception of science, with particular emphasis on the USA (it obviously focuses on the target books as well). Do you see the difference? And do you also have a sense of why the criterion is in place? Without this standard I could easily see page upon page of external links attached to every Wikipedia article; each discussing some small facet of the topic.
Anyway, let me know what you think. In terms of Ancheta Wis's suggestion that the source be used to support other in-text material, I have no principled opposition to this. I don't think it is the best source (there are dedicated articles in peer reviewed journals on these topics, so why use a book review?) but I would reserve judgement until I see the specific suggestion. Cheers Andrew (talk) 04:02, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
What is science?
Latest comment: 9 years ago17 comments5 people in discussion
History of Science and this article leave out formal sciences and humanities. Formal sciences are not natural science at all, but a third kind. The lede refers to a elder meaning of "science", the body of knowledge hedged and produced at mainstream universities and reasearch institutes. This elder meaning is as well the current one, it is in line the mainstream of studies in actual STS, science sociology and history of science papers and with "Wissenschaft", the current German interwiki. The article tries to purport a part of science as the only one, it is based on a popular interpretation of 19th century positivism, confined to "hard" natural sciences. It doesnt get the difference between natural history and the important differenes between e.g. physics or live or earth sciences. The claim of islam being the foundation of science as of today is based on a BBC article, sorry thats a no-go. I strongly doubt it, better read the source. Islam helped to conserve a variety of ancient writings, which were of use in the Renaissance, but never had the chance to develope the academic freedom needed for science. Ibn al-Haytham lived in the wrong world, so he couldnt contribute anything to modern physics. Try the Merton thesis instead or check Humboldtian science for the actual background of science. Serten II (talk) 12:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
@Serten II, see the notes above; Smith points out that Alhacen's synthesis was pivotal for the scientific revolution rather than revolutionary, and that Kepler is rightly credited for his revolutionary role. Of course, Alhacen's disproof of Ptolemy's theory of visual perception is part of the story, but Alhacen went beyond the ancients.
You are welcome to contribute to the article by walking back the 'first scientist' claims about Alhazen, to something more measured. Quotationd with citations are appreciated. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)18:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for the valuable links. The BBC article clams claiming Alhacen was father of optics and so forth. Thats 19th century Great Man theory, oldfashioned rubbish, science is not just based on ideas, it needs a society asking for them and accepting them. Alhacen (who had not been dealt with very friendly by the Islamnic authorities), fathered nothing in his times. Via translations of Alhacen, e.g. his book of optics and other Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe, scholasticism and the early medieveal universities were a more fruitful ground for his ideas. But the main start of scientific use of his writings was centuries later. Alhacen was valuable for Roger Bacon style science. The Renaissance camera obscura has invented an "epistemic machine" (using, among others Alhacens ideas) for a new perspective on personality, to to produce works of arts (main goal) and further knowledge (as a side product). Alhacen saw some apples falling, but Newton came later ;) Sources:
An Anthropological Trompe L'Oeil for a Common World: An Essay on the Economy of Knowledge, Alberto Corsin Jimenez, Berghahn Books, 15.06.2013
Don Ihde Art Precedes Science: or Did the Camera Obscura Invent Modern Science? In Instruments in Art and Science: On the Architectonics of Cultural Boundaries in the 17th Century Helmar Schramm, Ludger Schwarte, Jan Lazardzig, Walter de Gruyter, 2008
Domn Ihde is quite interesting as he does no accept the Diltheyan divide between science and humanities, but sees them as being part of the same way of thinking. That sounds like a sort of 21th century perspective, science is a part of philosophy and works of art. The current lede is parroting 19th century posititivism. Serten II (talk) 20:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
@Serten II, It appears that our edits will not be colliding, as I am adding Alhacen material. But if you encounter a conflict, please write it down on this talk page. Thus I believe we can continue to work in parallel, on our own schedules, and at our own speeds. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)23:06, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I did some work on the lede, the first attempt was way to long for an intro, so I divided the intro. The lede is now including the modern approach of science as a means to produce knowledge and provides some hints about the different approches to Wissernschaften and science. I tried to be not too harsh on Alhacen - his works could have been used much earlier for much more, but Modern western science was a different thing. The funny aspect is that Alhacen was great in pure science, he found basic laws of the refraction of light, but he was less into producing pictures. To invent photography and perspective and science in the modern meaning you needed more than tekkie ideas about optics - the rather western idea of an individual, both as artist and as person worth an image, was crucial. Latour has written about Laboratory Life, another "epistemic machinery", "The foreign observer describes the laboratory as "strange tribe" of "compulsive and manic writers ... who spend the greatest part of their day coding, marking, altering, correcting, reading, and writing"". Sounds like Wikipedia ;) I may have orphaned one source of you, Ancheta Wis, and I ask you to please correct it, as I am not experienced with the formatting of sources on your level. Serten II (talk) 23:16, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Dürer's use of optics We can just work through items, as we can. Dürer has a picture which shows Alhacen's influence. His influence is the use of taut strings to show