Place of science in the human knowledge

From TORI
Revision as of 10:37, 17 June 2020 by T (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search

Place of science in the human knowledge (Место науки в человеческом знании) is article published in 2010-2011 at Uspekhi [1] in Russian.

The previous English versions [2][3] are also available since year 2010.

This text may be used for free, while the source is attributed. Copyleft 2010–2011-2012 by Dmitrii Kouznetsov.

Abstract

The simple model for the classification of knowledge is suggested. The four types of knowledge are considered: customs, arts, religions and sciences. The strict definition of science is suggested to distinguish it from other kinds of knowledge and from pseudo-science.

Preface and motivation

This research is motivated by the huge amount of pseudo-scientific results, that are sometimes declared as "scientific" in the publications. It is important to distiinguish science from pseudo--science [4]. Especially grave the situation with pseudo-science is in Russia. The publications make an impression, that in Russia, there exist the special pseudo-scientific academy, called "Russian Academy of Natural Sciences", raen (the abbreviation of the transliteration "Rossijskaya Akademiya Estestvennykh Nauk", Российская Академия Естественных наук); the "academicians" of raen make pseudo-science and use the huge governmental foundation for this.

The special bulletin [5] collects warnings about the danger tendencies in the development of the Russian science in century 21, and indicates many cases of the abuse. In order not to criticize that raen, here the purification of the scientific knowledge is suggested instead.

The Russian version of this article [1] appeared in 2010-2011 had suggested the definition of science, that allows to qualify some results as non-scientific by the formal criteria, at very beginning of the consideration. That definition is based on the simple exercise [6], which, in its turn, is based on the ideas of refutability of scientific concepts, these ideas had been developed by Karl Popper [7][8][9] in the past century. However, the similar phenomena of pseudo-science take place not only in Russia; this motivates me to make this English version.

An additional motivation of this research is to answer questions "how did you guess?" by my colleagues with respect to quantum stability of the optical soliton, or with respect to the divergence of the series of the perturbation theory, or with respect to interpretation of the ridged mirror in term of the Zeno effect, or with respect to behavior of tetration in the direction of the imaginary axis, and so on. The section "Importance for physics" offers more examples and references to the specific cases of such "guessing". In this article, I open my cards and show, that actually those cases were not only "guesses", but the results of the specific classification of concepts. I use this classification since century 20, and now I formulate it as a self-consistent (and I believe, universal) methodology.

Roughly, the recipe can be expressed in the following way: "avoid pseudo-scinece, and the Science will advance". Of course, such a principle does not make the researcher's job instead of the researcher. But it helps in my case. I hope, it will help to my colleagues too. A lot of various pseudo-sciences may exist. So, the better is to classify not each kind of pseudo-science, but the Science, indicating its place in the Human knowledge. This is topic of this article.

Introduction

The qualification of concepts and results in terms "science" or "pseudo-science" is very important. Over-vice, the science sinks in the sea of some new "results" that involve the perpetual motion machines, inertial propulsion, astrology and other similar staff; usually, such a pseudo-science pretends to suggest a new, very modern and revolutionary theory and/or effect.

Often, it is supposed, that the scientific research is true, correct, and the pseudo-scientific research is false, wrong, non-correct; so, for the qualification of any concept, it is sufficient to check it, to verify it, and, if it is wrong, to reject is. Such a common sense looks reasonable, but the abilities of pseudo-sciencists to write the wrong papers and get foundation for their pseudo-science greatly exceed the abilities of scientists to criticize them, to reveal the errors and to indicate, that some research is just wrong.

In this paper, the different approach is suggested. The idea is not to criticize each "wrong" concept, but to suggest the narrow definition of term "Science" in such a way, that the concept can be qualified as "scientific" or "non-sciencific", whenever this concept is correct or wrong, whenever it is useful or just devasting. This cannot substitute the common sense, mentioned above, but some formal criteria allow to reduce the amount of results that deserve serious consideration.

Many Russian colleagues had to learn concepts that are difficult to relate with natural sciences, for ex.:
1. The observable Universe is infinite in space and time.
2. The gradual evolution of a species with genotype of 48 chromosomes leaded to the new specie with genotype of 46 chromosomes.
3. During the life of the past generation, the principles of the funding of science and all other activities should change completely. (The Communism was declared to occur in the past century, during the life of the generation that already past away.)
Such concepts seems to be wrong. It is important to understand how to avoid similar concepts in future. As the tool for the rejection of such concepts, the appropriate classification is necessary.

In this work, the simple model of the classification of the human knowledge is suggested. This model includes only four categories: customs, arts, religions and sciences. The definition of science had appeared first in the short version about non-traditional concepts [6]. Here, knowledge is ability to generalize the experience in a compact form and to transfer it to other individuals. Religions are important kind of knowledge [10], and they should be distinguished from sciences. So, this article deals with both sciences and religions. In order to keep this article similar to the Russian original [1], many examples are related to marxism, widely known among the Russian colleagues graduated in the past century. (In the USSR, marxism was taught in all schools, institutes and universities). In order to indicate the difference between the scientific and the religious knowledge, both scientific and non-scientific publications are cited.

