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1 Rightwingconspirator  May 13, 2014 8:12:27am

How many times has science screwed us over because it was ahead of our ability to manage the forces then unleashed upon us all? That bare fact, wrapped up in the industrial revolution to nuclear weapons is why dGT is as wrong here as he has likely ever been since he graduated. The disdain for that thing that helps bring the meaning of science to us is extremely illustrative. He does not get this. Ah well I still respect the man, and still want to watch and listen. The eternal debate continues apace.

2 Rightwingconspirator  May 13, 2014 9:09:23am

A stealth downding? LOL. Dude please speak your objection.

3 TDG2112  May 13, 2014 9:24:41am

The author’s first point against Tyson is something Tyson would totally agree with:

“Contra popular perception, philosophy makes progress, though it does so in a different sense from progress in science. You can think of philosophy as an exploration of conceptual, as opposed to empirical, space, concerning all sorts of questions ranging from ethics to politics, from epistemology to the nature of science.”

I’ve seen Tyson speak several times. When he talks about Philosophy that is pretty much the point he makes. Philosophy may long ago been about determining the nature of the Natural World. But it no longer is. It’s about other stuff that doesn’t tell us anything about the Natural World.

The author, I suspect, is just playing PR for the Philosophy department and isn’t much more than the normal academic competition between departments for funding.

4 TDG2112  May 13, 2014 9:25:40am

re: #2 Rightwingconspirator

A stealth downding? LOL. Dude please speak your objection.

Typing it as you were posting.

5 Rightwingconspirator  May 13, 2014 9:35:30am

re: #3 TDG2112
re: #4 TDG2112

Sincere thanks for chiming in. The straw man perhaps is that “understanding nature” is the defining aspect of philosophy. Yes science tech took us past thought experiments to find the elements or measure the speed of light.

I would maintain that if you could remove philosophy from a scientists mind entirely you would have a mere worker drone tasked to microscopes or whatever machinery of investigation, and see everything as designed, and intuit or add nothing but dry facts.

But without the philosophy of wonder to think of it, designing it, it’s useless junk.

6 klys  May 13, 2014 9:44:55am

I have never taken a single philosophy class.

I have published scientific papers.

I would argue, then, that I have advanced science without studying philosophy directly. As have the majority of scientists I know.

If a bright student wants to make a contribution to science, I would also argue that they don’t need to take philosophy classes unless they want to. They should, however, find time to do research in the area that they are interested in. That’s a whole lot more important than taking a philosophy class in school when it comes to learning if you will actually love what you do.

Not necessarily related, but WTF is “psuedoscience” that the author says he is an expert in?

Massimo Pigliucci is a biologist and philosopher at the City University of New York. His main interests are in the philosophy of science and pseudoscience. He is the editor-in-chief of Scientia Salon, and his latest book (co-edited with Maarten Boudry) is Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem (Chicago Press).

7 Rightwingconspirator  May 13, 2014 9:55:31am

re: #4 TDG2112

I find this argument particularly compelling

You and a number of your colleagues keep asking what philosophy (of science, in particular) has done for science, lately. There are two answers here: first, much philosophy of science is simply not concerned with advancing science, which means that it is a category mistake (a useful philosophical concept [11]) to ask why it didn’t. The main objective of philosophy of science is to understand how science works and, when it fails to work (which it does, occasionally), why this was the case. It is epistemology applied to the scientific enterprise. And philosophy is not the only discipline that engages in studying the workings of science: so do history and sociology of science, and yet I never heard you dismiss those fields on the grounds that they haven’t discovered the Higgs boson. Second, I suggest you actually look up some technical papers in philosophy of science [12] to see how a number of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians actually do collaborate to elucidate the conceptual and theoretical aspects of research on everything from evolutionary theory and species concepts to interpretations of quantum mechanics and the structure of superstring theory. Those papers, I maintain, do constitute a positive contribution of philosophy to the progress of science — at least if by science you mean an enterprise deeply rooted in the articulation of theory and its relationship with empirical evidence.

8 Sergey Romanov  May 13, 2014 10:57:29am

My opinion:

1. One can’t avoid philosophy when studying for being a scientist. But most of the philosophical underpinnings will be implicit/”hidden”, which is why many scientists may not recognize them as such.

