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                    John Gay, DVM PhD DACVPM               AAHP                  FDIU             VCS

Veterinary Medicine and the Philosophy of Science

Version 1.2 modified October 14, 2008  initial draft July 25, 1998

Why the concern about understanding what is science, what is not and distinguishing between the two? Some quotes from over the years that convey the reason:

Be very careful what you put in that head, because you will never, ever get it out.    Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530)

It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so. "Artemus Ward" (Charles Farrar Browne, 1834-1867

Man seeks to form for himself, in whatever manner is suitable for him, a simplified and lucid image of the world, and so to overcome the world of experience. . .   Albert Einstein (1937)

You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.   Johnathan Swift

For what a man more likes to be true, he more readily believes. Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

The human understanding supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds; and although many things in nature be sui generis and most irregular, will yet invest parallels and conjugates and relatives where no such thing is. Francis Bacon

For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced. Francis Bacon (Scientific American 5/04)

It is impossible for anyone to learn that which he thinks he already knows. Plutarch

My opinion, my conviction, gains infinitely in strength and success, the moment a second mind has adopted it. "Novalis" Friedrich von Hardenburg (1882-1801)

Ultimately, our troubles are due to dogma and deduction; we find no new truth because we take some venerable but questionable proposition as the indubitable starting point, and never think of putting this assumption itself to a test of observation or experiment. Will Durant

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter be. (Lord Kelvin, 1858)

Certitude is not the test of certainty. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841 - 1935)

As usual the greatest assurance goes hand in hand with the greatest ignorance. (Feyerabend, 1978)

Nothing is worse than active ignorance... Nothing hurts a new truth more than an old error... Everyone hears only what he understands... The phrases men are accustomed to repeat incessantly, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence... We know accurately only when we know little. With knowledge doubt increases    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The chief cause of povetry in science is imaginary wealth. The chief aim of science is not to open a door to infinite wisdome but to set a limit to infinite error. Bertolt Brecht, Galileo

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. -Tolstoy

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you actually don't know. Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. - Schopenhauer

A absolutely clear and exhaustive understanding of any single thing in the world would imply a perfect comprehension of everything else.- Schopenhauer

Science . . . warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. Thomas Huxley, 1860 (Science 281:898)

Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong.   . . . Also, if the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental results can be made to look like the expected consequences. Richard Feynman, 1964 (Science 281:903).

Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind.   William James.

Another source of fallacy is the vicious circle of illusions which consist on the one hand of believing what we see and on the other seeing what we believe. Sir Clifford Allbutt

Science is not a set of definitive results but a way of understanding the world around us. Science is the gradual process of understanding that is achieved through careful refining and sharing of information and results. DH Levy, 1998.

The purpose of science in medicine is to attempt to get at the truth. Why should falsehood and ignorance be warm, while truth and knowledge should be cold? Only more and better science will perform the humane function of eliminating the errors encouraged by warm emotion. D. F. Horrobin, 1977.

All scientific work is incomplete-whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action it appears to demand at a given time. (AB Hill, 1965)

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. (Andre Gide, 1869-1951)

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish. David Hume, Of Miracles, 1748.

The final, proper and only trustworthy arbiters of research results are time and replication. W.A. Brown, 2001 (The Scientist, 15:17, 39.).

We have to remember that what we observe (what we learn about) is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. W Heisenberg

The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (nor often) by relentless logic. Stephen Jay Gould

Belief means not wanting to know what is true.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Deep is the well of truth and long does it take to know what has fallen into its depths.
One's belief in truth begins with doubt of all truths one has believed hitherto. (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844 - 1900)

We tend to mistake our beliefs, which are thoughts about reality, for reality. Unknown (to me).

 Good Quotations by Famous People - Gabriel Robins

34 Principles of Knowledge, Reasoning and Evidence:

Stephen J. Gould on Science Facts and Theories

Science is a set of cognitive and behavioral methods designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomenon, past or present, aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.

Scientific facts are data or conclusions confirmed to such an exent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement.

Scientific progress is the cumulative growth of a system of knowledge over time, in which useful features are retained and non-useful features are abandoned, based on the rejection or confirmation of testable knowledge.