Objectivity

Past century, Karl Popper had formulated the criteria that allows to identify the special, extremely efficient kind of human knowledge [7][8][9]. He called it science, although the term science was used before in a different meaning; that meaning included the claim of objectivity: I frame no hypothesis, Isaac Newton wrote [11]. Roughly speaking, the science was considered to be a true, that does not need any falsification nor refutation. Popper, contrary, suggests the criterion of falsifiability as the key property of science, modifying, overloading the meaning of this term.

For Popper, the main thing, that makes a concept scientific, is not its objectivity, but the possibility to verify it, to falsify it, to criticize it arguably and to refute it [7]:

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory - if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence".)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status.

The requirement of refutability opposes the believe in the ability to get some objective knowledge [12]:

Objective truth is that part of our knowledge which correctly reflects reality and does not depend upon the subject, i.e. on human consciousness and will. Objective method, therefore, means the method that leads to knowledge of objective truth. For materialism the recognition of objective truth is fundamental; consequently all materialist science must be objective in method.

There were doubts about the humanitarian science, but the objectivity of the natural sciences was believed to be well established and irrefutable. Many authors pretend that their concepts are true, so true, they do not need to allow any refutation (sometimes, the term falisification is used in the similar meaning). This creates conditions for the growth of various pseudosciences, which may be extremely efficient in getting foundation but useless in any other application. The identification of pseudoscience versus science is sometimes difficult. It is especially grave in Russia: in the USSR, in its time, even the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, cybernetics were suppressed as pseudosciences [13]; the genetics and psychiatry were exterminated [14][15][16][17][18][19]. Even defenders of the objectivity mention the danger of pseudoscience [20]. Both pseudoscience and the struggle against it are dangerous for science [21][22], while the development of science should allow the scientific revolutions [23]. The distinguishing between science and pseudoscience is necessary. The criteria to identify science should be adjusted; this is one of goals of this article.

The conflict between the interpretation of science by K.Popper and that by the objectivism is terminological: what kind of knowledge do we call "science". Below, the terminology is adjusted; in this article, the term "science" in used in the Popper's interpretation; however, even more requirements on the scientific hypothesis are formulated.

The classification, suggested below, does not refer to the correctness or wrongness of a concept. Even the concept about the existence of the Mizugadro number [24] (which seems to be completely wrong) should be considered as scientific, if the ways of the verification and those for the negation (refutation) are indicated. Then, the classification easy accepts the less radical scientific revolutions such as, negation of concepts of the universal (for all observers) time, or that of trajectory as universal description of movement, or that of conservation of number of atoms of each kind in any isolated system; and even a new phenomenon, new concept, that is not supported by any of the previously accepted concepts, like the Galvani's effect was [25], should not be qualified as "pseudo–scientific".

Customs

The category of customs should include not only the commonly accepted behavior of humans, but also the habitual semantics of commonly used human languages. For example, the usual meaning of the Bible is custom, widely accepted in the Christian community. The sentence You shall love your neighbor as yourself allows various interpretations, including that with the homosexual orientation of Jesus Christ [26][27], dependently on the meaning of the word love and its Hebrew and Aramaic equivalents. Even the widely known interpretations by Tim Rice [28] and Michael Bulgakov [29] still should be qualified not as a customs but as an arts.

Aiming the description of knowledge, the definition above drops out some meanings of the word "custom". For example, the consumption of tobacco and alcohol in some countries also may be considered as a custom, but there may be doubts in the including of such a custom into the category of "knowledge".

The semantic of the human languages and their understanding, the meaning of words is the most important part of the human knowledge. Namely this kind of knowledge gives sense to other kinds of knowledge considered below. In this sense, customs are the most important kind of knowledge.

Arts

Art is knowledge that is free from internal rules and is realized in a reproducible form that allow its systematic investigation [30]. Such a definition corresponds to a goal formulated in the introduction, although it slightly reduces the set of things which could be called art.

Usually a product of art has the following properties:

A1. Beauty: Here, the beauty is the extensive ability of any unexpected use. The prehistoric hunter, painting and observing an image of an animal on a rock, may guess how to catch this animal; the reader, laughing on a comedy, may ask himself: Either I am free from all the evils shown? - although the primary goal could be just laugh.
A2. Structureless. Intents to bring into the arts rules are not efficient. The arts use all other knowledges; the same product may have both artistic and scientific value.
A3. Wisdom. Artists with their works say more, than they planned to say, and more, than they understand by themselves. In this sense, the product of art may be wiser than the author.
A4. Entirety. Intents to correct, to improve a product of art destroy it.
A5. Amoralism. Creatures that have goal to bring some moral to the society, have low artistic value if at all; the artistic creature may violate any taboo.

Aiming the specific application of the classification, the topics of customs and arts are presented here only declaratively.

Religions

Religion is kind of the human activity and knowledge based on some (specific for each religion) set of irrefutable concepts, believes, texts, symbols and performances [10].

