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Scientific practice

I find the introductory section to "Scientific practice" confusing. For reference, I cut and past it here:

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." —Francis Bacon (1605) The Advancement of Learning, Book 1, v, 8

A skeptical point of view, demanding a method of proof, was the practical position taken as early as 1000 years ago, with Alhazen, Doubts Concerning Ptolemy, through Bacon (1605), and C. S. Peirce (1839–1914), who note that a community will then spring up to address these points of uncertainty. The methods of inquiry into a problem have been known for thousands of years,[48] and extend beyond theory to practice. The use of measurements, for example, is a practical approach to settle disputes in the community.

John Ziman points out that intersubjective pattern recognition is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge.[49]:p44 Ziman shows how scientists can identify patterns to each other across centuries: Needham 1954 (illustration facing page 164) shows how today's trained Western botanist can identify Artemisia alba from images taken from a 16th-century Chinese pharmacopeia,[50]:p46-47 and Ziman refers to this ability as 'perceptual consensibility'.[50]:p46 Ziman then makes consensibility, leading to consensus, the touchstone of reliable knowledge.[50]:p104

1. First, do we need this quote by Bacon? Maybe something has gotten lost in translation through time, but to my reading it is kind of silly. If you begin with doubt, you end with certainty? Really? One might think that one could start with doubt and still end up with doubt.

2. Then, the first paragraph: First sentence is hard to understand: "A skeptical point of view, demanding a method of proof, was the practical position taken ...". I'm not sure what that means. Also who is demanding "proof"? What is so "practical" about this? My confusion with what is written extends all the way to the last sentence: "The use of measurements, for example, is a practical approach to settle disputes in the community." Who is to say anybody would be satisified using measurement to settle a dispute? Maybe I'm missing something here, is all of this text some sort of quote from a famous text, one where the context has been spelled out, or maybe a translation from some other language?

3. Next paragraph, first sentence: "Ziman points out that intersubjective pattern recognition is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge." Maybe I have to go read about " intersubjective pattern recognition" to understand this. Then, there is a reference to Needham 1954, where the reader is actually pointed to an illustration on a page facing 164. It seems to me to ask a lot for a reader of Wiki to actually track that down and have a look.

For discussion, here, I suggest that all of this material in the introductory section be removed. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 01:37, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

1. The Bacon quote is about confirmation bias. It is a basic principle of logic: affirming the consequent is a fallacy.
2. The Skeptics hold a special place because of their historical opposition to fables, which appear to be true, but which fail to drill down to the root cause. Pliny's encyclopedia was especially bad about fantastic creatures which did not exist; the issue was 'how do you really know?' ('what proof do you have?').
3. There was an illustration of artemisia on the facing page to 164 (from a Chinese botanical book), but which was recognizable to trained botanists from Europe. I think I can restore it. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 01:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Somehow, I almost feel like I still disagree, even though I don't understand what you are talking about! Is it reasonable to ask that this material could be presented so that the uninitiated reader could understand, also so an old scientist (like me) could understand? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 01:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Supernova 1987A is a classic example for confirmation bias. Leon Lederman, for teaching physics first, illustrates how to avoid confirmation bias: Ian Shelton, in Chile, was initially skeptical that supernova 1987a was real, but possibly an artifact of instrumentation (null hypothesis), so he went outside and disproved his null hypothesis by observing SN 1987a with the naked eye. The Kamiokande experiment, in Japan, independently observed neutrinos from SN 1987a at the same time. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, but this supposes that there is an observation to make (a subject not mentioned in Bacon's quote), and it assumes that there is no hypothesis alternative to both the supernova and the null hypothesis. One might see the remnants of something in the sky, and reject the null hypothesis of instrument artifact, but the hypothesis of a supernova can still remain unproven (my problem with Bacon's statement). Okay, I might think more about this, but those were the thoughts in my typing fingers. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to get too caught up in the supernovae example (which has multiple lines of evidence), but, in general rejection of a null hypothesis (assuming one has good data) does not amount to acceptance of the hypothesis of interest. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:22, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

First, let me express my appreciation for your reaction. Only good can come out of this.

You are absolutely right that doubt can still lead to more doubt. ('Most people would rather die than think') It takes a special devotion to get to the answer. As Alhacen said: Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are interested in anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. The road to truth is rough ... One must examine things for error ruthlessly, even oneself ...

Galileo characterized such a search as wandering fruitlessly in a dark labyrinth. He also identifies the language of mathematics as a way out.

Max Born was confronted with the difficulties behind naive realism as a student and finally identified an approach after 40-50 years (see Born (1964), Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance). His solution was to use an optical comparator to get two different observers to agree on the color of an object. (Intersubjective pattern recognition).

Operational measurement is another method for determining an intersubjective issue, as a dramatic example: “Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.” – Sir William Gladstone

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta, I think I can accept the ideas we (you and I) are discussing, but the material in the intro to "Scientific practice" is, to me, very confusing. It seems that the Bacon quote might have a context, which, if one is aware of it, allows the quote to be fairly interpreted. At least, that is an extrapolation I suspect might be true (assuming, yes, that Bacon was pretty smart). But a Wiki reader will not likely know that context, and, so, the quote that is given, here, in isolation, either won't make sense to him/her, or it might even cause confusion. Continuing to the remaining text in the intro, that by Skeptics and Ziman, you seem to be aware of the context of those paragraphs, hence your explanations, but I don't know their context, and, indeed, the context is not explained in the very same intro to scientific practice. Maybe all of this can be fixed, but I do think the section needs to be fixed. I don't have the background or knowledge to fix it. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 03:02, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I also think the introduction to that section needs a complete revamp starting with the quote from Francis Bacon. For starters it is wrong - when people start with certainties normally they just get more entrenched if people start doubting them. And you don't end up with certainties if you start with doubt - you end up by advancing knowledge and getting more light on the subject. The first statement doesn't really explain what skeptical means in the context of science, and we don't get proof, we get confirmation or disproof - and we should be trying to disprove rather than trying to find a proof. The rest is a bit too out of the way and a more common example should be used if any for instance the circulation of the blood or from voltaic piles or the orbit of the moon from the fall of apples - or some famous example like the luminiferous aether theory being shown wrong. Dmcq (talk) 11:54, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I replaced the missing Artemisia file with a more accessible experiment which can be performed by parents with their newborn child. The practical message here is "talk with your baby!" (or else they will fail to thrive). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 08:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I think quotes (if used) should be clearly interpretable in isolation. Examples should be in the body of the section itself, not so much in the introduction of the section. And then the examples should be chosen for balance across fields and illustrative utility. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 12:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Back to Faraday: the italized part of the following quote is emblazoned on a rafter of one of my schools: "Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these experiment is the best test of such consistency.

Laboratory journal entry #10,040 (19 March 1849)" When the group of us were building this article 10 years ago, our hope was we might attract others, that we might work alongside them, and (speaking as one of the group, because this was all unvoiced) that Faraday's practices could still work. I have no problem with rewrite. Let's do this. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

And, Ancheta, that is a wonderful quote! It can be understood as it is, and so possibly useful here, but I do also like the context of "laboratory journal entry". He must have been enjoying some personal moment of reflection. I also like the context of it being emblazoned on a rafter of your school. When I was young, I found such lofty quotes to be exhilarating. Still do. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta, can I suggest that we get comments on this section from a larger community of editors. I've never before put in an RFC, but maybe that would be worthwhile. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It has been my experience that WP processes take on a life of their own. Generally RFCs get personal, which is quite unfortunate for the encyclopedia. Ten years ago, the encyclopedia was more freewheeling; Jimbo Wales started a quality movement which grew to the point that the rapid increase in articles and editors slowed down. Andrew Lih has found that a community of 20 editors is the level needed to keep an article vibrant.

Or perhaps there is now a WP process which keeps RFCs at a high level. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I understand. Maybe we can just encourage people here to comment. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a new thread to house the comments? The issue of 'doubt versus certainty' is fundamental of course and directly affected the historical acceptance of science in Western Europe, post 1250. But we do not act on the basis of doubt; we act on what we believe. This was a fundamental finding of The Metaphysical Club in Boston, post American Civil War, which gave rise to pragmatism (do what works). That is, 'doubt gives rise to thought', but 'belief gives rise to action'. You can see that C.S. Peirce figures in the argument. It wasn't until I read about The Metaphysical Club that I understood Peirce's statement "logic is rooted in the social principle". Perhaps a new thread to house 'doubt versus certainty'?

There is more: the translators of Alhacen emphasized his promise of certainty; Smith 2001 vol 2, p.573 (via JSTOR), paragraph [2.25] "Moreover, everything we have discussed can be tested by experiment so we will attain certainty about it." Alhacen was enthusiastically taken up in Christendom 200 years after Book of Optics appeared. Of course Kepler 1604 blew this all up with his Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, or 'Emendations to Witelo'. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

A new "thread" or, really, a new subsection heading in the article, might help to focus things. You see, I don't find the material in the *introduction section* of the *practice* section to be a real introduction to practice. The text you are working on (and the quote by Bacon) are about the specific issues you are now highlighting, doubt, belief, etc. That is fine, but it does not, itself, constitute an intro to a much broader set of issues. [Also, just FYI, the picture is of a monkey, not a baby. I find the picture distracting, but I know that is my opinion.] Isambard Kingdom (talk) 18:59, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The experiment works on a newborn human baby just as well as on a macaque baby. It's 'intersubjective' for both humans and macaques. This demonstrated facility passes fairly quickly because the baby learns more as the parents talk to it. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:13, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay. I think we need input from other editors. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:14, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

After waiting patiently for all these years for people like you, I think I will clear the text to see what you will write. Now? Or you can just write. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:28, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta, I confess to finding this kind of scary. I mean, this is an important article, and I am trying to be realistic about who I am. Still, I think about the issues in the article, and I would like to contribute, not be the only contributor. You agree to work with this as well, right? Maybe Dmcq can be prompted to look in as well? One thing I'd like to discuss is the organization of the existing material. This, might prompt some interesting discussion. Perhaps we can put the existing content into a draft? Do you know how to do this? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

One thing I see is that parts of the present article are kind of organized to be mini-versions of other full-fledged articles: History of Science, Philosophy of Science, Scientific Method. Is it possible to organize the material so that is, for example, like that seen in the first figure: The scale of science, Scientific disciplines, Scientific hierarchy? If so, perhaps we can develop an outline. The Outline of science is very nice. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I have copied the current snapshot to Draft:science page, which existed already. I propose that we continue the discussion of the draft page, here, for simplicity, but that we all (including also @Dmcq and other interested editors) work on it, and that upon consensus, we simply copy that draft directly over the current science article. That keeps the article history from 2001 forward, intact. I'd rather not experiment with any idiosyncrasies of the move tool, etc. .

Note to all of us: As part of the rules of engagement, might we all work toward the goal of improving the draft article, and might we keep interpersonal issues (meaning unfortunate misunderstandings from past interactions) out of the draft space? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I just realized that outline of science could be placed at Draft talk:science page as a template/scaffold for the outline of the draft page. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

So, @User: Isambard Kingdom, I can still remove the text under Draft: Science page#Science practice to remove distracting elements. OK?

As you like, Ancheta. I'm thinking about making a wholesale rearrangement of paragraphs. It might/probably will fail. At that point I might not know what to do with that section, since I still don't understand it. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Draft

In that vein, I think/believe any item in draft space is fair game for change. OK? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, in my experiences, I'm usually most happy with my writing projects when I write things as first author -- where I have co-authors who actually contribute. Then, when I'm second or third author, I'm usually less happy with what ends up being written. Either way, however, complete satisfaction is always, always elusive. On this sort of project, here at Wiki, I'm prepared to see my own text taken apart and, even, deleted. What I hope to gain, personally, is learning about science and learning about writing about science. So, I guess, process. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. In response to the original question, I would paraphrase the passage (with a few adjustments of my own) as follows:

The requirement for a method to correctly resolve uncertain claims was recognized as early as 1000 years ago. Alhazen (Doubts Concerning Ptolemy), Bacon (1605), and C.S. Peirce (1839-1914) said that a scientific community will then be able to investigate these claims. The methods used have been known for thousands of years,[48] and include both theoretical and practical considerations. For example, the use of measurements is a practical method for resolving disputes.

John Ziman states that the communication of pattern recognition between scientists is fundamental to all scientific discoveries.[49]:p44 One example is the idenfification of Artemisia alba by a modern botanist from images taken from a 16th-century Chinese pharmacopeia.[50]:p46-47 Ziman called this ability 'perceptual consensibility'[50]:p46 and considered it to be the basic standard for reliable knowledge.[50]:p104

(This is just a cursory analysis, so e.g. I haven't checked whether it's still following the sources.) Sunrise (talk) 00:40, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Pre-Modern "science"

Think it's important to mention they were wrong. That said Aristotle is the name that matters from his day down to modern science. It is his theories and methods that inspire others and this is reported by every source on the subject. Ptolemy was also a giant in pre modern science his system was the ruling one down to Copernicus. Galen (and Hippocrates via Galen) was also a major player.J8079s (talk) 20:46, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

There is another aspect to this. Alhacen used the models from Euclid, Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, etc., because that is all that he had; 'he was firmly rooted in Greek optics', but he went further. This includes experiment, which he repeated from Ptolemy and reported in Book of Optics, in far greater depth than Ptolemy's work. You can read him in English translation from the Latin; the links are given earlier on this talk page. Al-Kindi, who lived 150 years before Alhacen, was a major figure who introduced Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, etc., in translation to the House of wisdom, and who defended the Greek heritage. Ibn Sahl, who lived one generation (their lives overlap from 965-1000) before Alhacen, measured the lengths of the hypotenuses of refracted light in water and air, and found the equivalent of Snell's law (this was only discovered in 1993 by Roshdi Rashed). Alhacen recorded his Critique of Ptolemy and conclusively disproved Ptolemy's extramission theory of vision in Book of Optics (Books I-III, Alhacen's theory of vision)

(the citation is: Smith (2001) via JSTOR p373-4 [6.56] footnote 87 (use the thumbnails to navigate). '[6.58] ... Since there is no need to suppose that something else transmits anything from the visible object to the eye, the opinion of the proponents of the visual rays is pointless. Hence the claim that visual rays exist is nullified.')

There is more, of course, in exhaustive detail which was extremely convincing to Christendom. In fact, by the 1400s Alhacen was preached from the pulpits.

When I read further, I was astounded how well he reasoned from his questionable (from our perspective) models. But Alhacen was enthusiastically received by the Perspectivists, starting with Roger Bacon. And you can still learn optics from him. Kepler certainly did. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:04, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Alhacen established the convention for measuring the angle of incidence for both reflection and refraction (Neuenschwander (2014) " Light, the nexus in physics" Radiations Fall 2014 ). Smith faults Alhacen's experimental model for refraction. Alhacen posted no data for refraction, giving only his experimental design, whereas Ptolemy's data for refraction was smoothed using the method of constant second differences pioneered by the Chaldean/ Mesopotamian astronomers (Neugebauer, The exact sciences in antiquity). Thus no sine law, and Alhacen did not publish Ibn Sahl's data, even though he actually transcribed at least some of Ibn Sahl's manuscripts.

Alhacen's work was about visual perception (compare Smith 2015 From sight to light) and this hampered Alhacen's experimental setup for refraction, using quarter-spheres of glass (because he was trying to model refraction through the eye?). His intellectual descendant Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī who successfully explained the rainbow by diffraction (two bounces through a water-filled glass sphere, which was al-Fārisī's model for a raindrop), did not have to manufacture quarter-spheres. Smith actually revisited Alhacen's experimental setup for refraction to prove how difficult the experiment would have been. Hence Smith's doubts about Book 7 (refraction) as a feasible experimental setup which would have been extremely difficult to execute, especially as Alhacen was trying to explain sight, rather than the light-based optics we learn today.