A scientific paradigm is a particular cognitive framework shared by some but usually not all members of the scientific community, designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomenon, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.

The shift from one scientific paradigm to another may be a mark of improvement in the understanding of causality, the prediction of future events, or the alteration of the environment. It is, in fact, the attempt to refine and improve the paradigm that can ultimately lead to its demise, as anomalous data unaccounted for by the old paradigm (as well as old data accounted for but capable of reinterpretation) fit into the new paradigm in a more complete way.

Science is the best tool we have for understanding causality in all realms.

Baloney Detection: How to draw boundaries between science and pseudoscience

From: Shermer M (2001), Scientific American, 285:5, November, 285:6, December.

10 questions to ask when encountering any claim:

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2. Does this source often make similar claims?
3. Have the claims been verified by another source?
4. How does the claim fit with what we know about how the world works?
5. Has anyone gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has only supportive evidence been sought?
6. Does the preponderance of evidence point to the claimant's conclusion or to a different one?
7. Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and tools of research, or have these been abandoned in favor of others that lead to the desired conclusion?
8. Is the claimant providing an explanation for the observed phenomena or merely denying the existing explanation?
9. If the claimant proffers a new explanation, does it account for as many phenomena as the old explanation did?
10. Do the claimant's personal beliefs and biases drive the conclusions, or vice versa?

Six Symptoms of Pathological Science and Self-Delusion

(Excerpts from "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, National Academy Press)
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/evolution98/evol3.html

"Science is a particular way of knowing about the world. In science, explanations are restricted to those that can be inferred from confirmable data—the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not a part of science.

On the nature of science:

1. First, science is not the same as common sense. Common sense indicates that the sun does rise and set. Nevertheless, there can be other explanations of that phenomenon, and one of them, the rotation of the earth on its axis, is responsible for day and night. A concept based on observation proved to need extensive modification as new observations accumulated.
2. Second, the statements of science should never be accepted as "final truth." Instead, over time they generally form a sequence of increasingly more accurate statements. Nevertheless, in the case of heliocentricism as in evolution, the data are so convincing that the accuracy of the theory is no longer questioned in science.
3. Third, scientific progress depends on individuals, but the contributions of one individual could be made by others. If Copernicus had kept his ideas to himself, the discovery of heliocentricism would have been postponed, but it would not have been blocked, since other astronomers eventually would have come to the same conclusion. Similarly, had Darwin and Wallace not published their hypotheses, the concept of biological evolution would nevertheless have emerged as the accepted explanation for the history of life on earth. The same cannot be said in other areas of human endeavor; for example, had Shakespeare never published, we would most assuredly never have had his plays. The publications of scientists, unlike those of playwrights, are a means to an end—they are not the end itself.

It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models, and the explanations proposed by other scientists. Evaluation includes reviewing the experimental procedures, examining the evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, pointing out statements that go beyond the evidence, and suggesting alternative explanations for the same observations. Although scientists may disagree about explanations of phenomena, about interpretations of data, or about the value of rival theories, they do agree that questioning, response to criticism, and open communication are integral to the process of science. As scientific knowledge evolves, major disagreements are eventually resolved through such interactions between scientists.

Science distinguishes itself from other ways of knowing and from other bodies of knowledge through the use of empirical standards, logical arguments, and skepticism, as scientists strive for the best possible explanations about the natural world.

Scientific explanations must meet certain criteria. First and foremost, they must be consistent with experimental and observational evidence about nature, and must make accurate predictions, when appropriate, about systems being studied. They should also be logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to criticism, report methods and procedures, and make knowledge public. Explanations on how the natural world changes based on myths, personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or authority may be personally useful and socially relevant, but they are not scientific.

Because all scientific ideas depend on experimental and observational confirmation, all scientific knowledge is, in principle, subject to change as new evidence becomes available. The core ideas of science such as the conservation of energy or the laws of motion have been subjected to a wide variety of confirmations and are therefore unlikely to change in the areas in which they have been tested. In areas where data or understanding are incomplete, such as the details of human evolution or questions surrounding global warming, new data may well lead to changes in current ideas or resolve current conflicts. In situations where information is still fragmentary, it is normal for scientific ideas to be incomplete, but this is also where the opportunity for making advances may be greatest.

