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I'm relating the perspective some people have on science. To them, it's chaotic. Answers change constantly. "Theory" is a derogatory term to them. The conve

I'm relating the perspective some people have on science. To them, it's chaotic. Answers change constantly. "Theory" is a derogatory term to them. The conversation here is not how any given fact is right or wrong. The conversation here is that "scientific facts" seem to change at a dizzying pace to them, without being tethered to reality. "Global warming?!? It's SNOWING right now!" Do cell phones cause cancer? Do vaccines cause autism? Was there cold fusion in that fish tank? Also see: https://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/11/qa-samuel-arbesman https://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/11/qa-samuel-ar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge https://gizmodo.com/why-scientific-americans-predictions-from-10-years-ago-1701106456 https://gizmodo.com/why-scientific-americans-predictions-fro... http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/ http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-predic...

throwaway5752 8y ago
Okay, sorry I didn't pick up on that. My fault for not paying better attention. I agree, but I guess I'm both pushing a bit back on people to have some common sense when ascribing credibility to a source and also push some blame on deliberate bad actors (muddling what is true, and also reducing peoples' trust in the system overall).
- noxecanexx 8y ago
  You are falling into the same trap described by @chiefalchemsit. Saying normal people should have common sense only makes matters worse
- VikingCoder 8y ago
  What's "common sense" to you undoubtedly relies on your culture, and core assumptions you make. The things you value, and the things you discredit. Your world view. I have bought lottery tickets, even though I know it's a "Stupid Tax." And apparently many other people do, too: "Americans Spend More On Lottery Tickets Than On Movies, Video Games, Music, Sports Tix And Books Combined" [1] Even though there's ample evidence that: "Here’s How Winning the Lottery Makes You Miserable" [2] A cynic could conclude that people are stupid. I'm not sure what an optimist would conclude, but I think I'd encourage them to consider their peers from the perspective of an anthropologist... View the culture as "different," not "wrong." [1] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-12/2016-americans-spent-80bn-lottery-tickets-more-movies-video-games-music-sports-and-b https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-12/2016-americans-spe... [2] http://time.com/4176128/powerball-jackpot-lottery-winners/ http://time.com/4176128/powerball-jackpot-lottery-winners/
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    We'll have to agree to disagree. Perhaps both of our approaches have merits in different situations, but in the case where something is concretely falsifiable then people can be wrong not different. Perhaps convincing them otherwise is a job best left to kinder people than me.
    - VikingCoder 8y ago
      I'm genuinely curious: Can you name anything interesting which is concretely falsifiable? Just to list a few things that I believe in, and they're very important to me, but which I assert are not "concretely falsifiable": Anthropogenic Climate Change Evolution as the origin of species Reducing (not necessarily eliminating) access to guns is effective at reducing gun deaths Bombing Nagasaki was the wrong thing to do Torturing people is not an effective way to gather intelligence, and it's bad policy Waterboarding is torture The US has committed very many war crimes in the last thirty years Abandoning the Gold Standard was a great decision
      - throwaway5752 8y ago
        You don't get falsifiable in the real world in a computability sense. But > 99% confidence is completely reasonable and should be synonymous in an epistemological sense. 1, 2 are falsifiable and true. They are observed, modeled, and predictions have been demonstrated accurate. 3 is falsifiable and true, but I believe misses the point in the controversy there. 4 is not, ethics are not falsifiable. I lack the knowledge to say on 5 (people who I trust agree on both). 6 is just stupid, it tautologically is - not a question of falsifiable or not. I lack the knowledge to say on 7. I agree 8 but don't believe it's falsifiable (or I cannot prove it).
        VikingCoder 8y ago
        Newtonian physics was observed, modeled, and predictions were demonstrated accurate. Until Relativity and Quantum Mechanics showed us that our models were too simple. This whole argument you're making that things are "concretely falsifiable" is still entirely about trust, and faith, and "good enough" in practice. It's nowhere near as rock solid as you're portraying it. With guns, if you can't even agree that reducing access would decrease gun violence, it's hard to then debate whether we should, and whether we would need to modify the Constitution in order to do so. We can't even start the conversation. "Abandoning the gold standard was good" is theoretically falsifiable, but you'd need to explore the multi-verse, or you'd need to run grand experiments in other countries. (Other countries DID do that for us, and it was bad for them.)

