Results must mean something musn't they?

[JamesMay]

Dear all,

I was just reading through the Human Reproduction paper on acupuncture and came across this sentence:

"There are two possible explanations for our interesting results: real acupuncture may be associated with a lower pregnancy rate or placebo acupuncture may lead to a higher pregnancy rate."

There is a sometimes explicit tendency amongst empiricists to say that philosophy should be guided by science. I would argue that it cannot be so. Science must be guided by philosophy. This statement is driven by a desire to demonstrate that these results must mean something. However, the logical possibilities here include the possibility that the results do not mean anything but are mistaken and demonstrate nothing. Indeed in this case I suspect this is the more probable explanation.

James

[LesRose]

When I read this originally the authors' conclusions jarred and I could not spot their error. You have hit the nail on the head. Indeed such is the desire to assign meaning to everything, that meanings are commonly inferred spuriously. I think this is closely related to religion. Greek philosophy (to my limited understanding) was based on causes - everything that happened must have a cause, and if no material cause could be found then the cause must be spiritual. For me, the most liberating experience of my advancing years is to discover that life itself has no intrinsic meaning. It still has value though, depending on what we choose to do with our lives, and thereby we create our own meaning.
_________________
Les

No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

[JamesMay]

Les - If I have understood what you mean...
I wasn 't intending to be quite so nihilist/existentialist about the meaninglessness of their results. I believe a result is meaningful if it describes something real about the way the world works. I was suggesting that there may be a flaw in their study which means that actually the results do not reflect reality. This seems the most likely to me because of the suspicious basic science behind acupuncture, and because of the suprising nature of these results.

Regarding the bigger questions of meaning. If there is no meaning and we invent value, then there is no high ground from which to critique error - which seems to me to be essential. eg - false study results - why should they be valued less highly than true ones? Truth is a value which may not be shared by all, but which Healthwatch believes should be pursued, and falsehood opposed. This is not merely our invention or else it would be as arbitrary as the choice of homeopathy. We oppose homeopathy because it is false, and we value truth above falsity.

James[/u]