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On June 09 2026 00:11 Silvanel wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2026 23:08 oBlade wrote:On June 08 2026 22:34 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 21:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:58 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory I have read (in full) most of the books quoted in that wiki article and even some quoted articles. That topic is much more complicated than you think. In essence, I am of the position that a theory of science should describe activities that scientists actually do, not some abstract, imaginary version of it. You also didn't answer my question regarding Steady-state theory - do You belive it to be a scientific theory or not? You ignored my questions about all 4 of your previously mentioned hypotheses, and now you want my take on an outdated model of the universe's formation that has since been replaced by big bang cosmology? Okay, fine: No I don't believe in a steady state, and it's not a scientific theory either. It's the 5th hypothesis you've brought up, and it's one that's already been disproven. I didn't ask you if you believe in steady-state. I asked you if you believe that this theory is/was scientific. And that's where we differ. Because I (and all physicists I know) believe Steady-state is/was scientific theory. It's just a really shitty one and one that was proven false long ago. Still, it has most of the markings of well defined theory. It made some predictions which was later tested and proven to be false. And I am ignoring most of what You write because it is just bollocks. Your understanding of the topic being discussed is superficial at best. On June 08 2026 21:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:58 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory I have read (in full) most of the books quoted in that wiki article and even some quoted articles. That topic is much more complicated than you think. In essence, I am of the position that a theory of science should describe activities that scientists actually do, not some abstract, imaginary version of it. You also didn't answer my question regarding Steady-state theory - do You belive it to be a scientific theory or not? Also, your use of the phrase "theory of science" is not the same as a scientific theory like evolutionary, big bang, germ, atomic, gravitational, and plate tectonics. "Theory of science" is more akin to how we believe science / scientists should generally operate, which I agree with you includes things "that scientists actually do" (methodological naturalism and the scientific method/process come to mind). I think it's important for you to straighten out theory/hypothesis vs. scientific theory vs. mathematical theorem first though, before throwing out another similarly-sounding phrase like "theory of science". Of course it is not the same.... Theory of science is a theory of how science is conducted as a human activity. How people produce scientific theories is one area of the theory of science... On June 08 2026 22:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:36 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. I don't have a theory of scientific theory. I don't have my own definition of it either. You're the one who listed 4 hypotheses, incorrectly asserted that they're all scientific theories, and then used that as evidence to try and knock actual scientific theories. That word "scientific" in front of "theory" doesn't just mean that a scientist proposed a colloquial hypothesis/theory. The hypothesis needs to go through an incredibly rigorous scientific process which often takes decades - falsifiability, empirical backing, explanatory ability, predictive ability, peer-review, etc. - to be elevated to the gold status of a scientific theory. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory Many people, including myself, went into detail on how colloquial usage of theory/hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. I will write more about it below in this post, too: On June 08 2026 18:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 08 2026 17:14 Uldridge wrote:
If I recall correctly, string theory is considered not all that highly in the particle physics comnunity. It was massively megaphoned by Michio Kaku. It was hugely popular in the 90s because it seemed to solve so many problems in such an elegant manner, but in the last decade it has increasingly seemed that it is an impasse. It’s never been verified experimentally, and is in a way unfalsifiable, as you can always tweak it towards higher energies when a result comes negative. You can’t say it’s totally dead, but I think the moment none of the particles predicted by supersymetry appeared at the LHC, the theory was on life support. I don’t think Michio Kaku matters one bit. He is just a sensationalist communicator at that point. And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with scientists positing hypotheses! They do it all the time, and they need to do that. They make observations and have ideas, and while most of those hypotheses end up going nowhere, once in a while they gain some traction. And then maybe a smaller subset of those end up having mathematical backing. And then maybe an even smaller subset ends up being falsifiable. And then maybe an even smaller smaller subset ends up being empirically supported. And then maybe an even smaller smaller smaller subset ends up passing peer review and reaching a consensus. And so on and so forth, until maybe an original hypothesis has been molded and reexamined and modified again to one day become a scientific theory, but there are so many vital steps in between. Silvanel isn't the only person to think that a hypothesis is a scientific theory, just because the hypothesis was proposed by a scientist. Vivax isn't the only person to think that a supernatural explanation is as reliable as a scientific theory. There are millions of people who make these errors, which are often reasonable ones to make - especially when there is confusing terminology. Ironically, oBlade of all people recently mentioned