Einstein got it – philosophy and science do go hand in hand

BidenPresident said:
Historians have, in fact, long known about Einstein’s debt to Hume, and indeed about that letter. They’ve known, too, about the influence on Einstein of many other philosophers, from Ernst Mach to Arthur Schopenhauer. Part of what many find intriguing about the story is the idea that scientific theories should be shaped by philosophical ideas. It has become common for scientists to dismiss philosophy as irrelevant to their work. The “insights of philosophers”, the physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg suggests, are “murky and inconsequential compared with the dazzling successes of physics and mathematics”.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...d-science-do-go-hand-in-hand?CMP=share_btn_tw
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Science is a philosophy.
 
Cypress said:
Einstein thought his study of philosophy made him a better and more creative scientist.
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It did. Logic, rhetoric, epystomolgy, etc., are all common tools of thought scientists use but in the broader sense science is a philosophy. Newton’s title of his great work was Philosopiae Naturalis Principia Mathimatica.
 
Cypress said:
Until about 150 years ago scientists were considered natural philosophers.

I doubt Newton, Galileo, or Bacon even heard the word scientist, which was term only invented in the 19th century. Newton et al. would have considered themselves natural philosophers.

Newtonian mechanics, relativity, quantum mechanics have deep philosophical implications.
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Indeed they do. Quantum mechanics shakes the very grounds of reality as we perceive it.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Science is a philosophy.
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There is a great article by Julian Friedland, "a philosopher," in NY Times.

"For roughly 98 percent of the last 2,500 years of Western intellectual history, philosophy was considered the mother of all knowledge. It generated most of the fields of research still with us today. This is why we continue to call our highest degrees Ph.D.’s, namely, philosophy doctorates.
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In sum, philosophy is not science. For it employs the rational tools of logical analysis and conceptual clarification in lieu of empirical measurement. And this approach, when carefully carried out, can yield knowledge at times more reliable and enduring than science, strictly speaking. For scientific measurement is in principle always subject to at least some degree of readjustment based on future observation. Yet sound philosophical argument achieves a measure of immortality.
So if we philosophers want to restore philosophy’s authority in the wider culture, we should not change its name but engage more often with issues of contemporary concern — not so much as scientists but as guardians of reason. This might encourage the wider population to think more critically, that is, to become more philosophical."

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinion...-is-not-a-science/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
 
BidenPresident said:
Quantum mechanics seems more obvious than the older classical model.
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Only a scientific illiterate would say that. There is very little about QM that is obvious unless you were East European and a theoretical physicist. Being Jewish helped seemingly, those were some incredibly smart people.
 
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BidenPresident said:
Historians have, in fact, long known about Einstein’s debt to Hume, and indeed about that letter. They’ve known, too, about the influence on Einstein of many other philosophers, from Ernst Mach to Arthur Schopenhauer. Part of what many find intriguing about the story is the idea that scientific theories should be shaped by philosophical ideas. It has become common for scientists to dismiss philosophy as irrelevant to their work. The “insights of philosophers”, the physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg suggests, are “murky and inconsequential compared with the dazzling successes of physics and mathematics”.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...d-science-do-go-hand-in-hand?CMP=share_btn_tw
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Philosophy and science do go hand in hand but unfortunately for you you don't understand either one.
 
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