The Limits of science: an actual discussion

[Felasco]

You're doing it again, Baba Bozo.

Baba Bozo does such things as this frequently. It is his way of spreading Bozoism, the next great world religion.

Probably the most important question in philosophy is 'What do you mean?' It is fundamentally what the Socratic method tries to establish; a side effect is that it sometimes uncovers the fact that people are either not clear, or have no idea what they are talking about.

Ok, yes, makes sense, agreed.

Your basic premise is that 'thought is limited'. So: what do you mean?

Well, I've said a good bit already. Specific questions from you might help clarify what part has worked, and what part didn't. Or, a lack of such questions might reveal that you aren't actually all that interested. Either way is ok, but if it's clarity you want, there's some for you.

Two alternatives spring to mind: the first is the trivially true observation that, as a physical apparatus, the human brain can only perform a limited, albeit impressive number of functions at any one time.

That's not really a limitation, as the brain has invented computers to take on the additional calculations.

The second option is that the human brain is limited in what it can think about. For all we know, that is true, but in order to prove it, we would have to demonstrate that there are things we can't think about, but do so without thinking about them.

Even if humans can think about anything and everything in all of reality, it is still thinking that we are doing. Thus, whatever the biases, distortions and limitations of thought might be, they would apply to anything we think about.

Please note that my post was about thought specifically, not the human brain generally. Thought ≠ Brain.

Let's consider a specific example to make this sound less esoteric.

Consider the human eye. The eye can is very useful, but it can perceive only a limited fragment of the electromagnetic spectrum. As the eye evolved, human beings had no pressing reason to perceive gamma rays, so that feature is not built in to the human eye. The eye is useful, but limited.

Thought is just another mechanical process of the human body. Like the eye, it evolved in response to a specific environment. Like the eye and everything else in the human body, thought is useful, but limited.

Science is limited because the medium in which science takes place, the medium that science is made of, is itself limited.

[Blaggard]

Bees see the ultraviolet spectrum so all flowers look completely different to them than they do to us as their vision is shifted towards the bluer colours. Some breeds of fish can see both infra red and ultarviolet, infrared is obvious as it helps in cloudy water but no one is sure why some fish would need to see ultraviolet.

Interesting if useless factoids.

[Ginkgo]

Bees see the ultraviolet spectrum so all flowers look completely different to them than they do to us as their vision is shifted towards the bluer colours. Some breeds of fish can see both infra red and ultarviolet, infrared is obvious as it helps in cloudy water but no one is sure why some fish would need to see ultraviolet.

Interesting if useless factoids.

You make a good point.

We are limited to three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. We can augment our senses with scientific equipment to see such things as ultraviolet light, but in the end we are still stuck in these few dimensions. In this respect science has it limitations. Science can put forward any number of theories, but these theories are always examined in terms of the scientific method.

Metaphysics on the other hand is far more expansive and has a greater claim to knowledge when it comes to dealing with reality and ultimate truths. This is the attractiveness of metaphysics to professional and non-professional philosophers. Unfortunately there is one major stumbling block.

There have been a large number of metaphysical theories throughout history, but the common factor is that each theory is an attempt in on way or another to present us with a generalized system about the way the world is. Furthermore,knowing this "truth" is to know the hidden casual factors behind this reality.

As a number of philosophers have pointed out over the last three hundred years or so, we cannot start out with an an unconditional a priori premise and attempt to build a bridge to the physical world that somehow transcends the knowledge we have gained through our sense data. It is impossible to know any hidden casual factors that exist behind the physical world. The reason being is that cannot know causation in relation to the physical world, so how can we know about causation in the non-physical world?

Besides being illegitimate reasoning, it is knowledge that in no way can be subject to any scientific method. As Kant pointed out there is no consensus when it comes to competing metaphysical theories. One theory is as good as another. Sometime competing metaphysical theories contradict each other. There is no way to discern the correct theory in relation anything at all.


My apologies to all those practitioners of traditional metaphysics.

