Right now I would prefer an ancient Greek symposia.

Three krater limit, Rebarbarian ?-)

"For sensible men I prepare only three kraters: one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home. The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness."
-- Euboulos

Vit...you were so ready with that 'krater' piece. Did you know some of were burnt from reading about so-called science all week?

Exactly, Bluetech. I figured that folks would be
sick and tired of so-called science by about now,
so they would truly appreciate some real science
instead, for a change ;-)

But seriously, Feynman is a helluva guy. Check it out.

Thanks for posting this Vitruvius. If there is one person who one could pick to symbolize the ideal scientist it would be Richard Feynman. Unfortunately he is no longer with us as I'm sure he would have toppled the AGW house of cards quite easily had he applied his intellect to the problem.

As is the case with great scientists he was intellectually omnivorous and the impression I get from reading his books is that he had a great deal of fun doing everything he did.

Feynman is an example of what a scientist should strive for now that climategate has demonstrate what one should not do.

Well said, Loki, I agree and that's part of why I find his comments so interesting. Notice the degree to which he is doing science for the love of discovery, for the love of science, for the love of fun. He would "rather not know than be wrong". Those guys who are screwing up science are pretending to be doing it for the money, power, and prestige, not for love. What, they're gonna' extort fun?

It is a very interesting lecture that Professor Feynmen gives and easy to listen to with his enthusiasm shining through. His respect and love for science is very clear and in profound opposition to what we have been witness to this past week of "shysterville".

a well timed symposium Vitruvius.

Dr Feynman was a great scientist and thinker, had he been alive today this Climate Change nonsense would have never happened. He understood better than anyone that the sciences were being corrupted by the soft disciplines and that the future of great discoveries was being lost. He also had some tough words for the Nobel and other awards and their effect on science.

Funny this was posted just as I posted his description of the Scientific Method from his 1969 Cambridge Lecture Series on my blog.

Great minds think alike.... and fools seldom differ.

Notice something else: the way Feynman is always disclaiming authority over truth. Not so the shysters (as Marc calls them). They say: No! We are the absolute arbiters of truth, the unvarnished truth, we are the righteous, the real scientists. The science is decided! There is, I think, a lesson we should all take from this. Whenever one hears people talking like those shysters: one should not believe them. People who are really interested in the truth don't need to talk like that, because they know that, giving nature her time, the truth will out, independent of them.

So while it may or may not be appropriate for politicians and generals to skirt the truth, for their job is to win, not to be truthful, that is not appropriate for scientists, because their job is to figure out the truth. I've got nothing against politicians and generals per se, it's just that I don't want to give up the good things that science brings to life just because of some people who aren't interested in the truth.

Vitruvius, on the matter of subject of your own post, and your own words, i.e. not Feynman's lecture, I must admit I'm unable to identify the generalized others you refer to who are "trashing" science. You referred to this putative trashing in a previous post as well, but out of perhaps thousands of comments here at SDA in the last week or so I have yet to see one single commenter take a shot at *science* per se, as opposed to taking a shot at the fraudsters that you, too, identify as such and take your own entirely legitimate shots against, so I can neither grasp who exactly is being chastized, nor join you, as I otherwise would, in arguing against their -functionally non-existent - statements.

I have seen seen suggestions coming from credible, concerned scientists at other outlets such as the WSJ and Pajamas media, etc. that recent events are a blow to science, and I do understand the sense in which they mean it, which is quite different than the one you refer to and defend. I doubt that a single one of them would disagree with your overarching assertion that the scientific method remains true, eternal, and unassailable. When they refer to the danger of science falling into disrepute, they are referring not to the scientific method itself but to the common usage of the term.

