1. "What gives credibility to science?"

The credibility of science in the country is given by world famous scientists, even if they do not live in this deletion, but are patriots of this country and protect its interests in the world.

2. "Can we really rely on scientific discoveries?"

Yes, if these scientific discoveries have already led or lead to technologies that will improve life on this planet without any harm to the environment.

3. "Statistical tests?"

Possible if these tests will work correctly.

4. "Ethics councils?"

Science by definition must be ethical, otherwise why is it needed at all, that is why we need a science that will destroy our planet?

5. "Suitability of scientists?"

Well, this question will never disappear and will always be relevant.

In my opinion, the true contribution of the scientist is not always correctly estimated by the parameters of the number of publications and citations,

although this makes people recognizable and famous.

A good example is Grigory Perelman as a model of the absolute priority of the essence over visibility.

6. "Mathematics?"

It is known that not raw materials make the country great, but high technologies. High technology is fully based on science. For example, a small country of Israel, has no minerals at all, is thriving due to high technology. In this country, the quality of education has great importance, especially mathematics as the foundation of strong and reliable knowledge.

7. "What exactly makes science reliable?"

From my point of view, reliability in science is ensured by its long life in explaining certain phenomena of nature. If science is repeatedly confirmed in practice, then this is the most reliable science and it can and should be trusted.

Scientific methodology is the foundation stone, science is a specific communication method, with accepted knowledge standards(archiving) and learning procedures (discovering). Science is logically hierarchic; at first, you have to digest the established facts; afterwards, you can go on to do your research. Science can emancipate you from belief systems, that rely on pure superstition. Today, science has become an essential part of the economic production system, which makes it fundamentally vulnerable, concerning ethical standards of truth.

Hello,

Credibility of scientific findings has a great bearing on intellectual development. The main purpose of scientific endeavours is to discover the realities surrounding our lives. however, man's interaction with the physical world and his perception of a specific reality about life is individualistic and highly subjective. Therefore, the world of theories including art, and artifacts (i.e., all scientific statements) need to be carefully tested to find out whether they are credible or not. As Popper states, a scientific theory is true as long as it is not refuted by counter-evidence. Therefore, a rigorous intersubjective testability approach (i.e. falsifiability principle) can serve as a litmus test for measuring the credibility and the truth value of a scientific finding.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Reason, truth, empirical testing and the capacity in solving problems offer legitmacy to science. Tha is why advanced socities invest huge amount of their fortune in scientific research.

What gives credibility to science? Reproducibility, verifiability, falsifiability.

Can we really rely on scientific discoveries?

I do not know if we can really rely on scientific discoveries. But, thanks to science, we can definitely debate the question on RG. Thanks also to medical science I hope to participate in this debate for a long time yet. In fact, thanks also to medicine, the average life of man is always longer. Thanks to chemistry and / or biochemistry, the chefs are always better and the wine is always better. Thanks to the agricultural sciences, food production is increasing more and more. What does not seem credible to me are the political sciences, in fact still today too many people die of hunger or hunger-related diseases.

Science is about truth. Thus, what gives credibility to science is better science. The Earth was thought to be flat and the sun rotates around the Earth. Better science and new discoveries changed these falsehoods.

1. "What gives credibility to science?"

The credibility of science in the country is given by world famous scientists, even if they do not live in this deletion, but are patriots of this country and protect its interests in the world.

2. "Can we really rely on scientific discoveries?"

Yes, if these scientific discoveries have already led or lead to technologies that will improve life on this planet without any harm to the environment.

3. "Statistical tests?"

Possible if these tests will work correctly.

4. "Ethics councils?"

Science by definition must be ethical, otherwise why is it needed at all, that is why we need a science that will destroy our planet?

5. "Suitability of scientists?"

Well, this question will never disappear and will always be relevant.

In my opinion, the true contribution of the scientist is not always correctly estimated by the parameters of the number of publications and citations,

although this makes people recognizable and famous.

A good example is Grigory Perelman as a model of the absolute priority of the essence over visibility.

6. "Mathematics?"

It is known that not raw materials make the country great, but high technologies. High technology is fully based on science. For example, a small country of Israel, has no minerals at all, is thriving due to high technology. In this country, the quality of education has great importance, especially mathematics as the foundation of strong and reliable knowledge.

7. "What exactly makes science reliable?"

From my point of view, reliability in science is ensured by its long life in explaining certain phenomena of nature. If science is repeatedly confirmed in practice, then this is the most reliable science and it can and should be trusted.

The science itself is credible, but the topic and the intention behind a research makes the product susceptible.