Alhacen's work on mirrors (Books 4, 5 and 6) was more successful. Alhazen's problem is how to solve "Given a light source and a spherical mirror, find the point on the mirror where the light will be reflected to the eye of an observer." Again this problem is sight-based.

The worst criticism was that light passing through an aperture (the entrance pupil) is imaged inverted. An imaged scene is inverted. Alhacen knew this, but justified his theory by working backward from the fact that we see images upright. Kepler didn't buy the handwaving and searched the human optical system in vain for a second aperture. He gave up, and published Emendations to Witelo, lamenting that if Alhacen or Witelo had truly solved this issue, he would have saved himself a lot of trouble. Thus the retina of the eye is the screen for an optical image. This was 600 years after Alhacen and 1400 years after Ptolemy. It's hard not to admire this. But that means that there was undeniable progress from the Hellenic civilization forward, and Alhacen was 'pivotal', to use Smith's description. It didn't happen by occult means, it happened scientifically. Alhacen and company played their part. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:48, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

In His theory light, color, and form enter the eye separately. The lens is the receptor. The optic nerve is hollow and carries the form to the brain where its felt in the folds. That said Be Bold most of the work that needs to be done is at The book of optics and at Alhacen J8079s (talk) 05:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC).

While trying to find a home for this material, I read history of optics, & was relieved to see that it covered much of what I have mentioned here, in a little less detail about the experiments. The influence of Alhacen, for example on Dürer, could go in a science and art article.

But a balanced view of Alhacen could use A. Mark Smith's assessment ( citation —

• Smith 2001, pp.cxii-cxviii : '7. Ibn al-Haytham: a tentative reappraisal' via JSTOR 'iconic status', p.cxii. 'his approach was essentially hypothetico-deductive', p.cxv
• Smith 2010, pp.xcvii-civ : '5. Putting Alhacen in his proper place'. via JSTOR actually mentioned Wikipedia and the overreaction in the adulatory coverage of Alhazen!.)

I guess I ought to poll for backup while redressing the imbalance. I will use, as general theme

• 'Alhacen's synthesis of Greek & Muslim science was pivotal for optics. His Book of Optics, written in Cairo in the eleventh century, found a ready audience in the thirteenth century, in Baghdad and in Europe; his empirical, experiment-based approach to science served as example for the revolutionary changes in optics, and to the rest of natural science, in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.'

Would anyone else care to watch over my fixes to Alhazen? We might need backup there. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 17:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Spiral 2

If we were to count previous sections as Spiral 0: #History of optics and its position in the development of science, Spiral 1:#Pre-Modern "science", and this section as Spiral 2 (where I use a constructivist methodology), then I propose that this article 'walk back' some claims, using the guidance of A. Mark Smith's citations (e.g., Smith 2001):

• Smith, A. Mark, ed. and trans. (2001) Alhacen's Theory of visual perception : a critical edition, with English translation and commentary, of the first three books of Alhacen's De aspectibus, [the medieval latin version of Ibn al-Haytham's Kitāb al-Manāẓir], Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 2 vols: 91(#4 — Vol 1 Commentary and Latin text); 91(#5 — Vol 2 English translation). (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society), 2001. Books I-III (2001) Vol 1 Commentary and Latin text via JSTOR; Vol 2 English translation, Book I:TOCp339-341, Book II:TOCp415-6, Book III:TOCp559-560, Notes 681ff, Bibl. via JSTOR Use the thumbnails to get to a specific page.
• more to come. I invite you to read along. Among some fascinating details: The first Latin translators from 800-900 years ago skipped the methodology chapters in the Arabic, so that the Latin translation starts Primus tractatus, Capitulum I (First Book, Chapter one) at paragraph [4.1]; I think that Sabra's critical edition of Arabic Books I-III were Smith's guide to the numbering. Smith's critical edition translates the Latin text of De Aspectibus which appeared 800 years ago. The translator is unknown. Smith notes that there were at least two translators, one so unskilled that he did not know the meaning of an Arabic word, and could only transcribe it as 'aluerach'. But the word means 'firefly'. Smith projects that translator 1 stopped his work abruptly (perhaps at illness or death), and that translator 2 did a test translation, which got included in the manuscript anyway! So there is duplication; Smith had to clean up, of course. Smith's critical editions (2001, 2006, 2008, and 2010) have Latin glossaries with page numbers of the occurrence of the word in Alhacen's text, along with an English index. There are also topical synopses of each chapter of Alhacen. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:15, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta, I appreciate your interest in the history of science. Would this attention also be well-directed at the page on the History of science? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 20:50, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Our (Wikipedia's) problem is that the text of this page needs to be 'walked back'. Smith 2010 specifically calls out some overenthusiastic claims on this page which can be cleaned up in few sentences and their citations. There is a strong set of editors on History of Science who have already cleaned up that page. So that means once the Medieval Science section is done, I can move the bulldozer (Wink ;-) to the more logical venues. But there might be snipers there (Wink ;-), so I was thinking at least get this page straight first. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I was just curious. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:11, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Problems pointed out by Smith:

1. Father of optics -- Smith points out it's only one author
2. First [modern] scientist
   1. Hypothetico-deductive method (method was successful for diplopia, and for reflection); he only described an experimental setup for refraction; method was not sucessfully applied to refraction because he published no data for refraction; Smith could not repeat the refraction experiment.
   2. Sine law for refraction -- this problem is fixed, the misstatement is not in current versions of this page
   3. Revolutionary status -- Smith calls Alhacen's work a synthesis of previous work, rather than a writeup from the ground up, ala Kuhn

Proposed updates to fix

1. (Smith 2001) points out it's only one author, so at least name the author, rather than implying a large consensus
2. (Smith 2001) List the Medieval ontology he buttressed (or put this in context at Scientific revolution to show what Kepler/ Snell/ Descartes/ Newton overturned?)
   1. At least mention the diplopia setup to show the connections to Galen and Ptolemy, as exemplar for his enthusiastic reception in Medieval Europe by the Perspectivists
   2. Done
   3. Alhacen's synthesis of Greek & Muslim science was pivotal for optics. His Book of Optics, written in Cairo in the eleventh century, found a ready audience in the thirteenth century, in Baghdad and in Europe as Alhacen demonstrated the use of Aristotelian ontology; his empirical, experiment-based approach to science was used against this ontology, in turn, to overthrow it in optics, and in the rest of natural science, in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. (Smith 2001) Put the problems with refraction in the Book of Optics page.

Citations

1. Smith 2001 (visual perception) (Smith 2001 Alhacen's Theory, pp.573-578, how to replicate the double vision experiment (diplopia), right down to the notch in the board for your nose)
2. maybe Smith 2006 Reflection (But not Distortion Smith 2008)
3. his more critical comments in Smith 2010 (refraction) (Smith 2010 pararaph [3.33] p.259, footnote 67. Note 67 is on p.361. [3.33] is the summary of how to measure the sizes of the angle of refraction for air to water, air to glass, glass to air, glass to water, for plane, concave, and convex surfaces)

As Spiral 3, I propose to instantiate these changes in the Medieval science section, where they might well be moved to child pages upon consensus. OK? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Compare this article with Nature

Those of you interested in this page might also check out the Nature page. If you ask me, that page is a challenge, and I'm not convinced that it is properly balanced for content, but it should be somehow complementary to this page on Science. Can this be discussed here (and/or there)? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I was going to answer from memory, but I made a quick check of the Nature page to verify that it still has an underlying theme of 'us, here on Earth, of which we are part', whereas this page has a more detached feel (i.e. 'not necessarily on Earth'). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:00, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta, yes, that is true. The Nature page is kind of divided between outdoors, landscape stuff, including some experiential stuff (us in nature), but it also attempts (not successfully, in my opinion) to summarize things in more scientific terms. The Nature page has almost no philosophy, other than a brief mention in the lead, whereas the Science page does (appropriately). The two pages, Nature and Science, are presently incompatible in significant ways. Maybe it is hoping for too much to think they should fit together. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:09, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a famous quote 'history without philosophy is blind, and philosophy without history is hollow' (I just paraphrased Norwood Russell Hanson, who was referring to history of science, and philosophy of science). Yet the Nature page is not blind, I 'know' (speaking for myself) that it's a good thing. I'm afraid the implicit ethical directive in the Nature page is absent on the Science page. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:15, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Is this "ethical directive" related to romanticism (something I'm learning about)? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:22, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Fortunately I don't know. But good writing, like good history needs an arc of development. Who is to say that good science can't also have an arc? In support of an earlier section (history of optics) on this talk page, I read Alhacen's Book 7, from his Book of Optics. He goes from the refraction of light to the transparency of the space containing the stars, from which either he (or an intellectual descendant -- the publisher jammed multiple scientists together) figured out the height of the atmosphere. That kind of writing is just as exciting (for me at least). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay. I feel that the Nature page is (or should be) trying to get at some of the ideas of the Romantic period, and, likewise, there might be some room in the Science page for brief discussion of Romanticism in science. All stuff I'm learning about. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:49, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I can offer you yet another slice of the puzzle: Alhacen offers support for the idea that there are implicit faculties in our visual perception and cognition (such as love of beauty, Romanticism, etc.). These Aristotelian faculties are inherent in our thinking, which Alhacen notes remain unspoken until things are obvious. For example we do not verbalize these previously unspoken, implicit things until we encounter an obvious difficulty (such as loss of Nature). This specific difficulty about the loss of our natural environment became perfectly obvious by the time of the industrial revolution in England. Alhacen noted that "there is no doubt that the child does not know what deduction is and does not perceive whether he is deducing or not when he does. Moreover, if one were to try to teach him what deduction is, he would not understand. Yet since the child does deduce yet has no idea what a deduction is, it follows that the human soul is inherently apt to engage in deduction without difficulty or effort." — Alhacen Optics Books 1-3 English translation p.437, via JSTOR (In this case 'human soul' is Aristotle's anima. Smith's translation, see his Latin glossary, his English index, his topical TOCs and his commentary. JSTOR specifically displays thumbnails of every page to allow you to navigate Alhacen's huge Book of Optics) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:05, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, our ability to perceive, understand, and deduce is amazing, if, in fact, "perceiving", "understanding" and "deducing" have actual "meaning". Now I'm reminded of a question posed by Bertrand Russell: "What is the meaning of meaning?" I think he was, actually, a practical man, and I sometimes find it interesting that most scientists are as well. They are usually busy fixing their sensor, making their observations, putting together theories and models, usually without thinking too much about whether or not there is actual meaning. Some of this is, already, encompassed in the article. I'm afraid my thoughts on all of this might seem simple. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 18:53, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

And we are back to @Andrew Lancaster's citation: ("... [A] man knows a thing scientifically when he possesses a conviction arrived at in a certain way, and when the first principles on which that conviction rests are known to him with certainty—for unless he is more certain of his first principles than of the conclusion drawn from them he will only possess the knowledge in question accidentally." — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6 (H. Rackham, ed.) Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1139b ) Casting Aristotle into the well-known bumper-sticker slogan

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them.
2. Tell it.
3. Tell them that you told it.

In Alhacen's case, he calls 'first principles' First Discourse (1 above). His Book of Optics uses variations of 1 with his experimental setups. For 2, which a reader performs for oneself, Alhacen gives tips and caveats for the reader, what to be cautious about. For 3, Alhacen usually tells the reader how to evaluate 2 (such as whether the predicate 2 is true or false, or whether the result was certain or not), and for which Ptolemy gave data, in his refraction experiment, but which Alhacen omitted for his exposition on refraction. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Possibly relevant to this discussion is that some years ago the Nature article was split, and the material considered too philosophical was moved to Nature (philosophy).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster, thank you for this important piece of information. So, I guess the philosophical material that presently exists in the Science article has been developed since then? Interesting how these things drift. @Ancheta Wis, were you aware of this? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster, what I noticed from your Nature (philosophy) article was the pervasive Aristotelian forms, which Alhacen used as his metaphor for optical images and a theory of cognition. This directly influenced Roger Bacon, Witelo, and John Peckham, the Perspectivists. The Renaissance artists were the direct beneficiaries. In translations, Greece -> Egypt -> Spain -> Sicily -> Italy -> England -> Northern Europe -> etc. A direct relation between science and art. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I'll just write what comes to mind in case it is helpful. I think it is not controversial to say that the concept "nature" (as something with its own consistent order, that can, or even should, be studied methodically and meaningfully by human reason and experience) was not obvious and actually has a starting point which if not Greek, at least first appears clearly in Greek sources BEFORE Aristotle. Aristotle is an important author of course, partly because of how much of human knowledge he tried to cover, and also because of how much of his work survived. But more generally he is one thinker in a bigger tradition, and not the first. In many ways the Middle Ages was a victory for his teleological branch of science, the methodical study of nature. As Francis Bacon later complained, it meant non-teleological science such as that of Democritus, was ignored. Teleological science was, according to Bacon and modern science, a succumbing to a fundamental human bias which will always tend to mislead. Francis Bacon's method is all about keeping our natural biases in mind and trying to avoid them. This does not of course mean science before him was not methodical and did not also try to avoid bias. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster, yes, 'nature' is in Homer of course, and your characterization of 'nature, as something with its own consistent order' brought to mind David Bohm's implicate order. @Isambard Kingdom, we could, all of us, discuss this on the emerging outline at the draft:science page? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:54, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Fortuitously, The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science (Viking), by Armand Marie Leroi, accessdate=2015-01-26 has just appeared. Armand Marie Leroi, an evolutionary biologist, notes how "... Aristotle reached a turning point on the road to the scientific method by basing his ideas on direct observation and careful classification", as reported by David Luhrssen. Further, Leroi declares that Aristotle's search for the cause of life's own consistent order has now been found in our time: the genetic code of DNA. Leroi finds the lagoon on the island of Lesbos remains much the same as when Aristotle studied its life 2300 years ago. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. But we should be a bit careful about making Wikipedia represent specific opinions from specific works. I believe saying that DNA is what Aristotle was looking for is questionable to say the least. Again, an important theme in all Socratic science is teleology, but teleological methodology is not widely accepted as good scientific methodology since Francis Bacon. Aristotle was very clear in saying he was NOT going to accept a theory where small particles bumping into each other unintelligently would explain things. There had to be a human like intention and intelligence behind nature according his approach. This did not stop him and many before and after him from methodically discovering many things, but it did lead them up many paths today considered very wrong. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Misleading sentence in Renaissance section.

There is a misleading sentence in the Renaissance section: "All aspects of scholasticism were criticized in the 15th and 16th centuries; one author who was notoriously persecuted was Galileo, who made innovative use of experiment and mathematics. " I wouldn't call Galileo a scholastic. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 01:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the sentence is just unclearly written? It should be broken into two sentences to make it more clear. We do not need to say Galileo was a scholastic or not. He was persecuted. We should be careful to distinguish the criticism of scholastics, and the persecution of non scholastics (and some scholastics). --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done I also added an optics section as lead-in to Renaissance and Revolution. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Modeling science

Hi There,

There is a paper about developing a process model of science (or scientific study) by Luk, R.W.P.[1]. Perhaps, it is worth citing this paper and mentioning that science can be modeled in the Wiki Science Page!

[1] Luk, R.W.P. (2010) Understanding scientific study via process modeling. Foundations of Science 15(1): 49-78.

Angelababy00 (talk) 04:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Alhacen & the Aristotelian viewpoint

First, I appreciate that other editors are using the JSTOR citations. This note is further explanation of a statement which is disputed, namely that Alhacen had an Aristotelian viewpoint, which was orthodoxy for his time. I quote from Smith, A. Mark (1981), "Getting the Big Picture in Perspectivist Optics" Isis 72(4) (Dec., 1981). via JSTOR (Use the thumbnails to navigate)

"... the perspectivists had it both ways. They could exploit Aristotle's causal analysis. ... Yet by reducing that analysis to microscopic scale, they were able to exploit the ray model."