the Creationism vs. Evolution debate that has been going on in many high school science classrooms for decades (sometimes it's called "teach the controversy" - as if there is an actual controversy in biology about whether evolution is true and about whether we should teach Biblical alternatives as science - and nowadays Creationism is often repackaged as Intelligent Design). That's another example of Unfalsifiable-Non-Science vs. Top-Tier-Scientific-Theory that too many people incorrectly assume are Reasonable Explanation 1 vs. Reasonable Explanation 2. I think scientists and science educators need to do a better job of communicating (and I think laypeople need to do a better job of learning how to accurately Google and fact-check things). That ship has sailed. If it's not legislated so that AI responses need to be factually correct by design, we are screwed. At the moment the most we are going to get is "a controversy flag", which is the weaselly way of doing this. Yeah, I fear that things will only get worse in terms of tech literacy and the ability to research / vet things, with the assumption that accessible AI will always be correct. On June 08 2026 20:33 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 20:12 Manit0u wrote:On June 08 2026 19:58 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory In essence, I am of the position that a theory of science should describe activities that scientists actually do, not some abstract, imaginary version of it. For stuff that's not really measurable or is more out there you always have philosophy. Even if you can't apply strict scientific method you still need to be able to argue your case among your peers. Physics, especially cosmology and some fundamental questions about quantum mechanics and its relation to space and gravity, is anyway borderline philosophy. I mean: is bells theorem science? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theoremI would say it is, is what science should be about. But for DPB is not, because it is not really falsifiable (as it relies on so many debated assumptions and philosophical positions). I mean You can test it in a lab, but many people do not actually agree on what even is tested in that case... This isn't my opinion, and I don't make the rules. Scientific theories need to be falsifiable. Full stop. This is what I am trying to explain to You. In reality, many theories considered scientific are not really falsifiable. With string theory being the prime example. While DPB is trivially right that a scientific theory isn't just a "hypothesis," it's not simply true that actually in science theory is somehow just the opposite of hypothesis (i.e., a proven thing). Your philosophy of science point is going over heads. A hypothesis is quite a limited claim, whereas a theory is a framework that has scope to it. Whether that leans more mathematical, bigger scales, smaller scales, all scales, more experimental, etc. It's something that "makes predictions" in the sense that you can ask the framework questions and it produces answers. It explains hopefully both things we know and things we can find out. That's why steady state was/is a theory, like galactocentrism was/is a theory. Theories can just fall out of vogue or no longer extant... even entirely disproven/invalidated. String theory is at least testable in theory (hurr) even if the hackish advocates of it will never take the increasingly higher energy levels it inhabits as evidence against it. What you bring up reminds me as an aside of something I cringed at Krauss saying once. He said something like "Doctors aren't actually scientists, what they're doing isn't science." His idea was something like doctors are trained monkeys following a script written by someone else. I found it obnoxious because especially these days there's almost no single person who does every aspect of the scientific process. Take Krauss himself. All theory, no action. Whereas doctors are involved in designing and CARRYING OUT clinical trials. They regularly employ the abductive reasoning that the scientific method uses to generate hypotheses. They collect and analyze data. They interpret results when they read journals and weigh what to do for patients. Someone whose job for tax purposes is "scientist" may in fact spend years and years doing essentially nothing that goes nowhere, whereas someone who in their whole life works odd jobs to support their family but makes but one important breakthrough is "more" of a "scientist" for our ethereal purposes. Kind of like that guy who rejected the Clay medal and Fields medal is more of a "mathematician" than someone kicking a can down the road for 30 years lecturing and going to every math conference every weekend. Not that any of Krauss or mathematicians or doctors are better or less of a person than the others. Except Krauss for his ivory tower comment. Medicine really is an interesting topic. Personally, I am of the opinion that when you do research/trials, etc. You do science, but if you only practice is more akin to doing engineering --> it is more like applying already understood principles in practice. Is it science? I have no problem either way. For some it might be, for some it might not. Regarding the Grigorij Perelman (I assume that's who you mean), I would definitely call him a scientist. When I am talking about the practice of doing science I do not mean administrative work, or filing for grants or anything like that. I just want to stress there is much more to science than simply formulating theories and testing them. There is speculation, discussion, brainstorming. Theories do mature over time and often are not testable from the get-go. Sometimes it takes years. I also do not believe that a well-defined theory stops being scientific when it is proven false. Take this thought experiment: Let's imagine that tomorrow they discover the supersymmetry at LHC. Does it mean that some parts of standard model suddenly become non-science and some variant of string theory suddenly becomes science? I think that is a ridiculous take. It is either science or it is not, regardless of result of experiment. It is the method that matters.