[Blaggard]

Well I would be wrong to point out that was what I meant, I in fact was just being the usual "know it all" who has far too much information compacted in my brain.

But I would be gauche if I did not say that the way you saw in what I said, was somehow more profound than it was, and it was none the less a good argument well made on the back of a meaningless post; my brain I am afraid is crammed with way too much useless shite as I said. With that in mind I thank you for a better and more meaningful argument than I would of made, it just goes to show some things you say no matter how pointless lead more skilled philosophers to make better ones.

I am not one who lends himself well to pretension, or one who likes to lie about things, or to propose I am better at philosophy than I should be, or to blow my own trumpet, although let's face it if I could blow my own trumpet I would spend all day in bed, not waste my time talking to you people.

[SpheresOfBalance]

In any discussion of the limitations of science we must carefully differentiate two different topical claims.

• 1. The topic of whether the content of the scientific knowledge is limited.
• 2. The topic of whether science is methodologically limited.

...

Yes, concerning scientific methodology above, I see that this can be a substantial problem as it can directly affect the scientific content, which is in fact the foundation on which methodology lies. Such that it can potentially yield 'exponentially' false content, as continued inaccurate research, lends to an inaccurate, sometimes required, modification of methodology. Gone unrealized, potentially creating a vicious cycle, a vacuum in the particular field of research, severely hindering progress, its timeline, chasing red herrings.

I have a really good example of bees eyes and humans not being able to actually see though them with a bees central nervous system, in other words no actual empirical data of what they actually see, if one would like to hear it?

[Ginkgo]

In any discussion of the limitations of science we must carefully differentiate two different topical claims.

• 1. The topic of whether the content of the scientific knowledge is limited.
• 2. The topic of whether science is methodologically limited.

...

Yes, concerning scientific methodology above, I see that this can be a substantial problem as it can directly affect the scientific content, which is in fact the foundation on which methodology lies. Such that it can potentially yield 'exponentially' false content, as continued inaccurate research, lends to an inaccurate, sometimes required, modification of methodology. Gone unrealized, potentially creating a vicious cycle, a vacuum in the particular field of research, severely hindering progress, its timeline, chasing red herrings.

I have a really good example of bees eyes and humans not being able to actually see though them with a bees central nervous system, in other words no actual empirical data of what they actually see, if one would like to hear it?

Interesting example.

Humans can never know what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a bee. The argument put forward by people such as Negal is that regardless of this there must be something it is like to be a bee. Another way of saying is, how can science possibly ignore the subject nature of experience? Perhaps not so much in relation to bees bats, dogs and elephants,but more particularly humans.

The answer science would probably give is that we don't need to examine anything from a point of view of any creature. What it is like to have an experience always carries with it the baggage of purpose. Science cannot resolve the question of what it is like to be something. In other words, consciousness cannot be explained without resorting to a subjective explanation of experience and a subjective explanation cannot be used to explain how a system functions.Instead, science wants to talk exclusively about the function of a bees eyes when it comes to the ultra violet, or the function of a bees nervous system.

[Blaggard]

You can prove bees visual range in the same way you can prove ours, that's why they know dogs don't see colours anywhere as near as well as us and bulls can't see the colour red. Honestly scientists are not morons, David Attenborough who has a reputable degree in Zoology is not in the habbit of talking shit, so if you doubt the source I suggest you take it up with the high priest of Naturalism himself.

In the same way we know that dogs have a higher audible range or that some fish can clearly see in muddy or dark water where as we clearly are blind.

eterinarians used to believe that dogs saw only in black and white, but recent studies suggest that they actually do have some color vision—but it's not as bright as a human's. As it turns out, dogs have only 20% of the cone photoreceptor cells—the part of the eye that controls the perception of color—that humans have.

While we can't ask dogs to read an eye chart or pick out colors, behavioral tests suggest that dogs see in shades of yellow and blue and lack the ability to see the range of colors from green to red. In other words, dogs see the colors of the world as basically yellow, blue, and gray.

