One strength : we can do it in groups.

One weakness : uses models.


What's up with the downvotes. Did I accidentally contradict a dogma?


Ok, allow me to explicitly state the popular belief that I seem to be contradicting here.

Science is perfect. It has no weaknesses.

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[+] [S] -11 points 19 hours ago (15 children)

Well surely science has both strengths and weaknesses. So gimme some. Succinctly.

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  • [–] 3 points 15 hours ago (1 child)

    You're making an [incorrect] assumption and then challenging people to prove it to you.

    Idk if this is rage bait, AI trolling, or you're trying to get people to do your debate class homework for you, but you're not gonna get anyone with any braincells to say science has weaknesses.

    You might as well be asking someone to prove to you the drawbacks of breathing. Sure, someone could twist their brain to come up with something, but any answer will be contrived to fit your inane question.

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  • [–] [S] -3 points 15 hours ago

    Well that's a lot of accusations.

    One weakness that I offered is that science deals in models. Because in the translation from observation to model there is a loss. You could address that.

    It's like talking to 12th century religious fanatics, I swear.

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  • [–] 4 points 18 hours ago (12 children)

    There's no weakness to science that isn't also a strength. Science makes no guarantees. We are always learning more about the world and what we learn can contradict the best science could do a few years ago.

    When I was a kid I was taught we would inevitably experience another ice age someday. Now science says we're headed toward runaway greenhouse effect without intervention.

    But also, when I was a kid, AIDS was a death sentence. Now we have medications that make it barely an inconvenience — as long as you can get the meds. We learned more.

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  • [–] [S] -4 points 17 hours ago (11 children)

    Name one component of science that is a weakness and also a strength, please.

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  • [–] 4 points 17 hours ago* (10 children)

    I literally just did. Are you having comprehension issues? Science is always learning and sometimes the stuff that is held as true today is overruled by later discovery.

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  • [–] [S] -2 points 17 hours ago (9 children)

    That was a product of science. A prediction crafted using the method of science.

    I'm asking for a component of science. A part from which the method of science is composed. Like peer review, experiment, use of models, etc.

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  • [–] 2 points 17 hours ago (8 children)

    I don't know what you're looking to hear, mate. Drawbacks.... a lot of idiots think they are doing science by googling shit when they don't understand science at all. That's not science's fault though, it's the idiots.

    Um... when a researcher uncovers something that runs contrary to established science, they are more likely to be met with derision then curiosity. But sometimes researchers are idiots, too, and their science is self-evidently wrong. That's why we have peer review rather than popular review.

    Basically science is nothing but upside, however the people attempting it are sometimes flawed. And disproving a hypothesis isn't celebrated enough. Finding out what you thought was so isn't is useful information.

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  • [–] [S] -3 points 17 hours ago (7 children)

    I don’t know what you’re looking to hear, mate

    I'm asking you to name one component of science that is a weakness and also a strength, Mr "reading comprehension".

    How about the loss of resolution between observation and model? The map is not the territory and such. That's a big one.

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  • [–] 2 points 17 hours ago (6 children)

    An observation is an anecdote. Unless you control for outside factors while reproducing outcomes, it's the observer who doesn't see clearly, not the model maker.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 17 hours ago (5 children)

    Well unless the observer and the model maker are one and the same, the model maker did not see at all.

    Observation is our source of evidence for our models, right? Without it we've got, what, dogma?

    Do you like dogma?

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  • [–] 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (4 children)

    Science carries on where observation leaves off. You can't observe a black hole, but you can observe the effects of one and use that to build a model that tells us more about the universe than observation alone ever could. Observation tells some people the earth is flat when anyone can circumnavigate the globe because science says observation is an illusion.

    Science looks into why one observer says cilantro tastes like soap and another says it would be great in salsa. And by going beyond simple observation it can even tell you who will think it tastes like soap without them ever tasting it.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

    Well it carries on within a system of models, a story. A very useful story that lends itself to communication and rational analysis but still, a story. This fact does not discount the utility of the story but it does indicate, as I said, a vast loss.

    You keep offering evidence in support of science but I am not attacking it. I am merely examining its limits.

    Must science really be a perfect thing for you. Can't it be just a tool, with strengths and weaknesses like any other?

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  • [–] 2 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

    Being able to predict the outcome of an event before it happens, and being able to manipulate the result by manipulating the factors contributing to the outcome is basically my definition of perfection. And science has a better track record than any other methodology.

    The results are not perfect, but it is by far and away the best tool we have. Is that "perfect"? Yeah it's close enough for me.

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