3 ms·
Is there a term for scientific claims made in this way? I saw something similar on reddit the other day where a commenter was trying to prove that a certain che
by canttestthis 9y ago
Is there a term for scientific claims made in this way? I saw something similar on reddit the other day where a commenter was trying to prove that a certain chemical was not harmful. It went something like "The reason we think this chemical is harmful is because of this study from the 60s which was done in 17 countries. But one country was excluded from the study because of inconclusive results. Which one? The US! The country that we care the most about, and there weren't solid results here!"
- NTripleOne 9y agoI don't know if it has a term of not, but it sounds like the pretty fuckin' opposite of science to me - adjusting the results to fit your wanted view instead of adjusting your view to fit the results.
- zero_iq 9y agoCherry-picking / confirmation bias.
- pas 9y agoIt's basically a narrative, "an explanation", not science. In particular this is an easy to vary explanation. (Just cherry pick other data to fit your narrative.) https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain... Science is looking at a problem. Stating it. Analysing it. (Setting up hypotheses, gathering data, coming up with clever ways to test those hypotheses, desigining experiments, conducting them, evaluating their results, and then iterating on this. While being vigilant at every step. Trying to falsify every step. If you can't falsify it, great, you have a useful model.)