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The new EPA administration is reducing peer reviews? Some of us HN readers, call ourselves Computer Scientists, some Software Engineers, some are other type of

The new EPA administration is reducing peer reviews? Some of us HN readers, call ourselves Computer Scientists, some Software Engineers, some are other type of scientists. I believe that for many HN readers, science is a core component of who we are, professionally, and of what we do, or at the very least, we understand the vital importance of rigor in science. We should collectively be extremely concerned that the EPA administration appears to be attacking the scientific method and replacing it with what I fear will become pseudoscience. It is difficult for me to understand why this article has not received more attention and prominence on HN. Surely this is important to many of HN readers, even if it's not a technical article?

belovedeagle 9y ago
Computer science is in no way a field of science. Not even close. It's a branch of mathematics. Science is the practice of generating and testing putative facts using experimental evidence. Computer science and mathematics do not rely on empirical evidence and in fact empirical evidence is entirely illegitimate as a proof method.
- defined 9y ago
  Even if I agree with you, and I am wrong in including Computer Non-Science, my point stands just as strongly. Mathematics is a foundation of science, and people working in the objective, analytical disciplines, like computers and engineering, should, I expect, understand the value of science. My main point stands, even if my appeal to Computer Scientists was wrong.
- jayd16 9y ago
  Maybe if all we did was concern ourselves with mathematical complexity of algorithms but analysis of caching, network traffic, performance heuristics and countless other aspects of computer science require the scientific method and empirical data.
  - defined 9y ago
    That, too.
- MrQuincle 9y ago
  Science is building a hypothesis that can be proven or disproven after hard work. Computer science is science.
  - tomp 9y ago
    Nope, math fits the above description as well. The essence of science is the scientific method - using experiments to zone in on the truth.
    - Glauc 9y ago
      Is theoretical physics not science as well?
      - tomp 9y ago
        Theoretical physics wouldn't exist without experiments that back it up. In particular, for a theory to be relevant, it has to correctly predict the outcomes of all past experiments. In contrast with math, where you can easily make up "worlds" (models) that have no basis in reality whatsoever.
    - MrQuincle 9y ago
      I have the distinct idea that you have never read Popper. http://www.iep.utm.edu/pop-sci/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/pop-sci/ "Partially in response to worries such as these, the logical empiricists’ later work abandons the verifiability criterion of meaning and instead emphasizes the importance of the empirical confirmation of scientific theories. Popper, however, argues that verification and confirmation played no role in formulating a satisfactory criterion of demarcation. Instead, Popper proposes that scientific theories are characterized by being bold in two related ways. First, scientific theories regularly disagree with accepted views of the world based on common sense or previous theoretical commitments. To an uneducated observer, for example, it may seem obvious that Earth is stationary, while the sun moves rapidly around it. However, Copernicus posited that Earth in fact revolved around the sun. In a similar way, it does not seem as though a tree and a human share a common ancestor, but this is what Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection claims. As Popper notes, however, this sort of boldness is not unique to scientific theories, since most mythological and metaphysical theories also make bold, counterintuitive claims about the nature of reality. For example, the accounts of world creation provided by various religions would count as bold in this sense, but this does not mean that they thereby count as scientific theories. With this in mind, he goes on argue that scientific theories are distinguished from non-scientific theories by a second sort of boldness: they make testable claims that future observations might reveal to be false. This boldness thus amounts to a willingness to take a risk of being wrong. On Popper’s view, scientists investigating a theory make repeated, honest attempts to falsify the theory, whereas adherents of pseudoscientific or metaphysical theories routinely take measures to make the observed reality fit the predictions of the theory. Popper describes his proposal as follows:@ Thus my proposal was, and is, that it is this second boldness, together with the readiness to look for tests and refutations, which distinguished “empirical” science from non-science, and especially from pre-scientific myths and metaphysics. (1974, pp. 980-981) In other places, Popper calls attention to the fact that scientific theories are characterized by possessing potential falsifiers—that is, that they make claims about the world that might be discovered to be false. If these claims are, in fact, found to be false, then the theory as a whole is said to be falsified. Non-scientific theories, by contrast, do not have any such potential falsifiers—there is literally no possible observation that could serve to falsify these theories." From this perspective you are confusing "scientific" with "empirical".
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
  i
  - cryptarch 9y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  At my university, our mathematics courses were taught by the Mathematical Sciences Institute in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Not disputing your statements about proof methods and use of empirical evidence, just pointing out that the term "science" can and indeed commonly is applied to mathematical disciplines in the academy.
