Questioning The Conclusions Of Science

[naomi24]

This question arises from the discussion in R&S on the dubious practice of Water Divining. Sometimes the conclusions of science result not from positive evidence that the subject is invalid, but from absence of evidence. Whilst I know the scientifically minded will say ‘until evidence is forthcoming, I won’t consider the possibility’, but the question is do those who accept the conclusions of science ever waver and consider the possibility that evidence could exist that science has missed – or has overlooked – or is currently technologically incapable of recognising or testing?

[Khandro]

jake; //So they were given 5 buckets and asked to divine the presence of water - You'll never guess what 1 in 5 was right!//
I don't know if water divining is possible, but if animals can find water it might be possible that some humans can, and the experiment does not sound exhaustive; one of the diviners could be better than the rest, or was the experiment repeated until it showed that it was just a chance discovery?
Final thought; dig anywhere in the UK and you will probably find water.

[jomifl]

Khandro many if not most animals have a keener sense of smell than humans. Although water itself does not seem to have a smell there are many smells emitted by chemicals and life forms in the prescence of water. Just think of the 'earthy' smells that happen after a summer rain shower or the smell of water bodies such as ponds, lakes or rivers. Wetlands are very smelly places. Plants transpire more when there is an abundant water supply and this transpiration releases 'plant' smells into the atmosphere. It is no great wonder that wild animals can detect water many miles away, why, even I can to a limited degree. I have on a few occasions when sailing away from the land been able to smell the fish in the sea(or the product of their being devoured by other fish or birds).

[jake-the-peg]

There's a misunderstanding here with regards to Science compared to Maths

Maths requires complete proof - it's one of the attractions of the discipline to people - if you prove something in maths it's good for all time - there never will be a right angle triangle on a plane where the squares of the two shorter sides don't add up to the square of the longest.

Sciences are somewhat different - you're dealing with the real world and so the definition of proof is somewhat different.

In Maths every triangle is similar by definition.

Every Helium atom is similar - not by definition but by experience

You might say to me 'Ah you haven't checked every Helium atom in existance there might be one that has three protons and two neutron and yet behaves like Helium'

That is why we have a definition of what constitutes scientific proof

You may recall last year when the Higgs Boson was discovered there was talk about 5 sigma

This is the definition of accepted proof - it's a statistical calculation and it equates to about 1 in 3.5 million chance

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/17/five-sigmawhats-that/

If you want formal proof that dowsers cant do it you need to estimate the number of dowsers and 5 sigma will tell you how many you need to test to 'prove it'

Don't reckon your chances of getting a research grant for it though!

[naomi24]

Jake, the question isn’t about formal proof of anything, but it is about accepted proof. I’d like to know if scientists who accept current findings ever consider the possibility that evidence could exist that science has missed – or has overlooked – or is currently technologically incapable of recognising or testing – and if so, why do they rarely say ‘I don’t know’?

[Hypognosis]

@jake,

may I be the first to appreciate your lithium-based jocule? ;-)

[jake-the-peg]

Well this is what my last answer was about Naomi - 5 sigma is that level of accepted proof.

There have been a number of cases of 'scientific wrong turns' Phlogiston being the most famous.

I'm not aware of any cases where 5 sigma has been met and subsequently disproved

[jim360]

" I’d like to know if scientists who accept current findings ever consider the possibility that evidence could exist that science has missed – or has overlooked – or is currently technologically incapable of recognising or testing – and if so, why do they rarely say ‘I don’t know’?"

I think most of them do -- but the possibility has to be more than just speculation that they might have missed something. To get any attention, one would need to suggest what that something is, or at least what it might be.

In the particular case when "what you might have missed" is already highly implausible, anyone wondering if previous investigations have missed anything would probably not only need to provide a plausible idea that might have been missed, but also conduct the new experiment themselves. And even then they might end up ignored. As much as Science tries to accept anything that has been rigorously tested, if it challenges the current way of thinking it's not going to be accepted without a fight. At times this is sad (Wegener and continental drift springs to mind) -- but overall, Science is better than most ways of thinking at moving on and accepting the new, because if you do manage to meet the ground rules of entry (a fair experiment with unambiguous results), then in the end it can't stop you coming in. Those rules haven't changed for a very long time.

[Hypognosis]

@Naomi,

//Sometimes the conclusions of science result not from positive evidence that the subject is invalid, but from absence of evidence.//

Quite often, the subject of a line of research revolves around someone making a 'claim'. The onus is surely on the claimant to furnish the researchers with something amenable to analysis? (Full marks to all the dowsers who happily took part in scientific testing, down the years).

