Please don't come in here and willingly ignore the sharp divide between the public and private spheres.

One imposition is direct, the other is indirect. If you're affecting yourself in a private and secluded way, the broader results cease to matter. Individual rights trump social troubles that might arise from exercising those rights.

Quote from: SecondClass on January 30, 2016, 01:16:32 PM

One imposition is direct, the other is indirect. If you're affecting yourself in a private and secluded way, the broader results cease to matter. Individual rights trump social troubles that might arise from exercising those rights.

This is such a meaningless way of dismissing externalities though; why should I be able to impose costs on third parties, regardless of size, simply because of my setting?

Quote from: Poopo No Pico on January 29, 2016, 07:33:23 PM

But at the time, you dismissed it as irrelevant, because, uh...

Because I came into this thread to argue an abstract idea, that:

Quote from: Cadenza on January 28, 2016, 01:04:30 PM

Quote

"Science isn't about getting as much information as possible"

I would argue that that is the only purpose of science

when you start quantifying your statements with "modern" and "eurocentric" we're no longer discussing a philosophy in general terms. You may as well have said "but on the island of whothefuckknowswherethisislandis the people there think science is about having orgies with goats" - sure that's what that specific group of people are doing on that specific island at that specific point in history, but that's not what I was talking about.

This is some grade-A semantics damage control. Thanks for that gem, Turkey.

Heaven-forbid if a website based in the western hemisphere with users in the western hemisphere talk about science by western hemisphere civilization. And heaven-forbid if I correctly answer a question that's broader than you realize.

You weren't even talking about science. You were talking about some sort of erroneous conflation of science and the scientific method. Not my fault that the very premise of your (changing) argument was flawed. It's not like we didn't try to correct you.

Let me just explain my thought process:
Yes, I did conflate science with the scientific method, it seemed obvious that the only thing you needed to do science was follow a simple procedure that produces results; the entire time I've had mathematical physics as an example in my mind, and there's no ethics involved in studying solutions to differential equations, so of course from my point of view it looks like a cut and dry question: Do you need ethics for science? no because there are cases in which no living things are involved but you're still doing science. Think axiomatically, the simplest kind of science is just the maths behind science, that's your foundation, then once you have your foundation you build it up and add new details, ethics being added when you start considering living things. But that was my point, you add the ethics afterwards, it's a correction not an axiom.

When I made the "you can confirm a hypothesis" statement the exact thought that went through my head was "I know goddamn well you can't prove a theory in science, I hope he doesn't think that's what I'm saying" and yet he goes on to do exactly that.

And as I'm trying to clarify what I mean you two start calling everything damage control. How am I meant to respond to that?
"here's what I mean"
"lol damage control"
"no really let me explain"
"daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamage control"
"It's not damage control just hear me out"
"pseudointelectual damage control"

And with my discussion with you, from my point of view you can't even read a dictionary and yet you're calling me an idiot. That looked to me like a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black, it really gives off the "everyone in the world is so stupid except for me" kind of vibe, I really hadn't a clue what to say to you after that.

This whole discussion is a mess, and I fully admit that it's my fault. I know damn well that I have a lot more to learn about science, I wouldn't have spent the last few years studying my ass off to get into University if I didn't. And I'm aware that when I get into discussions on the internet I say stupid things and mess up.

Because you and turkey have been incredibly unconvincing with every argument you've made, after all this the best you can give me is "The scientific method is one way that science is practiced. It is not science, per se." real fucking descriptive.

Even when put that way, it's still a bit wrong. Ethics also includes honesty, that you're not falsifying or skewing your data and that you're not stealing it from someone else. It's a continuous process that, out of necessity, must encompass each step of the process if it's to be followed.

I figure it's not as prominent in different fields, so there's probably a bunch of folks who don't need to consciously think about it, because it's just second nature.

There's a right way and a wrong way to go about explaining that. Uh... you chose the wrong way >.>

Alright, points taken. I apologize.


I deserve some of that blame too. I wasn't very... constructive.

Welp, that's what happens when I try to post at 1am. Here's something a little more in-depth.

I'm not even sure how this relates to the original discussion. Obviously we all understand the scientific method and the arguments of the past two pages have largely been pointless. Meta originally stated that more information leads to better decision making, as if that justifies unethical science. I responded that gathering information isn't the ultimate goal of science, and it spiraled into irrelevance.

There has yet to be a meaningful discussion about Meta's original thesis.

Cadenza: "Think axiomatically, the simplest kind of science is just the maths behind science, that's your foundation, then once you have your foundation you build it up and add new details, ethics being added when you start considering living things. But that was my point, you add the ethics afterwards, it's a correction not an axiom."


Math isn't a science, at least by typical academic standards. The idea that science has to be removed of bias and is therefore devoid of ethics is nonsense -- our justice system also strives to be impartial but is, itself, literally a system of ethics. The scientific method itself is an example of ethics applied to science.