• Never with absolute precision or certainty. Science is inherently an open joint endeavor of humanity to understand and explain itself and nature in the current situation and in its past and future history. This applies equally to natural sciences, social research and humanistic disciplines.
• Because of physical, biological and social dynamics, we can never be certain about the kind and details of our interpretation of our environment and ourselves. It has been, is and will be an eternal struggle for knowing what might be true and systematic, and acting effectively and efficiently.
• This indeterminacy doesn't stop for physics, even if most physicists would claim to have found the one and only effective and valid method of access to true, verified and certain knowledge. In reality, it tells us more about the (psychology of) man of science than about the scientific claims (called findings) themselves.
• Discoveries are only trustworthy discoveries for the time being insofar they have already been tested and accepted by the scientific community. It is this scientific community which decides about plausibility, credibility and truth of scientific claims, not nature itself. And this scientific community is far less rational than we would like to admit... (see e.g. works of Thomas Kuhn, Nancy Cartwright, Carlo Cellucci and many others)

Link to Cellucci 2017 Rethinking Knowledge:

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXWN6YM
• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlo_Cellucci-la_sapienza

mathematics may be the best ...because it plays a vital role in human life.

I think so

@jack son : as long as mathematics isn't done for its own sake, I agree, otherwise it is just "L'art pour l'art"

This is a very interesting and important question. All the factors noted by the author of the question are important, but if we bear in mind that the reliability of science is closely related to its predictive power, then the accuracy of predictions is paramount, which is undoubtedly associated with the application of mathematics. Undoubtedly, talent and professional quality of people who are engaged in science are important. That circumstance, in contrast to past centuries, at present the occupation of science has acquired a mass character, a priori greatly reduces the quality of scientific results. The very definition of science is rather blurry. For example, there are exact sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.) and humanities (history, philosophy, psychology, etc.). The humanities, although they apply mathematics, but in its simplest form, in contrast, for example, from physics, which use a powerful and sometimes very complex mathematical apparatus. Therefore, the predictive power of the humanities is a colossal number of times weaker than the predictive power of physics. In this sense, physics, which for more than a century has been structured into experimental physics and theoretical physics, should serve as a model for the construction of any other science. Modern physics is the most reliable of all existing sciences, except for mathematics, which stands alone and is the standard of accurate thinking. In connection with the extreme urgency of clarifying the nature of life and the man himself, at present the convergence of such sciences as physics, chemistry and biology is taking place. The multidisciplinary nature of the scientific approach is at the forefront. In my recent article (see Preface in the article, the link below), I suggested moving further along the path of convergence, and following the example of Leonardo da Vinci, to learn our life in all its diversity and unity at the same time, that is, to simultaneously use the methods of both humanitarian and exact sciences.

Article Dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution...

This question looks like"

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Science is credible with all the approaches...... the originality depends on the person who is working on it.... no matter who ever it is unless the culture is inbuilt by that individual or group it will always fall in some gaps or less crediable

Dear

this could be a good answer

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26768/title/What-Makes-Science--Science--/

How this disbelief on science has grown? Surely,we can rely on scientific discoveries and we are enjoying the fruits of pai staking scientific discoveries.

Science is considered a source of truth and the importance of its role in shaping modern society cannot be overstated. But in recent years science has entered a crisis of trust.

The results of many scientific experiments appear to be surprisingly hard to reproduce, while mistakes have highlighted flaws in the peer review system. This has hit scientific credibility and prompted researchers to create new measures in order to maintain the quality of academic research and its findings.

When conducting research, scientists use the scientific method to collect measurable, empirical evidence in an experiment related to a hypothesis (often in the form of an if/then statement), the results aiming to support or contradict a theory.

"But what really makes that fun is knowing that you are trying to answer an interesting question. So the first step in identifying questions and generating possible answers (hypotheses) is also very important and is a creative process. Then once you collect the data you analyze it to see if your hypothesis is supported or not."

The steps of the scientific method go something like this:

Make an observation or observations.

Ask questions about the observations and gather information.

Form a hypothesis — a tentative description of what's been observed, and make predictions based on that hypothesis.

Test the hypothesis and predictions in an experiment that can be reproduced.

Analyze the data and draw conclusions; accept or reject the hypothesis or modify the hypothesis if necessary.

Reproduce the experiment until there are no discrepancies between observations and theory. "Replication of methods and results is my favorite step in the scientific method," Moshe Pritsker, a former post-doctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School and CEO of JoVE, told Live Science. "The reproducibility of published experiments is the foundation of science. No reproducibility – no science."

I want to share a Wilfrid Sellars quote: “Empirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once”. IMHO, it gives some light about the question we are discussing.

It is supposed that science is credible because:

• the results can be reproduced: same conditions lead to same observations
• the theory is established by using Mathematics: its is self consistent

But the dark true is that science is supposed credible only if:

• reproduces the mainstream dogma at every discipline, from hard sciences to social sciences
• the theory is established by using Mathematics that have no kind of clearly proven actual connection with reality
• the results have been published to prestigious journals
• the overall Project is a Big one

What is the final output?

Pseudoscience.

WOW... My fellow scientists,

All of you have - someway - surprised me. Thanks for sharing your thoghts.

All my best wishes for all of you.

Hess

Science is credible as long as it keeps away from politics and politicians. It is impossible to concilliate truth with lies.

