Thursday, March 31, 2011

Is it Science? (cont)

(continued from last blog) or to test the legitimacy of a hypothesis. A scientist who anticipates his results is not a scientist at all. The true practioner of the profession keeps an open mind and records all results of the experiments. The end result of this process is to attempt to explain the observed phenomena with as much certainty as possible.

The two fields of science and engineering are different in their execution, results, and support structures. While engineering benefits from a highly competitive free market, science is best nurtured in the socialist institution. The reason for this is that the profitability gains of science are not initially obvious, which makes it a risky profession to fund. I point this out because Georgina Ferry wrongly states on page 271 that the socialist John Bernal's claim that state funding is best for science is wrong, using the rapid expansion of web technology as an example. The internet and the services it has allowed are clearly not science, both by my definition and common sense. Yet Georgina's opinions continue to be pervasive.

To sum up, if your field has an "-ology" suffix, it's probably science (scientology and others notwithstanding). Otherwise, forget about it. Eat it liberal arts majors!

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