Science and its Methods (Part 1 - Induction)

It is for a fact considered that Science is our best hope for finding the true picture of the universe. It is so supposed that the scientific findings are free from the personal outlook, idiosyncrasies, or the individual ideologies of the scientists (both theoretical and experimental), who work on the research programs in the related fields. That is to say that Science is Objective. But recent arguments (spanning from the refutation of naive induction by Bacon, through Popper's Falsificationism and till Kuhn's Paradigm Shift - all to be explained in this and subsequent posts) has shown that science might not be as objective as we suppose it to be, and hence cannot be taken for granted.

For one, since the very start of the Scientific observation, we have based our laws on the outwardly strong, but inwardly hollow principles of Induction. Induction is just as simple as saying that the Sun will rise in the East because it does so everyday. That is to say that repeated observation of a phenomenon can support a scientific law. This seems a very plausible argument, which can be supported by our everyday experiences. Ofcourse Induction is a driving force, and an important one at that, for initial observational capacity of science, and it plays an important role. For a child in his very primes, it is inductive experience that (s)he might fall on a wet floor; it can be said that the child may fall down, making the same mistake again and again before (s)he realises what to avoid. This is the beauty of Induction, for one it does not need an extensive logical structure, for one it is inculcated in life forms much lower than ourselves. Hence to sign off Induction as a falsehood might not be amiable on our part.

But what Induction lacks is a skeptical, logical outlook. For example - if I have only seen white coloured rabbits in my whole life as for now, I cannot conclude that rabbits are essentially white only; and for the factual part, they certainly are not. That means that as we increase the number of observations, it may so happen that we could find a disparity that we never foresaw, if we had made a theory just out of Induction.

Now one may argue that Induction, is indeed statistically correct. A strong point in favor of Induction; but then can we base a scientific law on statistics? This I would leave as an open question, the one I would try to reason out in the next post.

Die Logik (Vol 1)

This is a new entry on the already present huge world of Blog Carnivals.
The basic Reason to build this one, was the lack of Blogs dealing with Science as a Philosophy, on the blog-sphere, something that bugged me a lot.

> The First post, "10 Ways to Tell If You’re a Tree-Hugger", on the blog "Environmental Science Degrees", was a witty one. Ron Delfs, the author, has distinguished between a real tree hugger and the one who is faking it as it is an IN fag. Well Ron, thank you, for making me realise on what points I satisfy as a true tree hugger and on which ones I fail!!

> The second post reminded me of a book I read quite a while ago - "An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine: Humanizing Modern Medicine" by "James A. Marcum", and specially 2 chapter in the book "Patient as a body or Person" and "Emotionally detached concern or Empathic Care". In the post, I'm talking of, "10 Incredibly Unlikely & Inspirational Physical Therapy Stories", on the Blog "A Hearty Blog", author Jennifer Kingsley, has noted down the second aspect of both the chapters I have mentioned - i.e. Patients as persons and the empathic look towards them rather treating them as merely mechanical bodies. Appreciable post.

>The third happened to be of my interest. Romeo Vitelli, in his blog "Providentia", posted a very interesting event under the title "The Flat Earth Fiasco". The psychological analysis of the Wallace-Hampden story was something that made my nerves race. It matched with my taste of read. This is a blog I will definitely follow!!

In all a good response for a first edition.
And a big appreciation to all the three authors who contributed. Thank You.
Keep Blogging and stay in touch.

Vocabulary for a Philosopher

There is a lot of linguistic gap that needs to be covered for a student of philosophy, specially one involved in its scientific methods.
One such instance happens when I say something to be Illogical.
Illogical in English may mean something deprived of logic. But I don't mean to say that, nothing is deprived of logic, yes the extent of involvement of logic may differ. In the same way when I say Impossible, I do not mean something that cannot happen, but something that is rather improbable, i.e. the probability of it happening is very less. Hence, illogical means that certain thing makes lesser logic at that particular level as compared to higher levels.

So lets define two new terms in retrospective of Scientific Philosophy.
1) Illogical
2) Impossible

We certainly use these term a lot in daily life and more so often when discussing scientific undertakings. First of all, as I have said before, nothing can be illogical. Yes the degree of logic involved may vary. Lets take a look at the Logic - Complexity Pyramid again -