One amusing fact is that the most popular colors for dog toys today are red or safety orange. The problem, of course, is that red is difficult for dogs to see and may appear to them as a very dark brownish gray or even black. So if your dog runs right past the toy that you tossed, he may not be stubborn. He's probably just having a hard time discriminating it from the green grass of your lawn.

A dog's visual acuity is also less developed than ours. Some experts believe that dogs only have 20–40% of our visual acuity. That means an object a human can see clearly may appear blurry to a dog looking at it from the same distance. Canines, on the other hand, are able to see in much dimmer light and can detect motion more easily than we can, something that served them well in the wild as nocturnal hunters of camouflaged prey.

http://www.pedigree.com/All-Things-Dog/ ... hite-.aspx

I suspect they found it out by having flowers that were fake and just the same colour as say a violet, and the actual range of colours a violet exhibits which may be into the ulraviolet range and found bees only moved towards flowers that shone out in the ultraviolet, which act as an enticement to bees by encouraging them to zero in on the flowers nectar. Plus we know bees have no receptors for the colour red, but they do for ultra violet meaning their visual spectrum is skewed. If it weren't the case flowers would not have evolved to entice bees to them by using visual queues to it's lovely nectar.

No we can't see as a bee sees, for a start they have compound eyes which have poor resolution, so I don't get your straw man? Is it hence allowed for us to say we can't know dogs have a higher auditory range than humans, or bats because we can't hear like a dog or bat?

Just as we know how a normal human eyes see the visual colour range even though we can't see what anyone else sees quite the same as they do, no one is saying that though but if we make the assertion that a normal functioning eye sees a range of about from x wavelength to y we aren't saying hence we know what someone sees exactly as if we were looking through their eyes, because the fact is everyone sees colours differently. For example we know colours are much brighter to children, and we lose about 50% of our colour sharpness before we leave our teens. And that often by the time we are old we can have either lost most of our colour brightness perception or not have any at all like the famous French impressionist Monet who had cataracts which made him go slowly blind and lose his ability to see the colours shades, whose later paintings were published from a memory of colour since and show distinctly a preponderance of reds over blues or blues over read depending which eye he was looking through to paint the scene, since he had lost the ability to see in colours well in to certain ends of the spectrum.

We hence know that damage to colour receptors of a specific type can cause congenital colour blindness, and that someone with no red green pigment receptors will be red green colour blind, and rarely people with no colour receptors at all will only see the world in terms of shades of black to grey to white. Since mammals hence have the same colour type receptors we are able to draw conclusions which are backed up by the co-evolution of other things which learn to appeal to their senses.

[Ginkgo]

You can prove bees visual range in the same way you can prove ours, that's why they know dogs don't see colours anywhere as near as well as us and bulls can't see the colour red. Honestly scientists are not morons, David Attenborough who has a reputable degree in Zoology is not in the habbit of talking shit, so if you doubt the source I suggest you take it up with the high priest of Naturalism himself.

In the same way we know that dogs have a higher audible range or that some fish can clearly see in muddy or dark water where as we clearly are blind.

eterinarians used to believe that dogs saw only in black and white, but recent studies suggest that they actually do have some color vision—but it's not as bright as a human's. As it turns out, dogs have only 20% of the cone photoreceptor cells—the part of the eye that controls the perception of color—that humans have.

While we can't ask dogs to read an eye chart or pick out colors, behavioral tests suggest that dogs see in shades of yellow and blue and lack the ability to see the range of colors from green to red. In other words, dogs see the colors of the world as basically yellow, blue, and gray.

One amusing fact is that the most popular colors for dog toys today are red or safety orange. The problem, of course, is that red is difficult for dogs to see and may appear to them as a very dark brownish gray or even black. So if your dog runs right past the toy that you tossed, he may not be stubborn. He's probably just having a hard time discriminating it from the green grass of your lawn.

