[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 748 KB, 960x1299, 2011-04-19-dark_science_09.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2928749 No.2928749 [Reply] [Original]

This is how a society ruled by science and technology would really operate.

Suddenly religion isn't looking so bad.

>> No.2928764

Sadly, you're probably right. If science is elevated to the status of a religion, then don't be surprised if it develops its own Inquisition to persecute heretics.

>> No.2928768

>>2928749
>>2928764
Fuck off troll(s). Enough strawmen and bullshit.

>> No.2928773

Man... this comic is depressing.

.

>> No.2928771

Science is about falsifiability, not consensus. OPs comic could be describing democracy, or bureaucracy or perhaps a legal inquiry, but it's not science.

>> No.2928775

Holy fuck OP I hope you're trolling, else you're a fucking retard.

>> No.2928776

1/10 for getting me to post

>> No.2928779

>>2928768

Oh, but it's true. "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE ACCEPTABLE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION FOR SO-AND-SO. YOUR IDEA IS BLASPHEMY. DO YOU RECANT OR DO YOU WISH TO BE TORTURED ON THE RACK?"

>> No.2928786
File: 13 KB, 380x285, tenten.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2928786

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATTknP8t7JU

>> No.2928796

>>2928779

Fuck you're retarded. Go learn what science actually mean you faggot. Science is about being wrong and correcting it. Science doesn't have set rules.

Fuck you're retarded.

>> No.2928804

>>2928796

How many times on this board have I heard dimwits saying "If you believe in anything supernatural, you're an idiot." or "If James Randi didn't see it, it didn't happen." or "Alternate universes cannot exist."

That is what's know as close-minded fanaticism.

>> No.2928807

>>2928804
Close minded? No. Fanaticism? No.

Calling you almost certainly wrong until you present reliable proof because all of the evidence is against you? Yes.

Fuck off.

>> No.2928811

>>2928807

>Calling you almost certainly wrong until you present reliable proof

Translation: I've already decided in advance such things are bogus, so no amount of evidence will convince me anyway.

>> No.2928821

>>2928811
You're welcome to say that, but that is wrong.

>> No.2928827

>Implying "Science" isn't motivated by corporate entities.

Enjoy your big pharma, monsanto and billion-dollar petrochemical companies.

>> No.2928831

>>2928827

Or else by working for the government/military.

>> No.2928836

>>2928749
sweet a new comic page of Dark Science by Dresden Codak is out!

Also for those who may be wondering. It is infact more of a super bureaucracy being depicted. Every action is strictly under set policies and departments in the fictional world that "Kimiko" the main female protagonist is currently in. There's even a dapartment for plunder. Even crime is to be filed in paperwork.

A society ruled by science and technology; a technocracy, would be far more efficient than is depicted.

OP is a troll though, but I'm posting to remark my excitment at the newest installment to the story, and to drop some learning to the troll fodder.

>> No.2928838
File: 29 KB, 303x293, 1294564339781.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2928838

they see me trollin

>> No.2928843

>>2928836

>A society ruled by science and technology; a technocracy, would be far more efficient than is depicted.

In a dream world. Scientists generally can't run anything; if they could, they'd be businessmen or politicians.

>> No.2928855

>>2928843
>In a dream world
>a technocracy

What the fuck do you think that means?

>> No.2928862

>>2928855

A word exists, doesnt mean that word can become a reality.

For instance...

Unicorn.

>> No.2928866

You kidding? If only society operated like this.

SCIENCE FTW

>> No.2928869

Scientists get this notion that theyd be the best at ruling the world because they dont think scientists have ever done anything horrible.

In reality, scientists are too big of pussies to do anything horrible.

>> No.2928882

>>2928869

Wasn't Dr. Mengele a scientist? He only performed horrible experiments on human beings.

>> No.2928889

>science vs. religion
y'all been trolled

>> No.2928898

you mean capitalism instead of religion

>> No.2928923

>>2928771
S
N
A
P

>> No.2928937

>>2928811
i have in advanced decided that everything with no proof behind it IS bogus. my opinion on everything is open to review upon the presentation of evidence.

>> No.2928959

>>2928811

Let's examine your train of thought

>I believe things that cannot be backed by either logical, or factual proof, i.e., I rely on gut instinct and "faith"

We've evolved past this.

>> No.2928961
File: 59 KB, 447x364, troldd.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2928961

scientific authority status: challenged

he mad
>>2928768

>> No.2928977

>>2928961
dude, your computer, the chair your sitting on, the lights in the room your in, the house the lights are in, the city/town your house is in... allllllll fucking science to the max. now please tell me, what are the great accomplishments of mystics, spiritualists, pseudo scientists?

>> No.2928980

>>2928959

Nope; you're still clinging to logical positivism, a philosophy that went out of fashion in the 1940s.

>> No.2928986

>>2928980

>hurr spout terms that have nothing to do with the discussion

>> No.2929002

>>2928882

No. Even other Nazi doctors disliked Mengele. Copypasta time!