the path of a light ray. To illustrate that it is one civilization, Alhacen got this from Euclid's Optics. I plan to put this in the article. Alhacen merely thought of a way to trace a straight line in a very concrete way: use a taut string.The citation is already in the article: look for the "How does light travel in transparent bodies?". --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)23:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Yep thats as well in the Belting Book. Dürer is quite an important role model, generations of scholars have written Biographies about him - and used them to describe their own self view. Biographies of Roger Bacon and Galileo Galilei have had a similar role in the natural sciences, the current use of Alhacen or the various references to female scientists beyound Marie Curie is trying to enlarge the recruitement pool ;) allow me some mockery, but I appreciate the basic idea. Serten II (talk) 01:59, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
The additions at the lead have no real counterpart in the article body. The lead and any overview should reflect what is in the body. The additions seemed to be promoting some particular ideas about the philosophy of science and perhaps something could be put that section but it would probably be best to start in the article philosophy of science as that deals with this sort of thing in a much more balanced fashion. Dmcq (talk) 00:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
You could have added something about science practices, science ethos, women in science, the DWEM controversies, which have not been mentioned in neither version. We have had nothing so far inn the lede baout the interaction of science policy, public knowledge and politization of science. In so far your point refers as well to the previous version. Non reason for a revert. The improved version deals better with the interaction between the Islamic Renaissance and the western science, which is described en detail in the main text. Latour and the others are about very practical aspects of science, the differences between the German and the anglo approach was crucial for actual science. As said, if you want to contribute, do so, I still wait to see the first single constructive edit from your side in any article I have met you. Btw, have you written any article so far? Scientific misconduct and the scientific ethos have been left out completely, I have added it to the lede, but the article should have a specific section. Science ethos is a very humanity based issue important as well for the tekkie stuff. Are you able to add a section? Serten II (talk) 00:40, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
This is a top-level article, which means that it should be a general introduction to the topic. The subtopics you mentioned are far too specific for a top-level article, per WP:WEIGHT. Furthermore, we would need top-quality sources to back up any material we add. A lot of the stuff you mentioned is tainted by fringe conspiracy theories. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Now you start calling names. I started here after I registered a BBC source used for the lede, not my idea of a top-quality source. Are you calling Humboldt, Hans Belting, Diltey or Merton fringe? Serten II (talk) 01:59, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
This review [3] gives a quick background to the sort of stuff being proposed as opposed to as it puts it the widely accepted or orthodox view. Dmcq (talk) 14:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Its an review, yes and shows the importance of the science wars. It does not at all support your POV, its critical just about Sandra Harding , which is not mentioned in the proposal. It does not deal at all with the main aspects of the proposal but supports the basic outline - science is a part of society and supports the crucial and groundbreaking role of e.g. Thomas Kuhn in describing that role. How about something constructive? Serten II (talk) 14:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
The proposal by Serten II is just below. Compare just the lead for example with the current lead and come to your own conclusion about the weight and NPOV. Dmcq (talk) 16:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
History of optics and its position in the development of science
Latest comment: 9 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion
Right now there are a slew of references which are intended to back up statements in the lede. The fifth sentence has eight references; the first sentence has four. I propose to use the model illustrated in Buffalo_Soldier#Notes to lessen the visual impact of this information, while retaining the existing citations. There are citations from the history of optics and vision which could be added in the Notes of the article this way. Right now I am awaiting access to JSTOR, but would this change be acceptable to the editors of this article? --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)14:04, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
OK, I am finally in a position to include the JSTOR work, which includes a nuanced perspective from A. Mark Smith pp.xcviii-civ, and was chagrined to read his critique of our Wikipedia pages, which call Alhazen 'revolutionary', when A. Mark Smith calls him 'pivotal'. Mark Smith points out that Lindberg has never once called Alhazen 'revolutionary' (Smith studied history of science with Lindberg). Based on this, I propose to 'walk back' the emphasis on Steffes' viewpoint (it is a children's book, after all). Smith has completed a new book, From Sight to Light, and 2015 is 'the international year of Light', so this is all quite appropriate. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)13:06, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Smith finds that Alhacen (965-1040 CE) was firmly grounded in the latest thinking for his time, ranging from those of the natural philosophers (Aristotle 384–322 BCE), physiologists and physicians (Galen 129-216 CE), mathematicians (Euclid fl. 300 BCE and Ptolemy 90 – c. 168 CE), to hands-on practical experimenters (Alhacen and his assistants). Alhacen synthesized these views into a work on optics of his own, which was carried forward centuries later by al-Farisi (1276-1319 CE), and the Perspectivists:Roger Bacon (1214-1292), Witelo (1230-c.1300), and John Pecham (1230-1292), each of whom were influenced by his work on optics. (Bacon freely cited Alhacen.)
