Never having studied the history and philosophy of science in any great detail, I'd not heard of Popper until you mentioned him. Having looked him up, however, I find the conclusions I had reached myself seem pretty close to the way he viewed things.
I think part of the ambiguity here is that the word "science", like "engineering", has become rather corrupt. I have a computer science qualification and my business card calls me a software engineer, yet I would make no claim to have studied any real science during my course, nor to be working as an engineer today. What I do does not follow the basic, fundamental principles of scientific or engineering disciplines (though of course it's not wholly unrelated).
I think this is a rather different issue to the fact that for many people, science is something they are taught. I am not in favour of the increasingly theoretical/waffly science curricula taught in schools; they have about as much relevance without any understanding of experimentation and the scientific method as cookbook stats has to someone who doesn't appreciate what they are -- and aren't -- learning when they test a hypothesis. (Indeed, the course on electromagnetism in my maths degree, which began by stating Maxwell's equations as facts and proceeding from there, with no justification or motivation at all, was the point that convinced me eternally that I have no interest whatsoever in applied maths.) Nevertheless, there is a qualitative difference between something you are taught that is experimentally observable (even if you've never performed that experiment yourself) and falsifiable, and something you are taught that is based purely on someone's personal belief. The kind of faith you place in a teacher of science and the kind of faith that underpins religion are very different things.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 01:58 am (UTC)I think part of the ambiguity here is that the word "science", like "engineering", has become rather corrupt. I have a computer science qualification and my business card calls me a software engineer, yet I would make no claim to have studied any real science during my course, nor to be working as an engineer today. What I do does not follow the basic, fundamental principles of scientific or engineering disciplines (though of course it's not wholly unrelated).
I think this is a rather different issue to the fact that for many people, science is something they are taught. I am not in favour of the increasingly theoretical/waffly science curricula taught in schools; they have about as much relevance without any understanding of experimentation and the scientific method as cookbook stats has to someone who doesn't appreciate what they are -- and aren't -- learning when they test a hypothesis. (Indeed, the course on electromagnetism in my maths degree, which began by stating Maxwell's equations as facts and proceeding from there, with no justification or motivation at all, was the point that convinced me eternally that I have no interest whatsoever in applied maths.) Nevertheless, there is a qualitative difference between something you are taught that is experimentally observable (even if you've never performed that experiment yourself) and falsifiable, and something you are taught that is based purely on someone's personal belief. The kind of faith you place in a teacher of science and the kind of faith that underpins religion are very different things.