Post by halibutholysoap on Jul 30, 2013 10:40:23 GMT -5
I have a bit of an issue with the scientific method. When I first learned about it, I became determined to create hypotheses about how things and ideas I experienced worked, and trying to prove them wrong by challenging others to prove them wrong from experience and observation. I have found this method of philosophy to be particularly grueling. I also want to know if there's a way to use the scientific method to disprove the scientific method for discovering truth, or at least identifying untruth.
-HHS
Urb Dictionary - www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scientific%20method
A method for gathering data about the world around us. Using the scientific method involves coming up with a hypothesis about how something works, and then trying as hard as you can to prove it wrong. If you can't prove yourself wrong then you cannot say you proved yourself right. you can only say you didn't disprove your hypothesis. In the scientific method you can never prove yourself right, you can only prove you weren't wrong. This is often seen as a tedious and annoying aspect of science by outsiders, but in fact scientific minded individuals gain great joy in being skeptical of everything. If you cannot diprove your hypothesis than it is usually phrased something like "The data supported our hypothesis." This is generally followed by a detailed explanation of everything that could have been wrong with your research that could have led to a failure to disprove yourself. Through this method something can become considered a theory only if many many generations of scientists have failed to find any way to prove the hypothesis wrong. This is a considerable accomplishment as most scientists will spend their entire lives finding critiques in method or theory in the research of others, and trying to find a way to disprove their findings. Information acquired in this way is the only information that can be trusted to have any semblance of truth.
Sci Method Problems & Issues - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Problems_and_issues
Eugenics in the United States - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goethe
Goethe also recommended compulsory sterilization of the 'socially unfit', opposed immigration, and praised German scientists who used a comprehensive sterilization program to 'purify' the Aryan race before the outbreak of World War II. Goethe also funded anti-Asian campaigns, praised the Nazis before and after World War II, and practiced discrimination in his business dealings, refusing to sell real estate to Mexicans and Asians.
Goethe believed a variety of social successes (wealth, leadership, intellectual discoveries) and social problems (poverty, illegitimacy, crime and mental illness) could be traced to inherited biological attributes associated with 'racial temperament'.
Working with the Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena, California, Goethe lobbied the State to restrict immigration from Mexico and carry out involuntary sterilizations of mostly poor women, defined as 'feeble-minded' or 'socially inadequate' by medical authorities between 1909 and the 1960s.[3][4]
Upon return from a trip to Germany 1934, which at the time was sterilizing over 5,000 citizens per month, Goethe reportedly told a fellow eugenicist, "You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought...I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."[4] The Nazi eugenics movement eventually escalated to become The Holocaust, which claimed the lives of well over 10 million 'undesirables', including 6 million Jews.
In Sacramento, during Goethe’s life, the advocacy of eugenics -the social philosophy of attempting to 'improve' the human population by artificial selection - was considered a progressive issue. Though it was opposed by many scientists who thought the understanding of human heredity was too shallow to create solid policy, and by religious leaders who opposed birth control of any form, in the years after the Holocaust it was not considered to be as radical as it is today.[4] Around 20,000 patients in California State psychiatric hospital were sterilized with minimal or non-existent consent given between 1909 and 1950, when the law went into general disuse before its repeal in the 1960s. A favorable report by Human Betterment Foundation workers E.S. Gosney and Paul B. Popenoe, touting the results of the sterilizations in California, was published in the late 1920s, which in turn was often cited by the Nazi government as evidence wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane.[5] When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified their mass-sterilizations by pointing at the United States as their inspiration.
-HHS
Urb Dictionary - www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scientific%20method
A method for gathering data about the world around us. Using the scientific method involves coming up with a hypothesis about how something works, and then trying as hard as you can to prove it wrong. If you can't prove yourself wrong then you cannot say you proved yourself right. you can only say you didn't disprove your hypothesis. In the scientific method you can never prove yourself right, you can only prove you weren't wrong. This is often seen as a tedious and annoying aspect of science by outsiders, but in fact scientific minded individuals gain great joy in being skeptical of everything. If you cannot diprove your hypothesis than it is usually phrased something like "The data supported our hypothesis." This is generally followed by a detailed explanation of everything that could have been wrong with your research that could have led to a failure to disprove yourself. Through this method something can become considered a theory only if many many generations of scientists have failed to find any way to prove the hypothesis wrong. This is a considerable accomplishment as most scientists will spend their entire lives finding critiques in method or theory in the research of others, and trying to find a way to disprove their findings. Information acquired in this way is the only information that can be trusted to have any semblance of truth.
Sci Method Problems & Issues - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Problems_and_issues
Eugenics in the United States - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goethe
Goethe also recommended compulsory sterilization of the 'socially unfit', opposed immigration, and praised German scientists who used a comprehensive sterilization program to 'purify' the Aryan race before the outbreak of World War II. Goethe also funded anti-Asian campaigns, praised the Nazis before and after World War II, and practiced discrimination in his business dealings, refusing to sell real estate to Mexicans and Asians.
Goethe believed a variety of social successes (wealth, leadership, intellectual discoveries) and social problems (poverty, illegitimacy, crime and mental illness) could be traced to inherited biological attributes associated with 'racial temperament'.
Working with the Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena, California, Goethe lobbied the State to restrict immigration from Mexico and carry out involuntary sterilizations of mostly poor women, defined as 'feeble-minded' or 'socially inadequate' by medical authorities between 1909 and the 1960s.[3][4]
Upon return from a trip to Germany 1934, which at the time was sterilizing over 5,000 citizens per month, Goethe reportedly told a fellow eugenicist, "You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought...I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."[4] The Nazi eugenics movement eventually escalated to become The Holocaust, which claimed the lives of well over 10 million 'undesirables', including 6 million Jews.
In Sacramento, during Goethe’s life, the advocacy of eugenics -the social philosophy of attempting to 'improve' the human population by artificial selection - was considered a progressive issue. Though it was opposed by many scientists who thought the understanding of human heredity was too shallow to create solid policy, and by religious leaders who opposed birth control of any form, in the years after the Holocaust it was not considered to be as radical as it is today.[4] Around 20,000 patients in California State psychiatric hospital were sterilized with minimal or non-existent consent given between 1909 and 1950, when the law went into general disuse before its repeal in the 1960s. A favorable report by Human Betterment Foundation workers E.S. Gosney and Paul B. Popenoe, touting the results of the sterilizations in California, was published in the late 1920s, which in turn was often cited by the Nazi government as evidence wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane.[5] When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified their mass-sterilizations by pointing at the United States as their inspiration.