If I were to paraphrase this argument in as few words as possible, it goes like this:
--
Vivax : religions have as much proof as scientific theories, such as the big bang.
DPB : Scientific Theories™ are actually a name for robust, largely 'proven' falsifiable and tested theories. The big bang has a lot more grounded support than religions.
Silvanel : String theory isn't falsifiable but the people who worked on it are still scientists
DPB : Yes but String Theory isn't a Scientific Theory™ (Note he doesn't say it isn't science)
Silvanel : What about Bell's Theorem? Are the people who worked on it not scientists? Is/was Bell's Theorem not science?
--
Hopefully you can see my point. I don't believe DPB is trying to gatekeep what is/isn't science, he was simply trying to communicate that stating there's equal reason (scientifically) to believe a religion as there is a Scientific Theory™ is foolish.
I don't think you two would disagree much on what constitutes 'real science' or 'real scientists', and I wouldn't be surprised if DPB would defer to your judgement in many of those cases. I just don't think that's ever what DPB was trying to argue.
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Yeah, I believe so too. I am definitely not advocating that creationism is proper science or that it is better or similar to the theory of evolution. I just have a much more nuanced (some might say murky) view of what scientific theory actually is and how it comes to life. I used to believe similar things to DPB but as I learned more about cosmology, GR and fundamental problems of quantum mechanics, I moved to a more sophisticated position.
FFS I hate string theory with a passion. It pains me to say that, but I now believe it is a scientific theory (a lousy one, but still..).
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On June 09 2026 02:27 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2026 00:11 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 23:08 oBlade wrote:On June 08 2026 22:34 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 21:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:58 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory I have read (in full) most of the books quoted in that wiki article and even some quoted articles. That topic is much more complicated than you think. In essence, I am of the position that a theory of science should describe activities that scientists actually do, not some abstract, imaginary version of it. You also didn't answer my question regarding Steady-state theory - do You belive it to be a scientific theory or not? You ignored my questions about all 4 of your previously mentioned hypotheses, and now you want my take on an outdated model of the universe's formation that has since been replaced by big bang cosmology? Okay, fine: No I don't believe in a steady state, and it's not a scientific theory either. It's the 5th hypothesis you've brought up, and it's one that's already been disproven. I didn't ask you if you believe in steady-state. I asked you if you believe that this theory is/was scientific. And that's where we differ. Because I (and all physicists I know) believe Steady-state is/was scientific theory. It's just a really shitty one and one that was proven false long ago. Still, it has most of the markings of well defined theory. It made some predictions which was later tested and proven to be false. And I am ignoring most of what You write because it is just bollocks. Your understanding of the topic being discussed is superficial at best. On June 08 2026 21:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:58 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory I have read (in full) most of the books quoted in that wiki article and even some quoted articles. That topic is much more complicated than you think. In essence, I am of the position that a theory of science should describe activities that scientists actually do, not some abstract, imaginary version of it. You also didn't answer my question regarding Steady-state theory - do You belive it to be a scientific theory or not? Also, your use of the phrase "theory of science" is not the same as a scientific theory like evolutionary, big bang, germ, atomic, gravitational, and plate tectonics. "Theory of science" is more akin to how we believe science / scientists should generally operate, which I agree with you includes things "that scientists actually do" (methodological naturalism and the scientific method/process come to mind). I think it's important for you to straighten out theory/hypothesis vs. scientific theory vs. mathematical theorem first though, before throwing out another similarly-sounding phrase like "theory of science". Of course it is not the same.... Theory of science is a theory of how science is conducted as a human activity. How people produce scientific theories