this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
501 points (80.1% liked)
Science Memes
11068 readers
2843 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You cannot separate the 2. There is no pure science out there which can be done without "governance".
I'm explicitly arguing that you can separate the two. I can perform a completely independent experiment in my house.
For example:
I don't have to publish the results anywhere or even talk with another person, yet I've still used the scientific method. I'm not a professional scientist, but I am an amateur one.
And I can scream into the abyss, it's just as relevant. The absolute majority of actually useful and relevant science is performed socially for social purposes.
You aren't even supposed to do a scientific experiment in the way you have just described. Or rather, there is neither a universally agreed upon scientific method, nor would your described experiment hold up to any standards.
An actual scientific experiment into water boiling would involve at the minimum
However, at each of these steps, you have a choice of how to approach the problem. And this depends on what you are trying to do, and what the best standards in the industry are. The process has also changed over time.
And this reveals the problem of many people's metaphysical approach to science. They treat it as if it were a platonic ideal, or floating constant in the human minds pace. In reality, "science" is an industry with its ever-changing standards, culture, interaction with the rest of society, and a million other complexities.
I think we have a fundamental disagreement on what counts as science, and that's okay.
Your methodology seems to imply a valid scientific experiment must be sufficiently rigorous as to improve on the current scientific consensus. And I do partially agree, it's a waste of time collecting data that's just going to be worse than previously collected, more controlled experiments.
By my philosophy is a lot looser. To quote Adam Savage: "The only difference between screwing around and science, is writing it down"