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> what evidence do we have to believe that we haven't made some of the same mistakes in classifying pseudoscience in the present? The uncomfortable thing is th

> what evidence do we have to believe that we haven't made some of the same mistakes in classifying pseudoscience in the present? The uncomfortable thing is that this can cut both ways. Things can and do get rejected because it doesn't fit the ideology. Feynman called it Cargo Cult science: We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease. But this long history of learning how not to fool ourselves--of having utter scientific integrity--is, I'm sorry to say, something that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis. As you say, it takes a lot of faith to believe that we're now clearly on the path where the truth can only go one way. For example, given that history will always be discriminatory, is there a situation where it will be clear that societal discrimination now reversed to be against, say, white men? After all, even if it was in some hypothetical future, people could still point to history as a justification for why women or other races are actually the oppressed (it's essentially the argument you just made, I don't see why it'd be any less valid in 50 years or whatever).

tomlock 10y ago
If after 50 years we have clear evidence that men aren't getting published or hired in science in relatively similar quantities as women of color we probably won't consider all history as being discriminatory against women. However, all the evidence we have now points to a long history of discrimination.
- sinxoveretothex 10y ago
  > However, all the evidence we have now points to a long history of discrimination. I don't know if you're saying that "the juice is made with 100% real oranges" (A) or if you're saying that "the juice is 100% made of real oranges" (B). In our situation, this maps to: A) Although there exists evidence on both sides, the balance of discrimination has been, through history until now, unquestionably to the favor of white men B) All the evidence that exists shows discrimination against non-(white men). No evidence of (white men) exists. Now, if you're saying A, then I agree, except that this seems to entail that in order to legitimately complain about "reverse discrimination" essentially requires that men be confined to the household or that whites be slaves respectively (or some sort of equivalent), for a few hundred years before the complaint can be made. So, it seems more reasonable to me to assume that you mean B, or at least something closer to B. I don't get what the "long history" part of "all the evidence […] points to a long history of discrimination" is for however, since hypothetically when we get to a point of no discrimination whatsoever, history would still show a tally favoring white men the way I understand the way people tally things up. Anyway, the truth is that evidence is never that one-sided. Here's[1] for example an article explaining that in veterinary science, over 90% of students are female. The university responded by opening a scholarship favouring men as a group and (some) students responded that this was actually perpetuating male privilege. The argument here isn't even about male privilege. Even if every single other field of study was 90% male or something like that (for the record, it is not, vet science is not the only female-dominated field), you'd just have a situation where everything is pro-male except veterinary science and one may call that male privilege, sure. But there would still be evidence of (limited) male "discrimination" in vet science. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/sydney-university-defends-new-scholarship-that-favours-men-as-consistent-with-diversity-20170208-gu84l6.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/sydney-university-d...

tomlock 10y ago

If after 50 years we have clear evidence that men aren't getting published or hired in science in relatively similar quantities as women of color we probably won't consider all history as being discriminatory against women. However, all the evidence we have now points to a long history of discrimination.

sinxoveretothex 10y ago
> However, all the evidence we have now points to a long history of discrimination. I don't know if you're saying that "the juice is made with 100% real oranges" (A) or if you're saying that "the juice is 100% made of real oranges" (B). In our situation, this maps to: A) Although there exists evidence on both sides, the balance of discrimination has been, through history until now, unquestionably to the favor of white men B) All the evidence that exists shows discrimination against non-(white men). No evidence of (white men) exists. Now, if you're saying A, then I agree, except that this seems to entail that in order to legitimately complain about "reverse discrimination" essentially requires that men be confined to the household or that whites be slaves respectively (or some sort of equivalent), for a few hundred years before the complaint can be made. So, it seems more reasonable to me to assume that you mean B, or at least something closer to B. I don't get what the "long history" part of "all the evidence […] points to a long history of discrimination" is for however, since hypothetically when we get to a point of no discrimination whatsoever, history would still show a tally favoring white men the way I understand the way people tally things up. Anyway, the truth is that evidence is never that one-sided. Here's[1] for example an article explaining that in veterinary science, over 90% of students are female. The university responded by opening a scholarship favouring men as a group and (some) students responded that this was actually perpetuating male privilege. The argument here isn't even about male privilege. Even if every single other field of study was 90% male or something like that (for the record, it is not, vet science is not the only female-dominated field), you'd just have a situation where everything is pro-male except veterinary science and one may call that male privilege, sure. But there would still be evidence of (limited) male "discrimination" in vet science. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/sydney-university-defends-new-scholarship-that-favours-men-as-consistent-with-diversity-20170208-gu84l6.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/sydney-university-d...