Re: Making money from Java

In article <5Hhof.166802$yS6.142470@clgrps12>,
Oliver Wong <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
><docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dnqmpo$dhu$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Psychology used to be classed as a 'soft science', along with
>> anthropology, sociology and the like... I was taught that disciplines
>> which could not have a 'control' in their experiments were 'soft
>> sciences'. After all... what would be the 'control' for the experiment of
>> an individual life?
>
> I don't have a formal, rigorous definition of "science", but I believe
>that any body of knowledge that has the label of "science" should have been
>primarily (if not exclusive) developed via the "scientific process"; that
>is, objective observations made via experiments which are independently
>verifiable.

Ow... close to tautology there, Mr Wong, that '(a) "science should have
been... developed via the "scientific process"' (" original); good thing
that final clause was included. A bit of clipping brings about '(a)
"science" should have been... developed via... objective observations made
via experiments which are independly verifiable' or, in shorthand, 'the
hallmark of a science is reproducibility of results'.

('hallmark' here being used in the sense of 'distinguishing
characteristic, trait or feature' (http://www.m-w.com))

>
> If someone says "I have a theory about how electrons work, and I came
>about this theory because I did such and such experiment and arrived at
>these results", someone else, on the other side of the world, reading about
>it over the Internet, should be able to say "Let me try the same experiment
>and see if I arrive at the same results".
>
> Most of psychology, anthropology, etc. does not fall under this
>definition, but psychologist, anthropologists, etc. sometimes get touchy if
>you try to tell them what they are doing is not "real" science.

That might be because human beings - the objects of study for the 'soft
sciences - are not electrons. On the other hand psychologists can say
'given a certain set of behaviors it has been found that, in a number of
instances, they can be changed if...'

The difficulty, as noted above, lies in finding a control (in the sense of
'an experiment in which the subjects are treated as in a parallel
experiment except for omission of the procedure or agent under test and
which is used as a standard of comparison in judging experimental effects'
(http://www.m-w.com)) for the circumstances of an individual person.

DD

.

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