is one area of the theory of science... On June 08 2026 22:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:36 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. I don't have a theory of scientific theory. I don't have my own definition of it either. You're the one who listed 4 hypotheses, incorrectly asserted that they're all scientific theories, and then used that as evidence to try and knock actual scientific theories. That word "scientific" in front of "theory" doesn't just mean that a scientist proposed a colloquial hypothesis/theory. The hypothesis needs to go through an incredibly rigorous scientific process which often takes decades - falsifiability, empirical backing, explanatory ability, predictive ability, peer-review, etc. - to be elevated to the gold status of a scientific theory. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory Many people, including myself, went into detail on how colloquial usage of theory/hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. I will write more about it below in this post, too: On June 08 2026 18:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 08 2026 17:14 Uldridge wrote:
If I recall correctly, string theory is considered not all that highly in the particle physics comnunity. It was massively megaphoned by Michio Kaku. It was hugely popular in the 90s because it seemed to solve so many problems in such an elegant manner, but in the last decade it has increasingly seemed that it is an impasse. It’s never been verified experimentally, and is in a way unfalsifiable, as you can always tweak it towards higher energies when a result comes negative. You can’t say it’s totally dead, but I think the moment none of the particles predicted by supersymetry appeared at the LHC, the theory was on life support. I don’t think Michio Kaku matters one bit. He is just a sensationalist communicator at that point. And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with scientists positing hypotheses! They do it all the time, and they need to do that. They make observations and have ideas, and while most of those hypotheses end up going nowhere, once in a while they gain some traction. And then maybe a smaller subset of those end up having mathematical backing. And then maybe an even smaller subset ends up being falsifiable. And then maybe an even smaller smaller subset ends up being empirically supported. And then maybe an even smaller smaller smaller subset ends up passing peer review and reaching a consensus. And so on and so forth, until maybe an original hypothesis has been molded and reexamined and modified again to one day become a scientific theory, but there are so many vital steps in between. Silvanel isn't the only person to think that a hypothesis is a scientific theory, just because the hypothesis was proposed by a scientist. Vivax isn't the only person to think that a supernatural explanation is as reliable as a scientific theory. There are millions of people who make these errors, which are often reasonable ones to make - especially when there is confusing terminology. Ironically, oBlade of all people recently mentioned the Creationism vs. Evolution debate that has been going on in many high school science classrooms for decades (sometimes it's called "teach the controversy" - as if there is an actual controversy in biology about whether evolution is true and about whether we should teach Biblical alternatives as science - and nowadays Creationism is often repackaged as Intelligent Design). That's another example of Unfalsifiable-Non-Science vs. Top-Tier-Scientific-Theory that too many people incorrectly assume are Reasonable Explanation 1 vs. Reasonable Explanation 2. I think scientists and science educators need to do a better job of communicating (and I think laypeople need to do a better job of learning how to accurately Google and fact-check things). That ship has sailed. If it's not legislated so that AI responses need to be factually correct by design, we are screwed. At the moment the most we are going to get is "a controversy flag", which is the weaselly way of doing this. Yeah, I fear that things will only get worse in terms of tech literacy and the ability to research / vet things, with the assumption that accessible AI will always be correct. On June 08 2026 20:33 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 20:12 Manit0u wrote:On June 08 2026 19:58 Silvanel wrote:On June 08 2026 19:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 08 2026 19:07 Silvanel wrote:
The problem is that your "theory of scientific theory" is not actually describing reality. But some abstract, non-existing world. In practice:
- People use the word "theory" differently depending on circumstances.
- People practice science differently.
- Use words like "theory", "hypthoesis", "model" and so on often interchangeably and not in precise ways.