Common usage actually matters, for the very same reasons, ironically, that propel your unhappiness with such mischaracterizations of science. I would argue that there IS a consequence to such a public-square redefinition of the word "science" regardless of whether this common-usage redefinition is well founded or not. While common-usage of the word "science" has nothing to do with the tried-and-true scientific method, it's at least arguably the case that twenty or thirty years ago "science" had more credibility among the toothless proles who aren't scientists. The key point, and perhaps the ONLY point, is that this change in perception does matter inasmuch as it may coe to affect funding, tenureships, instruction, etc.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if it came to pass that, say, more and more doctors were getting their degrees in crackerjack boxes, and wore bones through their noses, and used pyramid power and smudge-burning in their treatments, and were *accredited* as regular doctors, and that the agents of mass communication gradually over time started to not only constantly refer to the nose-boners as doctors, erasing the distinction, but began to use the term as a bludgeon of sorts against the findings/judgements/evaluations of actual, credible doctors, this *would* threaten to put the medical profession in disrepute whether you liked it or not.

One might well argue in such a circumstance that these "doctors" are not real doctors, and that those who would criticize the - accredited - medical profession based on the behaviour of the nose-bone crowd are in error, and need to look at themselves, but such argument would be, at least in part, missing the point, which is that it's critical that the average person have at least some abiliy to differentiate between a doctor and a fraud, or a scientist and a fraud, or a cop and a street-gang member. If such differentiations are lost, there IS a consequence that has nothing to do with the scientific method of legitimate scientists.

Just to be perfectly clear here, Vitruvius, at the risk of redundancy, I'm in full agreement with you that the scientific approach - science itself - marches on unfettered and true. But even credible, legitimate scientists understand that the common usage of the term "science" within in any given political era can end up reconfiguring/redefining/re-jigging, *just for a time*, the power of a word in the most manifest, corporeal sense. Soviet-era communists were fond of social-scientific terms of justification, and of using the word *science* to justify their....activities; To the extent that they were as entitled to the common-usage appellation as legitimate scientists were, "science" - the *word*, and by extension the funding, and the "findings" -- was rendered less credible.

Who said anything about the people trashing
science as being commenters at SDA, EBD?

Sorry, Vitruvius, I must be mistaken. It's just that in your previous post you wrote (emph. mine):

"So, to be clear, my additional Reader Tip for you tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is: try to avoid saying that these recent results tell us something about science. They only tell us something about some people who were lying to us about doing science: they said they were and they were not. Don't let their malfeasance reflect badly upon you by dint of your mischaracterizing it."

You is allowed in the generic sense, sir. Whether or not
one interprets it personally is up to the reader, not me.

I certainly didn't take it personally, I took it as being generically addressed to SDA readers.

But SDA readers and SDA commenters aren't the same thing, EBD.

"All men by nature desire to know"; that's the first line of Aristotle's Metaphysics. The question then comes...how do we arrive at 'what we know'. Ahh...let's see what Peirce said.

Peirce wrote that "There are Real things, whose characters are entirely indpendent of our opinions about them"...and there are four key strategies to 'fix our belief' in these Real things. Only one has the capacity to arrive at the truth.

Tenacity is a comfortable method of coming to a conclusion; you shut out all influence. 'The climate science is settled'. So there.

The method of authority is equally comfortable; you just say that 'peer review' settles it, and 'experts' say so. It will always govern we who are aware we aren't experts..

The a priori, well, you think as you feel, as you prefer to think. I 'just feel that so and so is right/wrong'.

But the scientific method requires, first, an acknowledgment that the real world exists; that it is not a figment of our subjective perception but is 'effete mind' and operates according to laws that are amenable to objective investigation. And that it is best if our opinions conicide with the facts of this real world.

The first three methods can't guaranteee any accord between our opinion and the truth. "To bring about this effect is the prerogative of the method of science"...

It is a delight, this dance between our mind and 'effete mind', as they get to know each other.

Okay, sure. My comment, though, wasn't, in substance, about you personally.

Ah, so, sorry about that, EBD; when you wrote "Vitruvius, on the matter of subject of your own post, and your own words, i.e. not Feynman's lecture", I got confused about who you were talking about. Certainly, though, when I say some people, my comment isn't about anyone in particular. If I wanted to reference someone in particular, I'd reference someone in particular.

Anyway, it's good that we've got that over with, though, now we can return to Feynman's most excellent defense of good science; and pace bad science, there are enough other places to wallow in that.