2. It’s not necessary to study the philosophy of science at length in explicit form to become a scientist. It will come “by osmosis”. Practice comes first here, description and analysis of “what is it that the scientists do”, second.

3. Only that philosophy is useful, which deals in strictly logical, structured chains-of-arguments, as opposed to musings, speculations and flights of fancy. And that excludes quite a huge chunk of philosophy.

9 philosophus invidius  May 13, 2014 11:45:59am

re: #6 klys

WTF is “psuedoscience” that the author says he is an expert in

I think there is a difference between being “interested” in pseudoscience (which his blurb claims) and being an “expert” in it. I take it that he considers himself an expert in philosophy of science and in that capacity one of the things he is interested in are claims or theories that are not just false but rather falsely appearing under the guise of science.

10 philosophus invidius  May 13, 2014 12:11:57pm

re: #3 TDG2112

“that is pretty much the point he makes.”

I beg to differ. He said that valuable brain power is wasted on philosophical questions.

11 Fairly Sure I'm Still Obdicut  May 13, 2014 12:13:34pm

re: #8 Sergey Romanov

In many cases, interesting philosophy can be completely uninformative and useless to science. Baudrillard comes to mind—even if you think he’s awesome philosophically, he can’t help you engage in scientific discovery, he can’t inform philosophy of science except to note things about its context and use. In the end, philosophical questions do not lose strength by being unresolved, whereas scientific questions do.

I don’t think Tyson said what he was saying at all well, but it’s definitely true that you don’t need to resolve philosophical questions about science before continuing. It’s not science’s fault when society takes scientific advances and misapplies them; science is the discovery. Philosophy can help us apply the output of science—technology—well, but only a very narrow band of philosophy is congruent with science, mainly because science very rigorously has to stay grounded in empiric values, whereas philosophy can much more usefully engage in counterfactuals.

12 calochortus  May 13, 2014 12:14:40pm
But in his case the offense is particularly egregious, for two reasons: first, because he is a highly visible science communicator; second, because I told him not to, several times.

(bolding mine)

Is he trying to be funny?

13 philosophus invidius  May 13, 2014 12:16:40pm

re: #6 klys

“I have advanced science without studying philosophy directly.”

I don’t believe that any philosophers would disagree with that. The issues are (1) whether philosophy can provide insights that move empirical investigation in a certain direction and (2) whether that is even the main point of the philosophy of science (to say nothing of the myriad other branches of philosophy).

14 philosophus invidius  May 13, 2014 12:22:29pm

“you don’t need to resolve philosophical questions about science before continuing”

That is obviously true. The problem is that Tyson seemed to be insinuating that philosophers think otherwise.

15 philosophus invidius  May 13, 2014 2:06:38pm

re: #8 Sergey Romanov

“There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.”—Daniel Dennett

16 Sergey Romanov  May 13, 2014 2:08:33pm

re: #15 philosophus invidius

Pretty much what I wrote. With perhaps one further addition: science will move forward regardless of whether its philosophical underpinnings are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light by the philosophers.

17 Decatur Deb  May 13, 2014 2:11:02pm

Non-argument.

“Natural science historically developed out of philosophy or, more specifically, natural philosophy. At older universities, long-established Chairs of Natural Philosophy are nowadays occupied mainly by physics professors. Modern meanings of the terms science and scientists date only to the 19th century. The naturalist-theologian William Whewell was the one who coined the term “scientist”. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the origin of the word to 1834. Before then, the word “science” meant any kind of well-established knowledge and the label of scientist did not exist. Some examples of the application of the term “natural philosophy” to what we today would call “natural science” are Isaac Newton’s 1687 scientific treatise, which is known as The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait’s 1867 treatise called Treatise on Natural Philosophy which helped define much of modern physics.”

-wiki

18 Keep Texas Prisons Rapey!1!1!1!!!  May 13, 2014 2:34:09pm

I have always said philosophy deals in truths (personal) and science deals in facts.
There are (and always have been, since objective science prevailed) a lot of Philosophers who confuse their philosophy with science ( Right wing/extremist Christians and right wing extremist Muslims, lookin’ at you). And, want to force their philosophy, as a fact, on science and the population in general.

