Oh dear. I guess people really do want to talk about this in sci.med and I guess I do feel the need to defend my .signature. Or maybe I should just find a way of restating it so fewer people misinterpret it.

First of all, you have to realize that the .signature was created for my postings in sci.psychology, where there is indeed a lot of criticism directed towards those who make statements or claims that are supposedly "non-scientific." These criticisms generally come from those working in those areas of psychology whose own claim to being scientific is actually the most dubious, especially clinical psychology. We've also seen a little bit of this in sci.med in some of the criticisms directed against Ken Colby for posting articles about his computer program for dealing with depression.

Now I agree with what you say.

>> Whether or not the results are worthwhile may not be apparant
>> at the time.
>>
>> Most of our world today is made up of scientific discoveries
>> that were not appreciated at the time of their initial study.

But at the same time, I also think that this attitude is often used as a justification for mediocre science. Over there in sci.psychology, there are those who say "It may seem that the findings of our research are not very significant right now. But we are slowly building up a fund of knowledge which sometime in the future will be weaved into a mosaic of real importance."

I don't think that there are many, if any, cases in the history of science where a lot of disjointed mediocre results have eventually become the basis for major scientific advances. If one looks at the history of the physical (and biological) sciences, I think that one finds that the major initial advances came from insight and directed exploration rather than from a random accumulation of data or the mere application of rigorous methodology.

I think that a science needs to have some sense of direction if it's going to get anywhere. I recently spend a few afternoons in the library looking through the Journal of Mental Imagery and several books on mental imagery (which is where this whole argument that led to my .signature originated) and I was unable to find any sense of direction, any sense that there are major questions which the psychologists in that area hope to eventually be able to answer.

I agree that it is often counter-productive to require that scientific discoveries have obvious practical value. One is reminded of the remark of Roger Bacon when asked what value one of his scientific discoveries had: "What is the value of a newborn baby?" (It is also said that when Michael Faraday was asked by a government commission what practical applications there would be for his discoveries on electricity, he answered, "I don't know, but I'm sure that whatever they are, you will find a way to tax them.")

But I also think that an indispensible element of science is what might be called, for want of a better word, taste. A good scientist needs to have good taste about what is worthwhile and what is not. This is not something that can be objectively quantified and in fact it may be decades later (or even longer) before one really knows whether judgements of this sort were correct or not. Nonetheless, without this sense of taste I don't think that science ever really goes anywhere. A science that considers all results as of equal significance cannot be taken seriously.

>> My point is that if scientific research is only directed to
>> targeted goals that are deemed important and necessary, alot
>> will be missed along the way because the focus will be too
>> narrow. Most the really big things in science emerge from the
>> interaction of different fields of science. A good
>> counterpoint would be the former Soviet Union today. Their
>> scientists are very well trained within the their fields.
>> Their focus was so narrow because of the top down management
>> style that while there may be small areas that they have
>> outpaced us in, they can't begin to compete with our breadth
>> and diversity in terms of overall science.

I agree with all of this.

>> Science is still very much a creative process and people need
>> the room to expand themselves in ways that they find
>> challenging and stimulating. I think the rewards have been
>> more than ample for society as a whole. [Emphasis added. --LL]

This is precisely the point that I would like the folks over in sci.psychology (and some of those here in sci.med) to understand. Doing rigorously designed experiments and studies is certainly very important. But merely doing studies does not, in my opinion, constitute doing science. Without good, creative scientific thinking directing the process, mere experimentation doesn't go much of anywhere.

And I think that the creative process you are talking about, where people have the room to expand themselves in ways that they find challenging and stimulating, is often discouraged by the present institutional way of doing science, where there is an emphasis on getting immediate publishable results acceptable to independent referees and where scientific work is dependent on major institutional funding.

I think that the sort of criticism that is so prevalent in sci.med and sci.psychology against things like alternative medicine, neurolinguistic programming (NLP, my own major interest) and Ken Colby's computer program (which I personally have no opinion on) on the grounds that those developing these things have not done the sort of lengthy and expensive research that is only possible in institutionalized science... I think that this is contrary to the spirit of giving science the room to expand in challenging and stimulating directions without demanding instant evidence that the results of research are worthwhile.

--
When the main justification that a science has for itself is how scientific it is, rather than how many worthwhile discoveries it makes, that is a strong indication that something is wrong.
--Lee Lady