// Whilst I know the scientifically minded will say ‘until evidence is forthcoming, I won’t consider the possibility’, //

I've seen many an internet debate degenerate to the point that one side uses "closed-minded" as a beating stick... you've neatly evaded that route.

// but the question is do those who accept the conclusions of science ever waver //

Hmm, loaded question. No-one will be able to answer the second half in the affirmative without you scoring a point by getting them to admit to 'wavering'. No fair..
;-P

Scientists don't 'believe' things. They weigh the evidence presented to them and, if not overtly fence-sitting about a topic, will support one hypothesis or another, depending on the weight of evidence they've been exposed to during their lifetime.

// and consider the possibility that evidence could exist that science has missed – or has overlooked – or is currently technologically incapable of recognising or testing? //

Yes, severeral milliseconds of thought have been expended on considering that our instruments cannot detect whatever might be behind 'the paranormal'. The problem is that simple tasks like communicating what card you're looking at to someone on the other side of a table routinely failed to do any better than chance occurrence.

Demonstrable, repeatable, controllable, predictable, practical, useful - if a phenomonon fails to warrant the use of any of these adjectives, it tends to end up with the label 'paranormal'.

Speaking of technological incapability, has that underground tank of cleaning fluid which styles itself as a "neutrino detector" registered any hits yet?

[jim360]

Which "neutrino detector" do you mean? Most of the major ones that I'm aware of have "scored hits", as you put it.

[woofgang]

passing by with a long cold drink for jim :-)

[Khandro]

My re-quote from other topics; 'The fact is that one cannot actually prove anything to be true, one consequence of karl Popper's work with 'falsifiability' is the understanding that you never really prove a theory to be 'true'. What scientists do is instead come up with implications of the theory, make hypotheses based on those implications, and then try to prove that specific hypothesis true or false through either experiment or careful observation. If the experiment or observation matches the prediction of the hypothesis, the scientist has gained support for the hypothesis (and therefore the underlying theory), but has not proven it. It's always possible that there's another explanation for the result.'

[Hypognosis]

@jim,

Your reply prompted me to google for forgotten detail and, lo and behold, the Wiki entry describes a whole range of detection methods in use now. Many thanks for bringing me up to date.

[Old_Geezer]

Unless a scientific theory can make predictions that can be falsified then it is probably not scientific. That said a good conjecture that seems to explain something is worth taking on board as a possibility until some way of disproving it is found. Not considering a possibility until evidence exists is an extreme position to take, but we all make our own minds up on what we wish to accept until proven otherwise and what we wish to reject until proven otherwise. As for excepting something could have been missed, well the history of scientific advancement is one of continuous modification of prevailing belief with another explanation as 'something missed' becomes known. One trusts one is homing in on what really is, but it is not beyond the imagination to see a treasured theory could be shown at a later date to be totally wrong and any apparent success simply coincidental. But that must be less likely as time goes on and established 'truths' seem to explain so well what is experienced.

[jake-the-peg]

I think Khandro - you're illustrating exactly my earlier point about the difference between mathematical proof and scientific proof.

[Khandro]

jake; yes I liked that post. You were referring to 'Euclidean' geometry, in 'Projective', strange, wonderful and unaccountable things can happen.

[ToraToraTora]

Randi's offered $1m to anyone who can do this reliably. Still unclaimed. QED, another branch of the wonderful world of total cobblers. lookup "Ideomotor effect".

[pixie373]

...or watch Derren Brown at work...

[jomifl]

If something cannot be detected then in practical terms it can safely be assumed not to exist and ignored. Several examples spring to mind but we've been there too many times already.
If a scientific theory accounts for a phenomenom in all respects, either logically or quantitatively then there is no need to consider that something may have been overlooked. If 'something' cannot be detected because it hasn't left an empty logical space then there is no room for it to exist, so it doesn't exist.

[jake-the-peg]

:c)

Yes Kandro as I was typing it my 'smart Alec' alarm tripped and I went back and added the bit about a plane.

Non Euclidean Geometry has an interesting History, We could also go into Godel's incompleteness theoum and how that affects the notion of Mathematical proof !

[Khandro]

jake; The "flat plane" proviso didn't go without notice :-)
I could enthuse over the aesthetics and mechanics of projective geometry all night. I was introduced to it by Olive Whicher back in the 1970's, she wrote a marvellous book I have still; 'Projective Geometry - Creative Polarities in Space and Time'.