The problems with science

1) Are you saying that Catholics weren't philosophers? The idea that Galileo got into trouble for believing was believed by Arisotle... it was the idea that the Earth was fixed in the center of the Universe. The inquisitors were upholding philosophical ideas.

2) My point is that you don't need to be a philosopher to be a scientist. In fact, many brilliant, successful and highly innovative scientists, for example Feynman and Hawking, strongly reject any usefulness of philosophy.

Sure, some great scientists in history were both philosophers and scientists. Descartes and Newton are examples of this. Newton's philosophy took him to some very odd places... but obviously it didn't prevent him from having a revolutionary impact on science.

You don't need philosophy to be a great scientist, and sometimes philosophers have been strongly anti-science.

Hey Fil. Thanks for your help. Sometimes in these discussions I feel a bit alone. Good to see others get it too.

And my point is that these scientists who scorn philosophy are in fact inconsciously doing philosophy. After all, the point that philosophy is useless to science cannot be tested empirically. It is therefore not scientific.

Even as recently as the early 19th century, the terms scientist and philosopher were used interchangeably in the English language. That is a bootless discussion.

So anyone can do philosophy without even trying? That makes the term "philosophy" pretty much meaningless.

People doing science don't need to study philosophy, read philosophy or care about philosophy. I suppose if they do philosophy by accident, it won't hurt anything.

Did ya ever notice that the Sciences dont need a bunch of YouTubes and donor posters to have people understand its " societal need"??.

Why are these philosophy majors out there hawking their wares?? Tired of saying "You want Grande or Vente"?

Newton was allso an alchemist. He was always busy searching for the philosopher's stone.

...you must be joking right Farma? The importance of Science is of major concern in every social media these days and rightfully so given how stupid the average Joe goes about it...

I believe I escribed the conditions that define the Casimir effect. I may have assumed that youd go further and rad and take up the surface condition for dissociation ON MARS (which where the discussion was focusing upon).
AS far as the Neanderthal genes , you were the one who was coming off as a pure Darwinian (One of Darwins mistakes was where he, without understanding anything re: genetics, felt that a inherited trait would be "gone in several generations if the trait qwre not renwed "

We know differently now dont we. The argument that Neanderthal genes were significant in a number of human genomes shouldnt be a surprise AS the genes and single nucleotides remain in the daughter genomes unless their whole line goes extinct.

There are professional philosophers, and there's the rest of us who do philosophy as part of our lives and normal thinking process. It may be conscious or unconscious but we all do philosophy. I think this makes it more meaningful than just a job.

As for what the word "philosophy" means... that could be a non-productive discussion. You will agree that semantics are a treacherous field. I am happy to go by the ethymology of "the love of wisdom", but your way of defining it (asking "the big questions") works too.


As I said already, science cannot function well without a certain ethic involving respect for facts anf for other scientists' results. This ethic is not just pragmatic ("what works for science"), it is also grounded in philosophy of knowledge, aka epistemology.

Of course, some scientists are unethical. Sometimes it works for their career, sometimes it doesn't, but this is not to say there's no ethic in science.

Science also assumes a certain universality of knowledge, which is a philosophical principle in that it underpins science but cannot be proven empirically. (Mathematics are supposed to be universal, and replication of experimental results is a key test of truth in science: if you do an experiment in the US and i do the exact same experiment in Europe, the results should be the same, otherwise there's something fishy somewhere)

More personnaly, sometimes it does hurt to be unconscious of your own philosophical beliefs, because these frame how one sees the world, they filter your observations and influence your interpretation. It's important to realize that, I think, in order to guard somewhat against one's own biases. In other words it usefully humbling to soul search a bit. Hubris is never a wise thing to have, not even for a scientist.

The irony of this Feynman lecture...

Unless you decide to argue in good faith, I'm not interested.

Did you listen to that Video Fil.

1) I agree with it completely.
2) I don't think it says what you think it says (maybe you were just googling for the title).

ah ha ha ha , I got the same feeling he was shopping for titles and passing on content .

You have just explained the difference between philosophers and scientists

He's speaking of the philosophical ideas involved in any scientific theory.

I watch all the videos that I post without exception.
The irony is in the use of the wording Philosophy as he goes...

OLIVIER___excellent choice of divertimentii , sorta like, "do you still drink in excess?".
Youve got an evil streak , know that?