An Excerpt from the Book "This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World" (1997) by Ernst Mayr

The axiomatic assumptions or first principles of scientists:

1. That there is a real world independent of human perceptions. This might be called the principle of objectivity (as opposed to subjectivity) or common-sense realism. This principle does not mean that individual scientists are always "objective" or even that objectivity among human beings is possible in any absolute sense. What it does mean is that an objective world exists outside of the influence of subjective human perception.
2. That this world is not chaotic but is structured in some way, and that most, if not all, aspects of this structure will yield to the tools of scientific investigation. A primary tool used in all scientific activity is testing. Every new fact and every new explanation must be tested again and again, preferably by different investigators using different methods. Every confirmation strengthens the probability of the "truth" of a fact or explanation, and every falsification or refutation strengthens the probability that an opposing theory is correct. One of the most characteristic features of science is this openness to challenge. Often, in science, the absolute truth of a fact can be established. The absolute truth of an explanation or theory is much harder, and usually takes much longer, to gain acceptance.
3. That there is historical and causal continuity among all phenomena in the material universe, and they include within the domain of legitimate scientific study everything known to exist or to happen in this universe. But they do not go beyond the material world.

 (modified from the initial list of 16 by Lee Moller, BCS Debates a Qi Gong Master, Rational Enquirer 6(4), Apr94)

1. Would accepting the tenets of a claim require abandoning any well established, fundamental physical law or theory?
2. Do proponents claim that because conventional scientific theories cannot be proven, which is true, their theories are of equivalent merit?
3. Do proponents claim that the lack of evidence for a component of a conventional theory itself constitutes support for their theory?
4. Has the discipline shown progress in understanding mechanisms and causal relationships?
5. Does the discipline use scientific or technical words such as "vibration" or "energy" without clearly defining what they mean?
6. Are popular articles on the subject lacking in references to the scientific literature?
7. Is the only evidence offered anecdotal (case studies or case series of miraculous results) in nature?
8. Do proponents of the subject claim that "air-tight" experiments have been performed that prove the truth of the subject matter and that cheating would have been impossible?
9. Have the results of the aforementioned experiments been successfully replicated by other independent, skeptical researchers?
10. Do proponents of the subject claim to be overly or unfairly criticized or to be the targets of a conspiracy or cover-up?
11. Do proponents allege that disinterest or dismissal by conventional scientists is evidence of this conspiracy or cover-up?
12. Is the subject only taught in non-credit institutions and not in major public research institutions as part of their main curriculum?
13. Do proponents use alleged expertise in other areas to lend weight to their claim?
14. Do proponents cite research credentials (e.g., PhD) without stating in what area the credential was awarded and by what institution?
15. Do proponents cite faculty status (e.g., professor) without stating the institution that granted this rank?
16. Are the best texts on the subject decades old?
17. Do proponents of the claim use what one writer has called "factuals" -- statements that are a largely or wholly true but unrelated to the claim?
18. When criticized, do the defenders of the claim attack the critic rather than the criticism, often using terms such as demolished, double standards, vapid, dirty tricks, dishonest, gamesmanship?
19. Do proponents make appeals to history (e.g., this has been around a long time so it has to be true because if it wasn't it wouldn't have been)?
20. Do proponents make appeals to weight of usage (e.g., thousands of Chinese use this therapy with great results) as evidence of efficacy?
21. Does the subject display the "shyness affect"?     (Shyness effect: Demonstrable claims that can only be demonstrated when skeptics are not present or only when demonstrated to a sympathetic audience - Lee Moller)
22. Do proponents use the appeal to ignorance argument ("there are more things under heaven than are dreamt of in your philosophy...")?
23. Can you find relevant papers authored by the proponents in the relevant refereed scientific literature (e.g., such as on Medline Pubmed for medical subjects)?
24. Are other papers in the relevant refereed scientific literature (e.g., such as on Medline Pubmed for medical subjects) by other independent investigators also supportive of the proponent's claims?