The Perspectivists got their optics from Alhacen. Alhacen was the authoritative Latin text for optics from c.1220-1230. It was cited in Bartolomeo Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum (On the Property of Things) to 1604 (when Kepler overturned its model of vision). Alhacen's sources were 'the philosophers' (Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates), 'the mathematicians' (Ptolemy & Euclid), and 'the healers' (Galen). Alhacen lived 200 years before the Perspectivists. But he fit right into their views: His Book III p573 2.25 "Moreover everything we have discussed can be tested so that we will attain certainty over it."

In other words, Alhacen used Aristotle's empirical, inductive method and also Ptolemy & Euclid's deductive, logical method to learn. Galen's discovery of the optic chiasm directly affected an experiment of both Ptolemy & Alhacen. Alhacen used what he learned to disprove Ptolemy's theory of vision. He used Aristotle's forms to model the optical image, and to justify the fact that we see things right-side up, which Kepler disproved. That was the end of Aristotle's forms.

I think this suffices to show that Alhacen furthered the Aristotelian viewpoint, at least til 1604. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Here is a citation to remind us that Alhacen was a true advocate for experimental method:

Optics book 7, chapter 2, para [2.2]: p.220 via JSTOR says to round off a bronze register plate with a lathe, and to grind it down.

Note the technology that he had 1000 years ago, near, or at, Cairo's Al Azhar university, Smith says, all in support of the optics of refraction: mechanism, glass-blowing, metalwork. [All the technical details that Aristotle preferred not to mention as below the class of a man of leisure, Alhacen forthrightly mentions. An Italian contributor to this page, from over 5 years ago, notes, in the same way, a visit to the museums of Rome will reveal plumbing parts in the displays that look like 'modern' items, except that they are thousands of years old, and made of plumbum (lead).]

And the Europeans were listening; witness Durer's man with a Lute, using taut strings to model optical raytracing, Vesalius' accurate engraving of a brain (far more detailed anatomy than even Alhacen's diagrams of the optic chiasm from 500 years before), perhaps most importantly, there were dozens of scholars (Smith counts 23 manuscripts), using a common language and heritage, studying his work, so a critical mass was in place. The diagrams differed in the manuscripts, and Smith was able to pick from an array of diagrams for his critical edition. That is one of the difficulties for the Arabic-to-English critical edition, not enough texts survive to choose from, in order to produce Books 4, 5, 6, 7. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:11, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of capitalization of universe

There is a request for comment about capitalization of the word universe at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of universe - request for comment. Please participate. SchreiberBike talk 00:47, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Scientific knowledge as explanation and prediction

I think the previous definition of science in the wiki page is inaccurate to say that science is an enterprise that organizes and build knowledge in the form of explanations and predictions. I think the knowledge is in the form of theories and models rather than the outcomes like explanation and prediction. A (scientific) theory cannot be an explanation because it does not have the context to specify the explanation. For example, Newton's second law: F = ma, what is the explanation? There is no context for F=ma. One has to create an experiment to specify the context of F=ma, then it can explain things. I think the general statement is more like a property that people can use to build mechanical models. When we apply the theory to specify the model, then some statements in the theory may be able to explain the situation. Therefore, a (scientific) theory cannot be an explanation. Also, how can science be about prediction knowledge? A prediction is only applicable after the situation is known, so you would need to build or specify a model in order to arrive at a prediction that you can test in the experiment.

Angelababy00 (talk) 08:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing your thoughts to this talk page.

Please see scientific theory.

When Wikipedia began, Larry Sanger tried to help out by writing an unwikified wikt:wall of text, at that time, referred to as 'Larry's text'. The editors tried to clean it up, but 'Larry's text' is now gone, unmourned.

One way to improve the 'wiki-action', or the active cooperation of multiple minds all working on the same goal, is to bring your proposal here, and talk about it. It used to be true that a meeting of the minds would then come about, in a truly marvelous demonstration of the power of the wiki, where one thought would appear, and then another, in cascade. Perhaps it will again. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 10:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree it is not good to use "scientific" in science, so I put "scientific" in brackets. I have seen the scientific theory webpage, and I am puzzled by its claim that a scientific theory is a substantiated explanation. As I mentioned, I don't think a theory is an explanation because an explanation requires a context but the theory just have general statements without contexts. This is done deliberately to generalize the models. Ok, I will not change the Science wiki page, but discuss in the talk page first and let someone to undo it if (s)he wants. 223.18.108.48 (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that many of the things you added are important to include. I did a quick attempt at rewriting the information - the main points I tried to address were:

• Not all scientific knowledge is a theory or model, except in the trivial sense that every statement technically invokes some forms of models (e.g. how do you classify "the fossil is measured to be 10 centimeters long"?) Adding facts should, at least arguably, cover the rest of the cases.

Is science concerned with facts or the general knowledge? By that I mean, if the facts are not related to some underlying models or theories, would science be concerned with the fact? Why would scientists want to know that the fossil is measured 10cm long? Angelababy00 (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• Referring to scientific theories as sets of general statements is not very informative. It's an expression used in philosophy to distinguish them from the reality that they describe, but it's not a defining characteristic because the vast majority of sets of statements are not theories.

Sets of general statements do not mean that any general statement belongs to the theory. That is the things in the theories are general statements and there are general statements outside the theories. The general statement in a theory needs to be able to be applied to build/specify the models or explain the phenomena. Angelababy00 (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• The description was less straightforward (more grammatically complex and including more terminology), which is an important consideration when defining a topic in an encyclopedia (we want to preserve accessibility to educate the most people). I restored the original first sentence and put the rest of the information in the second. No thoughts on the use of "scientific" yet, but the parentheses contributed to the complexity so I removed them.

On your comments above, I think you'll need specify how you're defining context and explanation. Any explanation can be questioned along the lines of "Why?" or "What does that explanation mean?" but that doesn't make them less valuable. Those questions can also be answered by further explanations, which for F=ma involves the physical interactions between atoms and their components. After enough recursions we reach a point where nobody knows (or fully knows) how to answer yet, and then we've reached one of the frontiers of science. Sunrise (talk) 21:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, explanation is defined in terms of clarifying the cause and consequences in some context. So, to be able to define an explanation, we need the context to define an explanation. Apply this to scientific theories, the context should be the situation that we are trying to model. So, this happens when we apply the theory to build or specify the model. If the explanations are left by themselves (like F=ma) in the theory, these statements don't have any context, so they should not be called explanations. In your example, you applied the context of physical interactions between atoms and their components to "explain" the use of F=ma to explain the interaction. But, in a theory, the Newton's second law: F=ma does not mention anything about physical interactions. So, I cann't see why Newton's second law is an explanation. If you object to the term "general statements", please consider something else rather than explanation, for example universal statements or (general) propositions.Angelababy00 (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

This should really be taken to the Ref desk, but I'll respond briefly. Explanation defines it as "describ[ing] a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts." The word "context" is referring to the facts, not the explanation. So we can say that Newton's second law explains any situation where it makes the correct prediction - for example, "the ball accelerated to 1 m/s2 because it has a mass of 0.1kg and a force of 0.1N was applied, and a = F/m" (plus some assumptions we can specify like no other forces acting, etc). If you like, you can define the context as the observation being explained ("accelerated to 1 m/s2" in this case) along with the other properties of the situation in question. Sunrise (talk) 04:16, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Should we add this line to the lead?

In the Middle East during the medieval period foundations for scientific method were laid. Moorrests (talk) 03:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No I don't think so. It is to easy for people to say that a specific thing like the developments that are mentioned in those is somehow the start when there are so many starts. As to the optics of Ibn al-Haytham if you look at his stuff about vision it is clear he didn't employ anything like a scientific method whatever he said about doubting. If that sort of thing is stuck in a lot of other stuff would have to be put in making the lead have too much weight on the history. I think the article lead is better off being quite short on the history and a longer bit can be put into the lead of the history section - it could have one or two sentences to summarize each of the subsections.Dmcq (talk) 11:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No. In the entire panorama of all that is "science", that does not belong in the lead. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Isambard Kingdom, @Dmcq, @Moorrests perhaps we might craft a transitional sentence for context beween medieval science and the scientific revolution sections, instead. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a good sentence; putting it in a subsection would work. Probably the citations should be grouped together; see also Smith (2001) Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception, a critical edition with English translation and commentary of the first three books of Alhacen's De Aspectibus. Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. 91(4) Vol 1 Commentary and Latin text.

Here is Smith's 2001 summary of the impact of Alhacen's methodology: pp.cxv-cxvi via JSTOR (use the thumbnails to navigate).

Briefly, Smith shows that Alhacen's synthesis of past scientific thought, up to his own time, made its method attractive to the West. He obviously played a role in showing how hands-on experiment can deepen our understanding. But that same method led to the overthrow of that past thought in the scientific revolution, including his own ontology. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

What I think could also be done is have the history section be not quite so chronological and turn the medieval section into a section on Islamic science. Dmcq (talk) 12:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Islamic science could be one thread, but the medieval science thread, everything, was conclusively overthrown by Kepler, Descartes, Newton, in the scientific revolution. (Smith 2001) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:58, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Moorrests, I had to walk-back the 'father-of' caption. Just so you know, Smith 2001's commentary does say that Alhacen enjoys 'iconic status in history of science'. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Something was niggling me about the references and I just figured out what it is. This is a general point not just about those. They were all concentrated on Islamic science. If one wants to say something in a wider context the source should be in that wider context. Books on a topic always say their particular topic is very important. Dmcq (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Lindberg and Smith are Medieval historians, specializing in history of science. For Lindberg, the wider context is science, and not only Islamic science. For Smith, the wider context is the Aristotelians. For myself, I find his explanation of Aristotelian cognition to be quite compelling, and the fact that such a 'reasonable, economical, and coherent' theory got overturned in the scientific revolution, to be humbling. So for me, the red flag for the paucity of some explanation is 'driving a stake into the ground', whether it be point masses, point charges, strings, etc. or some other object-oriented ontology or epistemology. There will be a limit to the reason, to the validity of that ontology. Then it all goes out the window. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Alhacen and refraction is a perfect example to his limits of reason. His diplopia experiment made sense to him because the eyes fuse their sensory output at the optic chiasma, which Galen's teleology explained well. His mirror (reflection) solution worked for him because he had a closed form solution for visual perception and the center of a spherical mirror. But no closed form solution for refraction. Why? Ibn Sahl had a handle on it, and Alhacen lived after Ibn Sahl. Ptolemy published his refraction data... OK, why didn't Alhacen publish his data for refraction? By 2010 Smith was uncovering other issues. Smith points out that the sun directly overhead was part of his experimental setup, which was only true in the tropics, like at Syene (24 degrees N. lat.), south of Cairo (30 degrees N. lat.) So Alhacen was experimenting with only a short time window for illumination of his refracting materials (air, glass, water) and his surface geometries (plane, concave, convex). Smith lists other factors against the success of the refraction experiment as well.

I found the following synopses to be quite helpful:

1. Smith, A. Mark (1981), "Getting the Big Picture in Perspectivist Optics" Isis 72(4) (Dec., 1981). via JSTOR, pp. 568-589 Alhazen -> Roger Bacon -> Witelo -> John Pecham -> Kepler -> revolution
2. Smith, A. Mark (1990), "Knowing Things Inside Out: The Scientific Revolution from a Medieval Perspective" The American Historical Review 95(3) (Jun., 1990). via JSTOR pp. 726-744
3. A. Mark Smith (2004) "What is the history of Medieval Optics Really About?" via JSTOR

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:23, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as I understand isn't Ibn al-Haytham the first person to conduct reproducible experiments and gather data from them as far as the historical records goes that have survived. This is the first step toward scientific method and it is ~200 years before Roger Bacon. I have provided five historians of science who back this fact. They all have advance degrees in history of science. Moorrests (talk) 03:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, the concepts of "experiments" and "data" can be very broad. If we go back as far as we can, the invention of agriculture would have involved both, even though there was no systematic method in place at the time. Perhaps you mean he was the first to describe reproducible experiments as a concept? That would be important, but I don't think it's true. Sunrise (talk) 03:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

You forgot to mentioned that it is also the earliest record that has survived of the use of reproducible experiments and its data. Do you know of any before Ibn al-Haytham? I have provided 5 advanced sources or references. Moorrests (talk) 03:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Alhacen's Diplopia (double vision) experiment was inspired by Ptolemy's Optics book. Start with Alhacen's Book 3, p.573 paragraph 2.25 onward: "moreover everything we can discussed can be tested by experiment so we can obtain certainty about it." Then keep reading the succeeding paragraphs, such as the picture of the plaque with a notch in it for your nose (p.574), and pegs made of wax, for you to move around on the plaque to test your double vision. Here is Ptolemy's binocular vision experiment, Smith 1999 Ptolemy's Optics, p.70 and also Smith 1996 Ptolemy's Theory of Visual perception, p.26, and pp.83-89 --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 05:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

So did Ptolemy conducted any reproducible experiments and collected its data. Do you have any historical records of those experiments and their analysis? No original research will be accepted. Moorrests (talk) 05:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Smith notes that the Latin translations of Ptolemy's experiments came from Medieval times, and his English translation follows an earlier scholar's work, Le Jeune. you can use the citations above to follow. Use the thumbnails to navigate. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 05:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

In your sources Mark A. Smith talks about the field of optics and says nothing about scientific method. You need to provide a source where he specifically mentions scientific method. Moorrests (talk) 06:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

y 2015 (UTC)

Smith's commentary p.cxv does say Alhacen's approach is essentially hypothetico-deductive, and says he does a lot more experimentation, but Ptolemy does do experimentation.

Ptolemy's analysis of his experiments is Smith 1996 Ptolemy's Theory of Visual perception, pp90-99, where he is most concerned with visual perception. I see where you are going about data though: Ptolemy's measurements of the angle of refraction give actual data, p43-44, where Alhacen gets stuck in experimental setup with no data.

One thing that struck me about Alhacen's words, which Ptolemy barely gets to (he does it, though), is that Alhacen deliberately uses experiment to understand something better.

Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with ..., Book I 91 Volume 1

Alhacen book I, II, III

• I p355 5.39 eye anatomy shown in books on anatomy
• I p356 6.6 this is the accepted opinion of natural philosophers on how vision occurs
• I p360 6.18 footnote 60 experiment thus empirically ascertained
• I p363 6.24 explanation of focus on one item from an infinity of items
• I p366 6.36 explanation of focus by agreement with experiment
• I p367 6.38 "and all of these points become clear with experimentation"
• I p373 6.56 footnote 87 falsification of extromission theory of vision
• I p379 6.85 camera obscura
• I p379 6.86 And this can be tried anytime.
• pp376-7 6.69 footnote 99 (p410) image fusion in optic chiasm (Galen citation cxxxvi, intro -- Margaret Tallmadge May, 1968,trans. Galen's De Usu Partium Corporis Humani )
• I p377 6.69 diplopia -> image fusion
• transmission of forms to optic chiasm see book II 2.23-2.24 pp426-7
• II p423 2.30 from this experiment it will therefore be clear that ...
• II p443 3.53 from this experiment
• II p443 3.56 from these experiments, it is eminently clear that ...
• II p453 3.80 experiment in a darkened room which [subject] has not seen before
• fusion in chiasm book III 2.17, pp569-70
• III p573 2.25 Moreover everything we have discussed can be tested so that we will attain certainty over it.
  • p574 figure 3.8: experimental setup (described in p573 2.26 cites comments which are in footnote 23, p633) to show diplopia down to the notch in the plaque for your nose to fit in. (builds up the geometrical setup in Ptolemy, Optics III,43 per Smith 1996, Ptolemy's Theory p147)
• III p578 2.50 thus, the reason that ... has been shown through deduction and experiment.
• III p585 2.74 ...He will see the situation was the same as the one where the experiment was carried out when ...

