Marigolds, and the measuring thereof

Of course, if you work with ideas like intuitionism, then mathematics is a system of logic in which everything happens to always be consistent the very vast majority of the time.

I'm pretty sure you can study cooking through science. Maybe not through molecular chemistry, but more through broad chemistry/agriculture and statistics.

I suppose in the sense that the map is not the territory, cooking could be regarded as only a general approximation of the processes behind the making of a meal. Nevertheless, if the reductionist approach can't, practically speaking, be used to make a meal, I don't think it can be said to be capable of doing so in any real sense.

"Reductionist approach"?

I mean an approach to cooking that looks only at the scientific processes behind it. Referring to the philosophical position which regards nothing as anything more than the sum of its constituent elements.

So, just the instructions on how to make it?

I dissected a frog once, and I found a reddish thing that sort of looked like it could be a sou- oh, wait, no, that's the heart.

The probable case is that we don't have souls at all, and our emotions are labels that we put on chemical interactions in our brains because we're self-aware life forms.

^^ No, actually, in order to describe the process of cooking in a sense that was scientifically rigorous you'd presumably have to include a lot of extra, unnecessary information beyond that needed to simply cook something.

I don't think you do, really. Nothing about science says you can only talk about the basic fundamental details. If the recipe says "bake for 50 minutes or until it turns golden brown" then that's an empirical description of what you're doing. It's certainly not unscientific. I suppose it's closer to engineering than research though.

edited 30th Aug '11 11:32:39 AM by Clarste

To say it again, in a way that's a lot longer, much of "honestly, really knowing something to be reliably true" comes down to concerns and double checking that don't have very much practical application.

For instance, a construction worker shouldn't necessarily be concerned with everything the architects and project managers went through, if that worker's job is to ensure the building goes up as quickly and safely as possible.

Thus, a reductionist approach attempts to display the practical information over the rigorous work you'd actually need to assure the result.

Of course, the exchange is that if you don't actually have the equipment, or the means to really show the work, or the assurance that the recipe that you're using is right, is that sometimes you'll find that it was actually wrong.

So for instance, if the project manager's budgeting was shoddy, then a construction foreman who noticed that they weren't going to have enough rivets to finish the project would be able to catch the detail before it halted production. But at the same time, the foreman shouldn't necessarily be redrawing the designs every time he gets the blueprints from the architects. That would mean he'd need to train in something that should be thoroughly completed at a much earlier stage.

The entire idea has a lot to do with ensuring the most effective means end up being overseen by the most effective operators. And science or statistics or mathematics is just as much a process as construction or baking is.

Do you count engineering as science, applied science, or abusing science for fun and profit?

Applied Maths?

Math is the language you use to talk about science, not a subset.

Engineering is applied physics/chemistry. We're not quite at the point, AFAIK, where biology comes into it.

I'd point you to Industrial Engineering and other ergonomics based engineering. Or software engineering, which is mostly language and logic based.

I'd say that biology in the next twenty or thirty years might have a few more focused disciplines that do get close to examining medicine and organic structures in a much more discrete logical fashion. Systems biology and other kinds of microbiology already sort of touch on the concept.

Moving on, I'd say your dislike for philosophy is a little misplaced, Deboss. I can understand how really broad, academic ideas of philosophy usually end up referring to the stereotypical twenty-somethings with more skepticism than sense, or those dull philosophy professors who never seem to get past the old classical thinkers.

But if we just look at philosophy in terms of epistemology, then it becomes incredibly important in grounding many disciplines such as mathematics into a more mentally human perspective. Still, I guess that's using philosophy as more of a subset of a discipline, as sort of a part of the entire process. So yeah, if we're just talking about your average philosophy class, most of that is drivel your average college kid should be figuring out for themselves.

@ Social Contract as applied to Scientists: It's not our job to Cater to the whims and fancies of anyone but our employers. Our job is to figure shit out and find a way to put it to use, preferably towards the betterment of humanity, whether they like it is not our concern.

Within budget constraints.

If at all possible, under budget. if not... well, that's what groveling and awesome graphs are for.

True enough, that's just part of the engineering oath thingy we take for ethics.

you guys have to take oaths?

Kinda? We have to sign something that says we won't do unethical things to practice engineering.

ahhhh.

*Glares a little harder at the Big Dig*

?

It's a Long Story Basically there was this big THING in boston forever to try and get rid of the godawful overpasses and replace them with loads of tunnels, only it was so corrupt and milked so badly that decades later it still wsan't done, was millions, if not billions over budget, and once they finally OPENED it a 2-5 ton (I forget exactly) ceiling tile they decided to hold up with what amounts to SUPER GLUE fell off because the tunnel leaks like a sieve and crushed someones car, which stirred up even MORE BS when it turned out she was an illegal and dear god don't even get me started.