A dog's visual acuity is also less developed than ours. Some experts believe that dogs only have 20–40% of our visual acuity. That means an object a human can see clearly may appear blurry to a dog looking at it from the same distance. Canines, on the other hand, are able to see in much dimmer light and can detect motion more easily than we can, something that served them well in the wild as nocturnal hunters of camouflaged prey.

http://www.pedigree.com/All-Things-Dog/ ... hite-.aspx

I suspect they found it out by having flowers that were fake and just the same colour as say a violet, and the actual range of colours a violet exhibits which may be into the ulraviolet range and found bees only moved towards flowers that shone out in the ultraviolet, which act as an enticement to bees by encouraging them to zero in on the flowers nectar. Plus we know bees have no receptors for the colour red, but they do for ultra violet meaning their visual spectrum is skewed. If it weren't the case flowers would not have evolved to entice bees to them by using visual queues to it's lovely nectar.

No we can't see as a bee sees, for a start they have compound eyes which have poor resolution, so I don't get your straw man? Is it hence allowed for us to say we can't know dogs have a higher auditory range than humans, or bats because we can't hear like a dog or bat?

Just as we know how a normal human eyes see the visual colour range even though we can't see what anyone else sees quite the same as they do, no one is saying that though but if we make the assertion that a normal functioning eye sees a range of about from x wavelength to y we aren't saying hence we know what someone sees exactly as if we were looking through their eyes, because the fact is everyone sees colours differently. For example we know colours are much brighter to children, and we lose about 50% of our colour sharpness before we leave our teens. And that often by the time we are old we can have either lost most of our colour brightness perception or not have any at all like the famous French impressionist Monet who had cataracts which made him go slowly blind and lose his ability to see the colours shades, whose later paintings were published from a memory of colour since and show distinctly a preponderance of reds over blues or blues over read depending which eye he was looking through to paint the scene, since he had lost the ability to see in colours well in to certain ends of the spectrum.

We hence no that damage to colour receptors of a specific type can cause congenital colour blindness, and that someone with no red green receptors will be red green colour blind, and rarely people with no colour receptors at all will only see the world in terms of shades of black to grey to white. Since mammals hence have the same colour type receptors we are able to draw conclusions which are backed up by the co-evolution of other things which learn to appeal to their senses.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. So yes, what you have presented to us would be classified as a functional explanation in terms of science.

[SpheresOfBalance]

In any discussion of the limitations of science we must carefully differentiate two different topical claims.

• 1. The topic of whether the content of the scientific knowledge is limited.
• 2. The topic of whether science is methodologically limited.

...

Yes, concerning scientific methodology above, I see that this can be a substantial problem as it can directly affect the scientific content, which is in fact the foundation on which methodology lies. Such that it can potentially yield 'exponentially' false content, as continued inaccurate research, lends to an inaccurate, sometimes required, modification of methodology. Gone unrealized, potentially creating a vicious cycle, a vacuum in the particular field of research, severely hindering progress, its timeline, chasing red herrings.

I have a really good example of bees eyes and humans not being able to actually see though them with a bees central nervous system, in other words no actual empirical data of what they actually see, if one would like to hear it?

Interesting example.

Humans can never know what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a bee. The argument put forward by people such as Negal is that regardless of this there must be something it is like to be a bee. Another way of saying is, how can science possibly ignore the subject nature of experience? Perhaps not so much in relation to bees bats, dogs and elephants,but more particularly humans.

The answer science would probably give is that we don't need to examine anything from a point of view of any creature. What it is like to have an experience always carries with it the baggage of purpose. Science cannot resolve the question of what it is like to be something. In other words, consciousness cannot be explained without resorting to a subjective explanation of experience

and a subjective explanation cannot be used to explain how a system functions.
No, though it lends as an actual account, supporting any hypothesis, as actuality.

Instead, science wants to talk exclusively about the function of a bees eyes when it comes to the ultra violet, or the function of a bees nervous system.

Here you misunderstood, as I had not specified completely enough for those not privy to such thoughts, as to doubt the conclusion that it's in fact something to do with ultraviolet, instead of something else! Which was in fact my point!