But Ptolemy's comments are briefer with not as much 'this means that' ... as Alhacen. This might be due to Admiral Eugene's lack of facility with Latin. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 06:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

So it seems as far as I understand to me you seems at least neutral about the subject in this section. Moorrests (talk) 06:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

yes, after all, it is Smith who is doing all the work here. And Lindberg etc. Before JSTOR we couldn't get to the good citations. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 06:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

So essentially it comes down to 5 historian of science vs 1 historian of science. So, what should be done in this case? Moorrests (talk) 07:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The evidence for Ptolemy's experiments will be in these sources. It's going to have to be each historian, one by one, in turn: I found one of them, for example in HENDRIX, John, and Charles H. CARMAN. (Eds.) Renaissance Theories of Vision. (x + 245 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index.) Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington,

VT: Ashgate, 2010. ISBN: 9781409400240. Contents: John S. HENDRIX and Charles H. CARMAN, “Introduction,” 1–10; Nader EL-BIZRI, “Classical Optics and the Perspectivae Traditions Leading to the Renaissance,” 11–30 [ref. 909];

Hendrix and Carman might be OK for a review sentence of El-Bizri's contribution.

But JSTOR has a moving wall protecting the more recent publications, like this one. Someone is going to have to get to a library with access to it. Then post the relevant passage in a quote, to allow discoverability for the global user, to be able to use it in an article. See all the Smith citations; you can actually read content by using the links. Use the thumbnails to get to each relevant page to read it. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I just remembered: in Fred Hoyle (1955) Frontiers of Astronomy there is a large photograph showing grass-skirted tribesmen in Borneo using a native version of a gnomon to determine whether it was the right day of year to plant their crops. That is a citation which documents a reproducible experimental procedure which is clearly thousands of years old. And there are Egyptian sundials which are 3500 years old. (Caution: to get the time of day, you have to know your latitude, a detail which was forgotten when a Chinese observatory was moved during the Ming dynasty, rendering the astronomical instruments useless. (Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China) ) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

So what I get about Ptolemy is that he is known by historian of science as theoretician, mathematician and astrologer but not as a first scientist. I don't want to do original research into scientific method which would be against Wikipedia's policy. On the other-hand Ibn al-Haytham is backed as first scientist by Nader El-Bizri, Kenan Malik, Nomanul Haq, A. I. Sabra who are all well known historians of science with advanced degrees in the field which is why each of them have biographical Wikipedia article. Moorrests (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Saying they are historians of science, isn't they whole story. They are historians of Islamic science in the medieval period. That is what I was saying above about their contributions not being suitable for the context of a lead. It is like a biographer of J F Kennedy and no other presidents saying he was the greatest president ever of America. Dmcq (talk) 16:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

All four have PHD in history of science. I think that would make them historian of science. Not to mention each is well known and notable enough to have a separate article in Wikipedia. Moorrests (talk) 16:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me split this in 2 parts. In an article of this scope any thing in the lede about Alhacen would be WP:Undue Weight. In the body, foundations of "the scientific method" need to come from a source about the history of the scientific method The sources have a place in wikipedia but we cannot put claims of first scientist in the voice of wikipedia. J8079s (talk) 18:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

A citation for the foundations of the scientific method has just appeared. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. There are lots of people who have had that said about them. A major plank of the scientific method involves trying to see if there is any evidence against ones ideas. The bit about Alhacen can have the bit said about him as in the appropriate section as 'many authors say that'. Not that it is actually true and nobody else has had that said about them in the lead. Dmcq (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

What we are looking for is historian of science not a biologist. Moorrests (talk) 16:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The line I am trying to add summaries the paragraph from History_of_science#Islamic_world which states that

History_of_science#Islamic_world: —

Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on experiment than had the Greeks. This led to an early scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on optics from c. 1000, in his Book of Optics. The law of refraction of light was known to the Persians. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, which began among Muslim scientists. Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the intromission theory of light. Some have also described Ibn al-Haytham as the "first scientist" for his development of the modern scientific method.

Moorrests (talk) 17:02, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a source for Wikipedia. Also see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view J8079s (talk) 19:29, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta Wis you should add your claims to the history section. What I want to do is to summarize the history section Science#Medieval_science in the lead. Moorrests (talk) 17:27, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@Moorrests, I added a Pingree citation. Perhaps the other citations can be subsumed into nb 3. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Old edit with new source

I took this out again WP:Undue weight

During the [[middle ages]] foundations for [[scientific method]] were laid in the [[middle east]].<ref group=nb> "Arab scientists, using Indian, Iranian, and Syrian sources as well as their own genius, revised the Greek sciences, transforming them into the Islamic sciences, that historically served as the main basis for what little science there was in Western Europe in the twelfth and following centuries ..." p.555, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/234257 Pingree, David (Dec., 1992) "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science" ''Isis'' '''83''' (4) , pp. 554-563 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society via JSTOR] *[[Nader El-Bizri|El-Bizri, Nader]], "A Philosophical Perspective on Ibn al-Haytham's Optics", ''[[Arabic Sciences and Philosophy]]'' '''15''' (2005-08-05), 189–218 *[[Kenan Malik|Malik, Kenan]] (2010-10-22). "Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science, By Jim Al-Khalili". The Independent. Retrieved 2014-10-22. *[[Nomanul Haq|Haq, Syed]] (2009). "Science in Islam". Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. ISSN 1703-7603. Retrieved 2014-10-22. *[[A. I. Sabra|Sabra, A. I.]] (1989). The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham. Books I–II–III: On Direct Vision. London: The Warburg Institute, University of London. pp. 25–29. ISBN 0-85481-072-2.</ref>

Consensus is against this in the lead J8079s (talk) 18:27, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Pingree covers the phenomenon quite well. The issue is the p.555, Pingree, David (Dec., 1992) "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science" Isis 83 (4) , pp. 554-563 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society via JSTOR existence of Philhellenes in this article and in the history articles.

There is a debate on Aristotle's induction, which is failing on all counts, so how are you justifying him in Talk:history of scientific method#rewrite Aristotle?

To all editors, there is a process unfolding there on the place of Aristotle in scientific method, even his categories. But John von Neumann, while discussing economics as a science, has noted that its categories are not yet stable; his same criticism applied to natural science, which 'went nowhere for one thousand years'. Note the timing. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:30, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Pingree is a WP:Fringe source, self declared. It looks like a good source for source mining.

For the sciences I study are those related to the stars, and they include not only various astronomies and the different mathematical theories they employ, but also astral omens, astrology, magic, medicine, and law(dharmasaistra)All of these subjects,I would argue,were or are sciences within the contexts of the cultures in which they once flourishedor now are practiced. As such they deserve to be studied by historians of science with as serious and thorough apurposeasarethetopicsthatwe usuallyfinddiscussedin history of science classrooms or in the pages of Isis. This means that their intel- lectual content must be probed deeply, and not simply dismissed as rubbish or interpreted in the light of modern historical mythology;and that the intellectual content must be relatedto the culture that produced and nourished each, and to the social context within which each arose and developed

We will need to wait until they are studied and published. His article does not support the text as written and in the big picture of "science" WP:Undue weight in the mean timeWP:Assume Good Faith J8079s (talk) 23:22, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I have Otto E. Neugebauer's book on Babylonian astronomy, Exact Sciences in Antiquity, he was father of Gerry Neugebauer, a physicist. Otto E. Neugebauer was an associate of Pingree. Pingree was serious about what he wrote: See: Indian philosophy, such as the Cārvāka epistemology, which is every bit as old as Aristotle, if not older; and note the parallel principles with Epicurus. But also see Nyaya, which is just about as old as Galen, and which allows one more method of proof (pramana) than Cārvāka. (Pramana is the Indian equivalent of the Nature journal.) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree that arguing to categorize astrology etc as science makes a source fringe almost by default (regardless of how serious the author may be!)

As a digression, it occurs to me that the definition of science as a body of knowledge and/or philosophy of knowledge is taking up much of the first paragraph. While this is important for historical context, perhaps it could be rewritten to make this clearer, since otherwise this also seems somewhat undue to me (especially relative to the amount of space describing science itself). Since the lead is on the short side, I'm thinking the first paragraph could also be split into two, maybe at "In an older...", to allow for further expansion. Sunrise (talk) 01:41, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Any thing to declare?

Moonrest the section you say you are summarizing was added by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Teaksmitty a sock of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Batsgasps#Sockpuppet_investigation who made this same edit at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scientific_method/Archive_21#Sockpuppetry_by_Batsgasps where it is discussed. J8079s (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

A lot of the stuff posted by User:Teaksmitty needs to go. Since others have worked on it I thought we should talk about it first J8079s (talk) 00:52, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Optics --> General Science <-- Medicine

By the diagrammatic title I mean to suggest that just as the development of optics has illuminated the development of science, so too can the development of medicine. There are some parallels:

When Galen studied medicine, he studied with the Empiricist physicians, the Logicist (also called Dogmatist) physicians, and the Methodists. Note the parallels with scientific thought and thinkers.

A medicine-related digest of Isidore of Seville's 20-volume Etymologiae (via JSTOR) is available. This digest and translation is by William D. Sharpe (1964) on "Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings. An English Translation with an Introduction and Commentary" Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 54(2), pp. 1-75. Published by: American Philosophical Society http://www.jstor.org/stable/1005938

Sharpe starts with the Dark Ages in Western Europe, and the compression of scholarship down to Latin encyclopedias, and the loss of Greek in Western Europe. This compression began in Roman times, and continued in medieval times.

Isidore of Seville lived just before the rise of Islam, when the various ethnicities of the Spanish principalities still included the Visigoths, and the forerunners of the Mozarabs. It was a time when the schools were for educating clergy (just as they were for Islam), and the chief scholar was the Bishop, as was Isidore. The uniform Carolingian schooling of Western Europe had not yet arisen.

Isidore's Etymologiae was a dictionary at its barest, with extended commentary for some items. He does manage to capture descriptions of some diseases, but medicines remained herbal. Isidore does denounce magic rite.

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 16:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Is engineering a science

If we use the older definition of science, would engineering be classified as a science? One of the well known philosopher of science, Dr Chalmer, wrote a book called "what is this thing called science?" I guess even the expert has some difficulties here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelababy00 (talk • contribs) 13:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I suppose engineering is debatably applied science. The classic way to distinguish theoretical and applied science is pre-modern but still influences our definitions: A researcher wants to know why someone gets sick but might not ever cure that sickness and might even not expect to. Such a researcher is definitely a scientist by any definition. They want to be able to make generally true statements, statements true in ANY context. A practical doctor on the other hand may be very happy to cure a disease without actually knowing why the cure worked. Engineers are a bit like this. But that does not mean we can be too confident about saying they are NOT scientists. In reality most scientists and most engineers mix the two extremes. Indeed, some have argued over the centuries that scientists who really do NOT care whether their theories work in specific contexts are hardly likely to be truly concerned with general truths, because they are building up theories in their imaginations. (And from this comes the arguments about the importance of methodical approaches to avoid bias.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Please see my suggestion of parallel definitions of science and technology posted today. It might be relevant to this discussion.TBR-qed (talk) 18:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Is applied science a kind of science?

It seems that this Science wiki page does not say anything about applied science. Is applied science a science? If so, we may need to change the "builds and organizes knowledge in the form of explanations and predictions" to "builds, organizes and applies knowledge in the form of explanations? and predictions?". I think it sounds odd to apply explanations and apply predictions. I think it is better to apply theories and models to produce explanations, predictions and solves problems etc 223.18.108.48 (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Beyond seeking knowledge purely for its own sake, what can you do with explanations and predictions that does not involve applying them in some way? :-) Sunrise (talk) 21:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it is very strange to say we apply the explanation/prediction to solve some technical problems. If you explain something in science, you explain it to understand the phenomena not to understand technical problems which are the objective of applied science to solve. Also, when you have an explanation/prediction, you have a specific application context (the physical situation). This context may not be the same context as the technical problem. So, the explanation/prediction may not fit to the technical problems in applied science.Angelababy00 (talk) 02:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it is strange to consider applying predictions to solve technical problems. You have to belief that the prediction will come true, then it can solve the technical problem. If the prediction says it is 40% plus or minus 10% and you cann't solve the problem if the outcome is less than 40%, then how can the prediction solve the technical problem if the outcome turned out to be 38%? In terms of understanding how the problem is solved, it is very strange to use prediction or forecast to solve problems. Here, I am assuming that applied science is about solving technical problems by applying the theories and models in science. Angelababy00 (talk) 03:17, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Please see my suggestions for parallel definitions of science and technology posted today. It might advance this discussion.TBR-qed (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Is formal science a science?

According to the Science wikipedia web page, the first sentence defines science as the enterprise that builds or organizes knowledge ... about nature and the universe. Formal science may not be concerned with nature and the universe, so how does it fit to be a science according to the Science wikipedia web page? Why don't we just call it mathematics or logic? Why does it have to be some kind of science? Fundamentally, this goes back to the heading: do you know what is science?

Logic and mathematics do not explain and predict, although they can be used to do so as tools of science.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Can a tool of science be called some kind of science? Angelababy00 (talk) 02:16, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Please see my post today suggesting parallel definitions of science and technology. It might advance this discussion.TBR-qed (talk) 18:30, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hardening of positions lessens maneuverability

When C. S. Peirce first wrote 'How we make our ideas clear' (1878), he listed some stages in the development of a scientific statement:

1. Vague musings
2. Clearer definition of the topic, less vagueness
3. Action based on each substage of clarification

He thought about this for the next 30 years: A neglected argument is on Wikisource.

It is not helpful for us to talk past each other. Morrest stated a goal quite clearly (see the edit summaries). We should work this out. Step by step. Talking is the next stage in the protocol.

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:29, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@user:J8079s, to set your mind at ease, it may be helpful for you to know that Peirce studied Aristotle with his father (who was a scientist as well). Peirce was quite conversant with the classics, Greek, and Latin, as well as the nineteenth century program of science study. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:41, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I am not stuck on Aristotle but "Aristotle devised an inductive-deductive method that used inductions from observations to infer general princples, deductions from those principles to check the principles against further observations, and additional cycles of induction and deduction to continue the advance of knowledge" pg 45 [1]. Other "first scientists" Rovelli, Carlo (2011). The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy. Westholme Publishing. ISBN 9781594161315. Retrieved 15 February 2015. White, Michael (2001-10-12). Leonardo: The First Scientist. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312270261. Retrieved 15 February 2015. Clegg, Brian (2013-08-29). Roger Bacon: The First Scientist. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 9781472112125. Retrieved 15 February 2015. Purrington, Robert D. (2009-09-29). The First Professional Scientist: Robert Hooke and the Royal Society of London. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 32–. ISBN 9783034600378. Retrieved 15 February 2015. Bad behavior is a separate issue. J8079s (talk) 20:49, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

We have been discussing this on another page, of course. But induction has no logical basis; it doesn't work as a method of proof, as Hume pointed out. As Peirce has shown, there is a 3rd way: abduction (guessing) gets you there; it's more honest, to admit that you don't know, and is a real advance on Aristotle's position. That is what was eventually discovered after Aristotle: an appeal to authority is not necessary for science.

Galen had Empiricist, Logicist (also called Dogmatist), and Methodist physicians as teachers.

Ptolemy did have experiment, but Alhacen really increased the scope of the uses for experiment, including using it to learn, as well as a method of proof, to verify or to disprove.

