Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!wdl1.wdl.fac.com!wdl1!mikeb From: mikeb@wdl31.wdl.fac.com (Michael H Bender) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Science (was Re: Consciousness) Message-ID: Date: 3 Dec 90 21:24:42 GMT References: <1990Nov9.202525.11717@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <3489@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <15724@venera.isi.edu> <1990Nov21.045833.11768@mentor.com> <1990Dec2.201517.10777@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: root@wdl1.wdl.fac.com (SUPER USER) Organization: Ford Aerospace, Western Development Laboratories Lines: 37 In-Reply-To: cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca's message of 2 Dec 90 20:15:17 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: wdl31 yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) wrote: >The fact that science is useful for developing new technologies is >what separates it from superstition, religion, philosophy, art, and >politcs. ... I would argue that, to a large extent, >technology is what "validates" science. (This is why it always >surprises me to find scientists who are anti-technology, although this >disease is relatively rare in the "applied" sciences like CS and AI. >Ironically, businesspeople seem more enamored of high-tech than basic >scientists.) to which cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes: .... A big difference between the two approaches however is that science refers in reality to two criteria of explanatory suffiency: 1) rigour/consistency and perhaps minimalness (formal adequecy), and 2) elegance and intuitiveness (informal adequecy). .... Cameron -- I think that your description of science is wrong. It is my understanding that science can be viewed as a body of knowledge which can lead to RELIABLE predictions about the physical world. In other words, science is REPEATABLE. Thus, the relation between technology and science is clear -- technology NEEDS science because science ensures that the results of the technology will be predictable. E.g., no one would build a space shuttle before having a reliable theory concerning the nature of space (such as vacuum, gravity, radiation, etc.) I believe that the characteristics you list are merely criteria that are used by the scienctific community for evaluating scientific theories. In modern science there is a strong tendency to reject theories that do no hold up to the REPEATABILITY criteria even if they fulfill conditions (1) and (2) you listed. (Note that the opposite is not always true -- it may also reject a theory which is repeatable.) Mike Bender