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Author Topic:   Working Hypothesis -- what is the value?
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 61 of 92 (735675)
08-21-2014 6:41 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by NoNukes
08-21-2014 12:35 AM


logic and science vs engineer
... but the person designing the novel process for synthesis ...
That was not part of your original statement, which I took to be just replicating work already done by others.
And the point is still that you made a logical fallacy ...
As far as the logical fallacy you named, no I did not make that error either.
What you said was:
engineer produces a product of practical use
a person produces a product of practical use
therefore the person is an engineer
False logic is false logic, do you want to add equivocation to your list?
Chemist - Wikipedia
And regarding chemical engineers:
Curiously you make my point ...
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by NoNukes, posted 08-21-2014 12:35 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by NoNukes, posted 08-22-2014 12:26 PM RAZD has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 62 of 92 (735676)
08-21-2014 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Stile
08-21-2014 9:24 AM


Re: Engineer vs Scientist?
The terms "engineer" and "scientist" are just too broad to make such a generalized comparison.
To confuse this even more, people we would consider "non-scientists" also apply the scientific method to their work. Farmers experiment with different varieties and fertilizers to improve their yields. Car mechanics use inference to determine what is wrong with an engine.
It might be more helpful to look at the hierarchy of knowledge: how it is gained, how it is communicated, and how it is applied. Some people may view scientists as those doing original research in basic science. Engineers are those who apply that basic knowledge and create new and useful technologies. Those new technologies can even filter back to the scientists doing basic science research, allowing them to do knew experiments and make new discoveries. Other end users may be common laborers or people working in a trade.
However, you can find people throughout that hierarchy who are doing science. People from farmers to particle physicists are applying the scientific method to solve problems as part of their job.

This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 63 of 92 (735678)
08-21-2014 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by NoNukes
08-21-2014 12:55 AM


Re: for the purpose of discovering further evidence
The above is not an example of something that requires deviating from the scientific method. The experiment might be done as part of a verification of h1 or in an attempt to reject h0.
Curiously I have no trouble with this being "part of a verification" of the working hypothesis ... which has been my point from the first post ... nor have other elements of the scientific method ... what I have trouble with is the concept of a valid falsification test ...
Yes, I've noticed the compelling of your mind. But surely there are some alternatives far more likely than the ape\hominid possibility. How about the possibility that no single species is involved and that while some sightings may have been bears, others may have been other animals, while others may have been humans or hoaxes. It's entirely possible that there really is no yeti.
Other animals would include snow leopards or other felines, even though felines rarely walk on two legs, and it is the bipedal gait of the legendary yeti that has led to the hypothesis of an ape\hominid. Bears are known to occasionally be bipedal, but more compelling in my mind is that they tend to live solitary lives rather than living in family groups as most ape\hominids are known to live ... and I am not away of a sighting of more than one yeti at a time.
And I would not be surprised by some embellishment in the telling of any sightings, or that some hoaxes have been involved, what I see as impossible to prove\demonstrate is the premise that it is all imaginary, that no yeti ever existed, and that pretending that this is a falsification test is nothing more than denial biased thinking.
So, generalizing from the yeti question as one specific example, I see a working hypothesis involving all the elements of the scientific method except falsification, and that it can lead to predictions and possible avenues of investigation for the purpose of developing more information that may lead to a formal scientific (falsifiable) hypothesis.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by NoNukes, posted 08-21-2014 12:55 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 64 of 92 (735679)
08-21-2014 7:45 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by Tangle
08-21-2014 3:28 AM


no true
I'm sorry, your experiences are worthless unless you're a 'true scientist' - I find myself unable to take any notice of what you say. This is rather unfortunate as before I knew that you were not a 'true scientist' I thought you had a lot of useful information and ideas.
Unfortunately I am not part Scotchman ... even though I have drunk a fair share of scotch in my time ...

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 65 of 92 (735684)
08-22-2014 1:44 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by RAZD
08-21-2014 7:43 PM


Re: for the purpose of discovering further evidence
In Message 47 I provided an evidence based falsifiable hypthosis for the abominable snowman. Why are you insisting on some unfalsifiable variant? Why do that?

