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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7472471" data-attributes="member: 16814">Scientifically define "good."  You'll find it's a subjective preference.Inductive reasoning (although science might be considered a form of inductive reasoning).  Deductive reasoning. Consensus building (for moral, social, and political issues, frex).  Philosophy.  And, no, the scientific method was designed to do hypothesis testing.  There's nothing that prevents rather wild hypothesis.What would your hypothesis be?  "Science is the best tool to discover all truth?"  What's the experiment?  What's the conclusion?  I'm saying it can't, all you have to do is prove it once and I'm wrong.  Conversely, I cannot prove a negative.  The burden here is on the side claiming it can define itself.You're confusing subjective policy decisions with science, or are you trying to claim political parties are using science to determine which science research areas to defund?  I'm certainly not at all claiming that politics cannot impact the priorities on where to spend money, I'm explicitly saying science cannot provide those priorities.  Your statement above tends to agree with me.Mathematics is the language of science so it's hard to go from science improving mathematics.  This is like saying Shakespeare made the English language better rather than just using it really damn well.  Science hasn't weighed in, ever, on the golden rule.  What would that experiment look like?  Science avoids philosophy like the plague -- nothing to measure so how could you experiment?Honestly, this is exactly the kind of pseudo-belief structure in science as the one true way to understanding I'm cautioning against.  You've got your hammer and are looking for nails.ETA:  Again, I'm a freaking engineer (electronic, not trains).  I love science.  I use it every day.  I read papers for fun.  None of this is meant to attack science; it's a fantastic tool in the box for helping us understand our physical universe.</blockquote>

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