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/sci/ - Science & Math

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9287460 No.9287460 [Reply] [Original]

Science is being held back by excessive formalism and an overreliance on mathiness. Most papers are significantly more complicated than they need to be because of the authors posturing to try to look smart.

Prove me wrong. Protip: you can't.

>> No.9287466
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9287466

>>9287460
>dumb down science please, muh brain hurt

>> No.9287471

I don't know to what extent it's holding science back but I agree that focusing on the formalism more than the substance is not too good.

>> No.9287600

>try to define terms in the most understandable, comprehensive way possible to people in my facet of research
>e-excessive formalism!

maybe read a few books m8

>> No.9287608

>>9287460
The entire field of biology, especially neuroscience, needs a lot more math than it has right now.

>> No.9287609

>>9287460

This is true. Science is not empirical any more. It's non-physical equations and concepts pretending to be true representations of reality.

Tesla said it best:

"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality."

>> No.9287616
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9287616

>>9287460
Can't, you're right, pic related

>> No.9287634

>>9287460
Idk why you're passing off Sabine Hossenfelder's ideas as your own.

You're wrong though.

>> No.9287640

>>9287609
You do know that to Tesla, "today's scientists" were living more than three quarters of a century ago

>> No.9287685

>>9287640

Yes, and consequently many of the "scientists" today are more lost than those of Tesla's time.

The majority of mainstream scientific theories are complete nonsense, no better than religious dogma. The majority of "science" that is promoted and invested in, is "science" that can be used to control people and make money.

>> No.9287697

>>9287460
>Science needs more guessing and fee-fees.

You are a "nutrition supplement dealer," aren't you? (If not, you should look into franchise opportunities, you seem to have the right mindset for that loathsome field.)

>> No.9287701

>>9287609
>Using "Muh Death Ray" Tesla as a model of the right way to do science.

Please go back to /b/. You are not ready for the rest of 4chan yet.

>> No.9287707

>>9287701
Tesla was a genius.

But he was also a total kook, and very likely schizophrenic.

>> No.9287710

>>9287685
>Yes, and consequently many of the "scientists" today are more lost than those of Tesla's time.

Or, conceivably, less.

In either case, Tesla has no valid opinion on "today's scientists" if you mean "here in 2017" instead of "back when great-grandpaw tried to buy a death ray from the Tesller feller."

>> No.9287715

>>9287707
Yes -- and so, while smart as fuck, he is not a good exemplar for doing science properly, since he let his crazy contaminate the process. That's where all that icky math and structure imposed by science that OP hates so much actually comes in handy -- it allows even geniuses to filter out their own biases (the most extreme of which come with being insane) and do the most valuable work their genius can create.

Instead of invisible death rays, or homeopathy, or any other sort of woo-based nonsense.

>> No.9287726

>>9287701

Yes Mr Oldfag.

>>9287710

Today's scientists are a product of past scientists, of which Tesla is referring too. It wasn't that long ago at all.

Do you truly believe atoms exist? They "make up" everything, get it?

>> No.9289349
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9289349

>>9287460
>Science is being held back by excessive formalism.

Without coherency you might as well be banging sticks and bones together.

Stupid Skele Poster
Tbh
Desu~

>> No.9289880

>>9287466
> don't make things more efficient, I'll feel less special

>> No.9290060

>>9287460
Science without math is pointless, it is the difference between alchemy and chemistry.
You really need to commit suicide for saying such an idiotic thing, most sciences could not exist without mathematics.

The fact to the matter is that there is exactly one way to describe reality and that is mathematics. There is no substitute.

If you learn about quantum mechanics without going into the math, then you are not understanding anything.

>>9287609
And Tesla was wrong. He wasn't a scientist he was an inventor, an engineer at best. (Which is just a statement of fact and not a criticism of the good work he did)
He is in no position to talk about science and his criticism of the people who he targeted turned out to be completely and utterly wrong.
Relativity and quantum mechanics was developed through mathematics, the exact thing Tesla was criticizing, you wouldn't tell me that this has no relation to reality, would you?

>>9289880
Mathematics is the most efficient way to express an idea.

>> No.9290088

>>9287616
Shit, where do I get paid to ``independently discover'' calculus?

>> No.9290158

>>9287460
>overreliance on mathiness
I read this as "over-reliance on truth."

>> No.9290192

>>9287460
Formalism is required for rigour.
Mathematics is needed as a modelling too.
You're just too dumb, brainlet.
>/thread

>> No.9290195

>>9290192
>*too = tool

>> No.9290233
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9290233

>>9290158
>social science uses math to """prove""" there are infinite genders
>because there was math involved it must be true
>this is what cargo cultists on /sci/ actually believe

>> No.9290246

>>9287460
I can't prove you wrong, but I doubt you're right and you haven't provided a convincing argument.

>> No.9290445

>>9290233
How does math say anything about gender? That doesn't sound like a problem with mathematics, it sounds like a problem with someone mislabeling non-math as math.

