From: gisle@ifi.uio.no (Gisle Hannemyr)
Subject: Re: A question or 2 about "science"
Organization: gisle@ifi.uio.no
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:34:38 GMT
Originator: gisle@gyda.ifi.uio.no

In article <1992Oct14.212305.3675@memstvx1.memst.edu> isds11990012@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

> If I observe something for myself and see that it is the way LRH says,
> why doesn't this make it true?  I mean, I concede that some of what LRH
> wrote can seem sort of off the wall at times, but if it works, then
> it works, period.  What is wrong with that?

Because this argument makes an assumption about causality that is not
valid.  For example, if you take a lot of scientology training and
you score better and better on every IQ-test you take during that
period, it is reasonable to conclude that scientology training
improves your intelligence, right?

WRONG!  And I leave it as an exercise to the student to work out the
fallacy here.


> Also, I still don't understand why something has to be independently
> verified in order to qualify for a "science" as you define it.   I say
> that Scientology can be independently verified at anytime, and you
> tell me that It can't because it is the Church's responsibility to
> do the verification.  But then If I give you some type of verification,
> you will say that its unacceptable because it comes from the Church
> and not an independent source.  What gives here?

You are misrepresention the position of the critics. While I don't speak
for others (as you can see from my signature :-), I think the demand for
scientific proof may be summarized as follows:

  1) The scientific community has no _duty_ to accept scientology at
     face value.  As any new and unproved school of thought, it is
     the responsibility of scientology itself to provide the evidence
     that indicate that it merits attention.

  2) The evidence should be in the form of "papers" which carefully
     describe experiments supporting the new school of thought. The
     description should include a description of the theory the
     experiment is designed to prove, how to construct any unusal equipment
     required, each step of the experiment, controls, and the expected
     outcome, plus an evaluation and and analysis where the experimenter
     explains how this particular experiment supports the theory.

     The initial "papers" within a field must necessarely come from the
     proponents of the field (i.e. scientologists themselves in this
     particular case).

     It is also important to understand what is acceptable and what
     is not acceptable when reporting on experiments.  The descriptions
     need to be complete and detailed.  Assertions of the type: "I
     did an incredible amount of research and it all comfirmed my
     theories" is _not_ an acceptable form for a report.  Nor is:
     "I tried this out and it worked great, but the procedure
     I followed won't make any sense to you until you've studied
     and understood all this other material about my theory.".

     Scientific papers are judged on the quality of their experimental
     design, controls, and logic.  Amazing results are not considered
     an achivement if the quality of the experiment is poor or the
     logic flawed.

  3) You've noted that critic prefer "independent sources".  By this
     they mean that the "papers" I described above should be "peer
     reviewed" and published in a "peer reviewed journal".  The
     phrase "peer review" simply mean that the paper has been read
     and commented by some other respected scientists knowledgeable
     in scientific procedures, and that the reviewers have approved
     the quality of the experimental design and controls, the
     validity of the logic used to argue the author's position and
     whatever else they may think relevant.  It is not uncommon that
     reviewers find major flaws in scientific papers, in which case they
     are returned to the authors with a list of suggested improvements.
     and the author is invited to submit an inproved version for a
     new review at a later date.

     It is important to emphasise that "independent sources" does not
     mean that the critics insist that the original author of the
     paper is independent of the CoS, only that the the paper is
     _published_ in a scientific journal not controlled by the
     CoS or one of its fronts.

     Independent publication is of course not absolutely necessary for
     something to be considered scientific.  I would be happy to read
     both unpublished papers and papers published by the CoS  [[ and
     I have said so in my many letters to Narconon in my attempts to get
     hold of any studies that substantiate their claims, but they don't
     even seem to be able to supply this type of material. ]]

     However, publication in independent peer reviewed journals is the
     most important quality assurance mechanism available in the scientific
     community, and is therefore commonly considered a good measure on the
     merits of a new school of thought.

  4) Following publication of a paper describing some exciting new
     development, scientists outside the group of original proponents
     will usually try to replicate the experiment working from the
     published descriptions.  This may either support the initial
     theory, uncover flaws in the experimental design, or simply
     fail to reproduce the same results.

  5) If replication is achieved, the next stage is usually that
     scientists attempt to design experiments that should be
     capable of _falsifying_ the original theory if they
     succeed (for example by showing that they are able
     to produce identical results using a different experimental
     procedure based upon an alternative theory).  If falsification
     fails, the new theory is usually beginning to gain acceptance.


Researchers within the Church of Scientology has -- as far as I know
-- not even attempted to _write_ any reports following the accepted
format for scientific papers, so the question of publication,
replication and falsification is moot.
--
Disclaimer: THESE ARE MY OPINIONS!  MINE!  MINE!  ALL MINE!
 
- gisle hannemyr  (Norsk Regnesentral)
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