WHAT PART OF "although we seem to have very definite conceptions of objects in the external world, those conceptions do not enter into exact science and are not in any way confirmed by it;"
and let me repeat this part of that,
DO NOT ENTER INTO EXACT SCIENCE AND ARE NOT IN ANY WAY CONFIRMED BY IT
don't you get?
And Eddington was addressing "very definite conceptions in the external world" as not being able to be confirmed by science.
While those with a professional motive might want to pretend all kinds of things have a "very definite conception" you generally only have to look at their conceptions of those "things" about which their as-qualified colleagues disagree to see that those conceptions are in no way definite. AND THOSE ARE JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT COMPRISES THE SO-CALLED SCIENCES I AM SLAMMING. Everything from those shifting quicksands of psychology, sociology, anthropology, . . . and on to that most notable minefield of self-interest by those who practice it and those who pay them, economics. At best such fields as are totally unsuited for the methods of science can come up with a generally enforced required agreed point of view about such things, that only lasts until the next big thing erodes that requirement in regard to that general agreement as has happened in every one of them. Economics is the quintessential academic whore house. At least among those that purport to practice science, though to some extent all of them will whore out of necessity.
And huge swaths of biology could be included within that, especially when it consists of speculation about things not visible or in any way measurable as physical phenomena, as the entire assertion of "natural selection" is not.
"Before exact science can begin to handle the problem they must be replaced by quantities representing the results of physical measurement."
No such physical measurement of the "selective forces" that purportedly resulted in the evolution of a new species has ever been taken or could ever be taken. As I recently repeated here, even a convinced Darwinist of the level of the geneticist Richard Lewontin admitted that. To purport to apply that to the pseudo-science of economics "economic Darwinism" as a number of recent academic economists have is something of an ultimate absurdity. I think natural selection is an illusion, a product of ideology, not scientific observation. And they have led to the deaths of millions of People and the oppression of many more.
My first thought was, Eddington had read Hume. It’s ironic that the empiricism of science now rests on German Idealism. Russell and Whitehead tried to save it, but Godel and Wittgenstein shut them down. It’s always been hilarious to me how many American scientists don’t know that.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember which physicist pointed out that those in the generation of Einstein had read philosophy while those in the generation of Feynman never did and how that showed up in their thinking. I listen to those like Sean Carroll and, heaven help us, Jerry Coyne who try to philosophize and it's pathetic. I remember listening to them at a sort of atheist scientist weekend camparee that Carroll organized and how the equally philosophically inept Steven Weinberg mowed down their attempt to try to get moral oughts out of ises when he said he just didn't want to do good things for anyone but his family and his university department. You remember, the guy who made the crack that "for people to do evil that takes religion." He was so unconcerned about philosophical integrity that he didn't even listen to himself.
DeleteEddington was a rather fine philosopher, himself. That book and his Philosophy of Physical Science have given me enormous insights into the nature of science and thought. His Science and the Unseen World, while a document of its time, impressed me so much that I typed the whole thing out and posted it online. I think I remember where.