  - belovedeagle 9y ago
    And at my university the philosophy department was in the college of arts and sciences; does that make philosophy science?
    - ajdlinux 9y ago
      ...no? (though on a related note, many a science student should pay much more attention to philosophy than they do)
- fenomas 9y ago
  That is certainly one way to define the term "Computer Science", but (A) it's not the only way, and (B) the comment you're replying to had nothing to do with the definition of the term "Computer Science".
- MaulingMonkey 9y ago
  "I hypothesize the bug is in X. I predict if I add assertions Y and Z, they will trigger. My testing contradicts my predictions - I hypothesize the bug is in ..." "I hypothesize the performance problem is in X. I predict if I add instrumentation Y and Z, it will show X is wasting several milliseconds per frame. My testing..." "I hypothesize a blue background will be liked more by our users. I predict using a blue background will increase our retention rate. My testing..." "I hypothesize the following invariants will hold about the code I've just written. I predict if I write these unit tests..." "I hypothesize game mechanic X will be lots of fun. I predict if we build this prototype, ..." For being "pure math", we're sure using the scientific method a lot. And measuring the real world. And decision-making based on empirical evidence. If your argument is there isn't enough science in computer science education, I might agree. But then there are questions like "what's the impact on static vs dynamic typing on bug rates and productivity?" - in our current state, this is not computer math. It's not even on the mathy side of computer science right now - it is closer to being computer philosophy. We lack the experiments (can't control the other variables for A/B testing programming languages without perhaps actually writing bespoke programming languages for that very purpose!), and we've had a relatively short time to build our models of the computing universe... we're perhaps still building out the math necessary to create all those models...
  - jaredklewis 9y ago
    There are aspects of the scientific method in programming work, but I feel it has much more in common with engineering than science. Science uses the scientific method to model the universe. The experiments serve the purpose of clarifying that model and uncovering new information. I feel programming is more like building a bridge. An engineer uses his knowledge of physics and (much more importantly) a wealth of field knowledge and best practices to design the bridge. As a programmer, I have tasks much like building bridges, only they are apps. I don't discover new algorithms through experimentation. I implement algorithms that are already well understood. If there is a problem in my code and I run performance tests, the tests do not clarify hitherto unknown phenomena regarding the nature of computers. They simply highlight human errors or bottlenecks caused by well understood characteristics of the underlying computer system. If this is considered science, then basically anything that involves trial and error, be it snowboarding or checkers, is science. Of course I admit it may depend on what you do (programming is a broad field). There are those, for example, that invent algorithms and such, though it seems to me those computer scientists are more mathematicians than scientists. The one area of my work I have felt was scientific was AB testing, which is a kind of consumer science.
- shakna 9y ago
  > "It is first necessary to ask what is meant by mathematics in general. Illustrious scholars have debated this matter until they were blue in the face, and yet no consensus has been reached about whether mathematics is a natural science, a branch of the humanities, or an art form." There isn't yet a concensus as to whether mathematics is a science or not. You may not think so, but it is currently a point of contention.
  - belovedeagle 9y ago
    Luckily, the existence of confused or insincere persons doesn't provide any evidence against my claims. Any pair of people who believe themselves to have a sincere disagreement about whether mathematics is science are in fact both mistaken; what they really have is a disagreement about what "science" is. Furthermore anyone who thinks mathematics is science must define science to be the whole sum of human knowledge (rendering the word meaningless) or else some uselessly large subset thereof.
    - shakna 9y ago
      > Luckily, the existence of confused or insincere persons doesn't provide any evidence against my claims. Any pair of people who believe themselves to have a sincere disagreement about whether mathematics is science are in fact both mistaken The arrogance dripping from this statement is hard to not consider insulting, when such "confused" individuals include those such as Stephen Hawking, and Godel struggled with it for some time. > what they really have is a disagreement about what "science" is. No, the difficulty lies in defining the philosophy of mathematics. It's a tool underpinning nature, so despite its abstraction, does it explain the natural world? Proofs are most certainly empirical in nature. The upshot is, better people than you or I say there is not yet an answer.
the6threplicant 9y ago
> call ourselves Computer Scientists, some Software Engineers, Which means you are not scientists. You might be very positive towards it but I've met a lot of the above and seen some very anti-science rhetoric from them.
- defined 9y ago
  That's very sad.
- Mithaldu 9y ago
  I've seen "real scientists" be very anti-science too. Remember the hubbub about people complaining that other people were trying to reproduce their experiments?