Books 1-3 are Alhacen's Visual perception; books 4-6 are on Reflection from mirrors, plane, curved, and at the edges of mirrors. Book 7 on Refraction is the most surprising; upon reading book 7 like a story, Alhacen moves from table-top physics to inferences about the stars, to the Moon illusion. I was personally surprised that Alhacen did not include Ibn Sahl's formulation of refraction (which was covered by Claudius Ptolemy), only giving the experimental setup to measure refraction.
The next chapter in the history of optics was Kepler (1604), who, in Smith's estimation, pivoted off of Alhacen's work to reformulate Visual perception, in the Scientific revolution. The chief reason is that light from a scene, when passing through an aperture (as in Alhacen's camera obscura) is inverted. Yet we do not see scenes inverted. Kepler closely examined our visual system and could find no second aperture. He concluded that the light from the scene ends on the retina only, and does not pass little forms through tubes to our brain's ventricles. This is in direct contradiction to Aristotle, on down to Alhacen, and the ontology of the Middle ages.
Finally, of course, in Newton's Opticks (1704), light can be diffracted into colors, which contradicts the ontology of the Middle ages. Thus Alhacen is rightly honored for his exhaustive examination of optics, which still can be used for personal study, to this day. OK, but what about his ontology? I suggest that we not throw rocks too freely if we critically examine our own unfounded assumptions of today. Optics gives us instructive analogs for points ( the blur circle, lines (Ray (optics)), and waves (electromagnetic waves). Optics is used in computing, lasers, and materials science.
A. Mark Smith is
Curator's Professor of History, University of Missouri, Columbia. His field is Medieval History and History of Science. His newest book is coming out in 2015. Smith (2015) From Sight to Light Chicago
A. Mark Smith's view on Alhacen's use of a hypothetico-deductive method can be found in 91,vol.1,p.cxv and in 100,vol.1,p.c.
To all editors: I have added the Alhacen citations to De Aspectibus, and could use some advice: Alhacen was welcomed in the West by 1200-1250, after his Latin translation. The Perspectivists recast his work on vision into Aristotle's categories, ala the Four causes, On the Soul etc. I quote Smith 1988, "Getting the Big Picture in Medieval Optics": "The perspectivist theory is remarkably reasonable economical and coherent". BUT after Kepler demolished Alhacen's theory of vision, this Aristotelean view went into steep decline. We don't even think about these things anymore. So why should we even mention this? Because maybe the current scientific theories are just as vulnerable? --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)02:52, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Requested Changes
Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The current version uses e.g. a BBC source for sorta dubious claims. Neither the lede nor the main text treats various crucial topics, namely
That said, the current version is far from being complete. I would refer to improve the article instead of defending the status quo. If you have an issue with my sources, comment them under the reference entry. Serten II (talk) 12:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Science (from Latinscientia, meaning "knowledge"[1]) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about nature and the universe.[nb 1] In an older and closely related meaning, "science" also refers to a body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied. A practitioner of science is known as a scientist.