On-Line Resources:

General Science Terminology Glossary

The History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine:

• ECHO (Exploring and Collecting History On-line - History of Science, Technology, and Medicine)
  http://echo.gmu.edu/center/
• From Quackery to Bacteriology: The Emergence of Modern Medicine in 19th Century America
  http://www.cl.utoledo.edu/canaday/quackery/quack-index.html
• History of Biomedicine (Collection of links to on-line materials maintained by the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden)
  http://www.mic.ki.se/History.html
• History of the Health Sciences Section of the Medical Library Association
  http://www.mla-hhss.org/index.html
  • History of the Health Sciences World Wide Web Links
    http://www.mla-hhss.org/histlink.htm
• History of Medicine Division, US NLM
  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/
• Horus Gets In Gear: A Beginner's Guide to Research in the History of Science (RC Tobey, U Calif - Riverside)
  http://www.horuspublications.com/guide/tc1.html (dead 9/04)
• Philosophy in Cyberspace
  http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~dey/phil/
• Philosophy around the Web
  http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337/phil_index.html
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (incomplete)
  http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
• The Ascelpion (history of ancient medicine, N. Demand, Indiana University Bloomington)
  http://www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/intro.HTM
• The Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University
  http://www.mcmaster.ca/russdocs/russell.htm
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (texts, key words; J Fieser, B Dowden)
  http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/
• The Karl Popper Web (philosopher of science, site at Dublin City University)
  http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/
• World Lecture Hall (links to on-line components of courses - University of Texas)
  http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/
• WWW Virtual Library: Philosophy
  http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/VL/

Creationism / Intelligent Design Controversy:

Creation & Intelligent Design Watch
http://www.csicop.org/creationwatch/

• Links

Other On-Line Resources:

Note: I've provided some key quotes and points from some of the following resources. For explanation, please see the on-line full text.

A Field Guide to Critical Thinking (J Lett, Indian River Comm Coll, Skeptical Inquirer, 1990)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9012/critical-thinking.html

A Liberal Education (T.H. Huxley, 1868 - argument on the necessity for all to understand science and the consequence of not)
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/LibEd.html

Acupuncture: A Review of Its History, Theories, and Indications (S Ceniceros, GR Brown, Southern Medical Journal 91(12):1121-5 (1998))
http://www.sma.org/smj1998/decsmj98/ceniceros.pdf

Alternative Medicine and the Laws of Physics (RL Park, Univ Maryland, Skeptical Inquirer, 1997)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9709/park.html

Alternative Medicine: Articles on alternative medicine and quackery (VJ Stenger, physicist, University of Hawaii)
http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/alt.html (dead link 6/04)

Bad Science (AB Fraser, Prof emeritus, Penn State Univ)
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html

Critical Thinking: What is it Good for? (In Fact, What Is It?) Skeptical Inquirer March 2006

Dan Berger, MadSci Admin - History of Science (Bluffton College)
http://www.madsci.org/libs/areas/sci_hi.html

• Re: What is science?
  http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/feb98/887809688.Sh.r.html
• Re: What is the most important concept in science?
  http://madsci.wustl.edu/posts/archives/apr99/925157418.Sh.r.html
• Re: What is the difference between a theory and a law?
  http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/oct99/940942724.Sh.r.html

E. R Friedlander (E Friedlander, Univ Missouri Health Sciences pathologist)
http://www.pathguy.com/

• Alternative Medicine: An Outline for Physicians
  http://www.pathguy.com/lectures/alternat.txt
• Ed's Guide to Alternative Therapies
  http://www.pathguy.com/altermed.htm
• Quackery
  http://www.pathguy.com/lectures/quackery.txt
• Why I am Not a Postmodernist
  http://www.pathguy.com/postmod.htm

European Enlightenment (Richard Hooker, World Civilizations, Washington State)

• The Scientific Revolution

Free Inquiry (SD Schafersman, Univ Texas)
http://www.freeinquiry.com/

• An Introduction to Critical Thinking  
  http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-thinking.html
• An Introduction to Science: Scientific Thinking and the Scientific Method (excellent - SD Schafersman, Miami University)
  http://www.freeinquiry.com/intro-to-sci.html