belovedeagle 9y ago

Computer science is in no way a field of science. Not even close. It's a branch of mathematics. Science is the practice of generating and testing putative facts using experimental evidence. Computer science and mathematics do not rely on empirical evidence and in fact empirical evidence is entirely illegitimate as a proof method.

defined 9y ago
Even if I agree with you, and I am wrong in including Computer Non-Science, my point stands just as strongly. Mathematics is a foundation of science, and people working in the objective, analytical disciplines, like computers and engineering, should, I expect, understand the value of science. My main point stands, even if my appeal to Computer Scientists was wrong.
jayd16 9y ago
Maybe if all we did was concern ourselves with mathematical complexity of algorithms but analysis of caching, network traffic, performance heuristics and countless other aspects of computer science require the scientific method and empirical data.
- defined 9y ago
  That, too.
MrQuincle 9y ago
Science is building a hypothesis that can be proven or disproven after hard work. Computer science is science.
- tomp 9y ago
  Nope, math fits the above description as well. The essence of science is the scientific method - using experiments to zone in on the truth.
  - Glauc 9y ago
    Is theoretical physics not science as well?
    - tomp 9y ago
      Theoretical physics wouldn't exist without experiments that back it up. In particular, for a theory to be relevant, it has to correctly predict the outcomes of all past experiments. In contrast with math, where you can easily make up "worlds" (models) that have no basis in reality whatsoever.
  - MrQuincle 9y ago
    I have the distinct idea that you have never read Popper. http://www.iep.utm.edu/pop-sci/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/pop-sci/ "Partially in response to worries such as these, the logical empiricists’ later work abandons the verifiability criterion of meaning and instead emphasizes the importance of the empirical confirmation of scientific theories. Popper, however, argues that verification and confirmation played no role in formulating a satisfactory criterion of demarcation. Instead, Popper proposes that scientific theories are characterized by being bold in two related ways. First, scientific theories regularly disagree with accepted views of the world based on common sense or previous theoretical commitments. To an uneducated observer, for example, it may seem obvious that Earth is stationary, while the sun moves rapidly around it. However, Copernicus posited that Earth in fact revolved around the sun. In a similar way, it does not seem as though a tree and a human share a common ancestor, but this is what Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection claims. As Popper notes, however, this sort of boldness is not unique to scientific theories, since most mythological and metaphysical theories also make bold, counterintuitive claims about the nature of reality. For example, the accounts of world creation provided by various religions would count as bold in this sense, but this does not mean that they thereby count as scientific theories. With this in mind, he goes on argue that scientific theories are distinguished from non-scientific theories by a second sort of boldness: they make testable claims that future observations might reveal to be false. This boldness thus amounts to a willingness to take a risk of being wrong. On Popper’s view, scientists investigating a theory make repeated, honest attempts to falsify the theory, whereas adherents of pseudoscientific or metaphysical theories routinely take measures to make the observed reality fit the predictions of the theory. Popper describes his proposal as follows:@ Thus my proposal was, and is, that it is this second boldness, together with the readiness to look for tests and refutations, which distinguished “empirical” science from non-science, and especially from pre-scientific myths and metaphysics. (1974, pp. 980-981) In other places, Popper calls attention to the fact that scientific theories are characterized by possessing potential falsifiers—that is, that they make claims about the world that might be discovered to be false. If these claims are, in fact, found to be false, then the theory as a whole is said to be falsified. Non-scientific theories, by contrast, do not have any such potential falsifiers—there is literally no possible observation that could serve to falsify these theories." From this perspective you are confusing "scientific" with "empirical".
FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
i
- cryptarch 9y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
ajdlinux 9y ago
At my university, our mathematics courses were taught by the Mathematical Sciences Institute in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Not disputing your statements about proof methods and use of empirical evidence, just pointing out that the term "science" can and indeed commonly is applied to mathematical disciplines in the academy.
- belovedeagle 9y ago
  And at my university the philosophy department was in the college of arts and sciences; does that make philosophy science?
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    ...no? (though on a related note, many a science student should pay much more attention to philosophy than they do)
fenomas 9y ago