See the attached image:

Empirical discoveries that are verifiable and affords replicability is reliable.

thanks for recommending my answer

I feel that science has done more harm then good. It is supposed to be about truth but in many cases leads to reductionism. People 'believe' in science, working from the work of others, in a form of pure faith. They have not proved things for themselves, rather take it as a given. Only a fool would work only within science, for the act of progressing science itself requires one to think outside of science. I long for a day when we look bigger picture for science is often exclusive of the whole as it focus on one thing.

A good word is:

scientistic

[sahy-uh n-tis-tik] Spell Syllables

• Word Origin

adjective1.characterized by or having an exaggerated belief in the principles andmethods of science.2.of, relating to, or characterized by scientism.

@Yosefine Deans : "I long for a day when we look bigger picture for science ... ". That day has already come, but in the 18th or 19h century we chose to ignore it. It goes back all the way to Greek philosophy. It is called "heuristics" and it is exactly non-exclusive as you would like it to have. Probably you missed my contribution (12 days ago). Here is my main reference (read the book and you will conclude that things need not be so disappointing if only people / scientists would dare to think out of the box instead of slavishly following the standard rules and views put forward by some bureaucrates):

Link to Cellucci 2017 Rethinking Knowledge:

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXWN6YM
• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlo_Cellucci-la_sapienza

Hi Paul, There probably should be a comma after 'bigger picture'... I've requested Cellucci's book from the library and will get back to you once I've looked at it. It does not appeal to me but I will do this for you. I do have a few comments:

My concern about science is that it may miss the 'understanding' component of what it is studying by failure to address the whole.

Philosophy is more alive then ever and of essential significance to things we look at where we know, as in everything, that there is still more to 'know'. Take the Genetic Engineering debate. I use philosophy here to explain how unhelpful it is. I don't debate the science as that is the approach I'm am trying to move away from! It is said you cannot use the same language that got you into the mess to get you out of it.

This eternal struggle for proving things is not applicable to all cultures. Here in Australia just 230 years ago we had a culture that has no word for progress. The Aboriginals live a complete life, not striving for me knowledge which is sadly often selfish and for human gain only. There are other species on this plant! If we work with them we need a holistic approach, not more science.

I'll keep in touch,

Yosefine.

Science, for me as a non-scientist, has become mundane. Working for large corporations, you would appear to have lost adventure and autonomy. Some science is also 'bad', especially that surrounding drugs. For the general public, yet again only the work in Cosmology seems visible and glamorous.

You are spot on in that Science has been corrupted by certain organisations. A lesson in morals is what is needed to combat this situation, otherwise it simply shifts to another thing, like tobacco is now sugar and will be gambling etc...

I believe it is statistics that give credibility to science

Science is knowledge discovered through systematic inquiry. The well-planned processes through which scientific knowledge is discovered is the based to believe scientific results.

Continuous process of improvement in the present status of things

Hi Josifine,

Thanks a lot. Quick comments, unsystematically:

• against reductionism, for holism; me too;
• there is pure science, and there is applied science; the latter is the bad boy, don't throw the baby out with the washwater;
• heuristic and holistic approaches to knowledge, scientific or not, don't bite each other, rather complement each other;
• when I see a problem, I want to solve it; I use pure science to find a theoretical solution, empirical research to implement it pragmatically;
• when I have found a solution, I may loose my interest for it, because there are so many unsolved problems, theoretical or practical, waiting for a solution. But, curiously enough, years later I may regain interest in it, perhaps in another context
• science developed out of the best of human minds, because common knowledge and intuition appeared all-too-often to be erroneous, biased or unjustified.
• as there are multiple human minds, not all equivalent, we will have multiple scientific approaches, too. Don't worry, together they make up a more complete (albeit patchwork-like) view of this world and of ourselves. holism is programmed into the "bigger picture", no matter what some reductionistic scientists may proclaim

I do because I am Engineer and unfortunately true to my profession , I would like to see most of the justification in terms of proof (practical or otherwise )

@Peter Griepink:

Some reflections:

• I also thought always that science is about truth. Carlo Cellucci convinced me by argument that I have been wrong all those lost years ...
• A confirmed hypothesis may be taken to be a theorem, at most. A theory is a bunch of unproved basic assumptions and all the theorems that follow from it. Alas, all to often, we as scientists and researchers use a sloppy language when we try to talk about our own business ...
• Indeed we can never attain 100% certainty about what we claim to know or to have proven. That doesn't have to upset us, or lead us to the decision to stop doing research at all. For instance, social science research (including e.g. medical research) is to a large extent based on statistical methods, which by definition can only produce probabilistic knowledge, not absolute knowledge. If we were upset by this, we would have to abandon more than we would be willing to accept ...
• The real problem is that many researchers are compelled or driven (by university, by society, by politics, by industry ...) to claim more than they can guarantee. See e.g. the embarrassing findings over more than 30 years of John Ioannidis

Link:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ioannidis

Dear Aurelio, very interesting question. I agree with what everyone on RG says. However, I can say that the science nowadays has some crisis in stating the truth. For example, you can read several articles, all based on research, and each of them claims the opposite, in one the bananas are very healthy and contribute to lowering the blood pressure, in other bananas should not be eaten in the mornings, one article speaks about the bad influence of the coffee, other argues that coffee is good for the hearth etc. What to believe in, and every article states that it is based on research worldwide. What to believe in?