The Skeptical Alternative Medicine Website
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/medicine/

Goodstein, David (Caltech vice provost)
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/

How Science Works
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/HowScien.pdf

Healthcare Reality Check (anti-quackery information and links, Georgia Council Against Health Fraud)
http://www.hcrc.org/ (down 9/04)

Homeopathy and Science: A Closer Look (DW Ramey, DVM, M Wagner, PhD, RH Imrie, DVM` V Stenger, PhD)
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Medicine/Homeop.html

Hypothesis Testing: Statistics as Pseudoscience (DH Johnson, USGS)
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/perm/hypotest/hypotest.htm

326 Articles/Books Questioning the Indiscriminate Use of Statistical Hypothesis Tests in Observational Studies (WL Thompson)
http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/~anderson/thompson1.html

Introduction to the Scientific Method (F Wolfs, U Rochester)
http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html

JunkScience.com (S Milloy)
http://www.junkscience.com/

Lipps, Jere H. (Evolutionary Paleobiology Group, UC Berkeley)
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/jlipps/jlipps.html

• Beyond Reason: Science in the Mass Media
• Science, A Candle in the Dark
• The Decline of Reason?

Myths of Skepticism (MD Sofka, Rensselaer Polytech I)
http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/talk/talk.html
http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/papers/skeptik.html (shorter version)
http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/papers/skeptik.pdf (pdf)

"Science is that application of formal and informal reasoning methods to understand and predict the natural and artificial worlds in which humans live. Central to science is a belief that the natural world is ordered; that it can be understood; and that it can be explained via natural processes without resorting to special causes, or the interventions of the supernatural. Science also places a very high priority on what can be observed and measured. The theories of science should be fruitful, inclusive, simple, and, to the degree possible, independently tested. . . . Science is first and foremost, however, a human activity. As such, its methods and conclusions are subject to the psychological, sociological, historical, religious and political assumptions of the individual and collective scientists. This does not invalidate science or its conclusions, but it does mean that scientist must apply the same formal methods to their own reasoning that they apply to the object of study. It is incumbent upon ethical scientists to make their own biases known when requesting research support, and when announcing the conclusions of that research."

On Science, Scientific Method And Evolution Of Scientific Thought: A Philosophy Of Science Perspective Of Quasi-Experimentation (Y Malhotra)
http://www.brint.com/papers/science.htm

Philosophy, Science and Skepticism (MI Vuletic, U of Ill Chicago)
http://vuletic.com/hume/

Frequently Encountered Criticisms in Evolution vs. Creationism: 2002 Edition
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/index.html

Quackwatch: Your Guide to Health Fraud, Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions (Stephen Barrett, MD)
http://www.quackwatch.com/

• Why Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof (EJ Gracely)
  http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/extraproof.html
• Common Questions About Science and "Alternative" Health Methods (GL Smith)
  http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/scivsalt.html

Russel Turpin's "Characterization of Quack Theories"
http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/BillInfo/Quack.html
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/quack.htm

sci.skeptic FAQ
http://home.xnet.com/~blatura/skeptic.shtml

The Scientific Method
http://home.xnet.com/~blatura/skep_1.html

Science and Philosophy
http://www.sciphilos.info/

Science Haven: Surfing the Gap Between Arrogance and Stupidity (T Halwes)
http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/index.htm

• Dispelling Some Common Myths about Science
  http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/dispelling-myth-magical-science.htm
• Principal Problems with Principles: Limits of Logic in the Growth of Knowledge
  http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/limits-of-logic.htm
• The Myth of the Magical Scientific Method  
  http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/myth-of-scientific-method.htm
• The Terrible Truth About Truth
  http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/terrible-truth.htm
• Psuedo-science or Proto-science?
  http://www.dharma-haven.org/science/psuedo-science-or-proto-science.htm

Sense About Science

• Peer Review And the Acceptance of New Scientific Ideas, 2004 (pdf)

Skeptics Quotes (many later proven wrong, of course)

