What is Real Science?

Well that's been said to me before by others, and there's probably some truth there.

You are correct about Kelvin and the episode with Edison (He had also been involved in the effort to build a reliable transatlantic cable, and was being drawn a bit far from his field - theoretical and mathematical thermodynamics= partly as a rersult of his general prominence in science. Edison was an extremely pragmatic master of the application of new technology, who cultivated a reputation as a scientist, but who pursued his activities almost exclusively as a businessman seeking competitive advantage at every turn, and in a most unscientific way (though many other scientists do more or less the same, albeit in different ways).

I find it odd that you elevate science as an abstract thing so far removed from the characters and actions of those who practice it, (i.e. scientists). Do you do the same with other things as, for example, religion?

I believe science is what scientists do, nothing more. They are indeed fallible human beings, like the rest of us, and given to acts partly by greed, ambition, vanity and all the rest.

Straw man alert . . . science already is an abstract concept. Really, the Jesuits who educated you must be spinning in their graves. I certainly do "remove" religion from the loons who promote it in their own self-interest. You can just read the so-called Old Testament, for example, and reasonably conclude that your god is a vicious, arbitrasy and capricious sadist.



Ah-hahahahahahahaha . . .

So you don't understand how the scientific method works, huh?

By the way, i agree with you about Edison. However, he was no damned good at promoting his products (often, inventions and designs produced by his underpaid, overworked staff). Just as he tried to promote direct current, he tried to promote cylindrical records--but Johnson and Victor (as in RCA Victor, eventually) came out with vinyl disks. Then Edison tried to promote popular song rather than popular singers, thinking he's have a market for life. He really couldn't understand the public's attraction to personalities, like Enrico Caruso, arguably the world's first "super star." He also refused to record jazz, saying it was just a passing fad. Johnson and Victor were more than happy to record "passing fads"--if it would sell, they'd record it.

He did pretty well with light bulbs though.

He was also a fairly tricky SOB as well. He advocated the use of an AC electric chair in New York in major part to emphasize to the public the inherent dangers of AC powewr distribution systems as he and they were discovering the superiority of Westinghouse's AC systems in terms of transmisdsion efficiency.

Yeah, had Edison had h is way, there'd be an electric generation plant about every half mile.

In my early teens I was brought up thinking Edison was one of the great...later I came to learn at a shock just how detestable he really was...sad story for my early childhood science heroes...

I'm not sure he deserves the "detestable" label. His achievments were many and important. Applications of the then new technologies attending electricity were then very novel and things were moving very fast. Entreprenurial competition for the dominant position in applying these fast-moving new ideas was intense. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in effect stole the graphical interface concept from a creative laboratory within a very static and no longer creative Xerox corporation, which didn't understand the potential of what it had. Bill Gates similarly bought the rights to DOS from an IBM that, in a similar manner didn't appreciate the potential of what it was virtually giving away, and Gates made a near-monopoly out of it in a fast growing new industry. Similar stories attend the creation of Facebook.

In short I think much of this behavior is traceable to the dynamic situation that prevailed at those moments.

Mediamatters and their ilk are the people behind the **** Sagan is complaining about.

I would agree with you largely speaking but Edison case is different. He was pushing backwards, and in these things justification is everything. One thing is to steal an idea and make something out of it greater then what you took, another to persist in a mistake to have control. Edison insistence on direct current misinforming the masses and trashing competition is not good justification. Big ego, lots of exploitation, stealing ideas, no scruples whatsoever, and an obsession with "bling bling", are all signs of a lesser mind. Still no one is denying Edison importance here...It just is far from being what I once thought of him.

I see Science as an aspect of philosophy. While it is necessary for the advancement of our engineering goals (space travel, medical cures, etc. etc.), it is quintessentially the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake or the satisfaction of curiosity.
At the same time knowledge that makes no difference violates my pragmatism values. But I insist that knowledge or the dispassionate answering of "passionate" questions is also an important raison d'etre of philosophy, perhaps a form of serious recreation.

Here's a thought...perhaps assuming that "prediction and control..concept[s] of future states" is anthropomorphic, is anthropomorphic-?

Bravo transcendence!

*raspberry*

That was a playful raspberry, btw.

Astrology, alchemy, and creationism are examples of 'fake sciences.'