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Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by throwawaylinux on Tuesday December 07, 2021 @08:42PM (#29480398)
They're collecting observational data, not science. I wouldn't normally be bitter about it, but the Trust The Science™ religion already has a terrible struggle with the basics so we shouldn't make it any harder for them.

My back yard rain gauge is not sciencing either.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by BoxOfRain on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @06:54AM (#29483695)
It is amazing the blatant nonsense people will believe if you dress a pig in a lab coat and call it science. There's been instances of politicians unironically calling to ban the dangerous drug 'dihydrogen monoxide' for example, the general public's understanding of the scientific method is probably far worse than most on HN think it is.

There really needs to be a term for this widespread inability to differentiate between 'the science' as in the correct application of the scientific method to arrive at empirical conclusions about the world around us and 'The Science' as in the socio-political institution of various experts and technocrats. One is a powerful tool in humanity's toolbox for getting shit done, the other is subject to all the fallibility of human social institutions - perhaps even moreso because people will blindly trust it meaning there's fewer checks on it than other social institutions. Usually people going up against 'The Science' are cranks which means there's a tendency for people to believe anyone who goes up against the status quo is a crank.

You see this in commentary about climate change, people blindly trust 'The Science' to fix everything in a glorious deus ex machina without the tiniest scrap of evidence 'The Science' even has the power do to such a thing in one fell swoop. That's not saying we shouldn't pursue efforts like geo-engineering etc but we should at least keep things in the realm of what the current scientific evidence is saying which is we need to heavily cut our emissions no matter what rather than relying entirely on speculative mega-projects.

Ultimately you should never trust anyone who claims to have a monopoly on truth or that $group or $profession has a monopoly on truth.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by hguant on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @09:33AM (#29485134)
>There really needs to be a term for this widespread inability to differentiate between 'the science' as in the correct application of the scientific method to arrive at empirical conclusions about the world around us and 'The Science' as in the socio-political institution of various experts and technocrats.

The issue is that, at least in the US, it has become politically advantageous to claim that the socio-political institution of 'The Science' has given its imprimatur to the policies they wish to enact. It's advantageous to combine the institution with the process, so why would anyone stop?

Couple that with a media environment that seems fundamentally incapable of reading beyond the headline of any scientific publication, and the proliferation of p-hacking and less then replicable studies being churned out by academics who need N articles to have a chance at tenure this decade and...you get a situation where 'The Science' is whatever a bureaucrat in a lab coat says it is.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by Eelongate on Tuesday December 07, 2021 @09:02PM (#29480518)
Making 'science' a fungible unit allows scientists in one domain to leach off the reputation earned by scientists in another domain. Accomplishments in physics lend credibility to accomplishments in social science, due to the commonality of both using the scientific method, even though the scientific method is not uniformly effective across all domains of inquiry.
Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by aragilar on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @06:28AM (#29483516)
It's a "term of art" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_art) specifying that the data collected is passed through the scientific pipelines and being served out to researchers, rather than being used for testing/calibrations/commissioning. Similar phrasing include "science operations" and "science frames". There are lots of odd jargon in astronomy, but no weirder than say "firewall" (as given in the wikipedia article).
Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by fghorow on Tuesday December 07, 2021 @10:12PM (#29480885)
"They're collecting observational data, not science."

I suspect that pretty much everybody who does experimental physics, a whole lot of astronomers, and a multitude of other observational scientists might like to have a word with you regarding the scientific method.

But that could just be me.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by DrBazza on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @05:55AM (#29483299)
But Mark Watney did 'science the shit out of this'.
Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by Hekioi on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @06:01AM (#29483336)
Science is not like a religion.

Independent people have and can discover the same truth while in religion everyone who invented one, believe in something different.

Science is universal. Religion is stupid.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by fpoling on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @08:10AM (#29484267)
Science by definition cannot discover the truth. The essential property of a scientific theory is falsifiability. I.e. it should be possible to carry out experiment that can disprove the theory or it is not a scientific theory.

Religion on the other hand can have true statements because they are deduced from a priory axioms that a matter of beliefs. For example, given some axioms about God, one can deduce that the world is such because God is made it so. This will be similar to Banach–Tarski theorem [1] which is true as long as one believes in the Axiom of Choice. But such statements are not a scientific theories precisely because it is not possible to design an experiment that will disproof them.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by Hekioi on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @11:58AM (#29487201)
I said the same truth.

That should be doable right?

Or what would be a better description on what science make unique and better than religion?

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by fpoling on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @12:10PM (#29487374)
The science is about making inferences and checking how good such predictions match reality. Religion, on the other hand, can at best explain, not predict in any verifiable way. That is, it is about deducting consequences from one’s beliefs.
Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by bitcharmer on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @01:25PM (#29488406)
> Religion, on the other hand, can at best explain...

No, religion cannot explain anyrhing reliably as it's based on dogmas and not facts.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by DiggyJohnson on Thursday December 09, 2021 @01:26PM (#29501031)
This is remarkably close minded and I hope someone with more time than me takes the time to respond.

In the meantime, I recommend the book The Evolution of Religion by Robert Wright, a very sane author that's written a lot of great books, in my opinion.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by bitcharmer on Sunday December 12, 2021 @04:59PM (#29534078)
> This is remarkably close minded

No, building a reality based on a dogma is the most close-minded thing you can ever do.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by Hekioi on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @12:25PM (#29487619)
Religion explains in context of an arbitrary belief system which is independent to reality.

It can only explain things inside it's belief system.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by throwawaylinux on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @08:02PM (#29492616)
I'm talking about people who make a religion out of science. They can be identified with their chants of "Trust The Science", "You mustn't question The Science", etc.

If you haven't encountered this kind of fanatic, consider yourself lucky. These days I'd feel safer drawing a picture of Mohammed than blaspheming The Science by asking heretical questions or making unholy observations. You never know when the secular-inquisition will come for you, but you always expect it.

Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by account42 on Thursday December 09, 2021 @04:26AM (#29495404)
The post you replied to did not claim that science was a religion but that blindly following "Science" (read: those that claim to represent science) often is.
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Re:NASA returns Hubble to full science operations by throwawaylinux on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @12:52AM (#29481668)
Rhetorical questions are almost always a terrible way to make a point.

What is the point you are trying to make?