This message is a reply to:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 66 of 92 (735701)
08-22-2014 12:18 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by RAZD
08-21-2014 7:43 PM


Sigh...
..what I see as impossible to prove\demonstrate is the premise that it is all imaginary, that no yeti ever existed, and that pretending that this is a falsification test is nothing more than denial biased thinking.
Who said anything like that? I proposed that you needed a null hypothesis without saying what that hypothesis ought to be. You are the one that said that a null hypothesis would get in the way.
I compared a non-yeti to the alternative of a hominid/ape yeti. Period. I did not propose such a thing as a null hypothesis. But surely "the yeti is actually some kind of ape" is not an appropriate null hypothesis.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 67 of 92 (735703)
08-22-2014 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by RAZD
08-21-2014 6:41 PM


Re: logic and science vs engineer
RAZD writes:
What you said was:
engineer produces a product of practical use
a person produces a product of practical use
therefore the person is an engineer
That's not at all what I said. What I actually said was that a person who designed a novel process for producing a useful chemical might well be a chemist or a chemical engineer and I invited you to make a distinction.
You decided instead to add another person to my hypothetical which allowed you to duck the question. A lab tech might still be practicing science or engineering, so in truth you did not manage to do much that was not silly.
And of course stripping out the details and worse, the context does leave you with a possible fallacy. But that's your work, not mine.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by RAZD, posted 08-21-2014 6:41 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by RAZD, posted 08-22-2014 8:09 PM NoNukes has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 68 of 92 (735737)
08-22-2014 8:09 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by NoNukes
08-22-2014 12:26 PM


Re: logic and science vs engineer and equivocation
That's not at all what I said. ...
Curiously I note that you tend to get into these little nit-picky arguments with a bunch of people ... people that I do not see getting into little nit-picky arguments with others. Perhaps your problem is lack of clarity.
. What I actually said was that a person who designed a novel process for producing a useful chemical might well be a chemist or a chemical engineer and I invited you to make a distinction.
No that is NOT what you actually said -- you have since added "chemical engineer" and changed the wording (equivocation) -- your original statement was
Message 52:
(RAZD): And, curiously, that is why engineers in general are not scientists, because "the point is that the design is not being done for the purpose of verification of the principles, the purpose is to provide a practical use of those principals"
I'm not sure that distinction works in practice. If I were trying to find a novel to synthesize a particular organic molecule that is already known to produce a particular affect, would I be an engineer simply because I was working for a company that was looking to exploit the compound? Surely that cannot be correct.
I provide my previous comment for context ...
(Premise 1) from my comment: an engineer is someone who produces a product of practical use
(Premise 2) from your reply: Person in question produces a product of practical use ...
(Conclusion) from your comment you imply that the conclusion would be: Person would be an engineer ...
Which is the logical fallacy already documented.
If that was not your intended meaning then I suggest your lack of clarity is the problem.
You decided instead to add another person to my hypothetical which allowed you to duck the question. A lab tech might still be practicing science or engineering, so in truth you did not manage to do much that was not silly.
And you skipped over the part where I said that your hypothetical situation would not make them an engineer because that would be a logical fallacy.
Focusing on the lab technician is you avoiding the fact that what you implied in your argument involved a logical fallacy: I apologize for confusing you with extraneous information, and I will attempt to be more concise in the future.
And of course stripping out the details and worse, the context does leave you with a possible fallacy. But that's your work, not mine.
Actually going back to the original context and quoting you in full detail is what shows that your post did involved the fallacy.
What's your next equivocation?
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by NoNukes, posted 08-22-2014 12:26 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by NoNukes, posted 08-22-2014 8:25 PM RAZD has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 69 of 92 (735738)
08-22-2014 8:25 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by RAZD
08-22-2014 8:09 PM


Re: logic and science vs engineer and equivocation
I appreciate you quoting the entire context, but you overlooked somehting.
RAZD writes:
: And, curiously, that is why engineers in general are not scientists, because "the point is that the design is not being done for the purpose of verification of the principles, the purpose is to provide a practical use of those principals"
NoNukes writes:
I'm not sure that distinction works in practice. If I were trying to find a novel to synthesize a particular organic molecule that is already known to produce a particular affect, would I be an engineer simply because I was working for a company that was looking to exploit the compound? Surely that cannot be correct.
It is pretty clear from the context that I was providing an example to illustrate the overlap between what a scientist does and what an engineer does and that the question I was probing was the "practical use" distinction.. It was also clear that the subject matter involved in my example was chemistry. The fact that you answered by adding the lab tech makes it pretty clear that you understood that too.
I don't apologize for picking a nit. The distinction you are trying to make is pretty nitty.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by RAZD, posted 08-22-2014 8:09 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by Straggler, posted 08-23-2014 3:20 AM NoNukes has replied
 Message 72 by RAZD, posted 08-23-2014 12:43 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 70 of 92 (735742)
08-23-2014 3:20 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by NoNukes
08-22-2014 8:25 PM


