Re: OT: Definition of science (WAS: Making money from Java)

In article <TOkof.1745$lv3.496@clgrps12>,
Oliver Wong <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
><docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dnscei$kiu$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> In article <5Hhof.166802$yS6.142470@clgrps12>,
>> Oliver Wong <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

>>> 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...'
>
> Yes, and if another psychologist on the other side of the word tries the
>same experiment and gets a completely different set of results, what then?

Then exactly what I described above - '...in a number of instances ...' -
is seen to happen.

>The results are not typically reproduceable, and hence, not "science" under
>my definition.

Hence the 'soft' adjective; they do their best to apply the discipline
associated in science... it just might be that the subject of study is, by
nature, incapable of producing 'typically reproducible' results.

DD

.

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