Usually, any religion is characterized in the most of following:

R1. The existence of at least one God is presumed.
R2. There exist canonical sacred text(s), that allow the humans to guess the will of God(s) and follow it.
R3. God likes some actions of human, these actions are called Good.
R4. God dislikes some actions of human, these actions are called Evil.
R5. The suggested set of concepts pretends to play an organizing role in the society: The following to namely this religion provides abilities for the kindness, prudence and wisdom significantly wider, than any other religions.

It this article, God is generic term denoting any intelligent subject that in some way (that is not available for humans) has abilities that greatly exceed those of a human. Actions related to these abilities are called marvels. God may look like a human (Jesus Christ, Buddha, Lenin), but also can be "non-material" (God - Holy Spirit, World Revolution, communism). God may be omnipotent (almighty), invincible, immortal and predicts future: The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. [31]
Long live invincible marxism-leninism-mao tsetung tonight. [32]
Lenin lived, Lenin lives, and Lenin will live. [33]
The generation of those who are now fifteen will see a communist society, and will itself build this society. [34]
The immortal beacon of Comrade Stalin will forever illuminate the path on which the Chinese people march forward.[35]
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years. [36]

World religions, each in their own way, offer a unique set of moral values and rules to guide human beings in their relationship with the environment, sometimes replacing the previously established morals, for the sake of a new God, or a new fetish; for example, for the sake of the obedience to the moral dictates of patriotism. [37][38]. This set may justify the performances, that result the death of some of participants . Often, such rules are presumed to be truth without limits and alternatives:

The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.[39]
.. he who chooses a religion other than islam, it will not be accepted from him, and in the everlasting life he will be among the losers.[40]
We reject any morality based on extra-human and extra-class concepts. We say that this is deception, dupery, stultification of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landowners and capitalists. We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat's class struggle. Our morality stems from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.[41].
.. the State which creates the nation, conferring volition and therefore real life on a people made aware of their moral unity. [37]

Some religions do not identify themselves as religions, pretending to be sciences [42][43]. (In more details the sciences are considered in the next section.) The adepts consider their own belief as the only true concept, deny the dogmatic character of their believes [44] and treat any deviant behavior as crime, heresy and mental illness; the wrong-believers are punished or undergo the forced medical treatment [15][16][17][18][19]. Some religions justify lies, sacrifices, betrays, massacre, murdering and wars, if they serve God: You cannot make revolution in white gloves.

Most of religions avoid any refutable concepts. The concept is called refutable, if (and only if) in terms if this concept, some specific observation can be described that negates the concept. For example, the statement The Party officially declares: The current generation of the soviet people will live in communism! [45] is refutable: based of such a declaration, the next generations may shame the soviet veterans as liars and impostors. Within few generations after creation of a new religion, it abandons and forgets all its refutable concepts and becomes more stable. Here are the examples of irrefutable concepts: Communism is happy future of all the humanity, or God blesses America, or Imperialism is evil, or God gives the immortal soul to everyone, or The righteous will be at Heaven. Considering TORI as religion, one could add: The axioms of TORI give the only correct way of development of science, and all other methods are just wrong and evil. Such a statement looks like a joke, but it reveals the essence of the basic concept of TORI: it cannot be proven from any external (more obvious) set of axioms. For this reason, the TORI axioms are just postulated, and they, by themselves, are not refutable. This makes TORI similar to other religions. This aspect of TORI is discussed in the special section below.

The canonic texts describe the marvels, miracles that are specific for each religion. The marl may refer to the magic conversion of water into vine, to the drastic increase of the efficiency of the production by the inspiration of the Fuhrer, catching of the spies by children, destruction of an army of the enemy tanks by few heroic soldiers launching grenades, etc.

The definition in the beginning of the section does not specify features R1-R5 as necessary; so, many kinds of knowledge falls into the definition of religion. In particular, it includes the shintoism and the civil religions [46][47][48][49][50], although these religions do not pretend to be the "only true" knowledge and Gods in these religions are not omnipotent.

Religions form significant part of the human knowledge and play important role in the human history. Non–religious societies ended with massacres and elaboration of new religions, pretty aggressive to any other kind of knowledge. While a religion is tolerant with respect to other kinds of knowledge (and in particular, to other religions), it may assist the prosper development of the society. No one religion can substitute other kinds of knowledge, end even other religions, as one specific science cannot substitute all other sciences. The society, where any religion dominates in an aggressive way, becomes barbarian compared to other countries within few generations; the people of such a society loss the ability to analyze the information.

Sciences

As it was mentioned above, the term "science" may have different meanings. Following K.Popper, here, this term applies only to a refutable knowledge. In order to distinguish science at the background of pseudoscience and religion, the term science should be defined as follows:

Science is kind of knowledge, activity and notations, based on concepts that have all the six properties below:

S1. Applicability: Each concept has the limited range of validity, distinguishable from the empty set.
S2. Verifiability: In the terms of the already accepted concepts, some specific experiment with some specific result, that confirms the concept, can be described.
S3. Refutability: In the terms of the concept, some specific experiment with some specific result, that negates the concept, can be described.
S4. Self-consistency: No internal contradictions of the concept are known.
S5. Principle of correspondence: It the range of validity of a new concept intersects the range of validity of another already accepted concept, then, the new concept either reproduces the results of the old concept, or indicates the way to refute it. (For example, the estimate of the range of validity of the old concept may be wrong.)
S6. Pluralism: Mutually-contradictive concepts may coexist; if two concepts satisfying S1-S5 have some common range of validity, then, in this range, the simplest of them has priority.

