Author: skzb

I know science–both the discoveries and method of–are important to me.  I know that I believe we ought to deduce natural laws from the facts, as opposed to imposing them on the facts.  I know that when we are dealing with social issues, it is vital to get away from subjective impressions and strive for objective truth.

Some believe science is limited to the falsifiable (more or less created by Karl Popper).  Others (Brickmont, Sokel, Kuhn, Feyeraband, Lakatos, Hawkins, &c) dispute this in various ways for various reasons.  One can, in fact, argue that, by the standard of falsifiable, most of what Einstein was famous for was not science, as it was not able to be falsified at the time. This can be disputed, and if you’re in the falsifiable-only camp, then you had better dispute it–if Einstein wasn’t a scientist, there are no scientists.

My point is, there is more than one definition of what science is, or what scientific method means.  I want to know what you think.

This brief excerpt is from The Mayor of MacDougal Street, the memoirs of Dave Van Ronk (one of my heroes) page 75:

Years later, I was talking with him [Oscar Brand] and expressed my disgust that that he, or maybe someone else, had put on a show with Burl Ives, who had outraged us all by naming a string of names in front of HUAC. Oscar just quietly said, “Dave, we on the left do not blacklist.” Put me right in my place.

I mentioned this on Twitter, but haven’t put it here, just in case anyone is interested.  For the 15 year anniversary of the founding of the World Socialist Web Site, I was asked to contribute a testimonial–in essence, a statement of why I read the WSWS.  It can be found about halfway down on this page.