“Unscientific” only according to YOU.
Well, no - not only according to me - but the number of people who recognize/claim it is irrelevant to the point. It is by definition that we determine what is scientific and what is not (not arbitration or "democracy"/consensus). As I said, one cannot hope to discuss, evaluate, or practice science if their definifions are wrong (as most are, due to miseducation).
Your language gives away your bias. Not very scientific.
People make poor scientists! You misunderstand me though. The verbiage I chose is to (attempt to, clearly) convey the reality. Humans are subjective and belief based creatures. We can't seem to help it, and it appears biological / a part of our design. One of the reasons we don't allow zeus or god or fairies into scientific theory is because it turns science into mythology. The same is true of fields. If an emperical scientist proposes that a field (or zeus, or fairies) is real - they need to get to work figuring out what it is comprised of (and measuring that!) and how it interacts with other matter. It is unscientific (which is to say, mythological) to propose non-real things as a cause in science. Again, this is by definition!
The universe doesn’t care what you personally find “acceptable”.
Exactly! (Though I encourage you to check out norm mcdonalds response to this quip from ndt). The universe doesn't care that we believe there are "fields" in reality. It doesn't care if our equations are useful for us, and doesn't notice when we (inevitably, historically) recognize they are wrong. It doesn't force us to make scientific progress or study science at all. In order to study science, and recognize what is scientific and what is not requires the proper definitions which the vast majority do not have.
Still somewhat unknown, but measurable effects of gravity are very much known.
We're not there yet, you're getting ahead of yourself. How can we discuss effects if our cause is non-real? I can argue that god is the cause (as newton did), and it is a defensible position in many ways but it isn't science. I am not sharing an opinion with you, though it may take some time to recognize that!
Only Flat Earthers and sometimes Geocentrists have a problem with it.
As I said, every physicist worth their salt has known that "gravitation" is unscientific and philosophically unsound. Many of them learn it by studying newton, who is forthright about that fact. Others recognize it by studying the scientific method (aka science)
Yeah, evidence and those constructing and testing theories to fit the evidence.
That isn't what happened, and isn't the scientific method. You can't propose a non-real entity in a hypothesis - this is a critical difference that separates science from mythology.
Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of nature. I doubt you could find a single physicist who disputes this.
Lol, or it was before it wasn't a force anymore! Don't take my word for anything. Do some research, or don't - up to you.
Mainly the part about relativity being devised because Newton was “unscientific”. When did Einstein ever say that?
He said it many ways, but I am not sure they ever used that particular verbiage. It is not very cool for a physicist to go kicking dead phycisists in their graves, and professional courtesy calls for you to "massage"/sugar-coat that at least a little bit. The issues with gravitation are long standing, and part of any adequate training in physics.
The scientific method is a general set of principles
Nope. It's a technical process for conducting science. It can also be used to discern science from pseudoscience/mythology/religion masquerading as it! It is true that there are many fringes/caveats, but the bones are the same since bacon.
If you’re going to appeal to strict definitions, you probably shouldn’t be adding clauses yourself.
The definition is a personal working definition, and ought to suffice for the discussion unless you have some issue with it. Do you disagree that natural law is a part of science? I make a caveat for it, but we could declare it merely "empericism" and not science (the scientific method) if you wish.
Except Einstein used the word to describe something very different from Aether theories of light.
Why do you think that? He was using a word that had a known meaning among physicists at the time, and in at least one speech/lecture is explaining explicitly that aether and relativistic "space time" must be the same thing. He said it many other ways too, confirming what he meant by it.
Where is the part of the scientific method that rules out answers that don’t make sense to you?
It isn't about "making sense", it's about being real. You cannot claim that a non-real thing is acted upon or causes action upon anything manifestly real. It is anathema to all physics, and philosophically unsound.
Many, if not most things in reality don't "make sense". The truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is obliged to possibilities.
There are many areas of scientific research where controlled lab experiments aren’t possible or practical.
True. The lab merely makes (or is hoped to) control and seperation of variables more easy. You can absolutely do experiments outside of a stuffy lab.
You would dismiss entire fields of study as “unscientific” because of the exact wording Francis Bacon used centuries ago?
I would dismiss mythology masquerading as science, yes. We all should! However, I would never advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
It never seems to be actual scientists banging on about scientific method, just people who want to reject things they don’t like.
Don't forget the meta-scientists (philosophers mostly), like karl popper and many others! Practicing scientists today are largely too busy trying to scrape a crust together than to study the skeleton or history of their disciplines.
It’s observation/measurement to test a hypothesis.
Again, by definition, this is incorrect. The ONLY test of hypothesis in science is done by experiment. There are no exceptions.
Models have a place in the process, both to describe a hypothesis to be tested and all to describe what’s already been scientifically determined.
Roughly consistent with what I said. They are useful (and depending on your personal conception, potentially necessary) in the hypothesis generation step. Other than that, they are tools for specific use. If they are useful, use them! But don't delude yourself into thinking that useful means correct or that models are a part of science/the scientific method (beyond what was just discussed).
Oh really? And you have evidence for that do you? To contrast with the mountains of scientific evidence that they are just what we are taught.
There is no "scientific evidence", except the provisional proof gained from experiment; and that is best characterized as knowledge/scientific knowledge. In the caveat of natural law (often referred to as such - "scienfitic evidence") it is merely measurement - though adding the adjective "scientific" is to convey that adequate rigor and repetition has been applied to the measurements. No amount of mere measurement will ever help you prove what is going on in reality - for that you need experiment! So says the very definition of science itself! The critical importance and requirement of experiment in science cannot be overstated.