In modern usage, "science" may refer as well to a way of pursuing or producing knowledge, not only the knowledge itself.[2] Especially in the anglophone world "science" is often restricted to those branches of study that seek to explain the phenomena of the material universe.[3] The German approach of "Wissenschaften" in the tradition of Humboldtian science and Humboldtian education ideal is more generic and includes all sort of scholarly endeavours with philosophy still as a common denominator. The The Two Cultures[4] the German Positivism dispute and the US science wars refer to ongoing controversies about the role of natural sciences and the humanities. The controversies refered as well to the longstanding dominance of male White Anglo-Saxon Protestant scholars in e.g. US universities and the use of "Dead white European men" as role models. It has lead to various attempts, as in gender studies to involve e.g. female or minority perspectives in science and as well a backslash defending the important role of the classics.[5][6]
Science practices include a scientific ethos - and the breach of it, scientific misconduct, has lead to various scandals. Modern Science has lead to the developement of various scientific institutions and large scale scientific research programs and various interaction of private and state funded research. The use of large scale teams has lead to a new field describing the mechanisms of Science of team science as part of Science, technology and society studies. While some traditional fields of research have been deemed Pseudo or fringe science in the meanwhile, e.g. Physiognomy or parts of Eugenics. Science is undergoing fashions and trends as for Chaos theory, or Nanotechnology studies. Former popular fringe science topics as Animal magnetism have contributed to actual science, as it forced scholarly medicine
to accept the Anesthesia methods.[7]
The scale of the universe mapped to the branches of science and the hierarchy of science.[8]
Classical antiquity saw science as a type of knowledge closely linked to philosophy, the approach was mirrored in the 19th century Humboldtian university, which used philosophy as connecting link of all sorts science, including the humnanities. The Islamic Golden Age[9] has provided important impulses for the foundation of the scientific method. Alhazen (or Al-Haytham; 965–1039 C.E.) has been described as (Bradley Steffens 2006) "first scientist" senso stricto.[nb 2]
During the Islamic Renaissance (7th–13th centuries), Alhazen made significant contributions to anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, physics, psychology, and visual perception. He emphasized experimental data and reproducibility of its results. While the Islamic Renaissance did not continue after the Siege of Baghdad (1258), translations of Alhacen and other Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe found a continued interest in scholasticism and the early Western medieval universities at Paris and Oxford. Important Scholars include William of Auvergne, Henry of Ghent, Albert Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.[10]
In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of laws of nature such as Newton's laws of motion. Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself, as a disciplined way to study the natural world, including physics, chemistry, geology and biology. It is in the 19th century also that the term scientist began to be applied to those who sought knowledge and understanding of nature.[18] However, "science" has also continued to be used in a broad sense to denote reliable and teachable knowledge about a topic, as reflected in modern terms like library science or computer science. This is also reflected in the names of some areas of academic study such as "social science" or "political science".
German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 – 1911) strongly rejected the exclusive role of natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften), and asked to develope a separate model for the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). His argument centered around the idea that in the natural sciences we seek to explain phenomena in terms of cause and effect, or the general and the particular; in contrast, in the human sciences, we seek to understand in terms of the relations of the part and the whole. C.P Snow's The Two Cultures and the US Science Wars and the German Positivism dispute show a continued interest in the divide. There have been various attempts to bridge the gap. E.g. Bruno Latour suggest that modernity (and modern science) is based by producing new hybrids between nature and culture (translation) and by dividing them (purification).[2] The Camera obscura is a powerful example for such an epistemic machinery: While Alhazen developed a useable theory of the refraction of light, he was not at all interested (or even hostile, compare Aniconism in Islam) to producing images with it.[19] The Western use of the Arab knowledge however allowed a mass production of perspectival images and contributed to subjectivity and personality of artists and the persons depicted.[2] The use of perspective in paintings, maps, theatre setups and architectural and later photographic images and movies provided a major leap with important side effects for science.[19]Don Ihde goes so far to claim that "Art Precedes Science" and the Camera Obscura was crucial for the invention of Modern Science. [2][20]
Perhaps I might offer a note in support of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism on the link between Protestant ethic and the capitalist economy. If you were to come to Los Angeles, you will observe the healthy effect of certain Protestant immigrant groups on its economy. They are quite visible, as they are not ethnically Europeans, but they have boosted the economy (investments, businesses, cars, houses, clothes, support for tutoring of their children, etc.). not only in LA, but also, e.g., New York City, Vancouver BC. You are welcome to ask me on my talk page for details. Or, perhaps via e-mail. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)10:52, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
History Section (introduction)
Latest comment: 9 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
Regarding the following text:
"Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era, and in many historical civilizations,[9] but modern science is so distinct in its approach and successful in its results that it now defines what science is in the strictest sense of the term.[10] Much earlier than the modern era, another important turning point was the development of classical natural philosophy in the ancient Greek-speaking world."
1. I'm finding first sentence the following short paragraph to be very hard to read.
2. I'm puzzled by the second sentence, which might just be deleted.
3. Maybe all of this paragraph can just be deleted.
Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era, and in many historical civilizations.[21]Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results: 'modern science' now defines what science is in the strictest sense of the term.[22] Much earlier than the modern era, another important turning point was the development of classical natural philosophy in the ancient Greek-speaking world.
