MathGeek

Great. Duelling theories. Is there an experiment available to pick a winner? You know, how science should work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_Fear Fear can be useful. Fear of evil. Fear of evildoers. Fear of the police when tempted to do wrong. Fear of injury when tempted to do dangerous things. Fear of God? Well, that's outside the sphere of science.

Right. The presupposition of materialism is methodological rather than absolute. As Gould points out, it cannot be proven by science but it is necessary for science to proceed. Gould went on to describe science and religious faith as treating "non-overlapping magisteria." (NOMA) Religious faith treats matters of the spiritual realm - heaven and hell, God and angels, miracles and morality that are outside of the sphere of science because (by definition) they violate the methodological presupposition by which science operates. Science only addresses things in the physical realm. "NOMA also cuts both ways. If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions residing properly within the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world's empirical constitution." (Gould) The National Academy of Sciences has adopted a similar stance, ""Scientists, like many others, are touched with awe at the order and complexity of nature. Indeed, many scientists are deeply religious. But science and religion occupy two separate realms of human experience. Demanding that they be combined detracts from the glory of each." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria and references therein.

Begin Exact Quote (Gould 1984, p. 11): METHODOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS ACCEPTED BY ALL SCIENTISTS 1) The Uniformity of law - Natural laws are invariant in space and time. John Stuart Mill (1881) argued that such a postulate of uniformity must be invoked if we are to have any confidence in the validity of inductive inference; for if laws change, then an hypothesis about cause and effect gains no support from repeated observations - the law may alter the next time and yield a different result. We cannot "prove" the assumption of invariant laws; we cannot even venture forth into the world to gather empirical evidence for it. It is an a priori methodological assumption made in order to practice science; it is a warrant for inductive inference (Gould, 1965). End Exact Quote (Gould 1984, p. 11) Gould, Stephen Jay. "Toward the vindication of punctuational change."Catastrophes and earth history (1984): 9-16. also see: Gould, Stephen Jay. "Is uniformitarianism necessary?" American Journal of Science 263.3 (1965): 223-228. Gould, Stephen Jay. Time's arrow, time's cycle: Myth and metaphor in the discovery of geological time. Harvard University Press, 1987.

It depends on the specific question at hand. Relating two ecological variables is not too hard in a given system, though some variables are easier to measure than others. Once one has a body of measurements, then one can compute correlations and p-values to test a hypothesis about the relationship. One study I'm involved with relates body condition to water temperature in fish. Computing the correlations and even the slopes (how much fish condition decreases for a given increase in temperature) is straight forward. Weighing 500-1000 fish of a given species over a 7 year span is usually sufficient for decent correlations and p-values as well as slopes that are significantly different from zero. Moving beyond correlations to establish underlying causality is harder.

The balance between original work and mastering the work of others varies by institution and major, and often by the professors teaching certain classes. Keep working hard and the capacity for original work will come eventually. Most of my own original work is just connecting the work of others in new ways. The more work of others you have mastered, the more potential you have to connect their work in new and different ways creating original work.

Most quality university STEM classes take significant time outside of class for studying, homework, and other preparation. A 15 credit hour course load can take 45-60 hours per week for all the work. I tend to recommend most college students keep course loads at 12-15 credit hours. Quality learning tends to depend on modest course loads.