Again as mathematics lay on top of the pyramid as the most logical science ever bestowed upon mankind, its logic is supreme. Physics is a close contender, moreover because it is highly dependent on maths, for logical backing of itself. The main reason for this is because, while mathematical logic covers everything and represents it in the simplest of forms (ofcourse using symbols and equation, which to a layman may seem very complex!!), physics requires a more complex procedure of observation and inferences, which then are utilised to form mathematical models. Hence while maths claims everything to be probable, in what so ever proportion, physics holds this to be tested by observation, though with advent of quantum mechanics, this barrier between physics and maths is dissolving.
Now when me move further downwards, in theological and social perspectives, not everything is probable, or in simpler terms, things might occur which can be called "Miraculous".
I'll give an example - A large comet that falls on Earth as a meteor can be taken as a point of reference.
Now mathematically, this is rather a usual event, as every comet in the universe always has a probability of falling on Earth, the probability may vary from 0.999999999999999 to 0.000000000000001, but there is always a probability that this event can happen any time, hence a Mathematician who is, let us suppose, devoid of social links will never call it illogical or impossible (I prefer the word improbable), because for him, it always had a probability, yes statistics must be showing it as improbable, but he always has a tool of probability that dictates otherwise.
For a Physicist, this event is probable as maths dictates him, but if he is astronomically sound, and has been observing the sky, and never had a hint of this comet coming the Earth's ways, then for him it would be a bit surprising, though this can be attributed to error in his observation. Hence the level of illogical in physics with respect to mathematics increases, more things can be put as illogical (or low on logic) in physics than in maths.
For a theologian, who has neither the backing of maths or physics, this would be highly illogical, and so will it be for any layman, they would consider it as a Divine Miracle, if the approaching body is large enough, they might think of it as the end of the World when the object strikes the Earth. Here illogic increases its hold.
Hence the term Illogical is relativistic. The last case of Theological Logic would be considered as illogical in respect to Mathematics or Physics. But that does not mean that it has no Logic involved. How can I say that? Well if a theologian has studied his scriptures, he must have read about such events taking place in older times, though very rarely. He must also be guided by his scriptures that this is a divine sequence of events, and that it must have a effect on astrology. This dictates the Logic of the Theologian. Hence his point of view does not lack Logic wholly, but lacks it in terms of the more logical branches present above Theology.
Same is the case for Impossible, anything considered impossible on a level, loses its impossible character at the level just above it on the logic - complexity pyramid. A simple way to avoid the use of Impossible, is to use the word improbable instead of it, which necessarily means having a low probability. Hence the ambiguity is resolved to a level.

The problem is not with the sciences, its with our language. Philosophy, or any science for that, requires a constant upgradation of language, as the words already present, become insufficient to express the true meaning of new developments.
Also in case of sciences like mathematics and physics, which lay at the higher levels of logic, the use of a language is not very efficient, as when an equation is expressed in words, it looses its true meaning to the expression. Therefore many a time, a physicist's book for layman turns out to be more confusing than enabling for the layman to understand physics.

The solution is, ofcourse upgrading the language, and use of words that don't imply things very strongly, as it leave out the scope of doubt inherent in any science.

With all due respect to the Octopus, and the Parrot!!

Football World Cup 2010 brought it with the thrill to millions of fans across the world. Ofcourse the question right from the beginning has been, and had to be, who will take away the World Champion trophy this time. And Football being a religion to millions, the enthusiasm had to build up, and what do people do to take out the enthusiasm, well, they may head to the matches and support their teams, engage in betting, both harmless and not so harmless, and finally circle around an octopus who seems to predict the results of the match and, out of sheer inquisitiveness, try to find out, before hand, who will win the match!!!
The result - Paul the Octopus gets world fame, what is it that he possesses, is it supernatural psychic powers which can tell the result of a match? Certainly he is an important piece of assured news to fill the empty slots of the masala hungry media, and for the people alike. What ultimately comes out of it, and it is something that would fly right across the face of an educated world, is a mad rush to what he will predict and if his predictions are right or not.

Meanwhile, a Parrot in Singapore comes to challenge Paul's decision. When Paul predicts Spain to be the world champions, the Parrot comes up to support Holland. Now the match reduces to if Paul would be right or the Parrot come out as the victorious psychic being. And as the world goes crazy over the showdown, and not football showdown I mean, it dawns on me how lame can people get over some pseudo scientific phenomenon.

I have a simple explanation based on Probability and Statistics.
Now each match has 2 probabilities - Team A wins, or Team B wins.
Therefore the probability that Team A wins = Probability of Team B wins = 1/2.
This is equivalent to a coin toss, where both Head and Tail have a probability of 1/2.
Now Paul has predicted 6 matches accurately, an analogy that you toss the coin six times and ask your friend "Head or Tail?"
And there is a fair possibility that he guessed it correctly all the six times.

So I and my brother, did the experiment. He tossed the coin, I predicted the side it will land on.
At the first go, I successively predicted 2 times the correct side.
Second try, I was able to guess 5 times.
Third try, 3 times.
Fourth Try, spot on 6 times.

That means it is not impossible to do this kind of stuff. Certainly, you may say that he did it the first time itself. I say yeah thats a lucky break, in lay man terms.
As we keep on increasing the sample space for the experiment, the probability keeps on decreasing, hence 6 times the coin toss, and guessing the right answer all the time is 1/64 (approx one in every 64 tries). Not tough at all, as in drawing a card from a well shuffled deck of card and getting the card you wanted is 1/52, (i.e once in every 52 trials) and then too while playing cards you may get the card you wanted, so Paul's prediction is not that a big deal, as the press has made it. And Paul has been wrong, Euro Cup 2008, Paul predicted Germany to win over Spain in the finals, Spain won.

The disappointing fact is that, an educated world keeps falling for pseudo scientific blunders like these. Paul the Octopus, Prophecies of Nostradamus, those of Fatima, and dozens of other mystics, who roamed throughout the History. I guess it is the human tendency to get an assurance of the future, but I hope we can atleast enjoy a match without the hocus focus of prophecies.

Why do Westerns believe that Indians are Good Call Center Employees??

With so many hands, and heads and ears....
Certainly after seeing the Indian Gods, they drew this kind of picture of Indians in their mind!!!
Indian Gods generally have a lot of hands and heads... The post intends a pun on this appearance clubbed with the fact that the largest profession in IT industry in India is outsourcing and B.P.O. service providing.....
No intentional hurt to feelings intended....