^ abcdDon Ihde Art Precedes Science: or Did the Camera Obscura Invent Modern Science? In Instruments in Art and Science: On the Architectonics of Cultural Boundaries in the 17th Century Helmar Schramm, Ludger Schwarte, Jan Lazardzig, Walter de Gruyter, 2008
^Snow, Charles Percy (2001) [1959]. The Two Cultures. London: Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN0-521-45730-0.
^Bernard Knox, The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics (1993) (reprint, W. W. Norton & Company, 1994), ISBN978-0-393-31233-1.
^David C. Lindberg (2007), The beginnings of Western science: the European Scientific tradition in philosophical, religious, and institutional context, Second ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press ISBN978-0-226-48205-7
^The Oxford English Dictionary dates the origin of the word "scientist" to 1834.
^ ab Contesting Visibility: Photographic Practices on the East African Coast Heike Behrend transcript Verlag, 2014, Hans Belting Das echte Bild. Bildfragen als Glaubensfragen. München 2005, ISBN3-406-53460-0. is quoted on page 16
^An Anthropological Trompe L'Oeil for a Common World: An Essay on the Economy of Knowledge, Alberto Corsin Jimenez, Berghahn Books, 15.06.2013, quoting Bruno Latour We Have Never Been Modern on page 20 and 73
^"The historian ... requires a very broad definition of "science" — one that ... will help us to understand the modern scientific enterprise. We need to be broad and inclusive, rather than narrow and exclusive ... and we should expect that the farther back we go [in time] the broader we will need to be." — David Pingree (1992), "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science" Isis83 554–63, as cited on p.3, David C. Lindberg (2007), The beginnings of Western science: the European Scientific tradition in philosophical, religious, and institutional context, Second ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press ISBN978-0-226-48205-7
Yes, the first sentence is better. I am now wondering if the content of the paragraph might be re-arranged so that it is in historical order. It is presently in this order (1) before modern era, (2) modern, (3) classical Greek. I won't belabor this, but I would think ordering the content so that it is closer to time order might help. Otherwise, if no-one cares, I have other things to do as well! I'm just getting my legs here at Wiki. Cheers, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 00:39, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
That specific order came from an awareness that our conception of modern science is global in scope, but that the classical Greek conception is only one of several traditions which are still with us, and which compete with it, to this day. Otherwise there would be an underlying current of 'how else could it be?', and 'why didn't these other traditions see this?'. @User:Andrew Lancaster's sentences 'set the stage', to coin a phrase, which hopefully convey an arc of development, and hopefully provoke the reader to read further. --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs)01:35, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 years ago24 comments5 people in discussion
Comments
Reject completely The proposed changes seem to be practically all about the science wars where some social scientists analyze science and think that everything should be treated as culturally based. This is minor factor in modern science and should be treated under the philosophy section with a short summary in the lead. The coverage in this proposal is totally against weight in the overall article topic as is easily verified by looking for books entitled science and seeing if they talk about any of this, and is not neutral even in what it is covering as it excludes many other opinions as can be checked by looking at some of the recent summaries by theses social scientists themselves. The article Philosophy of science is probably the best place to stick all this. Dmcq (talk) 13:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Why do you continue with this sort of stuff? What those social scientists who have been commenting on the scientific method are engaged in is more rightly part of the humanities rather than science. The theories are debating points thought up over breakfast and are not in the least falsifiable, their idea of a peer review is whether something sounds original or makes good reading. There are social scientists who do actual science but just aping the form like a cargo cult is not science. I'm happy even so for them to be stuck somewhere suitable as Wikipedia is about covering what's out there but it just does not have the weight you think of in this top level article about science. Dmcq (talk) 14:15, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I doubt you read the proposal, which is far from dealing just with the science wars. Have you any example of those "books" entitled "science" you claim? Have you ever read one or used it in WP? Neither Humboldt nor Dilthey nor Merton are even close to that discussion. If you have an issue with scholalry studies about science, better come up with actual sources supporting your claim instead of coming upt with spite and hatred against anything you dislike and ignore. Science is a part of modernity and our common history - an article ignoring those studies and lacking basic links to the role of science in society is far from being complete. Serten II (talk) 14:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
As to spite and hatred I would point out that it is you who keeps on referring to scientists as tekkies and in your proposed you remove most of the description of what science has done and its various fields and instead stuck in a long paragraph criticizing science and ending by saying how pseudoscience has been helpful. Dmcq (talk) 17:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Reject completely As I said above, this material is far too peripheral to be in a top level article, and gives undue weight to relatively insignificant trivial fringe theories of dubious encyclopedic value. WP is not a WP:SOAPBOX for fringe proponents, conspiracy theorists, or "oppressed minorities", not a place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. As for the romanticism stuff, it might deserve some mention in a history or philosophy of science article, but definitely not in a top-level article like this. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Strong wording, have you any proof for that sort of dismissal? You haveb't commented on any of the sources in questions. Its a harsh and offensive attack against living scholars, including a Holberg Prize laureate and a George Sarton Medal recipient, published in highstanding academic publishing houses, starting from the Harvard University Press. Nice sort of Wrong-way driving and something WP should be deeply ashamed of. Serten II (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
