http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Comments & Reviews of http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory on StumbleUpon en-us Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:52:45 -0800 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:08:51 -0800 http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory http://cdn.stumble-upon.com/images/logo_su_36x36.png Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:01:02 -0800 http://metamorphosis.stumbleupon.com/review/28816486/ Metamorphosis - A very interesting read how to understand our world.]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:55:13 -0700 http://psykonaut.stumbleupon.com/review/23552014/ psykonaut - "This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves."]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:13:32 -0700 http://depleted.stumbleupon.com/review/23478737/ Depleted - The tools of science cannot replace science itself. Were one to dismiss the scientific method one would also be dismissing logic and critical thinking - without which one cannot make meaningful assertions about the observable world.
As was mentioned before, the items discussed in this editorial are useful tools, but to claim they can replace the scientific method wholesale shows a clear misunderstanding of the very thing being criticized.
The scientific method is not something that was invented a few hundred years go by some European - and we all just happened to like the way it sounded. It itself does not fall into the realm of theory (in the true sense of the word), and thus is not something debated to be right or wrong. It is simply the steps one takes in order to ascertain meaningful information about various aspects of the physical world. The "Scientific Method" in the sense of the exact steps one takes as you were taught in school is just the most clear and concise outline of this concept.
The method cannot be "true" or "false," as it is not a claim, but a tool, or set of filters we use to determine somethings validity to a degree that all people exercising critical thinking can agree upon.
Thus, I have lost a tremendous deal of respect for this publication. No one should trust a publication where the individual with the final say as to what should be published is one who lacks understanding of a concept so crucial to the field the publication is dedicated to.

PS: The is no "Scientific Establishment." There are scientists, and there are establishments that do science, and often dedicated to specific fields, but no over-arching incorporation of actual scientists pushing for a particular interest. Those who do that are called "lobbyists" and "special-interest groups."]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:57:24 -0700 http://arty-nz.stumbleupon.com/review/23406765/ aRTy-nz - This is so funny, because it is totally undermining ad upsetting the reactionaries of the scientific establishment. And yet it is correct.]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:24:51 -0700 http://ceylonese1.stumbleupon.com/review/23207424/ Ceylonese1 - From the page: "J. Craig Venter" Interesting ideas.]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:55:26 -0700 http://sap-sandwich.stumbleupon.com/review/22981017/ sap-sandwich - From the comments: "I was appalled by this article, because the idea that "correlation is enough" is not only demonstrably wrong, but also the root of much bad science. I also think Chris is misunderstanding how Google and others benefit from the vast increase in data. Having more data doesn't mean you can just analyze it for patterns and treat those as discoveries. In fact, the term "data mining" used to mean exactly that, and it was pejorative--since it would discover meaningless correlations like one between the Super Bowl winner and stock market performance. Having more data makes it easier to both generate and test hypotheses. But it is still important to keep these activities separate. That data hygiene is at the heart of the scientific method. Correlation does not supersede causation."]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:54:44 -0700 http://drkvp.stumbleupon.com/review/22874658/ DrKvP - fascinating to contemplate, but there's something missing from this discussion. the model of "science" being used to make the argument assumes that causation and prediction are the most important qualities or values of a scientific approach to understanding the world. in the framework of a "human science", the concept of "meaning" has, perhaps, greater value than predictability. humans make meaning. how meaning is constructed is likely to weigh at least as heavily as what is predicted from that meaning. qualitative research is research of discovery, from which quantitative hypotheses can be devised. discarding the notion of determining causation in favor of the possibilities associated with correlation, with the suggestion that this eliminates the possibility of discovery, ignores both the "meaning making" essence of being human and the serendipity of discovery without a model that suggests what should or what is likely to exist. quantitative science is not the only kind of science. it needs qualitative science to help point in the direction of prediction and causation models. for more information, review the work of amedeo giorgi, phd, an experimental psychologist (now better described as a phenomenological psychologist) who "discovered" the value of meaning in the study of human behavior.]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:55:47 -0700 http://timnull.stumbleupon.com/review/22860379/ timnull - Sorry, but this is total BS.

