Negative aspect

Long time ago I used to think that science is a way to take raw data and logically deduct statements about the world. I used to think that it has some kind of strong metaphysical foundations, which let us prove statements; that we can then trust what we have achieved. That there are many hypotheses, all considered carefully until most of them have been disproved.

I could not be more wrong. Science is more like a set of people, who are having their different goals - and the goal of achieving truth is not very common amongst them -, which can be related to money, power, technology or better means to achieve something. And all of us, of course, have the goal of being right - but this does not necessarily mean doubting statements until only the strongest are left and being ready to give up any belief; actually, most scientists consider the method of philosophical scepticism simply nonsense. I have been surprised again and again to find that most people teaching sciences in universities simply take everything as granted, have some favourite authors and sincere hope that someone, somewhere has somehow solved all obvious logical mistakes or deficiencies (in case I can point to some) or if not, then will do some day.

I see much similarities in tree of life, creating gold, perpetum mobile, golem and silicon-based artifical intelligence. I mean - good heuristics is good heuristics, but stories about how it's going to be just like human inside and outside. Silicon-based AI is simply some kind of a dream - and the theories are shaped by this wishful thinking a lot. Maybe this is why we still believe in Mechanical Universe against all odds.

I think that people are producing tens of thousands important new researches, insights and thoughts every day. A good scientist probably reads not more than one of them per day - with necessary level of thought. About well-accepted areas of science, maybe several hundred very creative texts will be created; some of them being insightful and completely compatible with all beliefs of current science. Those will be selected and all scientists will read them. Others are wiped out - simply because of lack of resources. In this case, a lot of science, however well-reasoned and logical, will be simply marginalized. We have research of thousands of areas, all being not read by many of those, who could actually understand them. This keeps science very inert system - if it takes a direction, it's hard to change. We can speak about open-mindedness, but researching all this suspicious crap to find some gold will easily just take a scientist off-track; taking it too seriously generates promptly a complex social problem for a scientist - not many are fighters enough to take it on their shoulders. So we get a very strong inertial system here.

Moreover, everyone is protecting their beliefs. They are searching for mistakes from others beliefs and trying to show that their theories cover enough facts - and the ones not covered are relatively unimportant. As more you invest into a paradigm, as more motivated you are to protect it to end. As more you make friends, collectives and social groups all turning around developing theories further in this paradigm, turning money flow to research, finding better protection algorithms and joking about others, as more you feel duty-bound to keep the paradigm intact and raise it's social value. As less you have, in effect, strong argumentations and discussions with supporters of other paradigms, as less you actually know all arguments, experiments and cases protecting them. You get addicted to paradigm, maybe even addicted to theory or some specific version of it, possibly worked out by yourself. Also, you have idols you trust and don't want to ruin (this is the single biggest bad point with most religions).

Also, you will have stories about how evil other paradigms can make people; how what they say might be true, but affect many easily in numerous bad ways; how they believe other things as nonsense as that or how their statement might be true, but is certainly a first step to something bad. And it is - if you are proven to be wrong, your social status goes down and you are not taken as seriously as before. It's hard to turn those facts to your side, to earn points from humbly admitting your mistakes.

Also, science is inert because of another reason - your complex system of knowledge. You know a lifetime worth of facts, connections and logic. You have spent hours every week to clarify, check and put your life into the scheme. You have found a good strategy to turn this logical system to your side - to make living with it, for example. It works for you. If you hear about other systems, you have two strong reasons for inertia. At first - you fear they can be wrong. You more specifically fear that their system might not give as good strategy as yours - that it might have better points and more support from facts here and there, but it is not working as a whole. That it lacks some critical qualities your system is having despite of all it's quantities. Second reason for inertia is your current knowledge. You have words in your head with slightly different meanings than the other group has the same words - some sentences feel odd or seem wrong. You do not have the context and big set of premises necessary to put something into use. You see thousand things taken as granted, which you have taken as wrong - starting to read some proof, it already assumes that you believe a lot of things. When you face another paradigm, there is no easy starting point - you do not find a place where it all starts "from base", more you find that best authors all accept a lot of things you consider wrong. This all generates a prejudice bias, which you are circulating in your circle of science.