All the six properties are compulsory. For example, if the range of validity of a concept is the full set (id est, the concept is valid every time and everywhere), then it does not satisfy S1, and there is no need to check properties S2-S6 to qualify such a concept as non-scientific. The six axioms above are used as base concept of TORI.

Scientific concepts are built on the base of observations, experiments, axioms, hypothesis, theorems and theories.
Observation means identification of some phenomena which are in some sense similar.
Definitions allow to use compact notations, making the description of scientific concept shorter and simpler.
Axioms are statements that are considered as initial at the building-up of some concept.
Concept with commonly accepted axioms is called "paradigm".

Theorems are statements that are proven on the base of axioms and definitions. Sometimes this term is used even in those cases then the proof of the statement is not yet constructed but is expected to be constructed in future. In such cases the term "hypothesis" or "Conjecture" is more suitable. If the hypothesis is deduced from the postulates and other, already proven theorems, it becomes theorem. If a hypothesis had predicted some non-trivial results of observations or experiments, it becomes theory.

Activity, related with development of new concepts is called research. The most important classification of sciences is based on the subject of the research, the goal and the methods, that dominate in the research: humanitarian -- natural, fundamental -- applied and theoretic -- experimental. These three criteria roughly determine \(2^3=8\) main branches of science. Not all sciences are developed sufficiently to allow the use of the full scheme above. Before Hooke and Newton, the deduction was prerogative of mathematics and was not so often in physics, if at all. Before the quantum mechanics, the deduction in chemistry was not possible. Until now, many concepts in biology and the humanitarian sciences are built up on the base of guesses and the verification rather than on the base of the deduction.

Mathematics makes the basis of other sciences. No one science dare to contradict mathematics. The computational mathematics and cybernetics provides a bridge between mathematics and other knowledge. The general physics and theoretical physics relates mathematics with other sciences, although some sciences (even humanitarian ones) may use, for example, the statistical methods without to refer to physics.

If some science, concept contradicts the basic paradigms of mathematics of physics, then, according to S5, there should be indicated a way to see that they are wrong. To avoid the confusions, the term science should be used only in the sense of the definition above. In all other cases, the terms pseudoscience, sovietscience, christianscience, quasiscience, etc. may be used to specify that an activity or a knowledge looks similar to science or a scientific research, but fails some of the axioms above.

Sciences and the society

Cartoon by [51]

Usually the sciences, and especially the fundamental ones, do not give a fast benefit. The spending of the budget funding to support the satisfaction of the personal curiosity of researchers requires justification. There were intents to submit the development of science to other goals (creation of facilities of the modernization of the industry, or increasing of the military power of a country, or even "increase of the sum of the human happiness"). Some researches, especially applied ones, can be motivated in such a way; and sometimes the results have the scientific value. However, often the results of such a research are just fake. During the human history, there was not developed more efficient motivation for science, than curiosity of researchers who do it. Yet, there is no other way to make the deep science. However, the needs of industry can be mentioned as motivation for the financial support of the curiosity of researchers.

The distribution of funds assigned for the development of science is serious problem. Administrators of funds cannot drill into the research they finance. The funds are distributed on the base of the formal criteria: publications, citation, participation in the conferences. The ability to write the grant applications and good relations with colleagues and the distributors of funds become important, if not dominant, factor in the success in the getting of the financial support. For the same reason, the spectacularity of the new effects is important for their promotion.

Especially non-efficiently the funds are sent in the countries with corrupted bureaucracy; and not only because the significant part of foundation is spent for bribes and the private security. The government being unable to keep the growth of the technology of the country at the international level, begins to secret the scientific achievements in order to enable the monopolistic use in the military industry. Practically, this means that the results are fake: the secrecy protects them from critics and opens wide field for both wanted and unwanted errors.

In a totalitaristic country, some sciences may be declared as pseudo-science, and then not only left without foundation, but crashed by the physical repression of researchers, as it happened in the USSR with the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, cybernetics and genetics [52][53][13][54][22]. Previously, in Europe, in the epoch of the Holly Inquisition, the similar phenomena took place with respect to astronomy. In all these cases the sciences were destroyed by a religion that pretended to be the holy true knowledge. The properties S1-S6 allow to separate scientific concepts from others without fighting the pseudo-sciences.

Science as religion

The axioms of TORI can be interpreted as religious postulates, as dogmas. Then, Science appears as a specific religion (that, somehow happens to be more efficient in technical applications, than other religions.)

The natural way of separation between science and other religion arises from the area of applicability. Prof. Denis Alexander qualifies the relation between science and other religions as "complimentarity" [55]. Science and other religions deal with different objects and use different ways of the analysis. Intents to apply scientific analysis to religious objects, as well as the attempts to analyze the scientific achievements from the religious points of view usually look just barbarian (as the attempts of some minister to show his ability in some science – physics, archeology or Ornithology; such attempts may confirm, that his educational level corresponds to a level of school or that of a kindergarden).