[SpheresOfBalance]

You can prove bees visual range in the same way you can prove ours, that's why they know dogs don't see colours anywhere as near as well as us and bulls can't see the colour red. Honestly scientists are not morons, David Attenborough who has a reputable degree in Zoology is not in the habbit of talking shit, so if you doubt the source I suggest you take it up with the high priest of Naturalism himself.

In the same way we know that dogs have a higher audible range or that some fish can clearly see in muddy or dark water where as we clearly are blind.

eterinarians used to believe that dogs saw only in black and white, but recent studies suggest that they actually do have some color vision—but it's not as bright as a human's. As it turns out, dogs have only 20% of the cone photoreceptor cells—the part of the eye that controls the perception of color—that humans have.

While we can't ask dogs to read an eye chart or pick out colors, behavioral tests suggest that dogs see in shades of yellow and blue and lack the ability to see the range of colors from green to red. In other words, dogs see the colors of the world as basically yellow, blue, and gray.

One amusing fact is that the most popular colors for dog toys today are red or safety orange. The problem, of course, is that red is difficult for dogs to see and may appear to them as a very dark brownish gray or even black. So if your dog runs right past the toy that you tossed, he may not be stubborn. He's probably just having a hard time discriminating it from the green grass of your lawn.

A dog's visual acuity is also less developed than ours. Some experts believe that dogs only have 20–40% of our visual acuity. That means an object a human can see clearly may appear blurry to a dog looking at it from the same distance. Canines, on the other hand, are able to see in much dimmer light and can detect motion more easily than we can, something that served them well in the wild as nocturnal hunters of camouflaged prey.

http://www.pedigree.com/All-Things-Dog/ ... hite-.aspx

I suspect they found it out by having flowers that were fake and just the same colour as say a violet, and the actual range of colours a violet exhibits which may be into the ulraviolet range and found bees only moved towards flowers that shone out in the ultraviolet, which act as an enticement to bees by encouraging them to zero in on the flowers nectar. Plus we know bees have no receptors for the colour red, but they do for ultra violet meaning their visual spectrum is skewed. If it weren't the case flowers would not have evolved to entice bees to them by using visual queues to it's lovely nectar.

No we can't see as a bee sees, for a start they have compound eyes which have poor resolution, so I don't get your straw man? Is it hence allowed for us to say we can't know dogs have a higher auditory range than humans, or bats because we can't hear like a dog or bat?

Just as we know how a normal human eyes see the visual colour range even though we can't see what anyone else sees quite the same as they do, no one is saying that though but if we make the assertion that a normal functioning eye sees a range of about from x wavelength to y we aren't saying hence we know what someone sees exactly as if we were looking through their eyes, because the fact is everyone sees colours differently. For example we know colours are much brighter to children, and we lose about 50% of our colour sharpness before we leave our teens. And that often by the time we are old we can have either lost most of our colour brightness perception or not have any at all like the famous French impressionist Monet who had cataracts which made him go slowly blind and lose his ability to see the colours shades, whose later paintings were published from a memory of colour since and show distinctly a preponderance of reds over blues or blues over read depending which eye he was looking through to paint the scene, since he had lost the ability to see in colours well in to certain ends of the spectrum.

We hence know that damage to colour receptors of a specific type can cause congenital colour blindness, and that someone with no red green pigment receptors will be red green colour blind, and rarely people with no colour receptors at all will only see the world in terms of shades of black to grey to white. Since mammals hence have the same colour type receptors we are able to draw conclusions which are backed up by the co-evolution of other things which learn to appeal to their senses.

While this foolish explanation, the evidence in quote above, assumes that somehow miraculously "this time" is not like the "last time," when we only believed we had it correct. When some future understanding might tie it, to in fact, Higgs-boson's or maybe the actual "god particle." No I'm not proposing solutions, just pointing out additional potential questions as it pertains to the topic at hand, both methodology and current believed content, the flaws that "can" be contained in beliefs arrived at without empirical evidence, as further confirmation. It's that simple. As even with empirical data the theory could be incorrect, due to something not contained in either the methodology of the content of current believed data.

