3 ms·

Also not trying to be snarky... but what's your point here? It seems to be an explanation as to why you personally find one scientific community trustworthy, bu

by crux_ 17y ago

Also not trying to be snarky... but what's your point here? It seems to be an explanation as to why you personally find one scientific community trustworthy, but not another. Fair enough. But this: "excluded, shunned, de-funded, and ostracized" is exactly -- word-for-word -- the alleged situation for vaccine-autism researchers and "darwinist" sceptics. I don't see where you've demonstrated any real divergence in the parallel dynamics between the scientific consensus and its external critics. (edit: added 'parallel' for clarity)

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I'm not trying to compare scientific communities. Epidemiological studies are a completely different kind of science than physics, and both are a completely different kind of science than "scientific consensus" If you understand the differences in the way the science is done, you understand why your analogy doesn't hold up. If you don't, it all just sounds kind of the same: creationism is the same as vaccine paranoia is the same as global warming "denialism" Different sciences have different pieces that are put together different ways. This is due to the nature of the topic being studied. The problem with "softer" sciences is that, without falsifiability, you're always playing some Bayesian or statistical game. Things are true mostly because of other things. When you start piling up these statistical linkages into a CA model, or even without the model, you easily cross the threshold into creating totally useless correlations without even realizing it. This is a known fact in medicine, and medicine has thousands or millions of different subjects to test theories out on. We only have one earth. Some climate scientists and climate politicians feel as if they're exempt from these facts, but that's sadly not the case. That doesn't mean that those sciences are useless, just that different standards apply -- standards that don't hold up so well when presented as political movements.
- crux_ 17y ago
  My point is this exactly: It does sound the same. That is to say, from the outside, the the back-and-forth, the actions and reactions, the allegations of blacklisting, etc., between these scientific communities and their external critics are identical. In other words, whether you find one instance of excluding a viewpoint from science to be egregious or justified depends entirely on whether you believe the view is full of crap or not.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    You're moving from asking what the difference is to saying that from the outside there is no appreciable difference. That's a different point entirely. I believe I've explained what the difference is. Now you can explain it to the next person that asks, right? Look at it this way: everything that science knows about the world could be full of crap. We really don't know. It's all based on empirical evidence, reproducibility, and induction. Each of these has its problems. Induction is a great tool, but it has known limitations. On Thanksgiving Day, the farm turkey may believe he's going to be fine because every other day in his life nobody has cut his head off. But he's in for rude awakening on this particular day. That doesn't mean that it's all pointless or useless -- if that's all you've gotten you've missed it entirely -- it just means that deep skepticism about consensus and detachment from politics are the qualities that are absolutely required of science and scientists. Especially climate scientists in such a strong political area. So without knowing anything at all about the underlying science -- whether the world is on a course to oblivion or nothing unusual is going to happen any time soon -- we can observe the scientific discussion and reach certain conclusions about the process. And quite frankly, in this case the process doesn't look so good. That's a useful piece of data no matter who says what about whom or anything else, right?
    - crux_ 17y ago
      I don't believe my point has changed at all; sorry if I haven't been clear enough, but I've been asserting from the beginning that there's no appreciable difference. ("analagous situations" from my first post.) Further, I wasn't asking for a difference, I was asserting that you had failed to demonstrate one. Finally, I completely disagree with the point in your final article, which is the absolute opposite of my point. Let's take a real-world example; you can tell me whether it is an example of a healthy process or a not: A handful of authors are banned entirely from submitting articles to a widely known, widely respected, online repository. (They were submitting topical articles, not random junk.)

by crux_ 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I'm not trying to compare scientific communities. Epidemiological studies are a completely different kind of science than physics, and both are a completely different kind of science than "scientific consensus" If you understand the differences in the way the science is done, you understand why your analogy doesn't hold up. If you don't, it all just sounds kind of the same: creationism is the same as vaccine paranoia is the same as global warming "denialism" Different sciences have different pieces that are put together different ways. This is due to the nature of the topic being studied. The problem with "softer" sciences is that, without falsifiability, you're always playing some Bayesian or statistical game. Things are true mostly because of other things. When you start piling up these statistical linkages into a CA model, or even without the model, you easily cross the threshold into creating totally useless correlations without even realizing it. This is a known fact in medicine, and medicine has thousands or millions of different subjects to test theories out on. We only have one earth. Some climate scientists and climate politicians feel as if they're exempt from these facts, but that's sadly not the case. That doesn't mean that those sciences are useless, just that different standards apply -- standards that don't hold up so well when presented as political movements.

crux_ 17y ago
My point is this exactly: It does sound the same. That is to say, from the outside, the the back-and-forth, the actions and reactions, the allegations of blacklisting, etc., between these scientific communities and their external critics are identical. In other words, whether you find one instance of excluding a viewpoint from science to be egregious or justified depends entirely on whether you believe the view is full of crap or not.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  You're moving from asking what the difference is to saying that from the outside there is no appreciable difference. That's a different point entirely. I believe I've explained what the difference is. Now you can explain it to the next person that asks, right? Look at it this way: everything that science knows about the world could be full of crap. We really don't know. It's all based on empirical evidence, reproducibility, and induction. Each of these has its problems. Induction is a great tool, but it has known limitations. On Thanksgiving Day, the farm turkey may believe he's going to be fine because every other day in his life nobody has cut his head off. But he's in for rude awakening on this particular day. That doesn't mean that it's all pointless or useless -- if that's all you've gotten you've missed it entirely -- it just means that deep skepticism about consensus and detachment from politics are the qualities that are absolutely required of science and scientists. Especially climate scientists in such a strong political area. So without knowing anything at all about the underlying science -- whether the world is on a course to oblivion or nothing unusual is going to happen any time soon -- we can observe the scientific discussion and reach certain conclusions about the process. And quite frankly, in this case the process doesn't look so good. That's a useful piece of data no matter who says what about whom or anything else, right?
  - crux_ 17y ago
    I don't believe my point has changed at all; sorry if I haven't been clear enough, but I've been asserting from the beginning that there's no appreciable difference. ("analagous situations" from my first post.) Further, I wasn't asking for a difference, I was asserting that you had failed to demonstrate one. Finally, I completely disagree with the point in your final article, which is the absolute opposite of my point. Let's take a real-world example; you can tell me whether it is an example of a healthy process or a not: A handful of authors are banned entirely from submitting articles to a widely known, widely respected, online repository. (They were submitting topical articles, not random junk.)