Reddit mentions of The Golem, Second Edition: What You Should Know About Science (Canto Classics)

https://www.amazon.com/Reliable-Knowledge-Exploration-Grounds-original/dp/0521406706/

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Science-University-Center-Values/dp/069117900X/

https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Second-Should-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656/

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Salvation-Modern-Myth-Meaning/dp/0415107733/

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Boris-Castel/dp/1551113872/

https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Literacy-Method-Illini-Books/dp/0252064364/

https://www.amazon.com/Representing-Intervening-Introductory-Philosophy-Natural/dp/0521282462/

As to your question - the next layer would be: what is the difference between a scientific theory and an ad hoc fitting superstition?

Maybe one answer has to do with range. A good theory will fit a wide range of phenomena. "ad hoc" usually refers to a narrow range of phenomena.

Perhaps a fair guess would be that it is fairly safe to extrapolate a theory hmmm 20% beyond the range that it has been tested. If you tested a fit out to 10 miles, you can fairly walk another 2 miles before checking your life insurance policy. If the fit has been tested for 1000 miles, you can feel good for another 200 miles. So if you need to walk say 20 more miles to reach those ripe peaches, better to work with the 1000 mile fit.

I don't know if I agree with the assumption that science converges. Yes , science tests theories and some theories are kept and other discarded. However, if we look at the history of science and of scientist you will find that most scientists are very human. And they fail to be more than human quite often. They hold onto beliefs past disapproval sometimes and don't automatically accept new theories that have been proven. Politics, personal bias, ignorance for things outside (and sometimes inside) of their specific focus of study all come into play.

I have always found this book to be a good read to help show case what I mean: https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1475240911&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=golom+a+history+of+science. it isn't a be all end all book but it is a good showcase. Science essentially doesn't converge. It picks assumptions which the population at large kind of buy into and then finds theories that match those assumptions and tests those until errors (and there are always errors) cause a radical shift in the population as a whole to adopt different assumptions. The quantum mechanic shifting from Newtonian mechanics is a good example. Newtonian mechanics had errors and big problems but quantum mechanics also has started to develop its fair share of errors. These paradigm shifts happen and will happen again. Newtonian mechanics isn't wrong; it just doesn't fit the assumptions we current hold.

If you look at science/scientists and how it/they interact with society at large. Science is no different than religion. It is only humans being human.

>“On the one hand, it’s not terribly surprising,” says Michael Levin, of Tufts
>University. He has previously shown that decapitated flatworms can retain
>their memories after they regrow a new brain, clearly showing that
>memory doesn’t depend on neurons.

Something that ought to have been on the front cover of every newspaper and magazine in the world, but anyway....

> “It has to be encoded in some
>biophysical change in cells; something different and perduring has to
>occur as a result of experience, otherwise memory wouldn’t work.
>Whatever that medium is, inside of cells, why wouldn’t it be transferrable?”

It was shown to be transferable decades ago but science decided to ignore it. There were experiments with flatworms similar to that described above. However, in this case, the trained worms were ground up and fed to other flatworms. Those consuming flatworms were later shown to perform better at the tests then controls, as if they had some of the memories of the consumed worms.

Source:

The Golem: What You Should Know About Science
https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506203771&sr=8-1&keywords=the+golem+science

It's a very controversial book because it debunks the idea that science is straightforward and that science is settled by simple experiment without social/political/psychological factors playing their part. Once a consensus forms, experiments that demonstrate otherwise tend to be ignored. As an illustration: the Michelson and Morley experiment. After it was done, many objections were raised and the experiment was repeated several times by other scientists in other ways to deal with the objections. The last experiment was very thorough and done in the 1970s and showed a small positive result. However, by that time, everyone had decided that Einstein was right so the result was just ignored. The matter was already culturally settled. Another set of experiments using a different method intriguingly gave the SAME result of ether drift direction as the last M-M experiment (but not magnitude). Again, science doesn't care.

The Golem is a fascinating book to open one's eyes to the reality that science is a human endeavor like any other and hence subject to all of the same weaknesses and biases that humans possess. Many times in the course of science it has come to a fork in the road with two possibilities and it hasn't always chosen a direction based on pure experimentation and observation.