For instance time, as it pertains to the STR. We say that the experiments prove the theory, however one cannot isolate the system (clock) to such an extent so as to know for sure, that it's not just the workings of the clock that are being acted upon by some other known/unknown force. As example, if I impede the movement of a pendulum either mechanically, or electromagnetically, have I in fact slowed time, or just that clock? The proofs of current experiments, are inconclusive. As in all cases they have been conducted near a massive body of relative, with altitude, gravity and relative magnetosphere involvement, due to movement through earths ever varying magnetic lines of flux. Was it in fact the clock or time that was being manipulated to the "nanosecond, an extremely narrow margin in which to state emphatically, of conclusive proof. I see that experiment in deep space is required to negate any effect due to gravitational bodies and to ensure electromagnetic isolation, if that is even possible.

Hold on people, I'm going to stop my cuckoo clocks pendulum, sorry I have no atomic clock handy, and thus no cesium decaying, but see if time stops for you, there did you feel it, OK I'll stop it completely, thus you'll know for sure.

Was it the clock or time itself deviated to the nanosecond? Methodology? Current Scientific content? How can we be sure?

[Ginkgo]

Yes, concerning scientific methodology above, I see that this can be a substantial problem as it can directly affect the scientific content, which is in fact the foundation on which methodology lies. Such that it can potentially yield 'exponentially' false content, as continued inaccurate research, lends to an inaccurate, sometimes required, modification of methodology. Gone unrealized, potentially creating a vicious cycle, a vacuum in the particular field of research, severely hindering progress, its timeline, chasing red herrings.

I have a really good example of bees eyes and humans not being able to actually see though them with a bees central nervous system, in other words no actual empirical data of what they actually see, if one would like to hear it?

and a subjective explanation cannot be used to explain how a system functions.
No, though it lends as an actual account, supporting any hypothesis, as actuality.

Instead, science wants to talk exclusively about the function of a bees eyes when it comes to the ultra violet, or the function of a bees nervous system.[/quote]
Here you misunderstood, as I had not specified completely enough for those not privy to such thoughts, as to doubt the conclusion that it's in fact something to do with ultraviolet, instead of something else! Which was in fact my point![/quote]


I think I see what you are getting at. When we talk of "function" you mean the term needs to be used in a broad sense. That is to say, a modal explanation for actuality. Do you see science needing to investigate both the subjective and objective aspects of reality in order not to leave out some important content?


Is this what you are saying?

[SpheresOfBalance]

Yes, concerning scientific methodology above, I see that this can be a substantial problem as it can directly affect the scientific content, which is in fact the foundation on which methodology lies. Such that it can potentially yield 'exponentially' false content, as continued inaccurate research, lends to an inaccurate, sometimes required, modification of methodology. Gone unrealized, potentially creating a vicious cycle, a vacuum in the particular field of research, severely hindering progress, its timeline, chasing red herrings.

I have a really good example of bees eyes and humans not being able to actually see though them with a bees central nervous system, in other words no actual empirical data of what they actually see, if one would like to hear it?

and a subjective explanation cannot be used to explain how a system functions.
No, though it lends as an actual account, supporting any hypothesis, as actuality.

Instead, science wants to talk exclusively about the function of a bees eyes when it comes to the ultra violet, or the function of a bees nervous system.

Here you misunderstood, as I had not specified completely enough for those not privy to such thoughts, as to doubt the conclusion that it's in fact something to do with ultraviolet, instead of something else! Which was in fact my point![/quote]


I think I see what you are getting at. When we talk of "function" you mean the term needs to be used in a broad sense. That is to say, a modal explanation for actuality. Do you see science needing to investigate both the subjective and objective aspects of reality in order not to leave out some important content?


Is this what you are saying?[/quote]
Hey Ginkgo, what's up?