Regards,

Janusheva

Dear Violeta: Indeed, if you expect that statistical and other empirical data can reveal (the) truth, and only (the) truth, then you will be disappointed again and again, because such research can only deliver plausible hypotheses based on a assumptions and conditions which themselves are not fully verified and certified.

Please, for your own health, stop expecting too much from fallible methods. Always check the assumptions and conditions on which the reported research which you consult is based. Especially in social or geographical science, but also in e.g. medical and psychological science, it is clear that most statements are not claims about truth, but about conditional plausibility.

As far as I know, mathematics is the only "science" which allows to derive conditionally true statements from exactly specified assumptions, whose "truthhood" is taken for granted: if such and such is the case, then necessarily this or that is also the case. But even here, in the kingdom of rationality, we have strict limitations, as proved - mathematically of course! - by Kurt Gödel

Lets take for example the Medicine.

What is a scientific publication over there?

• a clinical experiment on 30 patients (30=infinity in statistics)
• a typical set of tests performed to observed variables of interest
• a ritualistic publication to a 'top journal' while the 'top' comes from:

What is the net output?

A highly reputed scientific status of the author...

What is the essential output?

Money creation for pharmaceutical industries and doctors.

What is the missing point?

• Cancer cannot be defeated
• All patients of the clinical experiment passed away

Science for money.

A world governed by money [the not-so-hidden paradigm of economics] doesn't stop for activity labelled "science"

I must appreciate Aurelio Hess for asking such an innovative question, which resulted in very healthy and informative discussion.

For me science is based upon reliable and valid results which could be verified in any circumstances using any one of above mentioned methods.

But personally I would prefer statistical approach which is dependent upon reliable and valid data collection and analysis

Don't forget that the soundness of statistical approaches depends primarily on the underlying theoretical concepts and assumptions. Thus:

THEORY ---> DEDUCTION ---> HYPOTHESES ---> DATA COLLECTION ---> STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ---> INDUCTION ---> PLAUSIBLE KNOWLEDGE

Data is just one element in this chain, and it is NOT fundamental. That's the biggest logical error of DATA ANALYTICS or DATA MINING: nice and sexy names for poor science without concepts and theory. Sorry.

Very useful results only.

"Science, I had come to learn, is as political, competitive, and fierce a career as you can find, full of the temptation to find easy paths." — Paul Kalanithi, neurosurgeon and writer (1977–2015)

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process

Dear felow scientists,

The discussion went farther than I could imagine.

thank you all for the attention to the theme proposed. Your answers were very interesting and reach.

Hess

The question is so beautifully crafted, so that every body is attracted and loved to be part of discussion.

Credit goes to Aurelio Hess

It seems that mathematical rigor and repeatability of experimental results are what give science its power.

@Kirk MacGregor : I fully agree. And it works beautifully for the physical sciences, because the physical sciences abstract from particulars and are only interested in so-called general laws of nature. Some physicists have called this success of physical sciences irrational, but it is simply built-in into its approach and methods.

Don't forget that the physical sciences would be nowhere without probability theory and statistics. The rigor you mention relates to the use of mathematical models (structure + measurement), not to the actual findings (experimental or empirical data) which are by definition stochastic, i.e. not quite so "rigorous". Therefore physicists have to repeat and repeat experiments, which are - again - abstractions of reality. Yes, the price, natural sciences have to pay is high, but it appears to work well for the kind of phenomena they want to explain and predict.

Now what follows from this for all the other sciences we have created? I don't know for sure. Many other sciences are so fascinated by the incredible success of the physical sciences that they want to "imitate" the physical approach. Alas, it doesn't work so well, if and when they are genuinely interested in particulars, not in general laws. Then do we have to deny them generally the label of "science"? I don't think so, because method follows goal, not the other way around (remember, method means "along a way", it doesn't tell you where you want to end up). And the proper goal of science is producing knowledge, reliable knowledge, plausible knowledge. And that we can find everywhere if we invest enough time and appropriate methods.

• That's the ultimate reason why we have e.g. two kinds of psychology (replace by any other of the social or humanistic sciences): scientific psychology following by and large the doctrines of the physical sciences, and applied psychology following quite other paradigms of knowing and doing, because they have to care about the particulars: individual human beings and groups.

Dear Paul Hubert Vossen,

I would like to know your opinion about my answer from the discussion https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Democracy_the_best_form_of_government_in_a_Federating_State . This request is very strongly related to your answer.