1. So one question is: who first bridged that gap between Aristotle and Peirce?
2. Another question is: when was hypothesis (or the lightweight model) elevated to its current prominent role?
3. Another question is: when was the formulation of experiment first seen to be the test of hypothesis?
4. There is still methodological development going on: Platt (1964) strong inference requires an array of hypotheses to weed out the weak ones. Instead of logical propositions and monotonic logic, linear logic uses resources, for example a list of hypotheses, etc. The resources can be consumed or thrown out, if needed; the resources replace the use of Aristotle's propositions, or alternatively, Boole's predicates for reasoning. The interesting thing is that these developments were in use by scientists, like Galileo, hundreds of years earlier, such as defeasible reasoning. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

We have Timeline of the history of scientific method that needs a lot of work. I made a few additions but that would seem to be the place for everyone. J8079s (talk) 23:33, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate your showing us another way. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:37, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Parallel ledes and definitions for science and technology?

Given the current interdependence of science and technology, would it be useful to introduce the two in parallel--either separately or in both articles? This might also clarify the relations of pure and applied science and engineering, debated above, distinguishing the product from the enterprise. Here are possible parallel intros: SCIENCE currently means either systematic inquiry to discover general principles in special-case observations, or the stock of principles discovered by that inquiry. The word comes from the Latin word scientia, which meant “knowledge”[2 in the traditional interpretation of absolutely certain truth. TECHNOLOGY currently means either systematic inquiry to discover special-case applications of scientific principles, or the stock of applications discovered by that inquiry. The word comes from the Greek τέχνη, techne, which identified the "art, skill, cunning of hand” of the handicraft workman.TBR-qed (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Historically, in the Hellenistic period, there was a class difference between the artisans techne and a leisured class, natural philosophers, that had the time to investigate science (today they would be the gentleman scientists). So the practical knowledge that even Galileo acknowledged to be a source of knowledge was not considered to be science. It is perplexing to us now. How could this class difference remain after all these thousands of years? Cleanthes supported himself by carrying water at night. Spinoza ground lenses. Einstein processed patents. The scholar-bureaucrats of China either had government positions, or they served some small community with advice. The sages of Greece, India, and China provided knowledge to the working people. The rest of the story is well known, starting with the rise of the scientific community of each specialty.

But in the Hellenistic period, there was slavery (I personally have not seen any explanation of this baked-in class difference). I have not read of any philosopher who was a slave, unless we count employment for a wage, such as Aristotle's tutorship of Alexander. On the other hand, there are recorded instances of artisans who were also slaves. Answers, anyone?

Note that the existence of the philosophers did not guarantee correct answers. John von Neumann commented that it took natural science 1000 years (after the Hellenists) to get anywhere (Collected Works 6 p.101) which he took to mean that not even the categories had been properly worked out, much less scientific method. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your observations, which I accept. But I would argue that a lede should contain a bare minimum of history. Wouldn't most readers want current understandings of words, with historical details provided later for those interested?TBR-qed (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@TBR-qed, I thought of a way to integrate the technology aspect into the article (I use Peirce's scheme):

1. A scientist thinks (muses) about a topic; the thoughts are initially vague.
2. The vague thoughts are clarified, subtopic by subtopic. The clarified thoughts get written up.
3. Each clarified subtopic gets acted upon. So far, this is straight Peirce. Here is where the technology aspect could be inserted. As an example, I use knock-out mice. The mice are genetically modified organisms (or resources, to use the linear logic term) which are used as test subjects in an experiment (about the subtopic which is to be further clarified, referred to in the step above). The technology is new, but follows the science ("the special-case applications" you referred to), and is used to discover the new science. (I am leaving out the ethical issues, such the slavery part above, which bothers me.) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:04, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Timeline comment

@user:J8079s, I followed the timeline link which you suggested, and have some initial reactions:

1. briefly, multiple civilizations can have differing value systems or biases.
2. the timeline does not adequately represent the cross-linking between civilizations and cultures, being tied to the one-dimensional timeline.
3. as an example of what I am trying to convey, take the plunder of the Inca empire for its gold by Spain, Columbus' attempted enslavement of the native populations of the Americas, the gold rush movements in America, which resulted in the ready admission of California to the Union, the splitting of Nevada from the Utah territory after riches were discovered in Utah territory, etc.
   1. this was not a unitary phenomenon: the same lust for gold was not a driver in ancient China, because jade held its corresponding allure in East Asia, and gold was readily available, compared to Europe; furthermore, the alchemist's search for the process (see the Philosopher's stone) to create artificial gold had already been solved in China (the only thing they distrusted about this artificial gold was to avoid its use in traditional chinese medicines which prescribed gold) (reference: Needham, Science and Civilization in China)
   2. If you go to the museums of southeast asia, you can find jade adzes, which bespeaks the antiquity of the allure of jade.
   3. But China was so far removed from Western Europe that its value systems did not transfer; the enormous boulders of jade which were so highly valued by the Chinese emperors meant nothing to the Europeans.
   4. Today, there are new kinds of money, whose superiority has eclipsed gold, jade, cattle, sheep, goats, or land, so the rushes for land or gold, etc., lie elsewhere in the incessant pursuit of money's security, prestige, etc.
4. Now applying this objection to the science article, there is a divide across which some editors see evidence for the primacy of Civilizations 'A' versus 'B', and the resistance to the cited evidence is deep, possibly because of differing values, across our readership.
5. The current timelines do not convey the issues which are being addressed in this article.
6. Perhaps this might be addressed by deepening the introductory paragraphs in the timeline? We could address this on the respective talk pages, perhaps?

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 17:27, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Notice of EWN discussion

Link. Sunrise (talk) 23:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

For the record, closed as 24hr block (permalink). Sunrise (talk) 02:17, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

That was fast in case it happens again for the record warnings were given [2] [3] [4] J8079s (talk) 03:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Medieval science and Lead?

The lead skips medieval science section completely. No mention of it. I think we should mention at least a sentence summarizing this important Era. What do you think? Dude9949949 (talk) 19:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I think of a sockpuppet investigation. Sunrise (talk) 20:34, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Alhacen (c.965-1040) And all these points become clear with experimentation

Alhacen's text: And all these points become clear with experimentation

You need JSTOR. Follow the link. Click Thumbnails. Select the page for [6.38] (I think Smith uses Sabra's numbering scheme). When I just looked, it was p.367 for the thumbnails. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I have JSTOR and I think it's great. The text I am looking at is "by emphasizing experimental data and the reproducibility of its results" In a side note Latin experimentum means experience as does empirical J8079s (talk) 21:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

There are an enormous number of 'experiment'-words in Alhacen. Smith includes a Latin glossary. For example, consideratio also can mean experiment. I paste in some of my notes, Smith's translation from De Aspectibus Book I, which might be overkill as a response:

• [5.39] p355 eye anatomy shown in books on anatomy
• [6.6] p356 "this is the accepted opinion of natural philosophers on how vision occurs"
• [6.18] footnote 60 p360 "experiment thus empirically ascertained"
• [6.24] p363 explanation of focus on one item from an infinity of items
• [6.36] p366 explanation of focus by agreement with experiment
• [6.38] p367 "and all of these points become clear with experimentation"
• [6.56] footnote 87 p373 falsification of extromission theory of vision

As you can see, I tried to restrain myself on the quotes. One fascinating item is that I believe that Sabra has translated Arabic Chapters 1,2,3, which are methodology, but the unknown translator into the Latin in the 1200s skipped them. That is why Smith starts his translation with [4] and numbers upward from there.

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Ideally, to support the statement "emphasizing experimental data and the reproducibility of its results," we should focus on sources talking about Alhazen rather than a translation - unless this is supported during Smith's commentary? Also, on a slightly tangential note, we should definitely be able to take out the sources that are clearly unsuitable for this, such as the news articles. :-) Sunrise (talk) 23:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Here is a citation for reproducibility:

• 6.86 p.379 "And this can be tried at anytime." It is an experimental setup for studying diplopia, a subject which was previously studied by Galen.

Smith's work is a critical edition, both translation and commentary. Smith has characterized Alhacen's approach as "essentially hypothetico-deductive" (this is cited in the article). If you read the translation, I believe you would agree with Jim Al-Khalili, who has noted that Alhacen's Book of Optics reads like a modern science textbook of today. He might have set the style! (Alhacen was used as a text in the middle ages. Certainly students of visual perception and optics would have profitted from reading it. Kepler (1604) read the Alhacen and Witelo sections of the Risner edition. Kepler then used Giambattista della Porta's water-filled glass spheres to model the eye, with an aperture, to model the entrance pupil of the eye. Kepler, Johannes (1604) Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, quibus astronomiae pars opticae traditur (Supplements to Witelo, in which the optical part of astronomy is treated). See scientific revolution: Kepler overturned the theory of vision from medieval optics, in an example of the self-correcting character of science.)

Please see Smith's summary if all this is too long. A. Mark Smith (2004) "What is the history of Medieval Optics Really About?" via JSTOR

If you are looking for secondary or tertiary sources, they exist in abundance already (some are in the article already), especially for Alhacen. But also consider Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī's explanation of the rainbow, modelling water droplets by a water-filled glass sphere (ala Kepler), and who came after Alhacen; or Al-Farabi, who came before Alhacen, and who read Aristotle's Metaphysics 40 times without understanding it (which shows that the Islamic world sincerely accepted their Hellenist heritage), he was a student of a Christian teacher, and he was teacher of Maimonides. Also, ibn Sahl, of refraction fame. One poignant note shows up about Sabra's translation of Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Book of Optics) from Arabic: we need more scholars to help out on the English translation of books 4,5,6, and 7. The Latin scholars helped out with multiple diagrams from multiple manuscripts, which helped Smith (he counted 17 complete, with about a half-dozen fragments). But Sabra, now deceased, had trouble getting multiple manuscripts in Arabic. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware that Smith's work is a critical edition. :-) What I was trying to say is that within the text, it is better to cite to Smith's commentary (which is secondary), rather than the translation itself (which is primary) - you seem to mainly be citing the translation. For example, I'm happy to support using the primary text as a source for the fact that Alhazen performed experiments, but I would be more cautious for the statement that he "emphasized experimental data." Especially, the latter implies a level of uniqueness or improvement relative to past or contemporary work, which cannot be supported through primary citations alone. (That is not to say that the other sources don't support this part - I'm just commenting on this one for now.)

Thanks for the link to the summary. I could see direct support for statements like "the foundations of the medieval optical tradition were laid by Alhazen" and "Alhazen's optical work was widely accepted between 1300 and 1600." I don't see direct support for the text in the article, though; do you have any quotes? Sunrise (talk) 02:11, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

My experience with critical editions in Wikipedia is that the Latin was accepted as primary, and the translation was accepted as secondary, with the notes as tertiary. It goes without saying that it took a scholar in good health to persevere in this task, which he has spent 40 years on. I found the text to be quite readable. Smith's translation (his Vol. 2) from the Latin (his Vol. 1) is accepted as accurate, by Richard Newhauser (Cambridge), and Noel M. Swerdlow (Chicago). The issue with the Latin was settled from 17 manuscripts which Smith used to establish the text. Smith must have done this with computer software, as shown by charts in the Appendix. That is how he figured out that there were at least two translators from the Arabic, and removed the duplicate Latin pages from translator 2. In addition, Smith provided a glossary with every page which contained a given Latin word, which was my entry point to the text. I guess it helped that I have an optics/ physics/ electronics/ mathematics background (and I have studied Latin -- shrug). So this summary by an optics guy was meaningful to me (Falco and Weintz Allen, p.118): "he proposed a type of intromission theory of vision [books 1-3], validated his conclusions by empirical understanding deduced from scientific experimentation". But Alhacen's words were not esoteric to me, because of my background. I found you can just read the text.

That said, I know some things from geometrical optics, which may not be general knowledge:

1. the 'points' of geometrical optics are 'blur circles' (not infinitesmally small, which are sized from the aperture of the optical system)
2. the 'lines' of geometrical optics are 'light rays', again, not infinitesimally thin. Note that Alhacen himself modelled their properties with taut strings and straight sticks. And he used this fact in his geometrical proofs.
3. the 'areas' of geometrical optics are in a 'field of view', which we see naturally without thinking.

This is the content of Euclid's Optics (geometrical optics) and there is an optical society of america translation of about 18 pages. In other words, Alhacen's optics are naturally mathematical to begin with. But even Euclid and Ptolemy were concerned with sight (vision -— they just got it wrong) which is why Alhacen concerned himself with physiology (from Galen). And he used the Hellenistic philosophy of cognition to fill in the gaps. Anyway, here it is: from Smith: p.lii "Alhacen's account of visual perception is exceptionally cautious and considered ... He guides the reader along by the shortest of leashes... forcing him to follow ... the exemplary landmarks ... in the way of illustrative examples, many of them experimentally based.". There's the experiment, and the fact that he wrote it up in exceptional detail, makes it reproducible. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 04:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Experimental setup: See Smith's commentary, p.lxxvi (you can also use JSTOR's thumbnail tab to navigate to this page, and you can use JSTOR's 'next page'/'previous page' vertical bars which allow you to read this 819 page volume in a natural, responsive way) on the experimental setup for studying diplopia.

To put the experiment about visual perception into perspective: our eyes are part of the experimental setup, and our experience of double vision is part of the experimental data. The plaque that Alhacen describes has a notch for our nose. We move little wax pegs of different colors along specific lines on the plaque, and observe whether we see double or not. Now compare our visual perception to Alhacen's statement about its reproducibility, from Ptolemy 800 years before him, to our time, 1000 years after him: "[6.86] and this can be tried at anytime." --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not dispute the translation's accuracy, of course, though I'm surprised that it would be considered secondary for the content of the text. I checked the archives at RSN and WT:RS and couldn't find anything - could you describe where this was established? I could possibly see it being considered secondary for the purposes of e.g. determining what the author meant or establishing the significance of the work. But in any case, the main point is the same: quoting the text alone cannot support statements that are qualitative or that compare the text with others.

For the page you cite in Smith's commentary, it does support the fact that Alhazen performed experiments, which I agree with, but is there any example where he places those experiments or other aspects of Alhazen's work in a context that is broader than the history of optics? I think that is what we need. I checked through that page and the following pages but I didn't find anything. Sunrise (talk) 19:49, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I had guidance from this page, I think.

My experience reflects Limbrick's critical edition of Francisco Sanches' Quod nihil scitur (That Nothing is Known). Limbrick was more commentator than Thomson, the translator. In contrast, Smith was both. I think you would agree it was a monomental project.

I have to say that Alhacen was highly influenced by his religious search for Truth, and his understandable desire for certainty, which is a goal that has been relinquished in our time. But the implied promise of certainty made Alhacen hugely popular in medieval times. This promise somehow has attached itself to the current story behind science, that it somehow is more dependable and reliable. His experiments are thus bigger than optics, as they attempt to establish the Aristotelian framework, which is best exemplified by optics. After Kepler overturned it, the Aristotelian framework withered away within a century. We don't even study it anymore. Yet reading the Book of Optics still is useful, even without the framework; for example Book One [6.18] is a fair description for the behavior of an electromagnetic wave propagating through the atmosphere.

But Alhacen repeatedly shows that he was still part of the Hellenistic tradition. To the extent Alhacen survives, Aristotle's views survive. Their exhaustive approach thus validates Hellenism. But as Smith 2015 shows, Alhacen's experimental design (see Book 7) for refraction failed to allow margin in the design; so his measurement program failed, as evidenced by his lack of data on refraction. Smith records his failure to capture data using Alhacen's design. And yet, Smith's disproof of the design still is a useful data point.

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for not jumping in sooner. The VN was for "by emphasizing experimental data and the reproducibility of its results." not "And all these points become clear with experimentation" I was very confused by the response until I look at the difs and I think thats what was confusing. J8079s (talk) 22:45, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is how I interpreted it as well. Are we talking past each other? Sunrise (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

hypothetico-deductive method

While Smith does say that Alhacen's method was essentially "hypothetico-deductive" else where he says; "Was Alhacen in fact following the hypothetico-deductive method in his experiments dealing with the equal-angles law of reflection and the rules governing refraction? It is difficult to imagine that he was, since all evidence suggests that he never conducted those experiments at all, or at least not as described. In addition,those experiments were designed not to test but to confirm hypotheses already accepted a priori." think that we should give as much weight to this quote. J8079s (talk) 21:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

The successful duplication of the Ptolemy diplopia experiment (known beforehand to Alhacen) may have guided his thinking. This is the case 'to confirm hypotheses already accepted a priori', about rectilinear propagation of light rays through a transparent medium. The issue of understanding an unknown phenomenon (refraction) which requires measurement of an angle which is perpendicular to the incident ray was successfully analyzed by Alhacen, and is in use to this day (Neuenschwander Dec 2014). It is highly likely that all that Alhacen did was design the experiment without carrying it out.

Smith 2015 attempted to replicate Alhacen's refraction setup. Smith shows that Alhacen did not allow enough margin in his experimental design, which made it difficult to illuminate the columns enough to measure the angles of refraction. His method used the ideas from Erastosthenes on illumination of the equipment, located at a latitude close to the tropics, near to the time of the solstice. Based on Alhacen's setup, Alhacen was also trying to build instrumentation to read out the angles for recording, as well as to display the physical phenomenon. This does not invalidate the method. There are plenty of failed experimental designs around, to this day.

Experimental confirmation of an 'a priori' hypotheses does not invalidate the possibility of proof of a null hypothesis about the refraction (i.e., you need a better design. For example, Alhacen could have used mirrors to redirect the light from a more convenient angle. But no.). On the other hand, experimental disproof of an 'a priori' hypotheses does invalidate it. I can only think that since Ptolemy already had a table of refracted angles, Alhacen was trying to duplicate the data values. And as you point out, Alhacen could have just published his failure to duplicate the data. One possibility that comes to mind is that Alhacen simply ran out of mental and physical energy to investigate further. It's an open question. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:54, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Notification of request for comment

An RfC has been commenced at MOSCAPS Request for comment - Capitalise universe.

Cinderella157 (talk) 03:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

First sentence, second sentence

I see the second sentence got removed. I can understand the reasoning. Maybe one concern with that is that our opening lines miss the word "methodical" (or similar)? Instead we DO have the word "systematic". It is tempting to replace it with methodical, but I believe we have that word because of a source we are citing.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:48, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I have found a citation, H. Floris Cohen (2010) How modern science came into the world: four civilizations, one 17th century breakthrough as evidence against 'systematic': Cohen argues that we cannot even use the word 'science' uniformly for all civilizations; in its stead, Cohen uses the phrase 'nature-knowledge'. Individual civilizations (e.g., Hellenist, Chinese, Islamic, European) individually floresce, decay, and sometimes enjoy regrowth of their nature-knowledge. Cohen then identifies 6 separate scenarios from the era of the scientific revolution (peaked 1687) which are lumped under 'science', but which are better understood as separate threads. The book is 825 pages, so I am just reporting findings right now. Cohen does identify (p.28) an arc of development: what we identify as 'science'-based prosperity kicked into gear during the Industrial Revolution (19th c). A recent editor in fact suggested that technology be somehow linked into this page. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:18, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Aside from obvious reasons of redundancy and other stylistic concerns, the second sentence appears to further narrow the definition of *Science* in terms of a few chateristics (e.g., scientific method, models, etc) that are common to the natural sciences, particularly the physical sciences. I think this is a mistake for the simple reason that many other branches of science simply do not share most of these characteristics. For example, modeling may be widely used in physics, but it is not the case in say, archeology or psychology. One just needs to take a look at the formal sciences to find many more exceptions. I understand and sympathyze with the editors wanting to define science in more concrete terms. But given the diversity of various scientific fields, I think it's a hopeless task. Anyone who takes a cursory look at past discussions on this topic in the archives will quickly realize this. My two cents. danielkueh (talk) 22:04, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

First of all, no, I haven't read all of the past discussions about the lead sentences. So, I will be brief. I would favor something simple. Like, "Science is the study of nature, including humankind and its endeavors", or something similar and possibly tuned up a bit. This could, with follow-on sentences be elaborated upon. Like, Danielkueh, I have some concerns about trying to depict science in very specific ways. So, I don't like "systematic enterprise". In an ideal world, scientists would be, yes, "systematic". But they aren't always that way. Science is sometimes undertaken in ways that I would call "reconnaissance", which can include random exploration or random experimentation, just to see what is found or what works. After this, then, a more systematic approach is often conducted to verify things. Some of these issues have been discussed by E. O. Wilson [5]. 22:49, 17 March 2015‎ user:Isambard Kingdom

user:Isambard Kingdom, Ancheta Wis, I think this is a clear case where we can not follow EVERY source, so we need to follow a sort of mainstream. As I am sure you both realize, "nature knowledge" could include things like religions and traditional folk medicines and so on, which most people would contrast with "science" as a different type of knowledge. Otherwise we would not even need the word science, and we could just say knowledge. ...Unless of course we define "nature knowledge" as only being true nature knowledge when it meets certain requirements, but then those would be similar requirements to the ones which distinguish science and other types of knowledge wouldn't they? It is those distinguishing requirements which are clearly what the first and second sentences are trying to handle. So we should home in on those in this discussion. I see no point trying to make the article more broad in what it covers? Concerning those requirements, what all concepts seem to contain is some reference to being methodical. I think we will not find any consensus on what the method exactly is, but if you go back to the original arguments for there even being a distinct type of knowledge (not only Francis Bacon, but also the Greeks) being methodical in itself is important, because what science tries to be is knowledge that is not biased by "human weakness" - things which make us biased such as emotions and traditions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:13, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Side comment. I just want to make a procedural comment on recent reversions of the 2nd sentence. I don't want to get into an edit war, but I did make one last reversion of Sunrise's reversion of my edit, on principle, to make the point that WP:BRD should not be used as a reason for reverting an edit. Reversions have to be based on a reason other than WP:BRD. In fact, if you look at the WP:BRD, it says very clearly that "BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work or for edit warring: instead, provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense." As for the "original state," I did restore this article to its "original state." The second sentence was a bold edit, which I reverted, and which we are discussing. If there are administrators watching this page, any adjudication of this issue would be most welcome. danielkueh (talk) 23:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I should have described myself better in the edit summary the first time, though I did (I thought) address at least part of the issue. I then said that I would provide reasoning tonight, and I think that requesting a short time for response is reasonable. Note that the sentence has been in the article since February 8, though, and at the time there was a talk discussion here. Sunrise (talk) 01:05, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to get too deep into this except to say that if we're going to use length of time as an indicator of what is "original," then it should be the version that has been in place for almost five years and has been discussed extensively and agreed upon by multiple editors. danielkueh (talk) 01:25, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Why talk about adjudications? We are discussing. Both involved editors could be blamed for not having initiated talk page discussion.

Andrew, I agree. I just want to clarify that my call for adjudication was for settling a procedural dispute (reversion of edits) and not to settle the merits of the first and second sentences, which are being discussed here. That said, I take your point. danielkueh (talk) 12:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't mind dropping the procedural discussion. But as I'm sure you know, WP:CCC. :-)

First, I'd like to clarify which sentences we're talking about:

• First sentence: "Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe."
• Second sentence: "This knowledge is determined through the scientific method by experiments and observations, and may take the form of scientific facts, scientific models, or scientific theories."

In the version you reverted, the second sentence was instead: "Scientific knowledge is built up methodically using experiments and observations, and resulting in proposed scientific facts, scientific models, or scientific theories." This had only been in the article for a couple of days, and I agree that it was redundant, which was why I restored the previous version instead. I'm only considering this other version, and I don't see how the reasoning you gave in the edit summary applies to it. I don't see anything that is obviously redundant, and it seems that it would have sufficient weight to be placed here. On the flow of the paragraph, of course tastes may differ in style, but I think that having so much of the first paragraph (and the second, for that matter) be about older meanings of the word "science" is itself undue (description of what science is needs to have priority; this was an issue in the previous lead as well). I also think that, for example, having no mention of scientific theories in the lead is a problem of due weight.

Those are the main points that I would make. For the broader discussion, while I agree that science is difficult to define, we should still be as concrete as we can - e.g. talking about concepts rather than words, but this applies more generally as well. I don't read the second sentence as defining science at all; I see that as having been finished in the first sentence, with the second merely relating an important fact about science: specifically, that there are several forms that scientific knowledge can take. If this is too narrow, what is being excluded? (Do we have examples of scientific knowledge that was not in some sense gained via the scientific method - bearing in mind that the definition of the scientific method is itself extremely flexible? We have examples such as Kekulé's dream that inspired him about the structure of benzene, but I assume that we couldn't have called it scientific knowledge until it was empirically verified - before then, it was just a thought.)

I would also note that when I read the term "scientific model," I read it in the sense of Bohr model. To take psychology as an example, searching just for "models of cognition" turns up many uses, e.g. [6] [7], as well as the WP article Cognitive models. (And this is not yet considering that some interpretations also hold that all scientific knowledge consists of models in some sense.)

I do also agree that an argument can be made against "systematic." However, the term is in both versions (since the first sentence is the same in both versions), so that seems to me to be a separate discussion. I think perhaps the intervening edits confused the issue. Sunrise (talk) 08:49, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Sunrise, we should continue the discussion above my *side comment* so as not to have two parallel discussions on this issue. But since you have already responded here, I will address the points that you made here as well. But we should continue above with the other editors.

(Interpolated response: I tried to address everyone's comments in my single response so that we wouldn't have an old subsection getting pushed towards the bottom of the page. For example, since the main thread was about the use of "systematic," that is what I referred to in my final paragraph.) Sunrise (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I am surprise that you don't see the striking similarities between the two versions of the second sentence. They both say essentially the same thing. In both versions, the first part describes how scientific knowledge is obtained or discovered whereas the second part describes the form that it takes (models, facts, etc). How are both versions redundant? The first part of the lead sentence defines science as a "systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge...." This corresponds to the first part of the second sentence. The second part of the lead sentence describes the form that this knowledge takes, which is "testable explanations and predictions about the universe." This corresponds to the second part of the second sentence. In fact, the non-two day version you restored is strikingly similar in that it also contains the words "in the form..." It is obvious that the first and second sentences are saying the same thing, with the second sentence being more specific, which as I have already mentioned is problematic.

Now to the broader points that you made. If you read the WP article on the scientific method and/or general scientific textbooks that describe the method, you will see that the scientific method contains specific elements (hypothesis, prediction, testing, etc) that are defining. And if you are serious, you will know that these elements are not defined by our own personal intuitions or our tendency to daydream for inspiration. After all, the scientific method is supposed to make knowledge creation in science a replicable process. Thus, there is a limit to this "flexibility". Are there instances where the scientific method is not used? Sure. Just take a look at the formal sciences (math, stats, etc) and to some extent, computer science or even library science. When you are writing a new program in computer science, what is the hypothesis being tested? Short of making bold interpretations, you will be hard pressed to find very obvious parallels between knowledge creation in math or computer science and knowledge creation in physics and chemistry. Some forms of knowledge are purely algorithmic like those in computer science or library science. And some are purely definitional like those in math or statistics. In such instances, the scientific method of testing hypotheses does not apply.

Interesting take on cognitive models, but unfortunately, psychology, like science itself, is fragmented. The use of models in cognitive science is not a generalizable characteristic of other branches of psychology such as social psychology or industrial psychology or of the entire field as a whole. The problem is compounded by the fact that there are different *theoretical frameworks* within psychology such as psychodynamic theory, cognitive science, behavior analysis, etc. So even if there was a model in one framework (e.g., cognitive science), it is completely useless in another framework (e.g., behavior analysis). This is why the development of models is not as entrenched in psychological research, in general, as it is in physics. With the exception of economics, this is also the case in sociology, political science, and anthropology. If you don't believe me, pick up any number of introductory textbooks in these fields and see if you can find the word "model" in the second or third chapter on research methods. Now, things may change in the distant future, but until then, Wikipedia will just have to wait.

Again, I am very sympathetic to defining science in more concrete terms such as models, laws, theories, scientific method. In my ideal world, I wish everyone would define science in Karl Popper's terms so that we can be done with discussions like these. But that is wishful thinking. Besides, the rich diversity of scientific knowledge, fields, history, and philosophy is far more interesting. danielkueh (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Obviously modern science existed before Popper and worked without his advice, and Popper, while popular, was never quite popular enough to be called a consensus. Trying to define science with a simple list or procedure you have to follow seems impossible in practice, and inevitably leads to odd problems such as needing to define some well-known modern scientists as non-scientists. This is also a concern I had with various versions of the second sentence, hence my belief is that we should aim at something more generally agreed upon, such as the importance of being methodical in order to avoid natural tendencies to bias. That might not be the same concern others have had.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:29, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Andrew, just to clarify, I was being somewhat facetious about *wishing* to define science only in Popperian terms. :) danielkueh (talk) 13:38, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Thought you might be, but anyway it helped me point to a thing on my mind. Hope it helps.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:50, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the response! On definitions and lead structure, I think the article Life is a good example of what I mean. Even though the definition is highly disputed, and there have been many conceptions of what life is, the lead still describes it - and where there is ambiguity, that ambiguity is described. It's far from perfect, of course, but I think a person coming to it and reading only the lead would walk away feeling that they'd been given a reasonable summary of the topic (as they should expect). I think someone coming to this article would understand how the word has been used in the past, that its definition may be in dispute, and a few characteristics (mostly by inference) of what science is today, but not much more. Even though the second paragraph begins with "In modern usage," half of it is about the 17th-19th century. I don't mean that we need to use concrete terms when they aren't warranted (FWIW, my own ideal world doesn't contain much of Popper's philosophy, though of course he was highly important in the history of science). The idea is that if there is ambiguity, then the ambiguity itself needs to be described concretely, to the best of our ability.