They even deleted the stuff directly about Alhazen in that entry, seem they have secret information about Bruno Latour, which is quoted explicitely in the studies about Alhazens relevance and limitations for the developement modern science. I log out for a while, I am getting to angry about that behavior. Serten II (talk) 21:38, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I believe what you put in about him was all twisted and undue in the lead. However if Hafspajen wants to put that bit back in then I'll respect their opinion as being a seconder to form a consensus with you. I would point out though that Serten II has just gone out their way to edit the article on Alhazen to stick in a big section about the camera obscura, something he explained rather than invented he did a lot more important other work, which is mainly devoted to yet again pushing that science is all a social construct and quoting sociologists on that. Plus some more in the lead and at the end of the article in the same vein. Basically just hijacking any topic which is mentioned in any of those works as an excuse to push a point of view and arguing ad nauseum that only sociologists are qualified to have any opinion or be quote din Wikipedia on anything to do with how science is done and scientists are tekkies and unqualified. Dmcq (talk) 22:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Btw. Latour is quite outspoken about science having a sound base independent from our mindset. The problem is as old as the Allegory of the Cave btw., any Neanderthaler had the technical ability to build a dark room with a hole in it, but the use of the "camera obscura" as a metaphor for the individual and his mind contributed to the scientific revolution. Do you really think expanding WP based on scholalry studies is a bad thing? Serten II (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
It is VERY rude to put words in another editor's mouth. Don't ever do that again or you will be reported at ANI. Sneaky rhetorical tricks like that will earn you a bad reputation very fast. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
If you put so much faith in science, why do you use abusive comments on actual scholars? I appreciate any constructive comment, but I am not OK with disruptive blocking of the expansion of wikipedia. Serten II (talk) 23:38, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
The problem is that your expansion makes the articles worse. Here Male monkeys prefer boys toys is an example of actual real science. That shows that even for things which at first might seem very difficult to test it can be possible to bring them into the realm of science. The people you quote however never attempt to try to check their ideas even though with a bit of ingenuity it might be possible to test some. Even so their studies are welcome on Wikipedia. Their ideas are however of quite low weight in this article. They are just some selection you thought would support your point of view with no evidence of any weight in this context. There are appropriate articles for the content and they include other points of view as well. Dmcq (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
For a start, try Laboratory Life. Latour and Steve Woolgar (L&W) started to study the lab work of a Noble prize winner in the same manner as ethnologists research the customes of a tribe in the amazonas. L&W developed a sort of measurement tool for the evaluation of scientific statements, from "taken for granted" (type 1) till "unqualified speculations" (type 5). L&W checked their method and left Ethnomethodology to describe en detail how the Thyrotropin-releasing hormone and its fonction in the human brain was established as a scientific fact, will say how lab work and various speculations were converted in a groundbreaking paper. L&W developed actor-network theory to explain their findings. That said, you state a lot of prejudice, but Latour and Woolgar studied the scientific process en detail and checked and adapted their findings and hypothesis very similar to the process a biologist may or should apply during testing mice (or monkeys). Serten II (talk) 01:21, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
You claim a lot. You actually may use the same scientific method describing chimapanzees in a cage, or eggheads in a lab. Latour et al studied science in action, and of cause there was a lot of checking. Serten II (talk) 08:52, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Well I don't see it, I would class it at best as a pre-science like botany before Linnaeus. And how about Reiner Grundmann who you keep on dragging into climate change articles, when did he ever consider alternative reasons why climate change action has been widely resisted compared to action on the ozone hole besides shoring up his pet theories about social interaction? I never noticed him accounting for what might be far more important factors, for instance that people like the freedom of driving cars around and don't like to think of that as destructive - and they certainly don't like the idea of fuel price rises and regulations. Dmcq (talk) 09:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Anyway my opinion of their studies is pretty much irrelevant. The real point is that the proposal violates weight badly as far as this topic is concerned. It is even badly unbalanced in the depiction of the area it talks about. It should go into the philosophy of science article. Dmcq (talk) 12:00, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh, no, no. I am not going to put anything back in the lead. I think that this - sorry Serten - should not be included exactly in the lead. Long standing leads should not be modified without a real broad consensus. It is difficult to go ahead and modify a lead. However I was asking if you could find a compromise to put that material in a section. Not in the lead but find an acceptable way of adding it in a section. And one more thing - actually the wording foundation for the scientific method might be misleading.