throwaway5752 8y ago

Okay, sorry I didn't pick up on that. My fault for not paying better attention. I agree, but I guess I'm both pushing a bit back on people to have some common sense when ascribing credibility to a source and also push some blame on deliberate bad actors (muddling what is true, and also reducing peoples' trust in the system overall).

noxecanexx 8y ago
You are falling into the same trap described by @chiefalchemsit. Saying normal people should have common sense only makes matters worse
VikingCoder 8y ago
What's "common sense" to you undoubtedly relies on your culture, and core assumptions you make. The things you value, and the things you discredit. Your world view. I have bought lottery tickets, even though I know it's a "Stupid Tax." And apparently many other people do, too: "Americans Spend More On Lottery Tickets Than On Movies, Video Games, Music, Sports Tix And Books Combined" [1] Even though there's ample evidence that: "Here’s How Winning the Lottery Makes You Miserable" [2] A cynic could conclude that people are stupid. I'm not sure what an optimist would conclude, but I think I'd encourage them to consider their peers from the perspective of an anthropologist... View the culture as "different," not "wrong." [1] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-12/2016-americans-spent-80bn-lottery-tickets-more-movies-video-games-music-sports-and-b https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-12/2016-americans-spe... [2] http://time.com/4176128/powerball-jackpot-lottery-winners/ http://time.com/4176128/powerball-jackpot-lottery-winners/
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  We'll have to agree to disagree. Perhaps both of our approaches have merits in different situations, but in the case where something is concretely falsifiable then people can be wrong not different. Perhaps convincing them otherwise is a job best left to kinder people than me.
  - VikingCoder 8y ago
    I'm genuinely curious: Can you name anything interesting which is concretely falsifiable? Just to list a few things that I believe in, and they're very important to me, but which I assert are not "concretely falsifiable": Anthropogenic Climate Change Evolution as the origin of species Reducing (not necessarily eliminating) access to guns is effective at reducing gun deaths Bombing Nagasaki was the wrong thing to do Torturing people is not an effective way to gather intelligence, and it's bad policy Waterboarding is torture The US has committed very many war crimes in the last thirty years Abandoning the Gold Standard was a great decision
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      You don't get falsifiable in the real world in a computability sense. But > 99% confidence is completely reasonable and should be synonymous in an epistemological sense. 1, 2 are falsifiable and true. They are observed, modeled, and predictions have been demonstrated accurate. 3 is falsifiable and true, but I believe misses the point in the controversy there. 4 is not, ethics are not falsifiable. I lack the knowledge to say on 5 (people who I trust agree on both). 6 is just stupid, it tautologically is - not a question of falsifiable or not. I lack the knowledge to say on 7. I agree 8 but don't believe it's falsifiable (or I cannot prove it).
      - VikingCoder 8y ago
        Newtonian physics was observed, modeled, and predictions were demonstrated accurate. Until Relativity and Quantum Mechanics showed us that our models were too simple. This whole argument you're making that things are "concretely falsifiable" is still entirely about trust, and faith, and "good enough" in practice. It's nowhere near as rock solid as you're portraying it. With guns, if you can't even agree that reducing access would decrease gun violence, it's hard to then debate whether we should, and whether we would need to modify the Constitution in order to do so. We can't even start the conversation. "Abandoning the gold standard was good" is theoretically falsifiable, but you'd need to explore the multi-verse, or you'd need to run grand experiments in other countries. (Other countries DID do that for us, and it was bad for them.)