I would also want to get a little more detailed information from you about your "Classic and Modern Piano Musique". I myself play the piano many classical pieces and I like to improvise too, so I would be interested in learning a little bit more about your musical preferences. Thank you in advance.

"I want to understand clearly one thing: Is History a science or not? Why am I raising this issue. You yourself are witnessing a heated discussion about the same moments of history. There are historical facts and there are interpretations of these facts. There are historical documents and there is also an understanding that some of these documents are fake. Many books on the same historical issues have been written. All authors claim that they relied on documents, but in most cases these were interpretations as analytical reflections. These authors often state that many documents are not yet available under the stamp of secrecy. This defect they compensate by their interpretations like "it's very possible that it could happen". However, science is built on rigorous evidence and not on free interpretations. Now in our time, former historians have become political analysts. Now we watch a lot of various analytical television programs where political scientists with a clever kind tell the versions on the same events. And to each of these political scientists the spectators in the hall are stormy applauding. However, there can be only one truth. How to be? I want to ask: Is it time to create a science that would sanctify historical events according to the same rules for everyone without exception? For example, mathematics does not arouse anybody's censure, as it builds its reasoning on rigorous evidence. It may be time to create a subject as a "Mathematical History", where all conclusions are strictly proven and do not allow any interpretations. Please share your opinions".

Dear Gennady Fedulov,

Wow, you are asking a lot! But I will be glad to answer you, bit by bit.

Please give me some time to think about your grandiose proposal to create a science called Mathematical History. I believe it might be possible. Why do I believe this? Quite simply: when I tell people that I studied mathematical psychology, most of them smile politely or laugh loudly, because they have never heard of it, and can't believe that the words "mathematics" and "psychology" can ever fit together. Nevertheless, the idea of mathematical psychology goes back to ca. 1850, and some discoveries made by modern mathematical psychology are as amazing as those made by mathematical physics! So you see, why would a mathematical approach to history be impossible? Why close the door before you even tried to open it?

@Ajit Kumar Roy

Dear Dr. Ajit Roy,

I´d like to give special attention to your comment. I´ve formulated the question and it captured your attention. Thank you very much.

You´ve said:

"How this disbelief on science has grown? Surely,we can rely on scientific discoveries and we are enjoying the fruits of pai staking scientific discoveries."

In fact, it´s not about "disbelief" but about a better understanding on

'What gives credibility to science'. I understand your worries and totally agree with you that we can believe in science.

Thank you very much for expressing you important opinion.

All y best wishes.

Hess

@ Violeta Janusheva

Dear Violeta,

I totally understand your concern about that. In fact, It´s part of motivated me to formulate the question. "well captured", dear Janusheva!

My Best.

@ Rai Waqas Azfar Khan

Dear Rai,

Thanks for the endorsement.

My best.

A.Hess

Dear Peter Griepink,

I would like to share one observation.

There are a writer, Elena Anatolievna Prudnikova, author of 25 books https://royallib.com/author/prudnikova_elena.html. She lives in St. Petersburg. There are several videos with her participation, for example "On the relocation of defense enterprises in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gbzJJqX8rc , that decided the outcome of the war. About this event very little is said, however, it is this event that is the main thing in the victory over Hitler. She was a physicist by profession. Why am I talking about this? She came up with her own method for analyzing historical facts as a Method of Mathematical Physics. I remembered her very short phrase in one of her videos on Youtube. "I just take the facts, then I processing these facts through my Method of Mathematical Physics, after which I draw conclusions". However, I did not find anywhere a description of her method on the Internet. It would be nice to somehow contact her and try to find out about her method. However, I do not have such contacts.

Peter,

As a student of art you might be familiar to the Golden Ratio (0.618) and other ratios based on the Fibonacci sequence (like 1.618). Some grave historical events show such mathematical physics. Of course, you might say it could have been a coincidence. Still a beautiful one.

Peter,

Take [(1945-1918) x 1.618] + 1945 = 1989 (after rounding up), you get the year of transformation in the post-communist countries.

Gennady Fedulov wrote (3 days ago) "... It may be time to create a subject as a "Mathematical History", where all conclusions are strictly proven and do not allow any interpretations. Please share your opinions". He suggested that I contributed my personal opinion here. Perhaps it would be better to start a separate question.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[copy from a personal communication]

Well, here are my musings about this interesting topic ;-)

Terminology Let's agree about terminology. History is what we are interested in. In a realistic stance of philosophy, it would be that what is actually happening over the course of time. What we - human beings - observe is not history itself, but particular events that we give a stamp of being "objective facts", or at least "inter-subjectively documented facts". We will forever quarrel about how objective or well-documented these facts are. Then come the historians. They study those facts again, and try to put it in a coherent whole, which we also call history, but it is second-level history, already screened and filtered to fit into some preconceived "story", i.e. a model of what (really) happened. That is what we call a science of history, which is partly "factual", partly "theoretical". Remember, theory comes from old-Greek see or view. That fits well here.

