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Yes but in fairness there is a fair amount of BS in any area of human endeavor. There are BS movies, BS politicians, BS music, BS programming languages; it's ce

Yes but in fairness there is a fair amount of BS in any area of human endeavor. There are BS movies, BS politicians, BS music, BS programming languages; it's certainly not unique to science.

bcook 11y ago
But isn't science supposed to be, by definition, the anti-bullshit?
- rimantas 11y ago
  science is supposed to be self-correcting.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    It is. This is just a very slow process.
- calibraxis 11y ago
  Science is a movement that's about simplifying reality to discover principles. (Examples: Galileo ignored friction and air resistance to get at principles of motion. And if something's too complicated, the physicist hands it to the chemist, who hands it to the biologist...) There's a link between that and critical thinking; one of the first theoretical physicists wrote: "The duty of the person who investigates the writings of ancients [scientists?], if learning the truth is their goal, is to make themself an enemy of all that they read, and ... attack it from every side. They should also suspect themself as they perform their critical examination of it, so that they may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency." — Alhazen, ~1000, Cairo However, since science is a social enterprise, it's vulnerable to institutional bullshit. Certainly, Alhazen had to pretend madness to avoid angering the local Powers That Be. Nowadays, scientists must contend with all sorts of brokenness at universities; managerialism/bureaucracy, class/sexism/racism, etc.
- JackFr 11y ago
  Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
- hellofunk 11y ago
  Well, science is still human.
arethuza 11y ago
Isn't that Sturgeon's law: "ninety percent of everything is crap." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law

Yes but in fairness there is a fair amount of BS in any area of human endeavor. There are BS movies, BS politicians, BS music, BS programming languages; it's certainly not unique to science.

bcook 11y ago

But isn't science supposed to be, by definition, the anti-bullshit?

rimantas 11y ago
science is supposed to be self-correcting.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  It is. This is just a very slow process.
calibraxis 11y ago
Science is a movement that's about simplifying reality to discover principles. (Examples: Galileo ignored friction and air resistance to get at principles of motion. And if something's too complicated, the physicist hands it to the chemist, who hands it to the biologist...) There's a link between that and critical thinking; one of the first theoretical physicists wrote: "The duty of the person who investigates the writings of ancients [scientists?], if learning the truth is their goal, is to make themself an enemy of all that they read, and ... attack it from every side. They should also suspect themself as they perform their critical examination of it, so that they may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency." — Alhazen, ~1000, Cairo However, since science is a social enterprise, it's vulnerable to institutional bullshit. Certainly, Alhazen had to pretend madness to avoid angering the local Powers That Be. Nowadays, scientists must contend with all sorts of brokenness at universities; managerialism/bureaucracy, class/sexism/racism, etc.
JackFr 11y ago
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
hellofunk 11y ago
Well, science is still human.

arethuza 11y ago

Isn't that Sturgeon's law: "ninety percent of everything is crap." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law