Thanks Vitruvius. I've listened to these previously many times, and they never get old.

He's very quotable, one of my favs is

"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

One of my favourite Feynman Quotes, Erik, is a comment he made about his mother: "In particular, she had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion".

'Dr Feynman was a great scientist and thinker, had he been alive today this Climate Change nonsense would have never happened.'

Debatable.
'Science' was prostituted long ago; AGW is simply 'hole-in-the-Ozone layer' MkII.

Sorry I just got around to trying to read this "Symposia" most of which I do not understand, but the other day I did get the impression that someone's nose was just a bit out of joint. (besides mine) I suspect if someone did post something critical of science in general around this time and this subject; they didn't make it to post.

Personaly I feel the profession of science has been given a bloody nose.
The fraudsters at East Anglia have sullied all scientists, their silence speaks volumes.

All science is now suspect.

Was there ever really a ozone problem?
Does second hand smoke really cause lung cancer?
or did some crackpot scientist fudge the numbers based on his personal bias.

If I were an accredited scientist right now, knowing my profession had been slandered by these fools, I would be demanding some heads come off...
the sooner the better!

Why haven't they spoken up?
Just asking...

oops...wrong choice of word...

"slandered" should be "damaged"

I would add....

Why haven't they spoken up?
Where is the outrage from the scientific community?

Are they now ..circling the wagons, or are they just afraid to air their dirty laundry?

Until some authoritive scientific body dis-owns the fraudsters at East Anglia,
and demands that penalties be issued...

All science is suspect

It sure looks like the practice of fudging the numbers for government grants,
is rather commonplace throughout the scientific community.
The rot has been exposed.

Please...someone say it isn't so..!

Yet the point remains, Egg: just because there are those who would prostitute something, say, sex, that doesn't mean we should stop procreating. So it is that just become some would sell out science doesn't mean we should stop doing proper science. Doing proper science is of too much value to us.

And a couple of things, Larben: today's symposium is a video, so if you try watching it you will find there isn't actually any reading necessary, and as Marc alluded to above, Feynman is very easy to listen to and understand. Further, I'm not sure what you are talking about regarding people posting something not making it to post. Certainly nothing has been deleted by the symposiarch in this symposium, to date, if that's what you were thinking of.

Feynman said that, "The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. [...] No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it". On the other hand, hanging around in blogs and getting angry complaining about everything, even things one cannot or will not contribute to solving, as some people seem wont to do, is less than useful.

So it is, William, that while some people will insist on equating science with the profession of science, and thus incorrectly conclude that all science is now suspect just because some people who claimed to be professional scientists were not, the problem with the climate- change industry has nothing to do with science (which as we now know they weren't doing anyway). Rather, the problem is the second half of the first word in the acronym IPCC. For as Feynman said:

"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

"Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true."

Anyway, William, I have two degrees in science, and I've been outraged about the bad science, here at SDA, for years (for example, consider my comments in this thread on April 18, 2008, which is just one of many I participated in), and the over 31,000 scientists who signed the Oregon petition in 2007 don't seem to me to have been not speaking up when they affirmed that:

"The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

So perhaps the problem isn't that scientists haven't spoken up,
William, perhaps the problem is that you were not listening.

You may be right Vit..
I was aware of the Oregon petition and yet it slipped my mind.
I'm heartened by Kates post at 5:44am this morn
to see that scientists ARE speaking up, and in defense of my attack on science, in my earlier post, my goal was to shame the silent ones into taking some kind of action.
(through the power of SDA)
I'm listening now.!

And in the interests of science I think we should point out that William may well have been listening, but couldn't hear over the chaos of perverted science, and if nothing else, as much as they, he has a right to his opinion and to voice his concerns.

Absolutely, Larben. And as William noted,
sometimes these things just slip our minds.

A wonderful teacher. Read "Q.E.D." sometime.

This being the hour of the terminus of our scheduled interregnum for this week's symposium, I should like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have enjoyed participating in this week's show. I look forward to seeing you all again during our next symposium, and as always, thanks for this space-time, Kate.

This symposium is now closed.