Missing data The biggest problem may indeed be the missing data, whatever the reason for it: no documents, not even witnesses; documents cannot be found; documents are not made public; etc. Missing data are also a problem in other sciences. History should look at how other scientific domains treat missing data. Statistics and logic may help here. Or choosing clever models which deal implicitly with missing data, filling the gaps "on the fly", so to speak.

Interpretation The same data may lead to different interpretations if the intervening "explanatory models" are very different. But we may infer important insights from applying different models to the same data: where do they agree, where do they differ moderately, where do they lead to quite different interpretations? We need urgently a theory of interpretation, which may be characteristic of the science of history, which may be its "unique selling proposition".

Analogy (diachronic) One way to use historical data is in the same vein as meteorology: looking at a massive database of facts with different degrees of credibility and weight, what can we tell about the next day, the next week or the next larger period? Historical reconstructions could be compared and evaluated on the ground of their predictive power. But this may not work in the science of history because we cannot reliably and sensibly apply statistical models as in meteorology. Another problem is the immense time lag before we can say that historical predictions have come out or not: we may have to wait 50 years before predictions based on the last 100 years can be evaluated.

Alternative (synchronic) Another route would be predicting the missing data (see above, again). The better historical model would be the one that does a better job in "predicting" what the missing data would be given the model, and thus giving a more precise indication where to look and how to find out. A better and larger database of so-called facts would, of course, help historians substantively. This might work faster than the diachronic approach.

Interactive simulations We did this in the 70es but it has come out of fashion. Large dynamic models would be run on computers, for days or weeks, and explanations including predictions would be spit out, to be verified as to plausibility. Etc.

Interesting discussion.

I think that all the factors mentioned are important.

Sometimes we should be careful when science meets business or politics.

No, I didn't know, and by the way I don't understand fully: " Dear @Paul Hubert Vossen as you are well aware copying personal communication is against the rules of RG. However, a financial compensation can settle this." It is MY information, so I would expect that I may do with it what I like - even without financial compensation ;-) It's more like London's Hide Corner, if you understand what I mean.

I have removed your name from my post, so now it is entirely my own words. Furthermore, I will refrain from commenting on your above comments, to avoid any misconceptions about a historical discussion going on between us both.

Hope this clarifies /settles the issue.

Sorry

P.S.: A hear a bit of irony in your words, but I may be wrong again ;-)

Dear Peter Griepink,

I think you were reckless in your statements to Paul Hubert Vossen. I could not imagine that good intentions could be so perverted. As for the Mathematical History or, most likely, the Theory of Interpretations, this subject is necessary for a more correct understanding of historical events. Look at our discussions on historical topics.  It's just horro from a complete misunderstanding between people. It seems that we participate in a conversation between a deaf-mute and a blind person. Because everyone believes only in their own truth and doesn't want to understand his vis-a-vis or can not. Therefore, we need a Theory to establish the general rules of the game  to minimize all possible interpretations and rely on flawless rigorous proofs in analyzing the conclusions about historical events. For now, the vacuum is filled with hundreds of political scientists, thousands of books are being written, thousands of films are being made, and then we are surprised why we have such a huge chasm in assessing the same historical events. Why does it happen that one state official of very high rank shakes a test tube with a detergent and this is enough to then start a war against the state with millions of victims, not to mention the numerous devastations and sufferings of civilians. All this time people thought that this official was right. Then, years later, this official acknowledges his mistake. Here is the interpretation for you in practice. Brilliantly, is not it!

Dear Barbara Sawicka,

unfortunately, we are all living now at a time when the saying is true: "if you do not engage in politics, the politics will take care of you". We must take this as an objective reality. Therefore, the First step is that at least scientists could understand each other. The Second step would be the understanding of the simple people of each other. The Third step is Peace on Earth!

Dear Paul Hubert Vossen,

I once again want to thank you for your valuable phrases about "Terminology", "Missing data", "Interpretation", "Analogy (diachronic)", "Alternative (synchronic", "Interactive simulations" and especially for your key phrase "We need urgently a theory of interpretation, which may be characteristic of the science of history, which may be its "unique selling proposition". I hope that such a theory in any first approximation would be useful for a correct understanding of historical events.

Repeatability by unrelated researchers.

As a research work it has to be bounded together there cannot be any imperfections with out proper connect of all the topics adopted in the question.....

Based upon the type of work the weight-age would differ ..... that may be leading for some issues .....

In reality all put together would contribute value to science and discoveries.

Dear All,

Only objective scientific performance – for the welfare of humanity and biosphere - and the scientists’ personnel honesty can provide creditability.

During the first half of the 20th century, scientific research has grown from an elite profession to a mass profession. How can strict objectivity be maintained in such a competitive situation? All signs point to the opposite, if only one doesn't close his eyes for it. It all started with the well-meant slogan "publish or perish", the rest is well-documented history.

• We all know very well that and how the well-meant slogan "publish or perish" has been gratefully taken up by commerce (e.g. world-wide publishers and conference organizers) where quantity and profit have a higher priority than quality and truth.
• Furthermore, we all know very well that a large amount of scientific research, euphemistically called "applied", is taking place not for the well-being of humanity but for military purposes, i.e. obstruction and destruction.