Focusing on the narrower points: I see where you're coming from now with regards to redundancy. I don't agree with that reading myself, but I can see that there isn't great enthusiasm among editors here to keep the statement as it was for this past month (I may collect the sources on the point and revisit it later). I've already written that component of my response, so FWIW I've included them here in a collapsed form. Sunrise (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, I'm very much aware of the WP article on the scientific method - I've written parts of it. :-) I do still have a few textbooks containing citable material that I haven't added content on yet. I am aware that there are certain central elements, but in some cases those elements are dropped or done only by implication. To say that math and CS are sciences in themselves is an uncommon position, I think. If you ask what hypothesis is being tested in writing a computer program, I would first ask what scientific knowledge is being generated in the writing of that program. If the program is being used to model reality, it will only work to the extent that the model corresponds to reality, and for that refinement and testing is needed. Sunrise (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I think these comments should not be hidden because they relate to a central problem of this discussion, which is the problem of defining science. Other editors might find them useful. Also, I would like to clarify my points, which might have been missed. First, whether or not formal sciences (like math) and computer science are *sciences* is irrelevant. Those who assert that they are not are no different from those natural scientists who claim that social sciences are not sciences at all. And we need not take them seriously. Second, the purpose of programming is to automate a task, whether it is recording information into a database, solving an equation, running a simulation, or playing animations. Now whether such programming is used to create knowledge is besides the point. The point is that programming in of itself is not the scientific method and it is not to create knowledge. Yet, programming is central to computer science. Thus, the larger point is that defining science as only knowledge derived from the scientific method would be to exclude other sciences, such as computer science, that do not fit this definition. danielkueh (talk) 11:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, that line of thought seems to assume the premise that mathematics and CS are sciences, which is itself the definition under question. The viewpoint that opposes this clearly exists - e.g. Popper, but any definition made in terms of empiricism or inductive logic implicitly excludes them as well. I'm pretty sure this includes the majority of (modern) definitions - e.g. from the lead of Scientific method: "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." It's cited to the Principia, but I'm sure better sources can be found, and from the history it's been there with minor rewording since at least 2008. As another example, taken from the Demarcation problem article: "Mathematics finds a place in science only as one of the symbolical languages in which scientific explanations may be expressed.", quoted from David Pingree. I can find sources which say "mathematics is a science of [patterns, quantity, formal systems...]," but this seems to refer to the older definitions of science in the sense of any body of knowledge. (On the second point - it seems to require accepting the first point, but I agree that if the first point is given then the second follows.) Sunrise (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for elaborating my position. Hence, Wikipedia cannot be the place to settle these questions of whether these fields belong to science or not. danielkueh (talk) 02:33, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what we were discussing then! I saw myself as responding to the claim that math and CS are (unambiguously) sciences, e.g. in your comment "other sciences, such as computer science, that do not fit this definition." Sunrise (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

They are sciences, just not the classic experimental sciences that many people often think of and write about. Hence the dispute over their status, supported by your elaboration. My point is that this *'dispute* is far from resolved and Wikipedia should not be the place to resolve this by explicitly defining science in a restrictive way so as to leave them out entirely. The discussion of the status of mathematics and the formal science in this article is reasonable and should be the one that is expressed in the lead, if it gets mentioned. danielkueh (talk) 00:44, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

On models: I'm using the term "model" as it's defined at Scientific modelling. (Also, examples for social psychology and industrial psychology.) I agree that there don't exist unifying models for psychology, but I'm not sure what point you were aiming at in this discussion. (This part of the discussion also isn't strongly related to the main point. I'm sure that one can find subfields where there are no models that are explicitly called such in the published literature, but the sentence didn't state that all scientific disciplines must contain models in the first place.) Sunrise (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

You posted links to very specialized models used in cognitive science (and more recently in social and industrial psychology), and you appear to imply that modeling or the use of the word model is a universal practice in all of the sciences. Now, I can easily post a link to an article on the use of multievolutionary algorithms to solve a computational problem in biology, but I won't go so far as to make the claim that using multievolutionary algorithms or solving computational problems is a universal practice in biology. And I certainly wouldn't assert that in the lead of the biology article. The point, again, is that modelling, however you define it, is not yet a universal practice in all the sciences. danielkueh (talk) 11:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The examples were only meant as responses to your statements that these fields did not use models. The point I would emphasize is that you seem to be focusing on the narrower definition of "model." (The narrower definition tends to refer especially to computer simulations, and is especially implied by your preference for the word "modelling" over "model," which is more common for the narrower definition.) The broader definition is along the lines of "anything that is used as a representation of something else" - like I said, there are positions that all scientific knowledge consists of models in this sense, e.g. one would say that F=ma is a model for how objects behave when force is applied. Newton is an especially useful example for this since we now know that his work is strictly incorrect but is very close to accurate in most circumstances. Sunrise (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I used *modeling* as a verb to mean "developing models," which may include quantitative, simulation, graphical, animal, or conceptual models. It does not imply just "running simulations." In fact, scientific modeling is the title of the WP article that you linked. The other sense of model that you speak of, based on your Newton example, is better described by the word, *paradigm.* The point that I'm making again is that if less than 1% of scientists in a field engage in modeling, can we go as far as to say that models or modeling is a defining feature of that field in the lead of a WP article on that field? That's the question. danielkueh (talk) 02:33, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

My answer is just that you have to first define what you mean by modeling, and that you're focusing on the narrower definition. (Please read my comments more carefully btw, as you're attributing statements/positions to me that I haven't expressed.) I'm aware of the title of the WP article - either version is valid. Paradigm is also an ambiguous word, so it might or might not mean the same thing depending on how you define it. (Neither Kuhn's original definition nor the general definition at Paradigm are the idea I refer to. Also, "paradigm" isn't a word I would typically associate with science myself, though I'm aware that some people use it.) Of course if you use the narrower definition, then I agree with your argument. But I really feel that this discussion isn't contributing to article improvement, so I'll stop responding here. Sunrise (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

LOL. How rich. I think YOU need to take your own advice about reading other people's comments more carefully so as not to misattribute their positions. I have had to repeat and clarify my position endlessly. If by a "broad" definition of model, you mean "anything that is used represents something else," then model is just a vacuous term that is completely useless. No different from the words, "metaphor, example, abstraction, etc." And if that is the case, this discussion is indeed meaningless. danielkueh (talk) 00:44, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

In any case, I still feel that there is an issue of WP:UNDUE, and I see this as more important. Currently I see the lead as focusing much too strongly on history, especially history of terminology, and central concepts such as hypotheses, scientific theories, and so forth are not mentioned at all. I see part of this as due to undue de-emphasis in the article body, so some of it will have to wait. However, I think part of that could be addressed now. The suggestion of adding content on being methodical to reduce or mitigate tendencies to bias is a good one, I think. I would also be interested more generally in summarizing information from the Scientific practice section, and perhaps some of Scientific community. Any thoughts? Sunrise (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the lead is too much history and terminology related. I even think the whole article has too much of a history structure. I'd prefer something that focussed on what science is now. There is already a history of science article. Some overlap is expected, but it is too much in this article on science. As for the first one or two sentences, I think too much is trying to be loaded into those. My suggestion, keep the first sentence short, and then elaborate in the rest of the paragraph and lead on what science might be, ideally, and what it is in practice. This gives flexibility to incorporate many of the ideas on which I think most of us even agree. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 09:34, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

This has always been difficult to get right over the years, so take your time to develop proposals. If we go too far in the other direction though, then we could end up giving one of those silly definitions of science where there is a big black line between proper modern science and "the other stuff" which is all just religion etc. Even if we just look at modern science, it is hard to define the boundaries and it is hard to distinguish the two meanings (the enterprise and the knowledge which results). In my opinion, whatever we do the lead needs to give readers some ability to see what is NOT clear. To summarise, I also see the problem, but I am concerned that in solving this problem we should not make Wikipedia give a undergrad/blog-style over-simplified definition of science.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to suggestions on balancing the lead so as not to give too much weight to the historical development of science. But I also agree with Andrew that we should not move to the opposite extreme of reducing it to specific characteristics. Otherwise, the lead will be no different from the one in the natural science article. danielkueh (talk) 11:18, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

H. Floris Cohen (2010) How modern science came into the world: four civilizations, one 17th century breakthrough, ch. XII 'Legitimacy in the Balance' has identified the 'legitimacy of a scientific contribution' as an issue in a scientific community. His entire book focusses on 'what is it that sustains a science?'. (He seems to think the Scientific Revolution will be self-sustaining. But history has shown otherwise. Witness all the 'I am not a scientist' disclaimers.) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:54, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree we can't attempt to draw lines ourselves - but I do have a concern that there is an opposite tendency, to say that since there are many places where one can draw lines, therefore it is difficult or impossible to discuss, and/or we need to avoid making statements that might contradict any of the lines. While I agree to an extent, I think it's easy to lose sight of what we can do, which is (to continue the metaphor) to describe what sort of lines have been drawn, who has drawn them, and which positions are the most widely accepted. If few or no definitions of science include X as science, then we can say in the encyclopedic voice that X is not science, or is generally agreed not to be science (though we could include it as a viewpoint attributed to its proponents), and so forth. The individual article on X is probably the best guide for any specific case. (I'm speaking generally here - I don't have anything specific in mind.)

Perhaps a key difference here is that I don't see "describing" characteristics as "reducing" science to those characteristics. If we say "science usually/ideally has characteristic X" I just see that as describing a fact about science, and that fact includes the presence of exceptions (and thus do not invalidate the fact). This doesn't mean oversimplifying, though we should aim to be as accessible as possible - IIRC the goal is readability at high school level, but in practice enWP only meets readability at undergraduate level.

@Isambard Kingdom: I agree that it's important to distinguish between ideal practice and actual practice, as you said. Are there any suggestions you would make, perhaps a specific example that we could use for the lead? On the history section of this article being too long, I also agree to an extent. One approach is to take the lead of the article it summarizes as the basis (per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE), and then make changes and build up afterwards as necessary. That may be too extreme for this example though. Sunrise (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I might be prejudiced by the fact that I actually am a "natural scientist". I haven't gotten any traction, here, suggesting that we start by saying that "science is the study of nature", followed quickly with a discussion of what that means, including the manipulation of natural principles (engineering) and all other sorts of human activity and thoughts (including mathematics, etc.). So, since that isn't going anywhere (my feelings are not hurt), I'm mostly just an interested bystander and occasional opinionator on this subject of the lead. I do, however, respect the obvious interest and competencies of all the participants in this discussion. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 01:46, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

@Sunrise, one thing that I like to emphasize when I find myself explaining "science" to an interested member of the public: Science is a human endeavor. This little bit of honesty is often well received, and it helps to emphasize the variety of scientific efforts, outcomes, opinions, colorful history, etc. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 01:56, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

@Isambard. My apologies. I certainly wasn't trying ignore your suggestions. My problem with *nature," is that it is often contrasted with *man made.* I prefer the word *universe* because it makes the point that everything can be studied by science. danielkueh (talk) 02:38, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

@Danielkueh, yes, I understand the universe/nature issue. This is where I would elaborate in subsequent sentences. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:58, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd be fine with either version, but I would agree more with Daniel on this, just to reduce the possibility of confusion in the readers (I'd say that having an explanation is not as good as not needing an explanation in the first place). Sunrise (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

@Ancheta Wis: Are you thinking of including information what constitutes a scientific contribution is determined by different scientific communities? I think that could be a useful addition. Sunrise (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment. I seem to come away with two impressions from this discussion. On the one hand, we all agree that it is difficult to define science in very specific concrete terms. But at the same time, we agree that the present lead is unbalanced because it gives too much weight to the historical development of science. I agree that there is certainly more in this article than just history, which should be in the lead. I agree that we should focus on rewriting the lead as a *summary* that gives proportional weight to the various sections of this article (WP:lead). I think that would be more productive than just discussing the first few sentences. danielkueh (talk) 12:07, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@user:Danielkueh, it doesn't have to be difficult if we agree on the domain of definition. For example, if a constructivist viewpoint is taken, one can create a system, for example what a computer programmer or a mathematician would do. The hypothesis is 'this program will run' or 'this proof will terminate', respectively. And there are automated tests in both domains. And confirmation bias is still an issue in both domains. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:45, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@AnchetaWis, Thank you for summarizing part of my concerns with that approach so clearly. :) danielkueh (talk) 15:21, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@user:Sunrise, even a computer program can be a scientific achievement, if we define novelty, usefulness, and impact as basic requirements for success in a [science] community. Thus Ward Cunningham's 4-line Perl program to create a wiki wiki web would qualify in this regard. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:09, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Sunrise (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I have interpolated a timestamped sig to mark the boundary of a reply, but there is one subsection which could be a Sunrise edit or a Danielkueh edit. It is delineated by indentation, but Which is which? I have made a guess here. It appears a collapsed section was created, and then uncollapsed. One possible approach to this might be to delineate the start of a reply with @to-name-here, and end that reply with your signature. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:45, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta Wis, your guess is correct. :) danielkueh (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts on an initial proposal

I'll respond to the comments above soon - I just wanted to put this up for criticism. :-) This is a very rough outline I've drawn up for my thoughts on the first two paragraphs. I've presented this in table format, following the previous discussion, but this isn't meant to be interpreted as something that's highly developed. (Among other things, I probably lean towards being too restrictive, so please correct me if that's the case!) Please note that the comments contain additional proposed text - especially for the first paragraph, the left-hand side mainly constitutes a basic outline, and a final version would include more.

First paragraph:

Sentence	Text	Comments
1st	Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.	Same as the current first sentence.
2nd	Examples of scientific disciplines include physics, chemistry, geology, and biology.	I'm using Life as the guide here. This seems that it could be a fairly uncontroversial statement that is likely to have high information content for the reader, as long as we agree that the examples we use are unambiguously scientific disciplines. This is the set of examples currently in the lead, but we could add or remove examples as desired (e.g. adding a social science). We could also add something like "people who study scientific disciplines are called scientists" since "scientist" is an important term, though I think it sounds awkward if phrased that way.
3rd	The definition and characteristics of science have been the subject of dispute.	This is also where we could add description of the dispute, e.g. a reference to demarcation problem and/or mentioning one or two notable demarcation criteria might be useful. An additional possibility is to include the definition "a body of knowledge of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied," from the current lead, as an example.
4th	In modern usage, science refers to a way of pursuing knowledge as well as the knowledge itself.	From the current lead. Could add "often restricted to those branches of study that seek to explain the phenomena of the material universe," also from the current lead.

Second paragraph:

Sentence	Text	Comments
1st	For much of its history, science was closely associated with philosophy, and natural science was called natural philosophy.	From original lead, with minor rewording. Could add "was sometimes called philosophy of nature" as in the current lead.
2nd	Modern science emerged during the Scientific Revolution, which began in Europe towards the end of the Renaissance period and continued through the late 18th century.	Text from Scientific Revolution, since the origin of modern science is probably the most important part of the history with reference to the science of today. The timing could be replaced by any other details as well.
3rd	In the 18th century, science became increasingly associated with the scientific method, a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.	The first part of this is from the current lead. The second part is the definition from Scientific method, although it seems to me that a simpler description would probably be better for stylistic reasons.
4th/5th	Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features are frequently shared in common between them. The overall process involves making hypotheses, deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then testing them by conducting experiments.	From Scientific method (2nd sentence slightly paraphrased); this begins the description of modern science. I think hypothesis, prediction, and experiment are all terms that should probably be mentioned in the lead. Does anyone see this as too restrictive? It's meant to refer to the scientific method only (and this text avoids identifying the scientific method with science), mentions the diversity of the procedures, and is circumspect (cf. "involves") about what may actually occur.
6th	Modern science also emphasizes reproducibility and when possible, the use of scientific controls, in order to reduce the effects of chance occurrences and personal biases.	From Andrew's recommendation; based loosely on text from Scientific method, though that text is not well cited (any suggested sources?). Also, I'm not sure about the wording - are there any counterexamples to this?