I am of the opinion that theory of science should describe activities considered to be science by society. Not some arbitrary subset of it. Otherwise we end in a world in which Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind are not actually scientists (because they spent most of their life working on String Theory, which is not falsifiable). And that I find to be absurd. Please read this for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory In essence, I am of the position that a theory of science should describe activities that scientists actually do, not some abstract, imaginary version of it. For stuff that's not really measurable or is more out there you always have philosophy. Even if you can't apply strict scientific method you still need to be able to argue your case among your peers. Physics, especially cosmology and some fundamental questions about quantum mechanics and its relation to space and gravity, is anyway borderline philosophy. I mean: is bells theorem science? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theoremI would say it is, is what science should be about. But for DPB is not, because it is not really falsifiable (as it relies on so many debated assumptions and philosophical positions). I mean You can test it in a lab, but many people do not actually agree on what even is tested in that case... This isn't my opinion, and I don't make the rules. Scientific theories need to be falsifiable. Full stop. This is what I am trying to explain to You. In reality, many theories considered scientific are not really falsifiable. With string theory being the prime example. While DPB is trivially right that a scientific theory isn't just a "hypothesis," it's not simply true that actually in science theory is somehow just the opposite of hypothesis (i.e., a proven thing). Your philosophy of science point is going over heads. A hypothesis is quite a limited claim, whereas a theory is a framework that has scope to it. Whether that leans more mathematical, bigger scales, smaller scales, all scales, more experimental, etc. It's something that "makes predictions" in the sense that you can ask the framework questions and it produces answers. It explains hopefully both things we know and things we can find out. That's why steady state was/is a theory, like galactocentrism was/is a theory. Theories can just fall out of vogue or no longer extant... even entirely disproven/invalidated. String theory is at least testable in theory (hurr) even if the hackish advocates of it will never take the increasingly higher energy levels it inhabits as evidence against it. What you bring up reminds me as an aside of something I cringed at Krauss saying once. He said something like "Doctors aren't actually scientists, what they're doing isn't science." His idea was something like doctors are trained monkeys following a script written by someone else. I found it obnoxious because especially these days there's almost no single person who does every aspect of the scientific process. Take Krauss himself. All theory, no action. Whereas doctors are involved in designing and CARRYING OUT clinical trials. They regularly employ the abductive reasoning that the scientific method uses to generate hypotheses. They collect and analyze data. They interpret results when they read journals and weigh what to do for patients. Someone whose job for tax purposes is "scientist" may in fact spend years and years doing essentially nothing that goes nowhere, whereas someone who in their whole life works odd jobs to support their family but makes but one important breakthrough is "more" of a "scientist" for our ethereal purposes. Kind of like that guy who rejected the Clay medal and Fields medal is more of a "mathematician" than someone kicking a can down the road for 30 years lecturing and going to every math conference every weekend. Not that any of Krauss or mathematicians or doctors are better or less of a person than the others. Except Krauss for his ivory tower comment. Medicine really is an interesting topic. Personally, I am of the opinion that when you do research/trials, etc. You do science, but if you only practice is more akin to doing engineering --> it is more like applying already understood principles in practice. Is it science? I have no problem either way. For some it might be, for some it might not. Regarding the Grigorij Perelman (I assume that's who you mean), I would definitely call him a scientist. When I am talking about the practice of doing science I do not mean administrative work, or filing for grants or anything like that. I just want to stress there is much more to science than simply formulating theories and testing them. There is speculation, discussion, brainstorming. Theories do mature over time and often are not testable from the get-go. Sometimes it takes years. I also do not believe that a well-defined theory stops being scientific when it is proven false. Take this thought experiment: Let's imagine that tomorrow they discover the supersymmetry at LHC. Does it mean that some parts of standard model suddenly become non-science and some variant of string theory suddenly becomes science? I think that is a ridiculous take. It is either science or it is not, regardless of result of experiment. It is the method that matters. If I were to paraphrase this argument in as few words as possible, it goes like this: -- Vivax : religions have as much proof as scientific theories, such as the big bang.DPB : Scientific Theories™ are actually a name for robust, largely 'proven' falsifiable and tested theories. The big bang has a lot more grounded support than religions. Silvanel : String theory isn't falsifiable but the people who worked on it are still scientists DPB : Yes but String Theory isn't a Scientific Theory™ (Note he doesn't say it isn't science) Silvanel : What about Bell's Theorem? Are the people who worked on it not scientists? Is/was Bell's Theorem not science? -- Hopefully you can see my point. I don't believe DPB is trying to gatekeep what is/isn't science, he was simply trying to communicate that stating there's equal reason (scientifically) to believe a religion as there is a Scientific Theory™ is foolish. I don't think you two would disagree much on what constitutes 'real science' or 'real scientists', and I wouldn't be surprised if DPB would defer to your judgement in many of those cases. I just don't think that's ever what DPB was trying to argue.
That's a weird way to frame what I said. But I feel like you're doing it on purpose to do a little trolling.
I take it that religions can be taken as guidelines on how to live properly based on ancient wisdom with lore attached.
When they saw that people with too many partners got illnesses when condoms weren't a thing they promoted monogamy etc. because they didn't know about microorganisms or viruses.
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