> Ron Hubbard wasn’t writing about topics generally covered by the philosophy of science.
So? I didn't bring up LRH as an example of a philosopher of science, I brought up LRH as an example of someone who has been influential to make the point that just because someone is influential doesn't necessarily mean that they are worth paying attention to, and this is true no matter what field they're in.
BTW, I've been re-reading Against Method and it is every bit as nonsensical and incoherent and just downright stupid as I remember it. AFAICT, what it's saying is, essentially, here are things that scientists have done in the past that look dumb to me with the benefit of hindsight, and here is a straw-man characterization of the scientific method, and so we should throw it all out and just allow anyone to do whatever the fuck they want to because reasons.
In the hope of maybe finding something that I'm missing, I also went to the Wikipedia article:
> The primary thesis of Against Method is that there is no such thing as the scientific method and that it is not appropriate to impose a single methodological rule upon scientific practices. Rather, 'anything goes', meaning that scientists should be free to pursue whatever research seems interesting to them. The primary target of Against Method is 'rationalism', or the view that there are rational rules that should guide scientific practices.
More patent nonsense is hard to imagine. There manifestly is such a thing as the scientific method. There is something that scientists do that allows them to produce theories with more predictive power than shamans or psychics or astrologers. Something distinguishes scientists from crackpots. In fact, we actually know pretty much exactly what that something is. But even if we didn't know, that wouldn't mean that it doesn't exist.
Here is a specific example from the "Sketch of the main argument" at the start of the book:
"The consistency condition which demands that new hypotheses agree with accepted theories is unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and not the better theory."
There is no "consistency condition" which "demands" anything. This is just utter nonsense. I even wrote specifically about this in the previous installment of my series:
If this "consistency condition" were real we would never have gotten relativity nor quantum mechanics nor plate tectonics nor H. Pylori nor RNA vaccines nor even sanitation (because Pasteur's germ theory did not agree with the accepted theories of the day). This "consistency condition" is a straw man of the first water.
So? I didn't bring up LRH as an example of a philosopher of science, I brought up LRH as an example of someone who has been influential to make the point that just because someone is influential doesn't necessarily mean that they are worth paying attention to, and this is true no matter what field they're in.
BTW, I've been re-reading Against Method and it is every bit as nonsensical and incoherent and just downright stupid as I remember it. AFAICT, what it's saying is, essentially, here are things that scientists have done in the past that look dumb to me with the benefit of hindsight, and here is a straw-man characterization of the scientific method, and so we should throw it all out and just allow anyone to do whatever the fuck they want to because reasons.
In the hope of maybe finding something that I'm missing, I also went to the Wikipedia article:
> The primary thesis of Against Method is that there is no such thing as the scientific method and that it is not appropriate to impose a single methodological rule upon scientific practices. Rather, 'anything goes', meaning that scientists should be free to pursue whatever research seems interesting to them. The primary target of Against Method is 'rationalism', or the view that there are rational rules that should guide scientific practices.
More patent nonsense is hard to imagine. There manifestly is such a thing as the scientific method. There is something that scientists do that allows them to produce theories with more predictive power than shamans or psychics or astrologers. Something distinguishes scientists from crackpots. In fact, we actually know pretty much exactly what that something is. But even if we didn't know, that wouldn't mean that it doesn't exist.
Here is a specific example from the "Sketch of the main argument" at the start of the book:
"The consistency condition which demands that new hypotheses agree with accepted theories is unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and not the better theory."
There is no "consistency condition" which "demands" anything. This is just utter nonsense. I even wrote specifically about this in the previous installment of my series:
https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/04/the-scientific-method-pa...
If this "consistency condition" were real we would never have gotten relativity nor quantum mechanics nor plate tectonics nor H. Pylori nor RNA vaccines nor even sanitation (because Pasteur's germ theory did not agree with the accepted theories of the day). This "consistency condition" is a straw man of the first water.