The area of science is strictly limited by the axioms. All non-sciencific concepts are treated only as objects for investigation. In such a way, in the religious interpretation, science may pretend to be "the only true knowledge", as other religions do. However, the axiom of refutability and that about pluralism are the most important elements of TORI that determine the difference from other religions.

About the terminology

Often the errors are caused by a smooth, fussy definitions of terms and the concepts. The most crying examples refer to the humanitarian science.

In 2009, Dmitry Medvedev had announced the setting up of a commission to counter the falsification of history [56][57]. This makes the Russian concept of history unfalisifiable and disqualifies it as science. There is still hope, that this is just terminological confusion, and than such a commission does not have the aim to destroy the historic science in the Russian Federation nor exterminate the researchers who work in this area.

The aim of this paper is not to provoke conflicts, but to mitigate them. Therefore, I suggest not to use words "falsification", "falsifiability", at least in the scientific texts. Such terms are ambiguous, they may mean either the negation of a concept for the contradiction to observations or the fraud and misinformation.

Any term that has two opposite meanings should not be used at all. With respect to historical texts (whenever they scientific or not), the terms revisionism, opportunism and reformism appear in the similar (ambiguous) meaning , [58][59], but the term refutability does not seem to be used in such a way.

Here, the term "refutability" is used. However, if refutation of the Russian official version of history will be also prohibited, then will be no way to attribute the confusion, mentioned above, to terminology, and that concept should be qualified as non-scientific.

Importance for physics

The goal of this paper is indication of properties that make the research scientific. This section explains, why I boil up so old question, and why it is important for physics.

The author used to meet several "strange" concepts that pretended to be scientific. The examples are:

quantum annihilation of the optical soliton [60],
reduction of the quantum noise due to the pre-amplification of the signal [61],
single-mode approximation in quantum optics [62],
extrapolation of the quasi-optical approximation in the atmospheric physics [63],
the radius of convergence of the primary series of the theory of perturbation [64],
quantization of the magnetic flux in a free space [65],

Perpetualmo.jpg

violation of the McCumber relation for the cross-sections of emission and absorption in laser media [66],
Violation of the Kramers-Kronig relation for the active laser materials [67],
non-equivalence of the van der Vaals potential to the index of refraction in paraxial atom optics [68][69],
"proportional" increase of the power of a disk laser at the increase of size of the active element [70],
the immanent impossibility of the analytic extension of the tetration [71],
the square root of factorial (which was declared to have no sense) [72],
the "symmetry" \((x,-y)\) of the graphic of the tetration to base sqrt(2), id set, \(y={\mathrm {tet}}_{\sqrt{2}}(x)\), see [73],
the immanent non–uniqueness of the Abel-function for the exponential [74],
and the itentioids (that violate the law of conservation of energy-momentum) [6][75].

The author had participated in the discussions on very similar topics in various branches of physics. The common feature of these cases is that often the colleagues do not indicate any way to confirm their concepts, or do not indicate any way to refute them. In these sense, my coauthors and I had to fight against the religious concepts.

I cannot write a separate erratum or article on each of such topics. I suggest to adjust the criteria that the scientific results are supposed to satisfy. This does not mean to make the requirements harder, but to soften the struggle between the authors and reviewers, that sometimes takes the strange form: the authors try to hide the cases when the concept fails, while the reviewers and readers are supposed to reveal these cases by themselves.

In particular, the criterion S1 strongly suggests that the researchers estimate, until where their concepts are valid. In the similar way, the criterion S3 invites the authors to indicate, which result of which experiment would indicate that they are wrong. Such indications and estimates greatly simplify the refutation of concepts, making them scientific.

This approach will help to deal with strange phenomena like observation of the torsion fields or the cold nuclear fusion; either to reveal the error of the concept at very early stage, or to turn the research into the scientific methods, making them different from a circus trick. The definition of science suggested should allow this without to struggle against pseudoscience; such a struggle is dangerous for the science, especially in the countries where the abilities to the critical analysis were persecuted.

I do not suggest to make any scientific censorship. Even the texts of ideologists of fascism should be available, at least to allow the people to understand, what fascism is. Over-vise, the fascistic ideas will be discovered again and again by the new and new authors, and developed until to see their horrible results.

Similarly, the pseudo-scientific texts should be published, at least to allow the people to understand, what is pseudo-science. From my side, I offer the pseudo-scientific texts Atlantide desert and the Mizugadro's number; other pseudoscientific texts are also welcomed, if they do not pretend to be scientific. In the side sense of the term, all the science–fiction can be considered as pseudoscience. However, the development of the pseudo-scientific ideas should not be supported from the governmental fonds. Such a support should be qualified as crime.

About the technologies

Technologies are older than sciences. First, Homo Habilis, and then - Homo Sapience. Technologies are close to both sciences and arts. On the one hand, technology uses the scientific achievements (and in this sense is close to science). On the second hand, any good technological solution is product of art. The margin between science and technology is determined by the the definition of Science. Technologies have no need to demonstrate the evidences of correctness of their concepts; the proof of technology is the efficiency in business, its compatibility. This proof is supposed to be seen not at the laboratory, nor at the seminars, nor even at the publications; it is supposed to the seen at the supermarket, where one may keep and use some good made with the advanced technology. The intents to boost the technology with governmental support are not efficient; they boost the pseudo-science and the corruption. I consider the governmental foundation of technologies as fraud.