I'm not trying to be evasive, but it would seem you're having problems with my meaning and I think my bit on dilation, just above, speaks more clearly of what I'm saying. Do you feel the same way about that as well?

Glad to see you're still both a scholar and a gentleman.

Have a good one!

[Hjarloprillar]

This??

is science? and its properties.

what a load of crap

[Blaggard]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

[Blaggard]

You can prove bees visual range in the same way you can prove ours, that's why they know dogs don't see colours anywhere as near as well as us and bulls can't see the colour red. Honestly scientists are not morons, David Attenborough who has a reputable degree in Zoology is not in the habbit of talking shit, so if you doubt the source I suggest you take it up with the high priest of Naturalism himself.

In the same way we know that dogs have a higher audible range or that some fish can clearly see in muddy or dark water where as we clearly are blind.

eterinarians used to believe that dogs saw only in black and white, but recent studies suggest that they actually do have some color vision—but it's not as bright as a human's. As it turns out, dogs have only 20% of the cone photoreceptor cells—the part of the eye that controls the perception of color—that humans have.

While we can't ask dogs to read an eye chart or pick out colors, behavioral tests suggest that dogs see in shades of yellow and blue and lack the ability to see the range of colors from green to red. In other words, dogs see the colors of the world as basically yellow, blue, and gray.

One amusing fact is that the most popular colors for dog toys today are red or safety orange. The problem, of course, is that red is difficult for dogs to see and may appear to them as a very dark brownish gray or even black. So if your dog runs right past the toy that you tossed, he may not be stubborn. He's probably just having a hard time discriminating it from the green grass of your lawn.

A dog's visual acuity is also less developed than ours. Some experts believe that dogs only have 20–40% of our visual acuity. That means an object a human can see clearly may appear blurry to a dog looking at it from the same distance. Canines, on the other hand, are able to see in much dimmer light and can detect motion more easily than we can, something that served them well in the wild as nocturnal hunters of camouflaged prey.

http://www.pedigree.com/All-Things-Dog/ ... hite-.aspx

I suspect they found it out by having flowers that were fake and just the same colour as say a violet, and the actual range of colours a violet exhibits which may be into the ulraviolet range and found bees only moved towards flowers that shone out in the ultraviolet, which act as an enticement to bees by encouraging them to zero in on the flowers nectar. Plus we know bees have no receptors for the colour red, but they do for ultra violet meaning their visual spectrum is skewed. If it weren't the case flowers would not have evolved to entice bees to them by using visual queues to it's lovely nectar.

No we can't see as a bee sees, for a start they have compound eyes which have poor resolution, so I don't get your straw man? Is it hence allowed for us to say we can't know dogs have a higher auditory range than humans, or bats because we can't hear like a dog or bat?

Just as we know how a normal human eyes see the visual colour range even though we can't see what anyone else sees quite the same as they do, no one is saying that though but if we make the assertion that a normal functioning eye sees a range of about from x wavelength to y we aren't saying hence we know what someone sees exactly as if we were looking through their eyes, because the fact is everyone sees colours differently. For example we know colours are much brighter to children, and we lose about 50% of our colour sharpness before we leave our teens. And that often by the time we are old we can have either lost most of our colour brightness perception or not have any at all like the famous French impressionist Monet who had cataracts which made him go slowly blind and lose his ability to see the colours shades, whose later paintings were published from a memory of colour since and show distinctly a preponderance of reds over blues or blues over read depending which eye he was looking through to paint the scene, since he had lost the ability to see in colours well in to certain ends of the spectrum.

We hence no that damage to colour receptors of a specific type can cause congenital colour blindness, and that someone with no red green receptors will be red green colour blind, and rarely people with no colour receptors at all will only see the world in terms of shades of black to grey to white. Since mammals hence have the same colour type receptors we are able to draw conclusions which are backed up by the co-evolution of other things which learn to appeal to their senses.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. So yes, what you have presented to us would be classified as a functional explanation in terms of science.

That and only that.