3 ms·

> That is, science -- knowledge -- doesn't arise on the authority of any one person's voice, but on the fundamental testability and verifiability of facts. Thi

> That is, science -- knowledge -- doesn't arise on the authority of any one person's voice, but on the fundamental testability and verifiability of facts. This is what I call "real science". I call it so because it can only be found in books and movies. /sarc In reality, we are told that "the science is settled" and "the consensus is that...".

dredmorbius 10y ago
There are definitely misuses of science, and a cult of scientism. I've run across a few references in the past few days which inform on this. Bruce G. Charlton has written a number of works, most available online (or at least substantially), including Thought Prison, Not Even Trying, addicted to Dsiruption, and The Genius Famine. Susan Haack, mentioned. A fellow named Chris Reev has a G+ collection in which he's been posting similar items. Occasionally lost in the haze, but there's some exceptionally good critical work. I'm also working my way slowly through Sara M. Watson's impressive, and quite possibly excellent, "Toward a Constructive Technology Criticism". Quite long-form (30k words), I've submitted this to HN though without traction. http://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/constructive_technology_criticism.php#toward-constructive-criticism http://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/constructive_technolog... Still another element comes by way of Jill Gordon's 1997 "John Stuart Mill and 'The Marketplace of Ideas'", which takes a close look at the origin of that particular metaphor. Gordon pointedly notes that the term itself isn't Mill's, and that he applies a number of specific conditions to what minority views do and don't deserve cosideration. In particular, that they are open questions (not settled fact), that they come from the minority, not some well-endowed establishment voice, that the questions are current -- no re-opening closed wounds of the past, at least not without considerable evidence -- that they represent "neglected interests" and that the side so considered be "in danger of obtaining less than its share". Many appeals to the "marketplace of ideas" argument fail numerous of these tests. There are further problems, including: A lack of good faith on the part of those introducting concepts. A motivated message can do considerable harm to greater understanding. The exchange and interplay of ideas is not analagous to exchanges-in-goods-or-services, particularly in that there's no rivalrous transfer and compensation. That market metaphor is quite weak when examined closely. Or, in short: there are in fact times that the science is settled and consensus exists. The exceptions almost always prove to highlight failings already listed above: Piltdown man (a manifest and motivated fraud). The corporate-and-fincially-motivated disinformation campaigns on negative effects of lead, asbestos, tobacco, pollution generally, CFCs, and CO2/global warming. Continental drift and plate tectonics was a case in which a considerable revision of geological understanding came together from multiple elements of compelling evidence. Some initial resistance to the idea was a valid conservative response, but with increasing and strongly-corroborating evidence and mechanisms, the theory was accepted. Keep in mind that this required energy and causal factors (radioactive decay and an understanding of the Earth's structure and formation) as well as much evidence of previous continental arrangement: similar landforms, fossil records showing prehistoric animal and plant ranges explained by different landmass arrangements, creep and strain measurements showing actual movements, base in part on satellite and Moon-based position measurement, magnetic field reversals evident in mid-Atlantic ridge core samples, undersea topography, radioactive dating, etc., etc., etc. During the same period in which plate tectonics went from initial proposal to settled fact, the recognised age of the Earth itself increased from a few tens of millions of years to 4.5 billion. That's hugely significant in our understanding of numerous of Earth's processes, and humans' roles, impacts, and dependencies upon them. The question of "real" science rapidly gets to "no true Scottsman" territory. I think though that there's a strong case to be made without relying on sophistry and tautology.

dredmorbius 10y ago

There are definitely misuses of science, and a cult of scientism. I've run across a few references in the past few days which inform on this. Bruce G. Charlton has written a number of works, most available online (or at least substantially), including Thought Prison, Not Even Trying, addicted to Dsiruption, and The Genius Famine. Susan Haack, mentioned. A fellow named Chris Reev has a G+ collection in which he's been posting similar items. Occasionally lost in the haze, but there's some exceptionally good critical work. I'm also working my way slowly through Sara M. Watson's impressive, and quite possibly excellent, "Toward a Constructive Technology Criticism". Quite long-form (30k words), I've submitted this to HN though without traction. http://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/constructive_technology_criticism.php#toward-constructive-criticism http://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/constructive_technolog... Still another element comes by way of Jill Gordon's 1997 "John Stuart Mill and 'The Marketplace of Ideas'", which takes a close look at the origin of that particular metaphor. Gordon pointedly notes that the term itself isn't Mill's, and that he applies a number of specific conditions to what minority views do and don't deserve cosideration. In particular, that they are open questions (not settled fact), that they come from the minority, not some well-endowed establishment voice, that the questions are current -- no re-opening closed wounds of the past, at least not without considerable evidence -- that they represent "neglected interests" and that the side so considered be "in danger of obtaining less than its share". Many appeals to the "marketplace of ideas" argument fail numerous of these tests. There are further problems, including: A lack of good faith on the part of those introducting concepts. A motivated message can do considerable harm to greater understanding. The exchange and interplay of ideas is not analagous to exchanges-in-goods-or-services, particularly in that there's no rivalrous transfer and compensation. That market metaphor is quite weak when examined closely. Or, in short: there are in fact times that the science is settled and consensus exists. The exceptions almost always prove to highlight failings already listed above: Piltdown man (a manifest and motivated fraud). The corporate-and-fincially-motivated disinformation campaigns on negative effects of lead, asbestos, tobacco, pollution generally, CFCs, and CO2/global warming. Continental drift and plate tectonics was a case in which a considerable revision of geological understanding came together from multiple elements of compelling evidence. Some initial resistance to the idea was a valid conservative response, but with increasing and strongly-corroborating evidence and mechanisms, the theory was accepted. Keep in mind that this required energy and causal factors (radioactive decay and an understanding of the Earth's structure and formation) as well as much evidence of previous continental arrangement: similar landforms, fossil records showing prehistoric animal and plant ranges explained by different landmass arrangements, creep and strain measurements showing actual movements, base in part on satellite and Moon-based position measurement, magnetic field reversals evident in mid-Atlantic ridge core samples, undersea topography, radioactive dating, etc., etc., etc. During the same period in which plate tectonics went from initial proposal to settled fact, the recognised age of the Earth itself increased from a few tens of millions of years to 4.5 billion. That's hugely significant in our understanding of numerous of Earth's processes, and humans' roles, impacts, and dependencies upon them. The question of "real" science rapidly gets to "no true Scottsman" territory. I think though that there's a strong case to be made without relying on sophistry and tautology.