• Against Excessive Skepticism
  http://www.amasci.com/weird/skepquot.html
• Great Quotes from Great Skeptics
  http://my.athenet.net/~jlindsay/SkepticQuotes.html
• Skepticism Quotes
  http://quotes.telemanage.ca/quotes.nsf/QuotesByCat?ReadForm&RestrictToCategory=Skepticism
• The Official Truth
  http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/freenrg/laughed.html

Speculations of the Future of Science (Kevin Kelly, Edge: The Third Culture)

Stephen's Guide to Logical Fallacies (S Downes, University of Alberta)
http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.php

Task Force for Veterinary Science: Dedicated to Reliable Health Information
http://www.vet-task-force.com/index.html

Ten Myths of Science: Reexamining What We Think We Know (W. McComas, USC: Vol. 96, School Science & Mathematics, 01-01-1996, pp 10)
http://www.amasci.com/miscon/myths10.html

• Myth 1: Hypotheses Become Theories Which Become Laws
• Myth 2: A Hypothesis is an Educated Guess
• Myth 3: A General and Universal Scientific Method Exists
• Myth 4: Evidence Accumulated Carefully Will Result in Sure Knowledge
• Myth 5: Science and its Methods Provide Absolute Proof
• Myth 6: Science Is Procedural More Than Creative
• Myth 7: Science and its Methods Can Answer All Questions
• Myth 8. Scientists are Particularly Objective
• Myth 9: Experiments are the Principle Route to Scientific Knowledge
• Myth 10: All Work in Science is Reviewed to Keep the Process Honest

The Critical Thinking Community

The End of Science? (T Schick, Muhlenberg College, Skeptical Inquirer, 1997)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/end.html

"Can science be shown to be a superior means of acquiring knowledge? Yes it can, but only by showing that it is more likely to yield justified beliefs than any other methodology. Thus the real issue is not whether a belief is scientific or pseudoscientific but whether it is justified or unjustified. . . .We are justified in believing something to be true when it provides the best explanation of the evidence. Science is superior to other methods of inquiry because it usually provides better explanations than they do. The goodness of an explanation is determined by the amount of understanding it produces, and the amount of understanding an explanation produces is determined by how much it systematizes and unifies our knowledge. The extent to which an explanation does this can be determined by appealing to various criteria of adequacy such as simplicity, scope, conservatism, and fruitfulness. No one wants to hold unjustified beliefs. The problem is that most people never learn the difference between a good explanation and a bad one. Consequently they come to believe all sorts of weird things for no good reason."

The Heuristics of Intellectual Due Process: A Primer for the Triers of Science (PDF E Beecher-Monas, NY Univ Law Review 75:1563-1657)
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/lawreview/75/6/monas.pdf

The Philosophy of Science Association
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/PSA/Default.htm

The Scientist's World (Geology 109, College of Marin)
http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~bpeters/jim/109one.htm

Twenty Science Attitudes (Rational Enquirer, 3(3))
http://www.ksu.edu/biology/pob/modern_attitudes.html
http://www.str.com.br/English/Scientia/twenty.htm
http://www.amasci.com/weird/sciattid.html

The description of 20 important attitudes about science and knowledge that are generally held by scientists, such as empiricism (look and see), determinism (cause and effect), parsimony, skepticism, precision, open mindedness, intellectual drive, awareness of assumptions, and appreciation of chance.

Blogs:

Crooked Timber

• Scientific intimidation (8/05)
• The Republican War on Science (8/05, book review)

Respectful Insolence (a.k.a. "Orac Knows")

• Medicine and evolution, part I: Introduction (3/23/06)
• Medicine and evolution, Part 2: Applying evolutionary principles to cancer (3/27/06)
• Medicine and evolution, Part 3: A trypanosome shows the way (3/30/06)
• Medicine and Evolution, Part 4: Physicians seduced by "intelligent design" creationism (4/19/06)
• Some Characteristics of Pseudoscientific Health Claims

Sciencegate (science-minded journalists)

• Science = Liberalism (Chris Mooney, 8/19/05)

Science and Politics

• Publishing hypotheses and data on a blog - is it going to happen on science blogs? (4/17/06)

Wikipedia:

Article:

• History of Science
• Philosophy of Science
• Scientific Method

Category:

• History of Science
• Philosophy of Science
• Scientific Method

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