You can replicate the universe with data, and you still won't understand the universe.

You can't learn squat without the scientific method: hypothesis, testing, theory, more hypotheses, more testing, more theories, etc and so forth.

This idea is the flipside of Creationism. Remember the Creationist saying, "All theories are equally good." Now these guys are saying, "Theories are unnecessary."

They all want us to stop thinking critically and become robotons!]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:40:21 -0700 http://aliasinkhorn.stumbleupon.com/review/22860005/ aliasinkhorn - The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete From the page: "But faced with massive data, this approach to science -- hypothesize, model, test -- is becoming obsolete. Consider physics: Newtonian models were crude approximations of the truth (wrong at the atomic level, but still useful). A hundred years ago, statistically based quantum mechanics offered a better picture -- but quantum mechanics is yet another model, and as such it, too, is flawed, no doubt a caricature of a more complex underlying reality. The reason physics has drifted into theoretical speculation about n-dimensional grand unified models over the past few decades (the "beautiful story" phase of a discipline starved of data) is that we don't know how to run the experiments that would falsify the hypotheses -- the energies are too high, the accelerators too expensive, and so on. Now biology is heading in the same direction. The models we were taught in school about "dominant" and "recessive" genes steering a strictly Mendelian process have turned out to be an even greater simplification of reality than Newton's laws. The discovery of gene-protein interactions and other aspects of epigenetics has challenged the view of DNA as destiny and even introduced evidence that environment can influence inheritable traits, something once considered a genetic impossibility. In short, the more we learn about biology, the further we find ourselves from a model that can explain it. There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: "Correlation is enough." We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot. The best practical example of this is the shotgun gene sequencing by J. Craig Venter. Enabled by high-speed sequencers and supercomputers that statistically analyze the data they produce, Venter went from sequencing individual organisms to sequencing entire ecosystems. In 2003, he started sequencing much of the ocean, retracing the voyage of Captain Cook. And in 2005 he started sequencing the air. In the process, he discovered thousands of previously unknown species of bacteria and other life-forms. If the words "discover a new species" call to mind Darwin and drawings of finches, you may be stuck in the old way of doing science. Venter can tell you almost nothing about the species he found. He doesn't know what they look like, how they live, or much of anything else about their morphology. He doesn't even have their entire genome. All he has is a statistical blip -- a unique sequence that, being unlike any other sequence in the database, must represent a new species. This sequence may correlate with other sequences that resemble those of species we do know more about. In that case, Venter can make some guesses about the animals -- that they convert sunlight into energy in a particular way, or that they descended from a common ancestor. But besides that, he has no better model of this species than Google has of your MySpace page. It's just data. By analyzing it with Google-quality computing resources, though, Venter has advanced biology more than anyone else of his generation." Brilliant article. It is about time 'thinking' breaks the bondage of theories and taxonomies that become constrictive psuedo-belief systems; in any event, theories are nothing more than tentative explanatories. I think theory has its place in the tool kit of exploration; it ruins 'knowledge' when it becomes a de facto law. This excerpt in the article explains why: 'The models we were taught in school about "dominant" and "recessive" genes steering a strictly Mendelian process have turned out to be an even greater simplification of reality than Newton's laws... In short, the more we learn about biology, the further we find ourselves from a model that can explain it.' Highly recommended read.  .]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:12:40 -0700 http://tentmaker3.stumbleupon.com/review/22859346/ tentmaker3 - This is a pretty good simple description of how advances in computing power and the amount of data we both have and can process are going to shortly begin changing everything. Genetic algorithms are at the complex end of this, but the simple end is that we no longer have to "solve" problems in the old analytical sense of the word, when we can just "throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks". In other words, insteading of searching for the right pathway to solve a problem, we can try all the possible solutions until one works and we can do it in a short enough period of time to make this approach reasonable. This will change everything. Within a few years, we'll be solving problems at a much faster rate.]]> http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory