is science "socially neutral"?

We could maybe salvage something of fabian's argument if we said: we understand a "beginning" as taking place at a determinate time (it makes no sense to say we know when something begins if it did not happen at time 'X'). Therefore time having a 'beginning' is a contradiction in terms, it amounts to saying "time 'X' happened at time 'X'."

Yeah, but it's kind of like saying "a set is always a set of something, so 'an empty set' is a contradiction in terms".

No, there's a deeper conundrum than that. Our understanding of what it is to begin relies on a different sense of 'time' than the one we use when we say 'time begins.' We invoke a time that doesn't begin to measure the time that does begin. Hence, this statement is internally contradictory, or at least paradoxical.

If you're including thinkers like Lakatos, jura, I agree with you. But I'm not sure that all Communists 'realise these things', never mind the vast majority of 'practising' scientists, rather than 'philosophers of science'.

We'll know most scientists use that model when the first question they ask themselves, according to 'the scientific method', is 'What political ideology and ethics (for example) am I using to build my hypothesis?'.

Because those types of questions are implied by acceptance of that model of the 'scientific method'.

Myself, I think that an initial key question for any group of scientists should be 'To whom are we democratically accountable?'.

[edit]

Just seen this article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/postgraduate-students-are-being-used-as-slave-labour-7791509.html

Perhaps this generation of PhD students will be entirely sympathetic to the scientific notion of 'democratic accountability'!

Y'know what, andy mate, that's been said before!

Plenty of posters who don't like having their cherished ideas challenged have resorted to the 'problem personality' accusation. In turn, I think that says more about them than it does about me.

No, andy, you were rude, not 'intemperate'.

I'm not sure why, because you are someone until this thread that I thought I would've enjoyed a drink with, given your previous thoughtful posting history, which I thought reflected my inquisitive, questioning style.

I'm always trying to improve my knowledge, and I'm not sure why those who don't like my methods don't just ignore me.

Perhaps they just want me to 'concentrate' my 'attention' on them.

The internet, eh?

On to more important issues...

Hmmm...

So, it's about the 'truth' of sentences, not 'objective truth' about nature.

When science accepted nonsense about 'races', then sentences like 'blacks are inferior' were 'true' because they corresponded to the world being the way the sentence asserted it to be, according to human science.

Bollocks, of course.

'Human' knowledge is not 'objective' knowledge.

This is a grave misinterpretation of the common versions of the correspondence theory of truth. The correspondence you are talking about would be a relation between propositions ('blacks are inferior') and other propositions (what science at some particular time asserts about the world), whereas the common correspondence theories talk about a relation of 'truth-bearers' (e.g. propositions) and 'truth-makers' which are not propositions (e.g. facts, events, states of affairs in the world etc.).

I'm afraid you'll have to spell out the difference for me, jura.

Surely 'what science asserts' is to all intents and purposes for humans what constitutes 'facts, events, [and] states of affairs in the world', at any 'particular time'?

Do you need empirical evidence that time is not a bird? There are only two options- time is a bird, and time is not a bird. Likewise, time has a beggining, and time doesn't have a beggining.

Time cannot have a beggining as much as it can't have an end. Time having a beggining means that it is possible to measure time backwards to that begining, but that also means you can also measure time backwards beyond that point (as with any time point) using the same measurement you used to measure time back to it, which means that time having a beggining is nonsensical. Time is a progress of existence, and anything existing ever- in any period of time- gives us a referent point for defining a measure of time, which we can than use to measure time indefinetly into past or future, which means that time itself cannot have a beggining nor an end.

The only thing redshift proves is an increace of distance of the light source, assuming space expansion is non sequitur, also known as dialectical jump, also known as leap of faith.

It depends on it, since it implys soundness, not only validness. It can be said that logic is about thinking, but thinking is not only self contemplating, but is in majority of cases about the world.

Saying, like you did, that logic "is not concerned with states of affairs in the world" is idiotic, the Three laws of thought themselves are concerned with the state of affairs of the worlds:
"Whatever is, is."
"Nothing can both be and not be."
"Everything must either be or not be."
and with them, all of logic is.

Well, no, correspondence theories presuppose that states of affairs (sometimes called facts) are independent of what science asserts. Basically, on a correspondence theory, a proposition is true when it corresponds to a state of affairs in the world. The proposition "Blacks are inferior", presupposing it does not correspond to a real state of affairs (i.e. black people are not really inferior), will be false on a correspondence theory of truth regardless of what racists or racist scientists think or say.

The idea that redshift is only due to the Doppler effect was refuted almost a century ago.

Believe me, these supposed "three laws of thought" have nothing to do with logic, this is metaphysics. I'm afraid you are totally clueless about the discipline as it exists today. Last time this kind of stuff passed for logic was early 19th century.

But,

How can 'abstract' facts of nature be 'something' for (hu)man(s)?

I'm still not getting your point, jura.

We all know 'nature' exists independently, but correspondence theory is human, and so exists at the level of epistemology, surely?

That is, what humans know through science. Statements must correspond with what we know of nature.

andy, grow up, yer big kid. If it's your ball, go and play with it. Leave the discussion to adults.

I was referring to your critique of the correspondence theory (which, I think, you misconstrued). My last few posts bear no relation to what I said before on objectivity.

In modern official science. With redifined disciplines and first principles.

I'm more confused than ever, mate.

And I quoted your quoting of Marx, which, to me, contradicts your statement.

Please explain, because I'm inclined to follow Marx on this, unless you can enlighten me as to your point.

All this from a fellow Communist? And can't you follow what you wrote on this thread, either?

To think I'm trying to discuss the philosophy of science with you. More fool me, eh?

After quoting Callinicos, you said:

...which I took (perhaps mistakenly) as an interpretation of the correspondence theory of truth (CTT). My following posts were simply an attempt to show why that interpretation of CTT is at odds with that usually passes as CTT. I was not defending CTT, nor retracting my previous post on objectivity.

Just because you can imagine a time "before" the beginning of time doesn't mean it existed. You might as well say because we can measure the height of a mountain, and because we can carry on measuring past the top, then the mountain is infinitely tall.

Units of measurement are entirely human inventions, they have no objective reality. Projecting them past the thing they are supposed to measure makes them meaningless.

Why is it logically impossible for time to be a bird, or for space to be the inside of a giant's skull, held up by four dwarfs?

~J.

Well, I still think it is an interpretation of the correspondence theory of truth. And it shows that 'truth', even when 'corresponded to', is 'human', not 'objective', and so can change.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But I haven't been able to follow your critique. I'll leave it there for now, though.

You cannot measure that which doesn't exist. Time can me measured indefinetly into past or future. Space can be measured indefinetly in all directions.

When go beyond the top of the mountain you're no longer measuring the mountain, when you measure time beyond an imaginary point that is "the beggining" or "the end" of time, you're still measuring time.

I have said multiple times that for something to be logical it has to be sound.

Subatomic physics cannot be correct, because the atom, by definition, is the smallest unit.

Libertarian communism cannot be correct, because by definition libertarianism is not communist and communism is not libertarian.

Fabian cannot be correct, because, by definition, Fabian is incorrect. QED.

Of course you can. It's just that measuring it doesn't make it real.

If you're starting with the assumption that the beginning of time is "imaginary" then your argument is of no interest. If on the other hand time does have a beginning, then what you've just said is meaningless.

The units of measurement of a thing are not the same as the thing. The fact that it is possible to write the sentence "five minutes before the big bang" or "one million miles up Ben Nevis" or "five lightyears North of Lands End" doesn't mean that these times or places exist.

~J.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit#Appearance

HOLY SHIT

Atom is by definition the smallest unit as much as phosphorus is by definition satan.

An example?

I have shown that to start with the assumption that time has a beggining is not possible.

Those times and places do exist.

Actually, a great example, because the 'measuring' how high is a Hobbit is the same as 'measuring' when time began, cause both a Hobbit and beggining of time are not real.

My computer screen just disappeared, electrons obviously don't exist.