The classification of the human abilities and the analysis of the foundation of technologies fall out from the scope of this article and may be subject for the independent research.

Conclusion

The strict definition of science with criteria S1-S6 is suggested. These criteria are based on the idea of falisibiability developed by K.Popper [7][8][9]. By itself the term falisification causes confusions; in particular, it disproves the Russian concept of history [56][57][76]. This problem may come to other sciences, for example, into physics. The term refutability is better.

According the definition, the scientific results should include all the properties S1-S6. Recognition of these six conditions as compulsory is necessary to save physics and other sciences from profanation. I suggest that all the civil organizations and the courts consider as fraud any governmental foundation of any research that does not satisfy the criteria S1-S6. I suggest that the editorials of the scientific books and journals and the chairs of the scientific seminars accept S1-S6 as the main requirements for the scientific results. This applies not only to Russia, but to all countries.


Acknowledgment. Author is grateful to Shoko Okudaira for her help with references and to Kirill Velikanov, Alexander Kaminskii, Andy Blunden and Margarita Kallistratova for the important critics. The TORI is created for the development of the ideas formulated in this article and the author is grateful to the sponsors.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://ufn.ru/tribune/trib120111 Д.Кузнецов. Место науки и физики в человеческом знании. Трибуна УФН, 2010–2011, No.110. (In Russian)
  2. http://budclub.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/2010mestor.shtml Д.Кузнецов. Место науки (и физики) в человеческом знании, in Russian
  3. http://budclub.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/2010mestoe.shtml D.Kouznetsov. Place of Science in the human knowledge, in English.
  4. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/About/lakatos/scienceAndPseudoscienceTranscript.aspx Appraising Lakatos. Science and Pseudoscience. (1975).
  5. http://www.ras.ru/digest/fdigestlist/bulletin.aspx Э.П.Кругляков и другие. Предисловие. Бюллетень в защиту науки. том 1, с.3-10 (2006)
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/2010support.pdf D.Kouznetsov, Support of non-traditional concepts. Far East Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Physics 1, Issue 1, p.1-6 (2010)
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html Karl R. Popper. Science as falsification. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1963, pp. 33-39.
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Karl Popper. Science: Conjectures and refutations. - 'Philosophy of Science: a Personal Report', in British Philosophy in Mid-Century, ed. C. A. Mace, 1957.
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1961-02882-000 Popper, Karl R. The logic of scientific discovery. Oxford, England: Basic Books. (1959).
  10. 10.0 10.1 http://budclub.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/religion.shtml D.Kouznetsov. Religion. Samizdat, 2010.
  11. http://www.thenagain.info/Classes/Sources/Newton.html Isaac Newton. Principia mathematica. London, 1803.
  12. http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=105592910 V.M.Telpov. The objective method in psychology. Sovetskaja pedagogika, 1952,7, 66-86. (in Russian)
  13. 13.0 13.1 http://russcience.euro.ru/papers/son91vr2.htm Sonin A.S. Sad jubilee of one company. (in Russian) Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1991, 61,No.8, p.96-107
  14. http://tracerkinetics.engr.iupui.edu/Ethics%20Course%2009/Journal%20articles/lysenko-nature-rev-genetics2001-nrg0901_723a.pdf V.N.Soyfer. The consequences of political dictatorship for Russian science. Nat Rev Genet. 2001, Sep;2(9):723-9.
  15. 15.0 15.1 http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/107.pdf Alan A. Stone, MD. Psychiatrists on the side of the angels. J. Am Acad Psychiatry Law 30, p.107-11 (2002)
  16. 16.0 16.1 http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/136.pdf Richard J. Bonnie, LLB. Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union and in China. J. Am Acad Psychiatry Law 30, p.136-44, (2002)
  17. 17.0 17.1 Stephen F. Psychiatry and political repression in the Soviet Union. American Psychologist. 37(10), 1982, 1105-1112.
  18. 18.0 18.1 http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/3/247 H.Merskey and B.Shafran. Political hazards in the diagnosis of 'sluggish schizophrenia'. The British Journal of Psychiatry 148 247-256 (1986)
  19. 19.0 19.1 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1970-08540-000 Thomas Stephen Szasz. The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement. Oxford, 1970.
  20. http://www.atheismru.narod.ru/humanism/journal/48/kruglyakov.htm D.Anojhin, E.Krugliakov. Pseudoscientists and pseudoscience may convert Russia into country of barbarians. Common Sense, 2008, N3 (48). (in Russian)
  21. http://www.vmdaily.ru/article/53826.html Дмитрий АНОХИН. Лжеученые и лженаука может превратить Россию в страну дикарей. (Обозреватель «ВМ» беседует с председателем необычного органа – академиком РАН Эдуардом КРУГЛЯКОВЫМ.) Evening Moscow, №43 (24821) от 14.03.2008 (in Russian)
