You're opening an extremely interesting question here.
The truth is that ALMOST ALL of the knowledge we completely rely on and trust in, AND THAT INCLUDES assumptions and procedures of the scientific method, is anecdotal or insufficient for being "scientific".
So this will one day have to be confronted by theorists of science and ultimately by all scientist: anecdotal evidence and naive experience is essential and mostly reliable.
How exactly does that figure into the scientific method ?
Did you know that when the scientists were making the atomic bomb, there had no hard-evidence that the bomb's chain reaction will stop. But they did it anyways.
the fact is the psyche will make a oneness out of anything , the trick therefore is not to produce an inteligence based on a belief, but to base a belief out of inteligence, the inteligent belief i would ad would be the belief, that threw searching for as interlectual objective, a vision of truth would eventualy reveal its self,
Most people believed that the earth was flat and the center of the unvierse for a long time, and their testimony was wrong.
Also, there is a lot of conflicting testimony of people. I'm sure the testimony of a Sufi Muslim's religious experience is different than that of a buddhist or that of a speaking-in-tongues christian.
What about my testimony that the world seems completely devoid of anything nonphysical and the only person talking in my head is me?
I'm trying to refine my notion of "human testimony," to make it clear that this notion does not include the German masses' adulation of Adolf Hitler, or the naive observation that the earth is flat and the heavens revolve around it. One element I can include is the cross-cultural convergence of experiences (e.g., as examined with appropriate skepticism by Carl Jung). I do see (based on my own studies) notable convergence between Sufi, Buddhist, & Christian mystics.
If I may challenge, not science itself or its methods, but the way it is done in practice: Are not scientists often culture-bound, choosing among observations and applications those that reinforce the hegemony of Western-Northern cultural areas? Is there not a general refusal to speak about, or even consider, experimentally-repeated observations that challenge a purely materialist & mechanistic world-view? Is this not due to science's contamination by military-industrial funding? Just asking.
Because it would make no sense. Even you can't make sense of what you're saying. You won't even give examples of what you are talking about, let alone "hard evidence".
My take is that it makes you uncomfortable that there is science which does not validate your philosophy or ideology. You might want to stop caring about it and fully believe what you want, without feeling self conscious about it.
Science and ideology will always follow different paths.
Science can only deal with "things", not spirits, hunches, whims, revelations, gods, values, faith, etc.
Accepting "testimony" into science would bring chaos and gut science. Science is based on the fact that the evidence speaks for itself. It does not require arguments, or testimonies, or a Holly Inquisition to impose it. It establishes itself.
If we did what you suggest, "the scientific community" would have to accept that "cold fusion" of hydrogen atoms is real and so we can get infinite energy from a cold glass of water based testimony of the lone two scientists who saw it happen.
That community would also have to accept that a Korean scientist who was disgraced as a fraud actually cloned all kinds of animals and humans, based on his fallacious "testimony".
You can falsify testimony. You can't falsify hard evidence. That's a good reason to keep science as it is.
A billion people's testimony does not outweigh one piece of hard evidence, because even one billion people can be shown to be dead wrong by a single piece of hard evidence.
it seems that anything which cannot be reproduced in a laboratory setting is too easily dismissed by the scientific community. I don't blame them for this necessarily, but they may be able to do a bit better. I am optimistic that things are beginning to open up, what with the recent Johns Hopkins study into the mystical effects of psilocybin. Anecdotal evidence will always be met with skepticism by scientifically minded folk, as it should. But skepticism should not lead to outright dismissal.
You're opening an extremely interesting question here.
The truth is that ALMOST ALL of the knowledge we completely rely on and trust in, AND THAT INCLUDES assumptions and procedures of the scientific method, is anecdotal or insufficient for being "scientific".
So this will one day have to be confronted by theorists of science and ultimately by all scientist: anecdotal evidence and naive experience is essential and mostly reliable.
How exactly does that figure into the scientific method ?
LooksAeterna 1 year ago
Did you know that when the scientists were making the atomic bomb, there had no hard-evidence that the bomb's chain reaction will stop. But they did it anyways.
Israe5l 3 years ago
the fact is the psyche will make a oneness out of anything , the trick therefore is not to produce an inteligence based on a belief, but to base a belief out of inteligence, the inteligent belief i would ad would be the belief, that threw searching for as interlectual objective, a vision of truth would eventualy reveal its self,
cardellacole1 3 years ago
Most people believed that the earth was flat and the center of the unvierse for a long time, and their testimony was wrong.
Also, there is a lot of conflicting testimony of people. I'm sure the testimony of a Sufi Muslim's religious experience is different than that of a buddhist or that of a speaking-in-tongues christian.
What about my testimony that the world seems completely devoid of anything nonphysical and the only person talking in my head is me?
lookoutbeeeelllooow 3 years ago
I'm trying to refine my notion of "human testimony," to make it clear that this notion does not include the German masses' adulation of Adolf Hitler, or the naive observation that the earth is flat and the heavens revolve around it. One element I can include is the cross-cultural convergence of experiences (e.g., as examined with appropriate skepticism by Carl Jung). I do see (based on my own studies) notable convergence between Sufi, Buddhist, & Christian mystics.
thomasmatus 3 years ago
If I may challenge, not science itself or its methods, but the way it is done in practice: Are not scientists often culture-bound, choosing among observations and applications those that reinforce the hegemony of Western-Northern cultural areas? Is there not a general refusal to speak about, or even consider, experimentally-repeated observations that challenge a purely materialist & mechanistic world-view? Is this not due to science's contamination by military-industrial funding? Just asking.
thomasmatus 3 years ago
No.
Adipatus 3 years ago
Because it would make no sense. Even you can't make sense of what you're saying. You won't even give examples of what you are talking about, let alone "hard evidence".
You can't have a science about nothing.
Adipatus 3 years ago
My take is that it makes you uncomfortable that there is science which does not validate your philosophy or ideology. You might want to stop caring about it and fully believe what you want, without feeling self conscious about it.
Science and ideology will always follow different paths.
Science can only deal with "things", not spirits, hunches, whims, revelations, gods, values, faith, etc.
Adipatus 3 years ago
Accepting "testimony" into science would bring chaos and gut science. Science is based on the fact that the evidence speaks for itself. It does not require arguments, or testimonies, or a Holly Inquisition to impose it. It establishes itself.
If we did what you suggest, "the scientific community" would have to accept that "cold fusion" of hydrogen atoms is real and so we can get infinite energy from a cold glass of water based testimony of the lone two scientists who saw it happen.
Adipatus 3 years ago
That community would also have to accept that a Korean scientist who was disgraced as a fraud actually cloned all kinds of animals and humans, based on his fallacious "testimony".
You can falsify testimony. You can't falsify hard evidence. That's a good reason to keep science as it is.
A billion people's testimony does not outweigh one piece of hard evidence, because even one billion people can be shown to be dead wrong by a single piece of hard evidence.
Adipatus 3 years ago
it seems that anything which cannot be reproduced in a laboratory setting is too easily dismissed by the scientific community. I don't blame them for this necessarily, but they may be able to do a bit better. I am optimistic that things are beginning to open up, what with the recent Johns Hopkins study into the mystical effects of psilocybin. Anecdotal evidence will always be met with skepticism by scientifically minded folk, as it should. But skepticism should not lead to outright dismissal.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago 2