>> No.9290449

>>9290445
Wow it's almost like that was the whole point of this thread or something.

>> No.9290469

>>9290449
What? The OP is clearly blaming math, not people misrepresenting non-math as math.

>> No.9290471

>>9290449
>>9290469
Also this post is clearly blaming math:
>>9290233
So I don't know what you're talking about.

>> No.9290491

>>9290469
>>9290471
Except I'm OP. Look up the definition of mathiness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathiness

Y'all are brainlets.

>> No.9290495

>>9290491
>Except I'm OP.
OP can mean both original post and original poster. I was using the former meaning and referring to the first post. So it's not a case of "except" anything.
Mathiness isn't a real word, it doesn't have a definition. It's just math with funny sounds appended to the end of it because muh Colbert. Also you specifically wrote:
>>9290233
>social science uses math
So you aren't even consistently using that other pretend word and are interchanging it with the regular word "math."

>> No.9290520

Motherfucking this. The mathematical community is drowning in a sea of abstraction. Mathematics is fundamentally an experimental science. Focusing on ideas tangible to the real world is what should motivate us. If an idea leads to an abstract theorem, great. Too often in academia we approach this process in the opposite direction - you learn an abstract theorem, prove some properties of it and if you're lucky you get to apply it to something without actually knowing what the fuck you're doing.

>> No.9290591

>>9290495
You made a post that anything that contains math must be true and insightful. I, OP of this thread, showed you that's bullshit. Now you're just playing word games and trying to do damage control.

>> No.9290598

>>9290591
Well OP is right about one thing, people are putting more emphasis on form than function. He went overboard with the "Mathiness" bullshit though.

>> No.9290667

>>9290591
You're the one playing word games. There's nothing wrong with math itself, stop trying to say there is. There isn't any real world example you can cite of anyone using actual math in a way that shows that math is a bad thing.
>anything that contains math must be true
That's exactly the case. If it's math it's true. If it's not true, it's not math. You're conflating someone mistakenly using numbers and symbols to express a non-mathematical statement with actual math. They're not the same thing. You can't just string together any symbols you feel like and call it math, that's not how it works.

>> No.9290744

>>9290158
Math isn't inherently true. You can make up whatever bullshit axioms you want, derive whatever nonsense fits your agenda and still call it math.

Math only becomes true, or approximately close enough to true that it doesn't matter, when the axioms the logic is based on is considered sound by many people.

>> No.9290781

>>9290233
>>9287460


Humanities and Sociology suffer from overcomplication. Gender theorists and non empiric qualitative ""Researchers"" needlessly overcomplicate simple ideas to sound smart, throw in latin words, and write pages explaining a concept just worth a few lines in order to justify their approach as scientific.
This is elitist at best and contradicts most of the ideological demands these folks have.

Why are there ideologies and politics in research anyway. God i hate qualitative ""researchers"". They are undermining the reputation of the whole field and are responsible for how it is viewed today, essentially destroying the reputation of quantitative rigorous research in social sciences. The research relying on proper sampling, and data analysis, testing hypotheses and draw conclusion from data. Not from feeling oppressed because someone called them fat. God, i am so pissed.

They are the reason i turned my back on sociology to study physics. I find society as a research field much more interesting, but at least phonons are apolitical.

The social sciences and humanities deserve and are in desperate need of more maths. And even the purpose of weeding out those utter retards should be enough.

rant over.

I dont think that increasing the level of rigor required to publish hurts a science in any way.

>> No.9290792

>>9287460
Please. Formalism and math simplifies things.

>> No.9290820

>>9287460
>mathiness
cease the fagginess fgt pls

>> No.9290869

>>9287460
outside of actual math, science papers are hardly math at all, except insofar as they need to collect and analyze statistics to justify their claims.

>> No.9290893

>>9287460
>Science is being held back by excessive formalism and an overreliance on mathiness
Have you ever thought about ending your life?

>> No.9290896

>>9287616
This can't be real.

>> No.9290921

>>9290792
>in this paper we define a gender algebra to prove that set containing white cis must die
>furthermore, we propose a new branch of mathematics: algebraic gender studies
>let us now define the notation of our gender algebra with the trivial expression as follows
>]±}¡}©{÷}°<|%&#
>As can be plainly seen, this intuitive expression proves that men need to check their privilege

>> No.9290979

>>9287460
Don't waste your breath, or finger strength if you want to be literal. This is the math section of a website for outcasts. In other words this board is 80% math cult. These people worship math that can be applied to life but mostly mathematics that has and never will have an application, making it completely and utterly useless. Just autistic retards creating and celebrating long pointless math puzzles, for the sake of getting a chub from a feeling of intellectual superiority. Just leave them and their "god launguage" alone.

>> No.9291106

>>9290979
Someone is envious of people who are good at math.

>> No.9291296

>>9290921
Nice fantasy.

>> No.9293042

>>9287460
Formalism is required to get anywhere. In fact, we need far more formalism if we are to advance.