-- Posted by iconoclast at 8:56 am on Oct. 6, 2008 I personally feel it's better to just admit that we're not to the point of scientifically understanding something rather than pretending to be, for the purposes of reinforcing ones' worldview/arrogance, for purposes of social control, etc. Taking this further, in some cases, science might not even be helpful in these areas. When people try to 'scientize' things that really are too ambiguous to be accurately studied, they introduce a huge amount of bias into it. So, in at least some cases, it's better to just leave the question open, or try to explain what's at hand from wisdom/experience/social observation rather than try to conjure up flawed (pseudo)scientific explanations. -- Posted by Solomon Grundy at 9:00 am on Oct. 6, 2008 i definitely agree with this. -- Posted by La Motta at 9:00 am on Oct. 6, 2008 I understand everything about nothing. -- Posted by liv21 at 9:11 am on Oct. 6, 2008 I tend to agree, but the "bias" you speak of isn't really bias.  Theorists arrive at certain conclusions based on what they can observe.  They don't take into account what they CAN'T observe, if that makes sense. -- Posted by iconoclast at 9:38 am on Oct. 6, 2008 Quote: from liv21 at 12:11 pm on Oct. 6, 2008 I tend to agree, but the "bias" you speak of isn't really bias. Theorists arrive at certain conclusions based on what they can observe. They don't take into account what they CAN'T observe, if that makes sense. I'd think that many of them are just closed minded and poor observers...And sometimes you have to take into account stuff that isn't blatantly obvious. If you follow just the obvious and ignore everything else, then you stand to fail. -- Posted by liv21 at 9:44 am on Oct. 6, 2008 Quote: from prisoner of hss at 9:38 am on Oct. 6, 2008 Quote: from liv21 at 12:11 pm on Oct. 6, 2008 I tend to agree, but the "bias" you speak of isn't really bias.  Theorists arrive at certain conclusions based on what they can observe.  They don't take into account what they CAN'T observe, if that makes sense. I'd think that many of them are just closed minded and poor observers...And sometimes you have to take into account stuff that isn't blatantly obvious. If you follow just the obvious and ignore everything else, then you stand to fail. I'm more concerned about closed-minded non-observers. -- Posted by iconoclast at 9:46 am on Oct. 6, 2008 Quote: from liv21 at 12:44 pm on Oct. 6, 2008 Quote: from prisoner of hss at 9:38 am on Oct. 6, 2008 Quote: from liv21 at 12:11 pm on Oct. 6, 2008 I tend to agree, but the "bias" you speak of isn't really bias. Theorists arrive at certain conclusions based on what they can observe. They don't take into account what they CAN'T observe, if that makes sense. I'd think that many of them are just closed minded and poor observers...And sometimes you have to take into account stuff that isn't blatantly obvious. If you follow just the obvious and ignore everything else, then you stand to fail. I'm more concerned about closed-minded non-observers. i would call limited, wrong observation worse than non-observation, except in the case of idiots like literal creationists