I do not think what Tyson said was at all objectionable, especially when you deal in a discipline that must fight off philosophers on a daily basis.

19 EPR-radar  May 13, 2014 2:47:08pm

re: #17 Decatur Deb

Non-argument.

“Natural science historically developed out of philosophy or, more specifically, natural philosophy. At older universities, long-established Chairs of Natural Philosophy are nowadays occupied mainly by physics professors. Modern meanings of the terms science and scientists date only to the 19th century. The naturalist-theologian William Whewell was the one who coined the term “scientist”. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the origin of the word to 1834. Before then, the word “science” meant any kind of well-established knowledge and the label of scientist did not exist. Some examples of the application of the term “natural philosophy” to what we today would call “natural science” are Isaac Newton’s 1687 scientific treatise, which is known as The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait’s 1867 treatise called Treatise on Natural Philosophy which helped define much of modern physics.”

-wiki

I think this is a valid observation. What we view as science today is simply the subset of philosophy that deals with empirical reality and accepts certain limits on the kinds of reasoning to be used.

The enormous success of science using these philosophical ground rules pretty much means it is pointless to use other kinds of reasoning for issues that fall within the domain of science.

However, there is much that philosophers deal with that is not strictly limited to empirical reality, and for such issues limiting the reasoning being used to what is scientifically acceptable is often useless.

20 Keep Texas Prisons Rapey!1!1!1!!!  May 13, 2014 2:54:00pm

re: #19 EPR-radar

However, there is much that philosophers deal with that is not strictly limited to empirical reality, and for such issues limiting the reasoning being used to what is scientifically acceptable is often useless.

Absolutely agree as well.

21 EPR-radar  May 13, 2014 2:58:36pm

re: #18 Keep Texas Prisons Rapey!1!1!1!!!

I have always said philosophy deals in truths (personal) and science deals in facts.
There are (and always have been, since objective science prevailed) a lot of Philosophers who confuse their philosophy with science ( Right wing/extremist Christians and right wing extremist Muslims, lookin’ at you). And, want to force their philosophy, as a fact, on science and the population in general.

I do not think what Tyson said was at all objectionable, especially when you deal in a discipline that must fight off philosophers on a daily basis.

It should be noted that arguments based on authority or revealed and personal truths don’t really pass muster for philosophy. Religious dogma isn’t philosophy.

22 Keep Texas Prisons Rapey!1!1!1!!!  May 13, 2014 4:38:12pm

re: #21 EPR-radar

The way you explain it, I agree. I don’t ever do a good job of explaining myself well!

Whereas I believe Religion must contend with dogma and faith, Philosophy deals in reasoning of life’s questions, critical thinking or “truths” regarding personal human existence. But there are people who believe their dogma is philosophy (that’s finally been answered!) as well as people who believe their dogma is a fact.
I have always regarded modern religion and all of it’s off shoots (that splintered off and continue to splinter off), loosely, as philosophical because they are both ways of thinking, searching.
If we look at the big religions in the abstract, and ignore dogma, they all have a similar philosophy.
Science , though born out of philosophy, I think transcended (or mutated) to something all together different, as it can be measured.

Anyways, I am not some super fan of Tyson, as that would mean I was cheating on my (should have been husband) Carl Sagan. But I agree that science needs scientists not philosophers. If philosophy is dead, like Hawkins said, there are a lot of people who agree.

But I liked the article!

23 philosophus invidius  May 13, 2014 9:32:56pm

re: #18 Keep Texas Prisons Rapey!1!1!1!!!

“I have always said philosophy deals in truths (personal) and science deals in facts.”

I’m not sure what you mean by a “personal” truth, but if you mean a “truth” that feels correct to someone, that that is very far from what philosophy has traditionally aspired to and from what philosophers today think they are doing. Think of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, etc. No philosophers are trying to impose their feelings about human existence on the scientific community. Socrates wasn’t put to death for his feelings about things.

If someone begins a sentence with, “my philosophy is …” you can be pretty sure that what they say next is not really philosophy as any philosopher understands it.


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