By this point (the end of paragraph 2) I've included all the content I think would be useful from the current lead. The third and fourth paragraphs would deal with the rest of how science is practiced today (Scientific practice second half, and Scientific community) as well as Science and society. Thoughts? Sunrise (talk) 10:10, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Sunrise. Thank you for taking the lead to propose some changes. I don't know if this is intentional but the proposed text looks very much like the natural science article. Needs quite a bit of tweaking. danielkueh (talk) 10:59, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Not intentional, other than perhaps that the current natural science article better conforms to WP:LEAD and this is meant to move towards the same standard. :-) But since you've said you wouldn't agree with a proposal based on the lead of that article, I wouldn't do that without explicitly arguing for it! Sunrise (talk) 17:06, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Added placeholders for inline annotation. Search for 'facet' for example usage. It appears one should add a signature ?: --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:23, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Sunrise. Regardless. My point is that the proposed lead, as it is currently written and structured, looks more like a summary of a natural science article than a summary of a general article about science. And that needs to change. danielkueh (talk) 01:08, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 01:22, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

@Isambard Kingdom, some reorganization would be a good start. I recommend moving sentences 4-6 from the 2nd paragraph to the 1st paragraph and moving sentences 2-3 from the 1st paragraph to the 2nd paragraph. There needs to be a 3rd paragraph that describes the impact of science on society and technology. danielkueh (talk) 01:33, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I have no objection to the proposed reorganization either way - my motivation was that having paragraph 2 sentences 4-5 referring implicitly to the scientific method (and not necessarily science as a whole) might help with reducing the concern of "restrictiveness" that was raised above. Also note that as I said at the top and bottom of the proposal, this is only the first two paragraphs, not an entire proposed lead. Sunrise (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

To elaborate what I had in mind, here's my suggestion for the new lead:

• First and second paragraphs: lead sentence and maybe 1-2 sentences elaborating of what we mean by science as a form of ...... . This would include defining the scope of what can be studied by science, which is *everything.*
• Second paragraph (can be merged with the first): Science as a form of human activity, i.e., scientific method and the end products, e.g., scientific theories and laws.
• Third paragraph: historical development of science and if you like, the emergence of different branches (natural, social, etc) and paradigms.
• Fourth paragraph: philosophy and demarcation of science. Distinguish science from proto- or pseudoscience. Describes formal science here.
• Fifth paragraph: impact of science on technology, society, environment, and government policy

This is a tentative list that I think adequately summaries the scope of this article. danielkueh (talk) 02:53, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Four paragraphs is the recommended maximum from WP:LEAD, so we should avoid exceeding that if possible. :-) Taking your 1st/2nd as a single paragraph, your first two paragraphs correspond quite closely to what I had above after your proposed adjustment. My main comment is that I don't think philosophy really needs a separate paragraph, because it is so interwoven with the other content, especially the definitions and history - so it is already given a lot of discussion space. I think any separation would be somewhat artificial. A related challenge I had been thinking of was that distinguishing science from proto- or pseudoscience is associated with the issues of definition/scope, and that subject should be in the first paragraph. It would be better if similar subjects were grouped together, but I think that unless the mention was very brief, it might give the subject too much weight. Sunrise (talk) 00:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

@Sunrise, the third and fourth paragraphs overlap considerably. So if the lead ever gets written this way, there will be some fluidity as far as what is being covered. There is no strict line seperating one topic to one paragraph and a second topic to another. It's just a matter of emphasis. I don't think we should mention pseudo- or protoscience so early. For one, that would be giving undue prominence to these topics/distinctions. The distinctions are important, but not that important. Also, descriptions of proto- and pseudoscience are intended to be brief and are part of demarcation of science, which includes a segway to descriptions/distinctions between formal sciences (math, computer science) and empirical sciences. danielkueh (talk) 00:59, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

---

Just a quick comment for now:

• About danielkueh's concern. To me it seems almost a good sign if the lead of this article is tricky to make different to the Natural science article because one of the common over-lapping meanings of science today, perhaps the main one, is natural science.
• About the draft of User:Sunrise, I have not yet tried to place this parallel to what we have to see the real differences, but maybe it is helpful to note that the first thing that struck me is the bringing forward of some examples of things called science. This seems a good approach, one might almost call it scientific (in a sense I think both Aristotle and Francis Bacon would approve of): Start with specific real world examples, before jumping into the abstract language which seeks to cover all examples. Possibly though, just considering the concerns of DK, a couple of examples which are not from the natural sciences can be added.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that other examples definitely need to be added. (I tried to make the initial proposal as uncontroversial as possible by focusing on text that was already accepted in this or other articles. The set of examples in the current lead is lacking in that respect.) Sunrise (talk) 00:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, what about

the Scale model: it's a topic which children are drawn to, almost instinctively. The science part is the fact that even though Sarah (chimpanzee) could be trained to form complicated language constructs such as the conditional form (if A then B), she and her companion primates could not be trained from scale models; see The Mind of an Ape. The models had to be full size. Why?

(My hypothesis is that after the emergence of Homo from the trees to the savanna to the grassland, they had to see accurately at a distance, with a thumbnail view of a lion giving the useful, lifesaving insight more quickly than the view of that lion at full scale.)

Another might be sharing. Why do we share? Is this question ill-posed? In The Mind of an Ape, the chimpanzees shared food only grudgingly.

Another might be social stratification.

Another might be the Queen's peace, a social policy. Max Born's hypothesis was that monarchy led to stability (a desirable precondition for the rise of science). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:45, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Ancheta, you are obviously extremely thoughtful on this whole subject. My perspective is, however, very different from yours (it is not a personal divergence, however). I think this article (and, therefore, the lead) needs to concentrate on main-stream issues about today's "science". What you are suggesting sounds very interesting, and I'm sure I would love discussing it with you, but aren't these ideas you are floating something close to original research? Also, wouldn't they be appropriately appear in the more specialized article on scientific philosophy and history of science? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the wording of the second paragraph emphasises hypothesis making and testing a bit much - I think there should be more of a distinction between science and the scientific method. Much of science is just organizing knowledge based on careful study as in classifying animals and plants or to be more modern the human genome project. It is as in Edison's saying about genius ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Dmcq (talk) 09:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Summary of findings, proposal, based on historiography: 0 (science), 1 (nature-knowledge), 2 (tipping points to Scientific Revolution)

To separate this thread from the previous, I document my findings from H. Floris Cohen (2010) How Modern Science Came Into The World: four civilizations, one 17th century breakthrough, which is a 'big-picture' survey, based on his (1994) The Scientific Revolution: a Historiographical Inquiry, upon which he builds, except for its last chapter, which was his 1994 view, and which is the basis of his 2010 book.

His overall conclusion is that 'Scientific Revolution' is a unitary process, having lasted 400 years so far, and unlikely to ebb, as previous scientific revolutions (note the lower case) have in the past.

0: H. Floris Cohen notes that history of science mixes the influences on 'science' into such a large pot, that its study has become inconclusive (Needham says 'bankrupt'). He argues that previous translations of primary sources, which translate a word as 'science', ought to translate it as 'nature-knowledge' instead. I use keywords that should allow others to replicate my findings, hopefully without the large numbers of echoes from sites that follow us.

Cohen uses Francis Bacon (1620) Novum Organon, I aphorism 95= XCV to label the influences, or tendencies: 'ants, spiders, and bees', which he subdivides further: 'Athens, and Alexandria'. He examines civilizations which are likely to have conclusively influenced science and its past development, (and likely its future): Chinese civilization, Islamic civilization, European civilization, and now global (which includes American civilization in the 20th c. -- see the Wikipedia outlook as an example of this type of outlook) civilization. He winnows outliers, which I forbear from naming from the anticipated backlash -- read the book.

Briefly, many civilizations including Chinese civilization developed science, independently of European civilization which stemmed from 'Athens, and Alexandria' via Islamic civilization. Islamic civilization is a descendant of 'Athens, and Alexandria', due to a translation effort from Greek to Arabic, which was taken by European civ from Arabic, and Greek, to Latin. 'Athens, and Alexandria' serve as Cohen's labels for natural philosophers, and mathematical scientists, respectively. The 'ants' are the experimental and empirical workers, fact-based, who differ from the 'spiders', who theorize. Instead, Francis Bacon called for 'bees', who had not yet influenced science. There also needed to be a transition from 'coercive empiricism'.

The 'bees' are 'Athens, and Alexandria'-plus, a fusion of ants and spiders: for the natural philosophers (Athens), 'Athens-plus' became experimentalist as well; the mathematical scientists (Alexandria), 'Alexandria-plus' became realist as well. In particular, the transition from 'coercive empiricism' to modern science is documented for Europe. The tipping points occurred science by science, with names well-known to us. The result, 'modern science' is a tag invented by historians to denote the subject of the first two paragraphs of the article.

I propose that the historical sections be summarized, using the historiographical approach, which takes a big-picture viewpoint, by civilization, and by naming people who tipped the balance, from one trend/factor to the next.

1: I propose that the current historical sections be pushed to subpages, such as 'Historiography of A', ...'B', ...'C', etc.

2: I propose that the scientific revolution section be subsumed into the Scientific revolution article.

Comment: 'transition from 'coercive empiricism' -- For the natural sciences, 'coercive empiricism' is unnecessary, in the sense of John Locke. In philosophical terms, the 'webs' spun by the spiders needed to be validated by the ants, without explicit requirement (which coerces a result) to arrive at a result (which is to come naturally, for the natural sciences). But note that certainty is a casualty, for the spiders now are hostage to the ants (think Large Hadron Collider). Thus for the social sciences, the empirical requirement requires funding and legitimacy. It is certainly possible for a system to create reality, until the funding runs out. In Islamic civ and in European civ, the funding agencies were the political rulers. New funding mechanisms have since arisen.

Comment: Our current scientific method article does not address the issues of acceptance, or legitimacy. Science policy funds or founds the communities which study the sciences. This may explain why Alhazen was not followed up in Islamic civilization for 200 years, by which time he was taken up by the Europeans in Latin translation. Scientific method is only a component of the demarcation problem; there are scholars, such as Imre Lakatos, who proposed that scientific method demarcate science. However there is a component, Rhetoric of science which is not part of scientific method which also requires skill and judgment. Cohen records that Galileo, in particular, was skilled in persuasion, among his other talents in science. Newton and his Royal Society membership go hand-in-hand (in other words, his Royal Society membership gave him access to a community which was essential for his acceptance -- I learned this from Mara Beller via JSTOR. As I reread Beller, I see that scientists as diverse as Alhazen and Rosalind Franklin would have benefited from dialog over their work, which Watson & Crick enjoyed by their collaboration over DNA.).

Comment: Ludwik Fleck (1935) The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact points out that specialized words (denkstil) are needed for scientific communities (denkkollectiv) to communicate among themselves in a precise way. For example, the 'ants, spiders, and bees' of Bacon, or 'mass, and force' of Galileo and Newton, or 'light ray' of Euclid and Ptolemy. Thus in Fleck's view, the common acceptance of terminology is a step forward in the development of a science by a community.

Comment: I hope it is clear that it is possible to embark on a rewrite, including documented, cited facts for the ants, and cited theories for the spiders, and cited risks, benefits and projections for the bees, with relatively little fuss. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 16:53, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I think the history should pay a bit more attention to the role played by environments that allowed people to develop ideas and collaborate with others. Europe for instance would not have been able to take up Islamic science at all easily if it did not have the tradition of schools and monastic colleges from which its universities sprung and which preserved and applied much of the Roman and Greek knowledge. Dmcq (talk) 10:02, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Assumptions of scientists?

Working scientists usually take for granted a set of basic assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: (1) that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (2) that this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.

This passage strikes me as rather odd, as if those things just went on by unquestioned. Of course one can always argue that (1) is just an assumption, but it surely is a reasonable one. Actually we all discover this when we are toddlers, and settle with it for the rest of our lives. Hard solipsism is simply irrational. Then, that "this objective reality is governed by natural laws" is actually a conclusion based on experimental data and observations, so (2) is not an assumption as well. And (3) is just another reasonable conclusion based on (1).

Scientific method works, and that's all you need to justify it. It seems like that line was added by some premise keeper whose sole purpose was sticking to the notion "Science can't touch X!" (where X are deities, ghosts, ESP, karma, etc.). Well, actually it can, if X has any potential effect on the experience of the observers whatsoever. Science is simply our best effort to represent reality.

A very large proportion of people do not share one or more of those assumptions. Magical thinking and pseudoscience is very common. See for instance [8] Dmcq (talk) 18:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The anti-Francis Bacon

One could argue that the previous section is about Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, but inverted. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

List of academic disciplines

Hello,

i would like to request to place a link or list of academic disciplines into the Head of the article. Academic disciplines are essential for the meaning of science and an oversight for them is missing in the article. I would suggest to place a link inside an infobox at the start of the article or a placement where it is easy to recognize. The infobox that is already placed does not give a good overwiev related to a structured list. It should also be placed above the picture. Thank you.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.220.223.49 (talk • contribs) 22:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Abraham took science from Ur of the Chaldees into Egypt ~2100 BC

"2. For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and, confuting the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also." Josephus.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/antiquities-jews/book-1/chapter-8.html

Can someone add this into the main article that science starts prior to ancient Greece? Sellingstuff (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Egregiously whitewashed view of history, no mention of the rich history of pseudoscientific racism or eugenics

Science has been used to justify systemic oppression since researchers first tried to rationalize their tribalist mindset. It is still being justified in fact. Very interesting that all of you seem to think citing a laundry list of accomplishments is more relevant to the history of Science than what actually effects people in the real world.Omgtotallyradical (talk) 01:04, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

See Social stratification. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:50, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

We need citations!! I could name examples, put them up and get dinged for WP:OR and wp:synth. Positivism has more than one meaning. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 01:55, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I guess human reason in general is famous for "rationalisation" of bad things, and science is just one manifestation of how human reason works at a social level. If it did not sometimes therefore get abused for bad things, that would be amazing. We can not make every article cover every linked subject, but we should stick to criticisms of science itself in this article. Omgtotallyradical is apparently believing in a distinction between real science and tribalistic pseudoscience, so to what extent is criticism of the latter relevant to this article. Anyone, simpler answer by Ancheta Wis: we need to define what published sources say first so we can consider this demand better. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I am alarmed by the prospect of WP presenting an ideology-driven, tendentious view of the history of science, such as Omgtotallyradical seems to be describing above. It is not within the remit of WP to attempt to right great wrongs by analysing science as "tribalism", "rationalisation", a relic of colonial thought, etc. Such analyses, when they have been carried out by reputable scholars in the history or sociology of science, may be presented in an appropriate context, in which it is clear that they are scholarly opinions and interpretations rather than bare facts about scientific history (contrary to the claims above, I think WP already does this, and it does not simply present a "laundry list" of scientific accomplishments). Likewise, pseudoscience should be described only in an appropriate context; I do not think that someone trying to understand the progress of medical science wants to waste time reading about phrenology, drapetomania or other such fringe ideas, for example. Whenever these ideas are mentioned, their lack of scientific credibility must be emphasised duly – to misrepresent them to readers as if they were scientific ideas of equal historical standing to (say) the germ theory of disease is a severe violation of our policy on neutrality and potentially also original research or an original synthesis. WP is not intended to be a debating ground for competing narratives of the social history of science. Archon 2488 (talk) 11:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

"ideology-driven" Whitewashing history of any imperfections is also ideology-driven.
"tendentious view of the history" I don't think that bringing up the fact that scientists can be wrong is a controversial view of history, although it could be confusing to the reader if it's written badly.
"someone trying to understand the progress of medical science wants to waste time reading about phrenology, drapetomania or other such fringe ideas" Sure, but those are textbook examples of Science being used to justify terrible things, which is one of the most important lessons to learn about it IMO.
"pseudoscience should be described only in an appropriate context" That's true, but it's still a great way of displaying what's important to what Science actually is in terms of it being a self correcting system.

I don't see that this has any weight in this context, books about science don't say this and we have to go by the sources. There probably are some relevant article for this sort of thing but here it just seems like anything else one can apply this sort of argument to - the article on architecture egregiously whitewashes its history of being used to build castles to oppress people with dungeons where prisoners were tortured, the article on the automobile egregiously whitewashes its history of having killed twice as many people as died in the first world war, the article on water egregious whitewashes its history of being used in ducking witches and in waterboarding. Dmcq (talk) 22:26, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Archon 2488 isn't what you write also "ideology-driven"? In any case, Wikipedia can and does report ideological debates. It all depends on what the best and most notable sources say. Science itself does get criticized, and there would be nothing logically impossible about someone arguing that modern science has a tendency to encourage pseudo science. So we can consider proposals to include mention of such criticisms if they exist in a notable enough way. But the key point is that such discussion should be based on what the sources say. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It isn't ideology-driven to insist that such interpretations of science (and mentions of pseudoscience) need to be presented in an appropriate context, where readers are able to understand exactly what they are. Archon 2488 (talk) 13:05, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Of course.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:57, 29 May 2015 (UTC)