Are you a Scientist?

[questor]

this is an interesting thread. most have admitted no scientific training but are admirers and users of the scientific method. in my own mind i think a scientist is one who is trained for and employed in activities which explain and codify

truth and knowledge about observable phenomenae. perhaps those who would change or add to this definition would do so in order for us all to agree on a definition.

some who think and use the scientific method and logic for their conclusions may not be classified as scientists, but sometimes make great contributions to the general knowledge base.

the wobbly part comes when people argue on personal perceptions, but do not know the truth.

[hallenrm]

.....i think a scientist is one who is trained for and employed in activities which explain and codify truth and knowledge about observable phenomenae. perhaps those who would change or add to this definition would do so in order for us all to agree on a definition.

.

 

Just a minor modification in the sentence" scientist is one who is trained for and employed in activities which explain and codify truth and knowledge about observable phenomenae" Replace trained for and by trained for or.

 

Besides I would like to add, Who have the spirit of science.

[Probable Uncertainty]

i am scientist with training, i use mostly engineer and chemist skills for now. i am designing new way to deliver cynogen chloride in shells, is very interesting and difficult work. i am think of going back in university for learn new science degree, in biology. then i will have three degree by me!

 

i do not believe in any magic, but my wife is protestant and very religion, so i have understand of people who do.

[Doctordick]

In a sense, every living person is a scientist as the the central issue of their life is to understand what the hell is going on around them. Some are just better at it than others; particularly the young! The more they figure out, the more they think they know and the less time they give to their doubts. This is as true of "professional" scientists as it is of common folk. Why do you think that major scientific breakthroughs are always made by youngsters. Authority is the very antithesis of science as it suggests that the answers are already known; it is as great a block on thought as is ignorance.

 

You need to know what the authorities know but don't believe them; belief is always wrong. The only judge of the validity of any idea must be yourself. If you cannot explain your judgments, they are no more than emotional predilections. I think everyone here should read Michael Shermer's comment in his latest Skeptic column. (See page 36 of "Scientific American", the July 2006 issue.) He specifically holds "scientists" as exempt from the analysis but I would like very much to see the brain scans of professional scientists as they prepare defenses of their ideas. I personally think "emotional bias" is much more wide spread than even he suggests. :)

 

Have fun -- Dick

[rockytriton]

it's ok to check "I'm a scientist" and "I'm afraid of science" right? I mean, if you really are a scientist, you should know to be afraid of it!

[dagaz]

Just to put my own 2c in:

 

I have a degree in environmental science (1990-92), but this was straight after high school so pretty much partied my way through uni. A few years later I got serious about it and managed to land myself some pretty cool positions as a rainforest ecologist. I then went on to do an honours thesis, producing a paper on secondary succession in isolated rainforest remnants. After quitting my position with the National Parks & Wildlife Service (2001) I stumbled around for a while before going back and doing my graduate diploma in education. I am now a high school science teacher, and have taught HSC Biology for the past three years.

[dagaz]

Forgot to say, I ticked the 'I am a scientist' option. I tell my students all the time that anyone who applies the scientific method to solve problems is a scientist.

[sebbysteiny]

Forgot to say, I ticked the 'I am a scientist' option. I tell my students all the time that anyone who applies the scientific method to solve problems is a scientist.

 

That is true up to a point, and that point is a biologist.

[dagaz]

That is true up to a point, and that point is a biologist.

What do you mean by that?

[Panjandrum]

i am designing new way to deliver cynogen chloride in shells, is very interesting and difficult work.

 

Cyanogen Chloride? Are you sure? I thought that had been banned under international chemical weapons treaties?

[Coronus]

Of cuz.It's in human nature to be intuitive and curious and there by come to assumtions about events we previously did not have any idea on.Think in a small scale this ist rue to each and everyone of us.So aren't we all scientists?

[Mercedes Benzene]

I consider myself a scientist.

Since I'm only in high school, I cannot say that I have had any formal training or professional experience, but I'll get there eventually...

[Phileas Fogg]

Hmmm.... I think I rather am against science. I look science from outside. I feel sympathy for the Luddites, in the sense they didn't believe that science/progress was doing anything good. I agree with Blake when he said about industry "the Dark Satanic Mills", I think "scientific progress" is a negative happening; loss of innocence.

 

Science might be a sickness of human mind. Jules Verne had this character.. a scientist Thomas Roch, in the book Face au drapeau, 1896. I think it's one of the best Verne's books. I think he predicted the A-bomb in it.

 

Many things we take for granted, and think they are ok; like antibiotics, I think, are not good at all. Artificial sweeteners. Freons. Mercury. Also I don't think that scientists are heroes; I dont think that Curie's are. Or somebody like Pasteur, Einstein, Planck, Isaac Newton .. for me they remind too much of Thomas Roch.

