Talk:Scientific Method

Scientific Thought vs Magical Thinking
Ley line - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line

''Ley lines refer to straight alignments drawn between various historic structures and prominent landmarks. The idea was developed in early 20th-century Europe, with ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognized by ancient European societies that deliberately erected structures along them. The idea of "leys" as straight tracks across the landscape was put forward by the English antiquarian Alfred Watkins in the 1920s,''

''His critics noted that his ideas relied on drawing lines between sites established at different periods of the past. They also argued that in prehistory, as in the present, it was impractical to travel in a straight line across hilly or mountainous areas of Britain, rendering his leys unlikely as trade routes.

The other evening I watched an episode of Mystic Britain entitled: ‘mysteries of stonehenge’, a very recent UK production. I was surprised that no mention was made of Ley lines. It seems that in an effort to educate, and in the name of scientific progress, we have put away childish things such as Ley lines and replaced them with Nazi bulls plus habituation. I get it - trying to eliminate “magical thinking”

My problems with eliminating ‘magical’ thought are many and all, are couched in language. Let’s start with the premise “any technology advanced enough will appear to be magic”. Next, examine our understanding of the ‘quantum’ universe: it allows calculation of result with supreme accuracy, while remaining inexplicable using “classical” science. Magic cannot exist outside of language, however, I believe that language is even more important to science. Semiotic paradigm This link is to an article for reference

In an attempt to rid us of all religious and superstitious nonsense lets examine why we must rid ourselves of Ley lines. Certainly any archeologist will explain a given site as a mausoleum or a ‘sacred site’ for religious rites. If not scrutinized or questioned, then such sites have no standing before the court of scientific thought. The fact that structures built along these lines, really great arcs, were built at different times?… would that necessarily disqualify them? No one would advocate them as ‘trade routes’.

I am reminded of Alfred Wegener. When he proposed his theory of continental drift he was reviled by his peers and laughed at by the academic community. Now the scientific label is Plate Tectonics and is how we account for earthquakes, among other things. Alfred Watkins, after an insight experienced in 1921, started researching significant human locations of import, for instance the pyramids and other ancient sites, to discover that they appeared to be situated along great arcs. A great arc is the shortest distance between two points on a sphere. His explanation for this was that such ley lines demarcate "earth energies”. Of course, the nonsense about aliens was a confabulation to discredit his theory that earth energies are real and were experienced more intensely by our ancestors. It’s also important to note that Wikipedia states:”It was later endorsed by various Nazis.”

In a similar vein, science, as represented by ‘experts’ has a terrible habit of making dogmatic, sweeping statements parading as fact. For example, in a recent [19 Feb 2021] broadcast “The Nature of Things”, ’The Real Neanderthal’  Expert: Dominique Cliquet made a pronouncement of this nature. Concerning results of an 80,000 year old dig in northern France: “Only Neanderthals lived here at that time”. He did not qualify why he believed that to be true, The viewer may infer that his statements are based on conclusions reached with the “Out of Africa” thesis. A more ‘Scientific’ statement would have been “There is no evidence of Modern Humans in this vicinity at that time. To perpetrate a fraud by relying on ‘doctrine’ continues because, many ‘experts”  do not worry about accurate statements if they believe what they say is true. As we continue to gather data we may have to qualify many historical papers, theses, and broadcasts with: “we didn’t know any different then”. Emergent Phenomena

The statement “The human ecosystem is made of open and closed systems.” needs qualification, and perhaps, justification. If we assume a matrix wherein this statement is true, we need to explain why this might be relevant or important. ‘Closed System’ may prove to be a concept useful in understanding ‘open systems’ even though the concept is fictitious. One needs to remember that a fictitious tool, no matter how useful, remains fictitious. Our planet is considered a closed system to matter, but an open system for the purposes of energy. These are fictitious designations that allow observations to be classified conceptually.

A thought experiment is a direct relational tool that is performed to explore aspects of our reality that have no physical application to test. Useful insights resulting from this experiment may allow us to find or create an apparatus that can further science. Thought tools, on the other hand, are based on stipulated or an assumed structured reality. While these may prove useful to science, the nature of the reality model determines the nature of the thought tool. Should the model prove to be essentially wrong in conception, all inferences derived, while seeming to verify the stipulated or assumed structure, will nevertheless be leading our enquiry down a garden path that remains flawed.

When I was five, the world, was 6742 years old - gosh! I knew that was wrong: dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Khufu’s pyramid was built 2560 BC and took 20 years to construct. These are some “facts” that have been changing during my lifetime. When I was Eight the universe was the Milky Way. Of course it was known that there was much, much more, but unless you were an astronomer, that was a well kept secret. The most recent broadcast of NOVA 24 Feb-21 ’Looking for Life on Mars’ had serious discrepancies on the length of time life has existed on our planet made within seconds of each other. That, I expect, is due to a reliance on accepted doctrine. Thirteen minutes into this broadcast the narrator informs us of tiny microbes that developed billions of years before the dinosaurs. Thirty seconds later, a Geobiologist lists types of flora and fauna we may hope to find on Mars but “none of that life existed, even on earth, before half a billion years ago”. She was speaking from a paradigm that was accepted 'truth' before discovery of the Burgess Shales, and before the wealth of life deep within the oceans around what are referred to as 'Smokers", vents deep in the ocean where sunlight never touches. These vents were the beginning of reevaluation of the origins of life and the search for extremophiles.


 * If we are advocating "precision of inference" as part of accurate, ethical, consistent speech structures [When reporting technical information] Jarrokam (discuss • contribs) 18:35, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thus a simplification and review of "Rules of Inference - Formal Proof of Validity in Logic" is required to further this argument. jarrokamApr.01-2021 Jarrokam (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Rule of Inference
 * A rule of inference, inference rule or transformation rule is a logical form consisting of a function which takes premises, analyzes their syntax, and returns a conclusion (or conclusions). For example, the rule of inference called modus ponens takes two premises, one in the form "If p then q" and another in the form "p", and returns the conclusion "q". The rule is valid with respect to the semantics of classical logic (as well as the semantics of many other non-classical logics), in the sense that if the premises are true (under an interpretation), then so is the conclusion.  Wikipedia Jarrokam (discuss • contribs) 15:27, 1 April 2021 (UTC)