  22. 22.0 22.1 http://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/5372/ V.L.Ginzburg. About the pseudoscience and the need to fight it. Science and Life, N11, 2000. (In Russian)
  23. http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html T.S.Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd. ed., Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1970
  24. http://zhurnal.lib.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/mizugade.shtml D.Kouznetsov. Mizugadro's number. Samizdat, 2010.
  25. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00424-006-0169-z?LI=true#page-1 Marco Piccolino. Luigi Galvani and animal electricity: two centuries after the foundation of electrophysiology. Trends in Neurosciences, 20, 10, 1997, Pages 443-448.
  26. http://www.valleyministries.com/resource/NotSin.pdf Elder Don Eastman. Homosexuality; not a sin, not a sickness. Los Angeles Universal Fellowship Press, 1990.
  27. http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibc2.htm B.A.Robinson. Homosexual passages from the Christian Scriptures. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 2008-SEP-23.
  28. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/17/theater/theater-review-superstar-or-not-jesus-returns.html Ben Brantley. Superstar or not, 'Jesus' returns. Published: Apr. 17, 2000, page E1.
  29. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/arts/television/19mast.html Paul Sonne. Russians Await a Cult Novel's Film Debut With Eagerness and Skepticism. New York Times, December 19, 2005
  30. http://budclub.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/artr.shtml D.Kouznetsov. Art. Samizdat, 2010.
  31. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm V.I.Lenin. The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism. Lenins Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Vol.19, p.21-28.
  32. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hua-guofeng/1976/09/18.htm Hua Guofeng. Memorial speech. September 18, 1976. Hua Guofeng Internet Archive, January 2004.
  33. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/boukhonine2.html Sergei Boukhonine. Gods 'R' Us. LewRockwell, 2006
  34. http://www.yclusa.org/article/articleview/71/1/35/ V.I.Lenin. Tasks of the Youth League. Speech delivered at the third all-Russia congress of the Russian young communist league, Oct. 2, 1920
  35. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-7/mswv7_296.htm Mao Tse-tung. Telegram to the USSR on Stalin's Death. People's Daily, March 7, 1953
  36. http://www.bible.com.ua/bible/r/1/15 Old Testament, Genesis, chapter 15, song 13
  37. 37.0 37.1 http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/reading/germany/mussolini.htm B.Mussolini. THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM (1932): ..The State has not got a theology but it has a moral code.. ..We uphold moral and traditional values which Socialism neglects or despises.. ..Let no one think of denying the moral character of Fascism.. ..we control moral forces..
  38. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/dec/23.htm Vladimir Lenin. On democracy and dictatorship. (1918-1919)
  39. http://nasb.scripturetext.com/psalms/19.htm David. Psalm of God. New American Standard Bible, Psalm 19.
  40. http://www.parsquran.com/data/show.php?user=eng?=eng&sura=3&ayat=84 Quran, AL-E-IMRAN Chapter 3, song 90
  41. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/02.htm Vladimir Lenin. The Tasks of the Youth Leagues. First Published: Pravda Nos. 221, 222 and 223, October 5, 6 and 7, 1920. (Transcribed: Colin S. Cavell)
  42. http://www.jstor.org/pss/1385258 Mary-Barbara Zeldin. The religious nature of Russian marxism. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 8, No.1 pp.100-111 (1969)
  43. http://svonz.lenin.ru/articles/Klaus-Georg_Riegel-Marxism-Leninism_as_a_Political_Religion.pdf Klaus-Georg Riegel. Marxism-Leninism as a Political Religion. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6, No.1, P.97126, June 2005.
  44. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1910/dec/23.htm V.I.Lenin. Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism. - Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [1974], Moscow, Volume 17, pages 39-44.
  45. [43] http://www.archive.org/details/ProgramOfTheCommunistPartyOfTheSovietUnion_150 Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1961
  46. Ingazo Nitobe. Bushido. Tokyo, 1989.
  47. Fujihara Masahiko. The dignity of the nation. Tokyo. 2007
  48. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97821251 J.A.Mathisen. Twenty Years After Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion? Journal article by James A. Mathisen; SA. Sociological Analysis, 50, 1989, pp. 129-146
  49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465621 Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 64, No.4, Thematic Issue on "Religion and American Popular Culture" (1996), pp. 767-780.
  50. Robert N. Bellah, Phillip E. Hammond. Varieties of Civil Religion. New York: Harper & Row. 1980
  51. http://phoslogikis.ortox.ru/biblioteka/view/id/1147726 Александер Д.Р. Свет Разума - Христианство и наука. (2012, in Russian)
  52. http://www.uran.ru/gazetanu/2003/01/nu02/wvmnu_p1a_02_012003.htm V.I.Korukin. Pseudoscience - what is behind the word? (in Russian)