Re: logic and science vs engineer and equivocation
Just to add fuel to the flames...
Is genetic engineering undertaken by scientists? Or engineers?
Frankly I think in a lot of cases there is enough overlap that attempting to make a clear distinction is a futile exercise.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by NoNukes, posted 08-22-2014 8:25 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 71 of 92 (735744)
08-23-2014 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by Straggler
08-23-2014 3:20 AM


Re: logic and science vs engineer and equivocation
Just to add fuel to the flames... Is genetic engineering undertaken by scientists? Or engineers?
The roof is already on fire, bro. But maybe the answer to your question is that sometimes scientists do engineering work and engineers do science work. And in some cases "sometimes" means on a day to day basis.
People educated as engineers or scientists may find that their work is scatter plotted along a spectrum with basic science on one end, applied science somewhere in the middle, and hard engineering on the far end. Many scientists make stuff, and many engineers conduct research into processes that are not on a product scale.
Here is a snippet of a conversation I found online between some chemical engineers and one particular chemist:
Engineer writes:
Sorry, but I get a little angry when a chemist tries to discount the hard work I've put into my own career. We have different contributions to projects; I respect yours, you should respect mine.
Chemist writes:
I get very angry when chemical engineers earn more than chemists but know less and contribute less and I'll respect chemical engineers only when they earn it. The two German ones I mentioned I have a huge amount of respect for because they are very good at their jobs. The others I've met I would not piss on if they were on fire and given their incompetence it would have been their own fault they were on fire.
My experience is that the very junior levels of experience and education, many science education graduates (biologists, chemists, and physicists) are underpaid compared to their peers with engineering educations, but of course my experience is with those scientists who work most closely with engineers.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Straggler, posted 08-23-2014 3:20 AM Straggler has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 72 of 92 (735749)
08-23-2014 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by NoNukes
08-22-2014 8:25 PM


Re: logic and scientist vs engineer and equivocation
I don't apologize for picking a nit. The distinction you are trying to make is pretty nitty.
Curiously I don't see it that way. I believe you agree that just having a degree doesn't make you a scientist ...
Thus having a PhD in Mechanical Engineering doesn't make you a scientist.
And I believe you would agree that anyone, even middle and high school students can do science (as noted earlier, see science fairs) -- but are they scientists?
So is doing a little science sufficient to be called a scientist? From your posts it would appear that you seem to think so.
It is also possible that a person with a little math and access to reference material could do a little engineering -- is that sufficient to make them an engineer? Certainly the various engineering associations don't think so. From your posts it would appear that you seem to think so, do you?
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 73 of 92 (735750)
08-23-2014 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by RAZD
08-23-2014 12:43 PM


Re: logic and scientist vs engineer and equivocation
Are those who undertake gentic engineering scientists? Or engineers?
And why does it matter here?

This message is a reply to:
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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 74 of 92 (735751)
08-23-2014 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by RAZD
08-23-2014 12:43 PM


Re: logic and scientist vs engineer and equivocation
Are those who undertake gentic engineering scientists? Or engineers?
And why does it matter here?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by RAZD, posted 08-23-2014 12:43 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 75 of 92 (735752)
08-23-2014 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by RAZD
08-23-2014 12:43 PM


Re: logic and scientist vs engineer and equivocation
Curiously I don't see it that way. I believe you agree that just having a degree doesn't make you a scientist.
Of course I agree with that. My point is that even trying to characterize a science related task as making a product for practical use is not enough to decide whether such a task can be labeled engineering or science. And to avoid a possible source of confusion, I am talking about tasks like synthesizing a novel chemical molecule to have a particular activity and non toxicity, and I am not talking about tasks like baking cookies.
Thus having a PhD in Mechanical Engineering doesn't make you a scientist.
I agree, but I'd have a bit more to say about that.
So is doing a little science sufficient to be called a scientist?
Well no, that's not my point.
A engineer with a PhD in mechanical engineering is almost certainly adequately trained to conduct scientific investigations within his field of expertise, while a person with brand spanking new BS in chemistry is most likely under qualified to conduct serious scientific work in most fields of chemistry without supervision.
Attempts to dismiss a PhD in Mechanical (or Electrical or Chemical) Engineering as a non-scientist on the basis of his degree being in engineering are misguided.
Edited by NoNukes, : fix some grammar. I'm sure I left in some other errors.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by RAZD, posted 08-23-2014 12:43 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
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