 

I think science, -- I could say - is a personal problem, that has become a social, an ecological and global problem. I don't believe in free science; there's always dependency of money, career. Science has materialistic, egoistic ethics, and I think people are fooling themselves to imagine they are doing it for philanthropic reasons.

 

In here Finland, when you begin arguing with the science-optimists, they quickly bring in their FEARS; that one will be unemplyed, that money will run out, and then bread.

 

STARVATION, THERE WILL BE NO BREAD!

 

I have always thought this is pathetic; and that it's more heroic to die in starvation, than invent atom bombs for pennies.

 

I am not a scientist, because I believe that science is just fear. Some things might be ok, like use of common sense, rational thinking, doubting and questioning.. but it can go too far... I mean, I don't believe there is freedom in science.

[IDMclean]

So what then do you say to those who do not pursue science as a means to an end, but as the journey itself? If science is the problem, what then do you purpose is the solution? Religion? Philosophy?

 

True there are many bad things that come from human curiousity, realized, but there is far more good that comes from it also.

 

Anti-biotics for instance are essential in keeping a sanitary medical facility, so that those who have weakened immune systems do not subdue to an onslaught of bacteria and other microbials. When taken to the extreames, and used unwisely, they do not help but hinder, though this is the fundamental truth of all things. All things in moderation.

 

Would you have that those who become sick, die? Instead of recieve treatment, so that they may yet realize their dreams?

 

You speak of science as a sickness, which it very well maybe, but I ask. What proofs do you have, what indications, beyond mismanagement of assets, do you have to give wieght to science as a cause of suffering?

 

Everything in you post would indicate desire as the cause of suffering, at it's base and the fear as a cause of the desire. I maintain a strong interest in science, but I have no dependency on money or anything of the type. I concider myself something of a Scientist and a shaman roled up into one. I pursue science not out of fear, it gives me nothing directly, except the satisfaction of understanding. My motivation is purely of curiousity, forged by the fires of morality and ethical bounds.

 

So I ask again, if it is a problem then it has solutions, what then do you purpose to be the solution?

[Phileas Fogg]

So what then do you say to those who do not pursue science as a means to an end, but as the journey itself? If science is the problem, what then do you purpose is the solution? Religion? Philosophy?

---

So I ask again, if it is a problem then it has solutions, what then do you purpose to be the solution?

Well. I am saying that if religion is the problem, we should not run away to science. I just said, that it's not an answer. The solution would be, I think, in ethics. I've tried to think it....

 

Once I had the idea, how wonderful it would be, if we could take all our science-"heroes", like the Curie's, Newton, Oppenheimer, Einstein, and one-by-one deconstruct them. In religion they are doing this nowadays, when they expose the false gurus. The same should be done in science!

Of course, I am curious too. It isn't that sort, that quantum theories, or chemistry or mathematics would fascinate me.

 

Rather, - as I enjoy horror-element in literature, I enjoy it in science. I love to read about Marie Curie, for example, how they say she was "ignorant" about the dangers of radioactivity; and then I see that she was not. She knew what were the physiological effects of radiation to humans. She, and her husband Pierre, and Henry Becquerel studied these things.

 

Yet, the myth remains, that they were somehow "innocent", "unaware" and ignorant. I think the same is with everything; with freons, with lead, mercury, asbestos. Scientists have known the dangers exactly. We are being fooled that they did not.

 

True, maybe antibiotics might save some people, but then, on the other hand, freons or plutonium may kill all mankind. All things in moderation, perhaps, I just don't think humans are cabaple in it. Everything becomes disproportionate, grotesque, insane in human hands. There is an element of horror in this, and this is what interests me.

 

Once, for example I suggested to Finnish physics, they didn't understand when I was explaining how nice it would be to have The History of Physics; or rather The History of Nuclear Physics, concentrating on accidents, on human stupidity, suffering and cruelty, instead of making it a heroic fairy tale, as the tale is now told. I'd love to see the true story.

 

They didn't understand this point of view. Instead they begun telling me how difficult is popularizing science, that I can never get ordinary people to understand mathematics, and the theory-side. And I could never be able concentrate history of physics in one book! Ah! That doesn't interest me. I was thinking about the horror-effect, that you could maximize that element, yet stay in facts.

 

For me, at least, that would be the true story, - the whole picture.

[Shekhar]

I think every body has some creativity and can do any innovative work if gets proper environment...........so every "living being" is a scientist.

[paigetheoracle]

I never defined myself as a scientist but more a philosopher and even then self-taught. I think philosophy and science are after the truth but science goes after concrete facts, found out through concrete experimentation (except Mathmatics). Philosophy is more like religion in that it is interested in beliefs but whereas the latter takes them for granted and basis its actions upon them, the former does it's best to demolish any and all of them, to see what truth, if any, lies behind them.