Dr. Mengele was infamous for the human medical experimentation he carried out in Auschwitz. He was a handsome and polite young man who always smiled and dressed nicely, and performed unspeakably horrifying medical experiments on the prisoners whom he didn't send to the gas chambers. He preferred to use children under five, and his specialties were injecting blue dyes into their eyes, dissecting their organs, sewing their limbs together, and making sex change operations. With no anesthesia or painkillers. There are two common misconceptions about Mengele: the first is that he was chief medical officer at Auschwitz and the mastermind of the Nazi medical experiments, and the second is that he was an actual "scientist" in any sense of the word. The grim irony is that despite all of the suffering Mengele caused (he personally killed at least 1,500 people...not through bombing or gas chambers but individually vivisecting most of them with his own hands), and despite how infamous his experiments would become in the world at large after the war...even other Nazi scientists later stated that Mengele's "experiments" had no scientific value of any kind whatsoever. There was no rational methodology being used on any level; he didn't even have control groups (junior high science classes were better organized). Mengele was the living embodiment of the trope "biology failure". One of his own colleagues went so far as to burn all the notes Mengele sent him, to emphatically make the point that they weren't scientifically conducted and absolutely pointless.

>> No.2929000
File: 74 KB, 642x1083, sci religion yarg.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2929000

I like how OP's post had nothing to do with religion and this thread almost instantly turns into a religion bashing thread.

>> No.2929001

>>2928980
wat?

>> No.2929005

Logical positivism: The belief that only empirical evidence can tell us anything about the universe. Popular in the early 20th century, it faded after WWII and gave way to theoretical science.

>> No.2929007

>>2929002

Mengele only received his Ph D in 1935 because he wrote a thesis on racial superiority...which was academically worthless, but the in-power Nazi party was impressed with. This leads back to the first misconception: other Nazi scientists were the ones actually "running" the research program, on things like "how to revive someone with hypothermia"...despicable experiments which involved freezing many prisoners to death, but which A - were conducted scientifically (albeit using human beings like lab rats) B - had some sort of rational objective. The reality is that Mengele...was basically a crazed grad student who only got promoted to "doctor" status for touting the party-line about racial superiority, that vivisected literally dozens of people on a daily basis simply to satisfy his own morbid curiosity...while off in another part of the camp the real head scientists were doing the actual research. While a lot of the "Nazi scientist" trope is supposed to be based on Mengele, i.e. that he mastered human cloning and would try to clone Hitler in Brazil...the reality is that even the other Nazi scientists thought he was utterly unqualified and simply a butcher.

>> No.2929013

>>2929000
woe, nothing to do with religion?
>Suddenly religion isn't looking so bad.
now pleas go kill yourself.

>> No.2929015

>>2928977
Not the same person, but challenging the institutionalization or the establishment of science is not the same as challenging the philosophy of science. While it would be pointless to argue whether science "exists," or whether technology is useful, it's another thing to challenge the objectivity of the PEOPLE actually doing the experiment. Whether you work for a corporation or the state, one should always be skeptical of the findings of individuals who can be biased. What the comic is criticizing is bureaucracy in science, which isn't that far-fetched. Anything that has an "establishment" can be corrupted.

>> No.2929018

>>2929005
>Logical positivism: The belief that only empirical evidence can tell us anything about the universe. Popular in the early 20th century, it faded after WWII and gave way to theoretical science.

Uhhh, I don't think so. I think that's the prevalent view of science today, at least among pro-science people.

>> No.2929022

>>2929015
duh, fucking anything can be corrupted. though in it's pure form science still kicks the ass of EVERYTHING.

>> No.2929026

>>2929018
Of course, we have to be careful about this. I believe that moral claims, and claims in axiomatic systems that are true by fiat, do not need evidence to justify their truthfulness.

However, when discussing the falsifiable, the observable, basically anything that falls into the domain of science, then science is the /only/ acceptable method to learn about it.

>> No.2929029

>>2929018

Then WHY are there so many string theorists?!

>> No.2929035

>>2929026
> I believe that moral claims, and claims in axiomatic systems that are true by fiat, do not need evidence to justify their truthfulness.

Slippery slope.

>> No.2929048

>>2928977
>mystics, spiritualists, pseudo scientists
Anyone who doesn't believe in argument from authority logical fallacies is immediately a new age whacko? Yes, that's an example of the kind of pseudo-intellectual elitism that plagues the scientific community today.

Society must specialize because we are limited in intelligence but that doesn't mean we should ignore the drawbacks of specialization, little cliques of pig headed professors who intentionally obfuscate and conjur up pseudo-scientific nonsense like "post-modernism".

>> No.2929052

>>2929029
>>2929018

That was why Einstein couldn't accept the existence of black holes even though the theory of relativity allowed for them. Because his generation (those who came of age around the turn of the 20th century) tended to believe in logical positivism and assumed that they had pretty much discovered all there was to know about the universe. Things like black holes and neutron stars would have added all kinds of new questions that they didn't want to be bothered with, so they just tried to ignore them.