All the more, I appreciate and admire the altruistic and conscientious work of so many scientists and researchers whose only hope is to get some satisfaction and recognition for their noble work to the benefit of mankind. I thank you all!

Yes, it is possible to rely on scientific discoveries, provided that they are sound and objective in presenting ideas.

I would like to share some thoughts on the basics of Mathematical History as a formal tool for understanding historical events. These are just some crude sketchy reflections, but it is always best to start from some starting point, even if this point is wrong. I understand that it would be better to move this discussion to another thread, but since Paul Hubert Vossen has already put forward some concepts in this thread, I do not see any reason to leave this thread yet. I use Graph Theory Langauge as a conceptual apparatus.

1. Vertex of graph - is an elementary historical event, to which the Database and the Knowledge Base are associated .:

2. Data base - is an array of all documents associated with a historical event that can have the status of both "open documents" and the status of "secret documents"

3. Knowledge base - is a set of different interpretations of a historical event: these are the versions of the causal relationship between the documents of a historical event that are written by different people as analysts.These versions are of course subjective, unlike documents that by definition should only be objective, so that we could then be relying on them as incontrovertible facts. The obvious property: the more open documents, the less imagination for interpretation in versions.

4. Oriented edge of a graph - is the directed connection between two elementary events from the point of view of some measure as "weight of edge": the greater the weight, the greater the relationship between events.

5. Subgraph - is a set of related events for some interval of time.

6. Route - is a sequence of vertices of a graph from some initial event to some finite event.

7. Analogy - is two subgraphs P1 and P2 with almost identical properties:

 the sequence of historical events in one period of time can be used to explain the sequence of historical events in another time period. For example, sometimes analysts see a lot of common signs between the February 1917 Revolution in Russia in St.-Petersburg and the February 2013 Revolution in Kiev.

8. Modeling - is prediction of future events from the point of view of subgraphs with the same properties: if we know the development of events for some subgraph P1 in the past, is it possible to model future events for the subgraph P2 in our time, which has almost the same properties with the subgraph P1.

9. Search - is for the given properties of a subgraph P2 find a subgraph P1 from past historical events using the Combinatorial Optimization methods on the graphs. This is a problem for solving a combinatorial mathematical model where all properties are modeled by the constraint system and objective function as a quality criterion for choosing the optimal variant of the found subgrapth from past historical events.

10. Goal - is a better understanding of the Same Historical Events in terms of truth and modeling of Future Historical Events with a high probability of their occurrence.

Dear Gennady,

Very interesting approach: directed graph theory - with a very long history (itself!), going back to a problem solved by Leonard Euler, if I remember well - and with a very large body of interesting methods, techniques and computer-supported tools. It is best to start here, because, if History doesn't lend itself to such an approach, because some necessary prerequisites cannot be satisfied, it will be discovered pretty soon. However, it History can be analysed in this way, then we may proceed - in due time - to even more powerful methods from Network Theory, already used extensively in human memory reseach (and what is memory other than a gigantic sort of history) or in unravelling the structure and dynamics of the web (cf. http://barabasi.com/networksciencebook/). So I congratulate you with your challenging proposal for a Mathematical Science of History. In my view, there is a lot to be gained by pursuing this idea systematically. Unfortunately, I am not a historian, and I have to stick to my main project, so my contributions will be scarce, but I may become an active/passive follower.

There are many factors that make the science credible. In my opinion, the most important are the conclusions of independent experts in the respective area and the reproduction of results by independent scientists.

Dear Paul Hubert Vossen,

I thank you for your kind words. You wrote a phrase "Unfortunately, I am not a historian". I would acknowledge your merit that you are not a historian and would write "Fortunately, but not unfortunately". Why? I noticed a steady trend of books appearing on historical themes, whose authors are not historians by education. For example, Elena Prudnikova - author of 25 books on historical topics, is a physicist by education, Nikolai Starikov, author of 17 books on historical topics, is a chemist by education, Arsen Martirosyan, author of 20 books on historical topics, is a colonel of the Foreign Intelligence Service, who has access to secret historical documents, and so on. It seems to me that people with mathematical and technical education have more analytical and pragmatic thinking than philologists and pure historians. For example, in Russia there are very popular TV presenters like Vladimir Soloviev (almost every day discussing historical topics) with technical and economic education. In short, now the time of pure historians is gone, especially in geopolitics, where several disciplines intersect. As for Leonhard Euler, he has the most direct relation to Russia as the Russian academician in the perimodas of 1726-1741 and 1766-1783, knew Russian well, published some of his works (especially textbooks) in Russian. Russia is proud of Euler, who is buried in St. Petersburg.

I absolutely agree with your phrase "It is best to start here, because if history does not lend itself to such an approach, it will be discovered pretty soon". If it turns out that another approach and another language is needed to formalize historical events, then there will be no regret to leave this approach in the past and move on to a new approach. Everything will be perceived philosophically.

