{"id":194,"date":"2012-10-27T11:13:36","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T11:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olofee.wordpress.com\/?p=194"},"modified":"2015-01-04T04:28:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T04:28:05","slug":"sciences-first-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/sciences-first-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Science’s First Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am reading Ian O. Angell and Dionysos S. Demetis’s book Science’s First Mistake — Delusions in Pursuit of Theory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ian Angell has held a lecture about the book<\/a> at Gresham College.<\/p>\n

It is refreshing to have someone put into perspective many people’s uncritical belief in science’s objectivity and rationality.<\/p>\n

Delusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

In chapter 2, the concept of delusion is defined as “an intellectual construction by an individual regarding both the self and entities outside the self, which is taken to be true, believed and used to impose meaning on the world of the senses” (p.39). “Delusion is a decoding of an individual\u2019s sense data that filters, and consequently alters that data on the basis of some predisposition to belief, giving meaning to the world of experience, and thereby enabling non-arbitrary and meaningful personal action” (p.40).<\/p>\n

Causality<\/strong><\/p>\n

A fascinating idea is that causality, which is one of the foundations of science, is a delusion:<\/p>\n

“Any analysis, therefore, requires a consistency between what is necessarily so (the authors\u2019 shorthand for the unknowable \u2018real world\u2019 of phenomena) and the delusions used to give that world meaning. That meaning doesn\u2019t uncover causes in the world, for causality is not in the world, rather a delusion for imposing meaning on what is necessarily so; a pre-requisite\/a building block of meaning\/logic” (p.42)<\/p>\n

Order and chaos<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Order (and thus, science) is just a delusion for understanding the real world, which is chaos.<\/p>\n

“All order is chaos misunderstood, deliberately misunderstood as delusions, to our advantage. Order (what makes sense to us) is not in the world out there somewhere. That order is artificially constructed by us as a nebulous pattern, a delusion, supposed, and then imposed on the world: \u2018supposed\u2019 is used here in both its senses, in that the delusion is inferred and being the way we believe the world to be. \u2018Understanding does not draw its laws from nature, it prescribes them to nature\u2019 (Kant, 1999)” (p.41)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading Ian O. Angell and Dionysos S. Demetis’s book Science’s First Mistake — Delusions in Pursuit of Theory. Ian Angell has held a lecture about the book at Gresham College. It is refreshing to have someone put into perspective many people’s uncritical belief in science’s objectivity and rationality. Delusion In chapter 2, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2809,"url":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/living-in-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":194,"position":0},"title":"Living in truth","date":"June 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ONzLgOHD6uw\u00a0at 57'14\" Chris Hedges: \"As Hannah Arendt wrote in the Origins of Totalitarianism, the only morally reliable people are not those who say this is wrong or this should not be done but those who say I can't. They know that, as Emmanuel Kant wrote, if justice perishes, human life\u2026","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Politics and Society\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":886,"url":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/coastal-sea-ice-action-on-a-breakwater-in-a-microtidal-inlet-in-svalbard-phd\/","url_meta":{"origin":194,"position":1},"title":"Coastal-sea-ice action on a breakwater in a microtidal inlet in Svalbard (PhD)","date":"December 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"PhD Thesis (PDF) Abstract Preface LaTeX source code of the thesis Writing statistics Defence Trial lecture Defence video Defence slideshow Defence slideshow with notes Questions from the opponents Articles 19th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2008) Caline, F. and Barrault, S., 2008, Transmission of level ice stresses to the ice\u2026","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"PhD\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":900,"url":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/significant-figures\/","url_meta":{"origin":194,"position":2},"title":"Significant figures","date":"December 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"John Denker argues that it is insane to use significant figures. Instead one should follow these guidelines: Keep all the original data. Do not round off the original data. In the introductory class, the following \u201chouse rules\u201d apply: Basic 3-digit rule: For a number in scientific notation, the rule is\u2026","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Science\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malemuk.com\/olofee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}