For example, I take a simple thing. You have a long list of pseudosciences. We all do. Pseudoscience is not science. When someone states a fact, you can easily pretend that science tells it differently. That the person you are talking is not scientific about the fact. But you could forget a simple thing - to say so, you have to make a choice, what to call science, by yourself. Thus, the statement might not mean more or less than that you say it differently - effectively putting you to situation, where you are simply giving an imagined authority to your statement, thus getting rid of need to argue. As sciences are strongly interconnected, each text considered pseudoscience by you will cite several other pseudoscience books; careful analysis shows that you can run into a lot of biases with that point - for example, many pseudosciences eventually grow from intuitive or philosophical fuzzyness or religious base into empirical endeavours or strong and proven logical systems. Also, naturally all sciences - pseudo or not - are having a huge collection of hypotheses, fantasy or fiction books and wannabes. It's hard to critically choose authors in discipline you are not grasping - it's hard to even choose, who to ask. This also strengthens inertia, making it hardly possible to break.

Conclusion

I think that anyone, who thinks his paradigm or science to be based on facts, should consider the following.

1. Repeatable experiments or observations

Repeatable does not mean, that you can repeat it. It does not mean that one can repeat it with big sum of money, strong knowledge in some complex theory, some exceptional talent or by being a math genius. It does not mean that one can repeat it by investing a lot of time. It does not mean that one can repeat it only if having a strong belief into something. All those can be a valid prerequisites for some experiment, but they are simply not repeatable in true, scientific meaning of this word.

We do not need repeatability in some philosophic or mathematical sense. It won't do. Repeatability is social and not philosophical or logical thing. Just the fact that your experiment could be repeated if some conditions are met will not make it repeatable.

Repeatability is social thing. Something is repeatable only if one can repeat it - anyone, anywhere, anytime. For example, I can repeat turning on my computer easily - this is actual proof that someone is having a strong theory. But, anyway, I cant repeat some specific experiments with silicon at home and that makes it less repeatable.

Fundamentally, we need a small set of claims supporting some theories against other theories, which are repeatable. This creates trust, confidence and credibility - and is, actually, a basic need to make someone even read a book or invest some time into some theory. As more repeatable our tests are, as more support they gain.

I mean - this is stupid belief shared by many that if they can develop a test, which can be repeated by few, then everyone should believe into their theory. This is not so, because it assumes philosophical repeatability - but we need practical repeatability. Social repeatability. It's stupid to assume anyone supporting your theory if they can't repeatably check your base claims.

This involves a lot - logic in your theory must need as low IQ as possible. Any claims needing self-reflection or insight must need as simple levels of them as possible. Any claims being supported by miracles or personal experience will wipe out most of readers, however true or real they are. Any claims needing special effort, talent or resources to be checked will do the same. Repeatability is not a soft criteria possible to satisfy with some stories about how someone, somewhere repeated it - and I am sure that even many people with sincere belief and best wishes are not actually catching it.

You must know for sure - anyone, who can not repeat your test, must fall into one of three categories:
a) She is stupid and not respected.
b) She will not believe you.
c) She knew it anyway.

There are marginal exceptions.

2. If you can't prove, make probable.

You cant fully satisfy the need of repeatability - that anyone, anywhere, anytime can repeat all of your experiments. This is natural.

What you must do is:
1) To find out, why exactly are people not thinking that your theories are probable.
2) To find a minimum set of easily provable statements, which make your claims probable.

As more probable your claims, as more people are willing to invest their time and resources to check - it's probability * (1 - risk) for them.

3. Attack other theories.

You can actually make your hypotheses more probable by finding serious flaws in others, which contradict and keep yours out of the way or marginal.

By strength, those flaws can be stronger or weaker:
1. Serious inner conflicts, which are not easily fixed without making a theory ugly. This kind of contradictions are strong.
2. Serious conflicts with something trivial, but not included in their theory. This kind of conflict is not very strong, but it has some impact.
3. Weaker conflicts, which are easily fixed. Fixability is basically immutability. Each theory has bugs.

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I think that this is a scientific method - it's more like a free market than it is like a science. Or - it's as science as we do it, but possibly not so much as we wish it to be.