Dear Peter Griepink.

I gave some facts about the fact that people who did not have a history education became excellent analysts and wrote dozens of books on a historical subject. And such people appear more and more. Where is there any insult? If I claim that people with mathematical and technical education have more pragmatic thinking, unlike philologists, this is my personal opinion. However, if you will ask the same question of other people with mathematical and technical education, I'm afraid that they will agree with this statement, that is, with mine. And here, too, there is nothing insulting, this is our life as it really is. One of the famous academicians (I do not remember exactly) said a phrase: "Philologists have one-act thinking, and mathematicians, physicists, and so on, that is, people of technical specialties have multi-act thinking". For example, Lavrenty Beria, an ingenious manager, the creator of the Soviet Military Industrial Complex in the Stalin era was a good architect in his major specialty. I have great respect for all philologists and historians, but I also acknowledge the fact that analysts from other professions can be much more successful.

Yes we can rely on scientific findings. The application of science to technology has probe beyond doubt that science is credible.

Is anybody still following this discussion:

• What gives credibility to science?
• Can we really rely on scientific discoveries?

Dear Peter G.,

I'm really flabbergasted and taken aback by your comments. Over night, I have been thinking over what you wrote in order not to over-react.

I will not be able to answer you friendly and adequately in just a single comment, so I will split it up over several related commentaries. Perhaps even distributed over several days. We have time ... So let's just start.

"You are intelligent man, please stop with this jokes." Your words. Either your comment is itself a joke, trying to provoke us (but why, and in this way, for heaven's sake?) or you have completely misunderstood both the experimental character of ResearchGate and our contributions to the above theme (nothing else):

• We live in a Global World. Part of it is the (democratic?) Open Society (Karl Popper1). Again part of that is the recent movement of Open Science. And finally part of Open Science is a.o. ResearchGate. We are freely, frankly and friendly talking with each other over whatever interests us. Including things we don't know so much about. So what? We are here to learn from each other: not only facts (Wikipedia is better in that, although not always reliable), also opinions, visions, possibilities...
• Apparently you did not fully read or understand all our contributions about the possibility or feasibility of a mathematical approach to historical research. See how I changed my vocabulary, thanks to your reactions? For me this is like a déjà-vu: hundred years ago psychology had the same troubles establishing a scientific psychology against the establishment of traditional, very much philosophical psychology. And look who has won (OK, this IS a joke).
• We didn't say at all, that traditional historical science with its roots in antiquity (yes, I read Herodotus and Livius at college, thank you for asking) should be completely replaced by a mathematical-oriented science of history. Our single point of departure was the well-known agreed-upon phenomenon that the same so-called historical facts have often been interpreted and explained in many different ways (take for instance the umpty books about the Second World War). And that a lot of possible facts that could explain and resolve those distinct interpretations are forever missing or still missing. And that it is devilishly difficult to make long-term projections of history into the future (but - perhaps -historical researchers aren't really interested in that because of a self-imposed restriction of the object of history?) (e.g. the false projections made by Karl Marx).
• IMHO, these facts of historical life cry for new branches or initiatives in historical research which try to find and give answers on such questions. What kind of research this will be is another matter, a mathematical approach is just one option. If you prefer another option, go ahead. But please, be specific about the methods and techniques that YOU prefer, or rather: that are currently en vogue in the science of history, if you believe that the current science and methodology of historical research is well-developed enough and doesn't need any rethinking or revival, least of all from outside.

Links:

1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691158134

Dear Peter,

Back on track! Both of us. It shows clearly the deficiencies of a medium like RG that is completely reduced to written text. Deep in my heart however I was sure that you were joking, at least a bit, but I also sensed that there was something deeply worrying you under the surface. You spelled it out: "Many historians fight with the question if we deserve to exists, because it is so hard to come to true facts."

Let me tell you a secret no scientist who cares about his career will ever dare to unveil: it is not different in other disciplines, but they have found ways to hide this fact and discredit anybody who publicly admits it. Even in cutting-edge research in physics (see the hotly debated recent hoax (?) about/with the gravitational waves, which even got a Noble Prize).

Do facts exist, and if so, how do we know if they are true or not? The problem with phrasing the epistemological + methodological question in this way are the two words "exist" and "true". This is all presuming the answer: that there is something out there that we can look for and that can be only true or false.

Frankly, I have stopped believing in this mythology, or dogmatics, but it took a long, long bitter and costly way for me to arrive at this wisdom. However, since I discovered the works of Carlo Cellucci 1, I am "enlightened" (tongue-in-cheek) and can sleep again. Highly recommended books also for historians, because they make a case for heuristics, which is the neighbor of creativity and craft, and not so far from art (I cite: We are "artists" not even "scientist". ~~~ So what: Leonardo da Vinci was all in one person. So it is possible and pays off).

Links:

1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/9400760906

2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/3319532367