🚀 go-pugleaf

bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>Science, when presented properly, admits its faults to examination
>and discovery; it makes claims only about the logical deductions
>calculated and the experiments conducted, and those claims are
>only that the results are as they appear.

Yeah but how often does this really happen.  Every week my group has 
a session in which a paper from a peer-reviewed journal is presented 
and half the time the faculty wind up complaining about what a 
slipshod paper it is.

>Scientific numbers come with error-bars and descriptions of
>the method by which they were collected, in order to
>document the methodology for further study and refinement.

If you believe the error bars people publish I have a chi-squared
I'd like to sell you.

>Theories come with descriptions of the paradigms in which
>they were deduced, allowing examination of the gaps and
>false bridges in the knowledge they convey.

Wa-hoo.  Does this really happen?  Is there anybody out there
who realistically presents the good points and carefully
explains the bad points of his/her pet theory?  If there is,
tell them from me they better start to get with the program
if they want tenure.

>In contrast, religion strives to hide its fundamental faults
>behind paradoxical aphorisms about faith and sin.

I've tried to keep my big mouth shut but I can't any longer.
Your view of science as The Ultimate Self-Correcting, Fundamentally 
Truth-Approximating (tm) process does not describe well what I see 
goin' on.  One might say your view is not experimentally verified :-)  

The practice of science includes elements of exaggeration, personal 
grandstanding, appeals to higher authority, and instinctive behavior.
I don't think one can separate the practice from the ideal, either.
Science is definitely different from religion but there is no point
in bashing religion over this.  All it does is alienate people who
value their religious beliefs.  Not only is this insulting, it's
also foolish - why get people any madder at scientists?