[4] Further development or conservation maybe. Because the actual foundation is probably the ancient Greek still, however close they were to philosophy. Still it was rater revolutionary and was the base for may ideas developed further. Even our own articles contradict each other .... see History of scientific method. I simply think that this should be posted at sciences noticeboard or an Rfc. We are to few here, a broader consensus with more editors with scientific background should be involved, that would be good, because I think you all have a point. Hafspajen (talk) 11:47, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I still miss a constructive feedback dealing with the wide array of links relevant for this topic that have not been mentioned at all so far. I fear less about my text, as WP always allows to find articles - and coauthors - (Bruno Latours actor-network theory applies as well to WP) that welcome expansion based on scholarly sources. I have a more brutish top down approach than Hafspajen, e.g. i put my first edits in the David Hume lede, after discussion the most part went in the main text but some traces still exist in the lede. Thats as well my goal here. Will you ask at the noticeboard Hafspajen? Serten II (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Actor-network theory? You mean you've observed that people put words into articles and have lots of discussions and think that's it so you think you are productive by sticking in lots of words and going on an on in the discussions? That way of thinking is cargo cult science. Expanding a cake by sticking in lots of chalk and wood shavings and taking out the flour does not improve it. You've had constructive discussion - you've been told where the stuff could go and that it is inappropriate where you're trying to put it. It just doesn't agree with what you want to do. Your 'brutish approach' is disruptive and you have taken up the time of too many other editors. Try putting the stuff where it belongs in the first place. And stop trying to use every article you come across as a coatrack for your hangups about science. Dmcq (talk) 14:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Have you ever written an article? Hafspajen and I have done so, since I started to disrupt him at the The Fog Warning. Youre lost in your fog of war, you keep talking talking talking and you describe you own disruptive behavior. I pity you. Serten II (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 years ago20 comments3 people in discussion
Hey, why is there no table of contents in this talk section? It would be helpful.
Now, onto the matter of the sea urchin photograph. I find this kind of distracting. I mean, this is an article about the very broad subject of "science". And, yes, the study of sea urchins in interesting. I even find them lovely. But I also find the presence and placement of this photograph to be distracting. Can we either delete it or move it down into the deep interior of the article? Thanks, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 18:20, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
@Isambard Kingdom, There is a skip to TOC link at the top ('skip to table of contents'). When I clicked it, I got to the TOC.
When this article was developing, there was a conscious effort to globalize the article. Thus the simultaneous scientific discovery of the sea urchin's nature, 2300 years ago from both ends of, and across Eurasia (Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China). We are always looking for ways to improve the article, so details and ideas are appreciated and welcome. Previous efforts to improve the article have identified the need for citations to tertiary sources (descriptions at a higher level than secondary sources), because this article is exceptionally broad. So somehow we have to strike a balance between details such as the sea urchin and the higher things? or perhaps the larger picture?
Thank you for your reply. This is one of the most interesting articles I've seen at WP. Really. I've learned lots here. Let me give some thought on the visual representation of things. A challenge, given the purely conceptual nature of the article. Maybe others can comment as well. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 22:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
So, I gave this a (small) amount of thought. As for images that summarize the article, I'd like to suggest that we have images that show (as we already do) some famous contributors to what science is. I'd also like to suggest that we have characteristic images for some of the main sciences. I've already introduced on for Earth Science. We might also have an image for Life Science, Physics, Chemistry, Math, Astronomy. It would be good, however, to keep this under control, so not too many images. Then, I'd like to suggest that a few of the present images be removed, since they don't seem particularly representative. My thoughts, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:45, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
OK, then how about some initial proposals:
Life sciences: maize, first domesticated 9000 years ago, in Mexico
Chemistry: flame, for Michael Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle
Physics and astronomy: solar system and elliptical orbits for the planets
Mathematics: Descartes and analytic geometry, or maybe a Julian calendar
Social science: Large Hadron Collider for international cooperation on a peaceful project
Okay, I guess I have some opinions. Too much astronomy. There are already lots of astronomy images, and astronomers, on the existing page. Here we have two images that are astronomical, and while the elliptical orbit might be interpreted as mathematics, well, maybe something else mathematical. There is already an image on the page depicting a Higgs event from Cern. I put it there yesterday, and I think it looks better than an map of the Cern footprint. If that image is about an organization, there are other candidates, such as for IPCC, that might be put in. Otherwise, I like the maize, that seems important, I like the candle and the connection with Faraday. And, we might think of the scientists that should have pictures. I vote for Darwin. Anyway, this discussion is fun! Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:58, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Apologies, more thoughts: A nod towards mathematics might be made by showing a picture of Newton. I vote for him too. I also vote for deleting the pictures of Popper and Ibn al-Haytham. Then, I think something that represents medicine could be appropriately added as well. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
For physics and mathematics, I propose a picture of an ocean beach, for The Sand Reckoner, in which Archimedes estimates the number of grains of sand needed to fill a sphere the size of his universe (the Earth).
