I bid farewell

In my limited experience with science, and the greater experience of those I have communicated with, the philosophy of science has absolutely no relevance to the practical prosecution of science in the field or lab.It's quite a mistake to refer to or suggest that the philosophy of science represents some kind of "underpinning" or foundation of science; the reverse is true. Philosophers of science do not establish the rules of science for scientists, but rather, they attempt to describe the process of scientific reasoning as employed by scientists.For instance; I'm currently involved, in an assistant aspect, in certain research on the effecacy of certain transgenic hybrid corns in preventing damage by certain corn pest insects. In the course of these experiments, we:1) Planted corn;
2) Infested the roots with insect eggs;
3) Erected enclosing tents over the corn plants;
4) Collected insects from the tents at regular intervals;
5) Counted, keyed, and sexed the insects after collection.At no point has the "philosophy of science", nor the work of any philosopher, been relevant to the prosecution of any of these endeavors. Science is what scientists do, not what philosophers talk about. It is physical evidence that holds primacy in science, not logic chopping.

Thanks, guys. Especially you, Phatboy. I was genuinely touched by your comments.

Not once - not a single time - has the work of Popper, nor any other philosopher, been relevant to the prosecution of science by scientists that I, or any person with whom I have interacted, have observed.Here's a hint, trying to make more plain something that Percy has already told you - if you're being asked to defend a scientific proposal or model, and you're referencing Popper instead of evidence, then what you're doing is nonsense. None of that philosophy is relevant to convincing scientists, or anybody else for that matter, that you have a compelling model.

Man, I'm on today.

I am. Hell, when I asked around the entomology department, maybe one out of twenty people had even heard of Karl Popper. These were all people hard at work developing experiments and lines of research.Holmes's sematic wordgames aside, when I said that the philosophy of science was ireelevant to the practice of science, I said this because that's exactly the way it appears to be. Scientists don't fret over "falsifiability" or the debate between naive empiricism and instrumentalism because those things aren't relevant to designing experiments, gathering data, and drawing conclusions of the very limited scope that a scientific paper usually represents. For persons with practical experience in experiment design things like falsifiability pretty much just drop into place on their own, without even being considered.If philosophers think that scientists are waiting with bated breath to be told by them how to do their jobs, waiting to be handed down some granite-carved precepts that define the Scientific Method like some kind of Ten Commandments, well, to me that's just indiciative of the massive ego and arrogance that tends to typefy philosophy students in general. Even Bacon, who ultimately was a scientist first and a "philosopher" (in the modern understanding of the term) second, learned empiricism from the Muslim world, he didn't develop it himself as a basis for scientific investigation. Philosophy of science has always described the practical application of empiricism, and only rarely has informed it.

I must regretfully decline, as I'm unfortunately certain that such a discussion with Holmes would not be fruitful nor enjoyable for either of us.