>> No.2929056

>>2929048
>Anyone who doesn't believe in argument from authority logical fallacies is immediately a new age whacko?'

Fix this sentence, it makes no sense.

>> No.2929058

Sadly, OP is probably right. A technocracy sounds nice on paper because it's an ideal, but the truth is that there are always corrupt people who would take advantage of that ideal for their own benefit, and the more power they acquire, they more they will use it to protect their advantage. See: pretty much every society ever.

>> No.2929061

>>2929029

> implying there are many

It's really one of the smaller fields of physics.

The thing is, it is actually quite beautiful. That's why students are often pulled into it, things seem so fancy, and the mainstream media, who can make nice pictures and explain fantastic shit about 11 dimensions and wormholes etc. without actually knowing what they´re talking about.

I don't like string theory, by the way.

>> No.2929062

>>2929029
Because they're trying to explain the world. Currently, all string theorists would admit that their ideas are guesses - all without experimental verification.

I don't see the contradiction here.

>> No.2929068

>>2929052

>Hurr Einstein didn't want to ask new questions
>Pretty much revolutionized physics at the time

No. He didn't even dismiss the existence of black holes. Stop spouting shit.

>> No.2929066

>>2929035
Can you expound on your criticism please?

>>2929052
>logical positivism and assumed that they had pretty much discovered all there was to know about the universe
I have no clue what one has to do with the other. You're just making shit up now.

>> No.2929073

>>2929068

I dunno; Stephen Hawking said that if Einstein were alive today, he'd want to ask him why he didn't believe in black holes.

>> No.2929077

>>2929056
I don't see how you can't understand that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

>> No.2929078

>>2929073

That's not the same as denying their existence.

"Yeah, looks like my field equations would allow for black holes to exist, but they are pretty strange and would imply some really obstruse things, so i guess they won't be found."

Something like that !=

"Black holes? You fucking kidding me. That's the stupidest shit i've ever heard."

>> No.2929082

>>2929061
From what I understand, it's a mathematically beautiful model with zero empirical significance. So, it doesn't make a lot of sense to criticize it for not being provable because that's not what it accomplishes.

>> No.2929085

>>2929082

That's pretty much correct, as far as i can tell, yes.

String theory can be falsified though.

>> No.2929086

>>2929066

Right and wrong in morals are relative. Would you kill someone, would you kill one to save 1,000, etc.

No one can say one moral is absolutely right in any circumstance, yet humans instinctively try to do so, impose their morals on others, because they think they're right. It becomes draconian, with no real way to absolutely prove that something is wrong or right.

>> No.2929088

>>2929078

Exactly my point. Einstein allowed that black holes were possible, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to acknowledge their existence and open up a new can of worms.

>> No.2929098

>>2929088

Are you retarded? He DID acknowledge that they were possible, but did not waste time over it because at the time, the technology was not advanced enough to study them, or even try to look for them, so he didn't want to waste his time with it.

>> No.2929092

>>2929085
>String theory can be falsified
But not with our current tools, and not for a long time.

>> No.2929101

>>2929088

He still thought about them and their implications.

>> No.2929102

>>2929086
How does this lead to a slippery slope though? I'm confused. Presumably you were attacking my positions, yet I agree with your previous post.

>> No.2929110

>>2929102

I misread the original post I replied to. I missed the "Of course, we have to be careful about this." and merged the second sentence with the first.

It is late. I should be studying.

>> No.2929122
File: 1.09 MB, 300x225, 1294727561056.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2929122

The scientists in that comic are pretty shitty scientist. They should've had cameras and simply gone off the evidence of the recording(s). Barring that, surely one person must have seen him fall. And if for some ungodly reason no one saw him fall then they would have needed to create a hypothesis that has the most predictive and explanatory power. They would have to gather all available data, i.e. the presence of the guy, the way the papers are now arranged, interviews from people on the floor this guy fell from, and the testimony of the guy himself. So, had they actually carried out science properly, taking into account occam's razor, they would have formed the hypothesis that he did indeed fall, and it would have become a successful theory that would rarely, or possibly never, accrue contradicting evidence.

duh.

>> No.2929127

>ITT: Scientists mistaken for Engineers

>> No.2929129
File: 86 KB, 407x405, garouselfjustification.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2929129

http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoles.html

>Yet Einstein himself vigorously denied their reality, believing, as did most of his contemporaries, that black holes were a mere mathematical curiosity. He died in 1955, before the term "black hole" was coined or understood and observational evidence for black holes began to mount.

>>2929066
>pic related

>> No.2929143

>>2929129
I again do not understand your assertion that
logical positivism, as defined here:
>>2929005
has anything at all to do with Einstein denying the existence of something without evidence. That is contrary to the very spirit of logical positive, as defined here:
>>2929005
which is to only make claims about the natural world which are based upon evidence.

>> No.2929158

>>2929058

Why do you think communism failed? A technocracy based around science would again be ruined by self-serving, corrupt people.