For Social science, I propose a picture of an agreement between people, perhaps a depiction of a scientific community (there are already some in the article), or perhaps a social network.
Okay, Ancheta Wis, here is a possible (compromise) list of images to keep, followed by images to delete.
Outline of science picture: (already being used).
Beach picture: for physics and math, Sand Reckoner and, also, oceanography!
Galileo: Astronomy, scientific method (already being used)
Darwin: Natural history, evolution.
Candle: Chemical reactions, Faraday.
Maize: Agricultural science, food, genetics.
Social science picture.
Brain picture: for medicine and biology.
Plate tectonic picture: (already being used).
DNA picture: (already being used).
Newton: Gravity, mathematics.
CERN Higgs Boson event: (already being used).
Smoke stack: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/basics/factorysmoke.jpg which touches on environment, global climate, social relevance, etc.
Images I'm in favor of deleting:
Pretty picture of bottles.
Popper.
Ibn al-Haytham.
Astronomical sextant (or what ever that thing is)
Lab book (low information content).
Distinguished men of science.
Johannes Hevelius and wife.
Vera Rubin.
Bill Clinton. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isambard Kingdom (talk • contribs) 15:42, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm surprised you didn't include the Louis XIV picture.
Vera Rubin needs to stay in the Women in Science section; it's a sensitive topic. @User:Sbharris, comment?
Distinguished men of science? I cannot find the user who inserted this picture, which names the scientists when you hover over it.
The astronomical sextant was improved equipment which allowed much more accurate naked-eye observation, which allowed Kepler to discover his laws of motion of Mars, which is now a consequence of Newton's law of gravitation. It's more than a detail, it's like the improved colliders at CERN.
Hevelius was basically a hobbyist who could afford to do science, I agree with the selection, but at the time, scientists were not funded on a systematic basis. Not until Caroline Herschel and afterward. These were policy decisions. I agree there doesn't need to be a picture in the policy section. Both Einstein and Feynman have commented on the dangers of being paid to do research as your primary job.
Fine with me. I put Rubin's picture in, in the first place. The Palomar bathroom story doesn't even occur in the Women in Science article, so here's a nice place for it. SBHarris21:36, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I'm working with you, so will make those changes as you indicate and as we discussed. Will do later tonight. FYI, I'm interested in the visual depiction of science, in general, so this little assignment amuses me. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I've done most of the work, removing some images, inserting others that we agreed would be appropriate, but one exception: Ancheta Wis suggested an image of fMRI. I did some looking around for a good image, but most that I found just didn't seem that good. The main image at Functional magnetic resonance imaging just don't look that great, some have too much information, "correlation" numbers, labels that are more complicated than necessary. If Ancheta Wis wants to use one of those, or something else he/she think is good, then he/she is welcome to insert it. More generally, I think we still need something "medical". IMO this doesn't need to be a brain image (though that would certainly be acceptable), but could be one of many other images: virus (vaccination is very important), a heart, an anatomy diagram, etc. Anyway, this is taking time, and I want to go to bed. I hope this has helped. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 01:37, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
My pleasure, Ancheta. I might still want to tweak the visual presentation, but for now, this little exercise should cause us to reflect on the balance of the article. Does it fairly represent the breadth of "science"? Perhaps we might salt a few links to Science into other articles, thus promoting visits to the page and, also, promoting editor involvement from fields different from our own. Again, just might thoughts. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Cite error: There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}} template (see the help page).
Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:14, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Done -- TOW 11:33, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Not done Please propose a specific change to the article supported by reliable sources. Arc de Ciel (talk) 07:15, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Agree--Hokanomono ✉ 10:21, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the 
Done
The Large hadron collider, an international scientific project