  53. http://www.vbvvbv.narod.ru/Lgenauka.htm Zastyretz A. Meeting of the Presidium. (In Russian). Science of Ural, N2 (830), January 2003.
  54. http://tracerkinetics.engr.iupui.edu/Ethics%20Course%2009/Journal%20articles/lysenko-nature-rev-genetics2001-nrg0901_723a.pdf V.N.Soyfer. The consequences of political dictatorship for Russian science. Nat Rev Genet. 2001, Sep;2(9):723-9.
  55. http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/Faraday%20Papers/Faraday%20Paper%203%20Alexander_EN.pdf Denis R. Alexander. Models for Relating Science and Religion. April 2007. © The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion
  56. 56.0 56.1 http://document.kremlin.ru/doc.asp?ID=052421 http://www.vbvvbv.narod.ru/Lgenauka.htm Medvedev V.A. Commission to counter attempts to falsify the history to the detriment of Russia. (2009, in Russian)
  57. 57.0 57.1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8166020.stm James Rodgers. Russia acts against 'false' history. BBC News, 24 July 2009.
  58. http://www.mltranslations.org/Brazil/revis.htm Editorial. O Proletariado. (Organ of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil). Deepen the Struggle Against Revisionism and Opportunism Raising The Banner of Marxism, the Party and the Revolution. May, 1997.
  59. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/apr/03.htm V.I.Lenin. Marxism and Revisionism. Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1973, Moscow, Volume 15, p.29-39
  60. http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0954-8998/4/4/003 D.Yu.Kouznetsov. Quantum fluctuations do not annihilate the optical soliton. Quantum Optics, 4 221-227 (1992)
  61. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/rohrlich.pdf D.Kouznetsov, D.Rohrlich. Quantum noise at the nonlinear mapping of phase space. Optics and Spectroscopy, July 1997, v.83, N6, p.909-913.
  62. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/gomez.pdf D.Kouznetsov, E.Gomez. Automodulation of optical pulses and limits of single-mode approximation. Optics and Spectroscopy, 1999, v.87, No.4, pp.594-602
  63. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/1997density.pdf V.V.Voitsekhovich, D.Kouznetsov, D.Kh.Morozov. Density of turbulence-induced phase dislocations. Applied Optics, 1998, v.37, No.21, p.4525-4535
  64. http://ojps.aip.org/journals/doc/APPLAB-ft/vol_77/iss_13/2066_1.html Garcia-Valenzuela A., Bruce N.C., Kouznetsov D. Perturbation theory for surface-profile imaging with a capacitive probe. Appl.Phys.Lett. v.77, (2000) p. 2066-2068.
  65. http://psroc.phys.ntu.edu.tw/cjp/v40/121.pdf E.Ley-Koo, G.Villa-Torres, D.Kouznetsov. Aharonov-Bohm effect on Landau states in annular Cylindrical Boxes. Chinese J. of Physics, 40, No.2, p.130-141 (2002)
  66. http://col.org.cn/abstract.aspx?id=COL05S1S240-3 D.Kouznetsov. Broadband laser materials and the McCumber relation. Chinese Optics Letters, 2007, 5, p.S240-S242.
  67. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/ dima/PAPERS/2007jlwt.pdf J.-F.Bisson, D.Kouznetsov. Comments on "Study of the Complex Atomic Susceptibility of Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers" Journal of Lightwave Technology, v.26, No.4, p. 457-459 (2008)
  68. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/PhysRevA_72_013617.pdf D.Kouznetsov, H.Oberst, Scattering of waves at ridged mirrors. Phys.Rev.A, 72, 013617 (2005)
  69. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/nanoscope.pdf D.Kouznetsov, H.Oberst, A.Neumann, Y.Kuznetsova, K.Shimizu, J.-F.Bisson, K.Ueda, S.R.J.Brueck. Ridged atomic mirrors and atomic nanoscope. J. of Physics B, 39 p. 1605-1623 (2006)
  70. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/2009optmat.pdf Kouznetsov D, Bisson J-F, Ueda K, Scaling laws of disk lasers. Optical materials, 31, Issue 5, p.754-759 (2009)
  71. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/2010superfar.pdf Kouznetsov D, Solution of F(z+1)=exp(F(z)) in complex z-plane. Mathematics of Computation, 78, No.267, p.1647- 1670 (2009)
  72. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/2010superfae.pdf D.Kouznetsov, H.Trappmann. Superfunctions and square root of factorial. Moscow University Physics Bulletin, ser.3, Issue 13, p.8-14(2010)
  73. http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/2010q2.pdf D.Kouznetsov, H.Trappmann. Portrait of the four regular super-exponentials to base sqrt(2). Mathematics of Computation, 2010, v.79, p.1727-1756.
  74. http://www.springerlink.com/content/u7327836m2850246/ H.Trappmann, D.Kouznetsov. Uniqueness of Analytic Abel Functions in Absence of a Real Fixed Point. Aequationes Mathematicae, v.81, p.65-76 (2011)
  75. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Reactionless_propulsion
  76. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oleg-kozlovsky/medvedev-imposes-control_b_205349.html Oleg Kozlovsky. Medvedev Imposes Control Over Russian History. Huffington Post, May 19, 2009

Russian version of this article: Место науки в человеческом знании
Spanish version of this article: Lugar de la ciencia en el conocimiento humano

Copyleft 2011 by Dmitrii Kouznetsov. This article can be used for free; attribute the source.

Keywords

Applicability, Art, Custom, Fraud, Principle of correspondence, Refutability, Religion, Russia, Science, TORI axioms, USSR, Verifiability