There’s a vast body of experimentally determined knowledge about magnets, gravity and gas pressure spanning hundreds of years and countless experiments that Scepti’s explanations directly contradict.
Ok, share one you have in mind! From where I'm sitting, there is only "empty space" in the current view and nothing scepti is suggesting conflicts with the lack thereof (how could it?).
Or you haven’t looked or choose to ignore the data. There’s plenty of data to show the earth can only be a globe.
So we are taught, yes. Looking deeper into that data, you will find the problems with it (or much more commonly, you never will - because you'll never check and IF you do you will likely do so under extreme bias; a mere "debunker" allied with abject appeal to authority)
Archimedes disagreed when he said “ The surface of any fluid at rest is the surface of a sphere whose center is the same as that of the earth.”
I doubt they ever said this. However, this is another reason idolatry (aka credential worship) is to be avoided. Every claim needs to be validated thoroughly, regardless of source. Everybody makes mistakes, and we are all products of our upbringing.
That was over 2000 years ago.
Perhaps we can forgive the blunder more readily then as a result?
It is not, and has never been a law.
The wonderful thing about natural law (and science), is it is demonstrable! We can verify and validate this law today as they did hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago! What we can't do, and have never done, is refute it! That's why it's still a natural law today!!! The only way to refute natural law is to measure water's surface doing something differently (repeatedly and rigorously). I am certain that you will be surprised if you ever bother to do it!
the horizon drop.
The horizon drop doesn't measure the shape of the world, obviously. To measure the shape of the world - you have to DO that!
Say what? It’s specifically the lack of observable drag that made them reason it was non interacting.
Right, by which they concluded that it must be weakly interacting. The inertial resistance to change in motion could fit well with a weakly interacting fluid which interacts more with increasing density. Highly theoretical speculation, I agree.
This makes no sense at all.
When we don't understand, the best way to move forward is to ask questions!
Did you have a particularly shit science education?
Most certainly! We most all did. Very few of us ever become actual scientists, and this is one of the many reasons that they don't bother teaching it properly at the lower levels (below grad school typically). It's also the reason for widespread/ubiquitous scientific illiteracy.
Interesting that you support this. As far as I can tell, it’s entirely hypothetical and model based. No experiments have been carried out. So isn’t it “unscientific”?
Until verified/validated by rigorous and repeated experiment, yes. But in terms of generating hypothesis, imagination, and proposing something philosophically sound and physical/emperical for something that isn't (the "field") is a major step back towards science for physics at large. We won't escape the cul-de-sac of theory and (endless) discussion/mathematical analysis without experimentalism taking the reins once more. I am not a rational positivist, and I like poetry and imagination.
Interesting use of a Einstein quote as at the time he was suggesting that the universe should be causally deterministic. ie that with enough information about prior states, you could predict everything with equations.
Sort of (it certainly isn't NOT that). It's really more a criticism of the quantumnists and their religious ideologies/philosophies. Shrodinger was the best at that though.
Wavelike properties does not equal being a wave, and certainly not like other waves you want to compare to.
It's an exception, and one no doubt ingrained in you. What has wavelike properties but is not a wave? Is this a riddle?
For practical purposes it can be useful to treat it as one or the other though depending on the situation.
Right, but when the equations are more real (to you) than the reality you hope to understand is when you are truly lost. Useful conceptions are not correct, as you just explained in other words.
It’s a hypothesis, and one that no one has been able to verify. Many have tried and so far all have failed.
In order to experimentally validate the hypothesis (and for the hypothesis to be "valid" depending on specific criteria used to determine that) we must be able to measure and manipulate aether. It is tricky to do so, but there are those that conclude we have already done so in a variety of ways (misattributed to other things currently). It largely has to do with interpretation of evidence (and experiment), rather than the data itself.
I didn’t mention accolades or pedigree
No, you merely meant it - unless you are saying that "those who fully understand the subject" can be anyone at all (credential-less). I doubt you honestly meant that, but I hope you did!
Laypeople reading fringe science blogs written by other laypeople is nearly enough.
And there it is! Laypeople who aren't in the priesthood proper (with the accolades/pedigrees to prove it) couldn't ever hope to understand - isn't that right? How dare they challenge the priesthood! "They are not fit to judge the mighty art which I hath wrought."
Literally everything
I find that "literally everything" and "nothing" have a lot in common. Let's start simple; we've gone over the vacuum bit, what's the next "irreconcilable paradox" on the list of "literally everything" to discuss?
So prediction is part of a step in the scientific method, but not a part of the scientific method?
Not really the way you are using the word. What the hypothesis really has to have is not exactly a prediction, but a proposed causal relationship between an IV and a DV. It can be interpreted that that will always be a prediction of some kind, and that is semantically sound. The prediction could be a mere guess - is every guess a prediction? If so, then I suppose I concede to your "point"?
Erm? What?
A statistician once "proved" (mathematically of course) a causal relationship between the number of steel workers in a union in one country to the number of deaths due to murder in a foreign country.
They did it to prove a point. Statistics can be (and often is) abused.
One of these abuses is in the field of science, where statistical correlation and usefulness are often mistaken for correctness/accuracy/truth/consistency with actual manifest objective reality.
In science we use experiment to determine what is consistent with reality. All the rest is poetry and imagination (as planck said).
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