That is certainly one way to define the term "Computer Science", but (A) it's not the only way, and (B) the comment you're replying to had nothing to do with the definition of the term "Computer Science".
MaulingMonkey 9y ago
"I hypothesize the bug is in X. I predict if I add assertions Y and Z, they will trigger. My testing contradicts my predictions - I hypothesize the bug is in ..." "I hypothesize the performance problem is in X. I predict if I add instrumentation Y and Z, it will show X is wasting several milliseconds per frame. My testing..." "I hypothesize a blue background will be liked more by our users. I predict using a blue background will increase our retention rate. My testing..." "I hypothesize the following invariants will hold about the code I've just written. I predict if I write these unit tests..." "I hypothesize game mechanic X will be lots of fun. I predict if we build this prototype, ..." For being "pure math", we're sure using the scientific method a lot. And measuring the real world. And decision-making based on empirical evidence. If your argument is there isn't enough science in computer science education, I might agree. But then there are questions like "what's the impact on static vs dynamic typing on bug rates and productivity?" - in our current state, this is not computer math. It's not even on the mathy side of computer science right now - it is closer to being computer philosophy. We lack the experiments (can't control the other variables for A/B testing programming languages without perhaps actually writing bespoke programming languages for that very purpose!), and we've had a relatively short time to build our models of the computing universe... we're perhaps still building out the math necessary to create all those models...
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  There are aspects of the scientific method in programming work, but I feel it has much more in common with engineering than science. Science uses the scientific method to model the universe. The experiments serve the purpose of clarifying that model and uncovering new information. I feel programming is more like building a bridge. An engineer uses his knowledge of physics and (much more importantly) a wealth of field knowledge and best practices to design the bridge. As a programmer, I have tasks much like building bridges, only they are apps. I don't discover new algorithms through experimentation. I implement algorithms that are already well understood. If there is a problem in my code and I run performance tests, the tests do not clarify hitherto unknown phenomena regarding the nature of computers. They simply highlight human errors or bottlenecks caused by well understood characteristics of the underlying computer system. If this is considered science, then basically anything that involves trial and error, be it snowboarding or checkers, is science. Of course I admit it may depend on what you do (programming is a broad field). There are those, for example, that invent algorithms and such, though it seems to me those computer scientists are more mathematicians than scientists. The one area of my work I have felt was scientific was AB testing, which is a kind of consumer science.
shakna 9y ago
> "It is first necessary to ask what is meant by mathematics in general. Illustrious scholars have debated this matter until they were blue in the face, and yet no consensus has been reached about whether mathematics is a natural science, a branch of the humanities, or an art form." There isn't yet a concensus as to whether mathematics is a science or not. You may not think so, but it is currently a point of contention.
- belovedeagle 9y ago
  Luckily, the existence of confused or insincere persons doesn't provide any evidence against my claims. Any pair of people who believe themselves to have a sincere disagreement about whether mathematics is science are in fact both mistaken; what they really have is a disagreement about what "science" is. Furthermore anyone who thinks mathematics is science must define science to be the whole sum of human knowledge (rendering the word meaningless) or else some uselessly large subset thereof.
  - shakna 9y ago
    > Luckily, the existence of confused or insincere persons doesn't provide any evidence against my claims. Any pair of people who believe themselves to have a sincere disagreement about whether mathematics is science are in fact both mistaken The arrogance dripping from this statement is hard to not consider insulting, when such "confused" individuals include those such as Stephen Hawking, and Godel struggled with it for some time. > what they really have is a disagreement about what "science" is. No, the difficulty lies in defining the philosophy of mathematics. It's a tool underpinning nature, so despite its abstraction, does it explain the natural world? Proofs are most certainly empirical in nature. The upshot is, better people than you or I say there is not yet an answer.

the6threplicant 9y ago

> call ourselves Computer Scientists, some Software Engineers, Which means you are not scientists. You might be very positive towards it but I've met a lot of the above and seen some very anti-science rhetoric from them.

defined 9y ago
That's very sad.
Mithaldu 9y ago
I've seen "real scientists" be very anti-science too. Remember the hubbub about people complaining that other people were trying to reproduce their experiments?