11 ms·

The impossibility—and the necessity—of distinguishing science from nonscience

80 points by howsilly 8y ago

ttctciyf 8y ago
On Hossenfelder's book, but not so much on the (IMO doomed) philosophical project of logically demarcating some ideal notion of scientific practice, see also mathematical physicist and long-time String skeptic Peter Woit's review[1] which goes into some interesting details of her conversations and comes with a copious and interesting comments section. 1: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10314 http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10314
crazydoggers 8y ago
I’m sorry, but why is the neo-con anti science article on HN? The article is attempting to say that modern particle physics is not science because there are a ton of failed experiments to find exotic particles and test theories. This is how science works!! Your doing science correctly if you fail a lot. Yes it costs money to set up an experiment that fails to prove a hypothesis. That’s just science. Read more about “The Weekly Standard” here.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard Edit: Here’s an excerpt “Of course the standard explanation of the difficulties with theoretical physics would simply be that science advances by failing, that it is self-correcting over time, and that all this flailing about is just what has to happen when you’re trying to understand something hard. Some version of this sort of failing-forward story is what Hossenfelder hears from many of her colleagues. But if all this activity is just self-correction in action, then why not call alchemy, astrology, phrenology, eugenics, and scientific socialism science as well...” Umm... seriously?
- crazydoggers 8y ago
  Immediately downvoted without comment. Clearly someone here is attempting to push these neo-con anti-science pieces as news.
  - sctb 8y ago
    Could you please stop with these off-topic insinuations? They're rather unscientific. If you have concerns, the guidelines ask you to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data.
- jonstewart 8y ago
  It's hard to think of a publication that has done more to degrade science over the entirety of its lifetime. The Weekly Standard is how we wound up with Darwin deniers serving on Congressional science & technology committees.
  - dwaltrip 8y ago
    Links? I'm a very strong science supporter and found the article to have some interesting (yet debatable) points. I'd like to know if that publication isn't reputable. I haven't seen it before.
    - crazydoggers 8y ago
      Calling climate change a religion: https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-sc... Some Hawking bashing about climate change: https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science Or how about some Bill Nye smashing: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-quisling-guy https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-qu... An attempt to show that Democrats are astrologers: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-liberals https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-li... This list goes on...
      - dwaltrip 8y ago
        Thanks for finding those links. Good to know more about the publication.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I’m sorry, but why is the neo-con anti science article on HN? Knee-jerk labelling much? What exactly do you disagree with the article with and why? Reading things outside of one's echo chamber and comfort zone is not something to be avoided. Even if it's something "anti-science" and "neo-con" -- you get to learn the ACTUAL points of anti-science people and neo-cons (as opposed to just second-hand reading your favorite writers disparaging their claims)
  - crazydoggers 8y ago
    Okay, shall we upvote articles about how the earth is flat, or how evolution is false? Those are outside the echo chamber. How about considering if an article has points that are valid rather than nut case propaganda.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Okay, shall we upvote articles about how the earth is flat, or how evolution is false? Why not? The scientific method doesn't preclude anything a priori. >How about considering if an article has points that are valid rather than nut case propaganda. Where is this consideration though? And where are the counter arguments? I only see a quick labelling?
      - crazydoggers 8y ago
        > Why not? The scientific method doesn't preclude anything a priori. You're right it doesn't. But my criteria for an interesting and worthwhile article isn't one about crazy ideas that have been beaten to death 1000s of times already. If HN front page had tons of those types of stories, no one would come here!
  - 131012 8y ago
    Because the underpinning theories are bullshit and been abandoned for almost 20 years in serious sociological circles. I gave more arguments lower in the comments.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  Disclosure: Even though I'm a centre-left neo-liberal, I've written an article that appeared in The Weekly Standard. I wanted to make sure that the GOP controlled US government saw it. It is true that the Weekly Standard is right wing—they make no qualms about it—but it is not true that they mis-report facts. Bill Kristol (editor at large) is a vocal supporter of the Never Trump movement and he is against fake news of all types. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/weekly-standard/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/weekly-standard/ The core point at the centre of this article is interesting (the boundaries of what is and isn't science aren't well demarked), but I agree that the author makes his point in a way that isn't how I would have written it.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  It is interesting that you chose to elide the last part of that sentence, which completes the thought.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
This article is literal nonsense from start to finish without a single compelling or novel point.
- crazydoggers 8y ago
  I’m actually starting to worry about how much of this type of anti science stuff is getting pushed. It really feels like a campaign of some sort.
  - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
    I'm more worried about the science zealots who try to push some faux purity test on legitimate scientific pursuits
    - crazydoggers 8y ago
      Can you give me an example? Is intelligent design your example of legitimate scientific pursuits?
      - dang 8y ago
        You're way overposting in this thread and turning it into a mediocre flamewar. Please stop. We don't need bickering about 'intelligent design' or 'Bill Nye'. Those topics are extremely well covered elsewhere, and HN is for things that haven't been repeated a million times. Let me put it this way: if it would sound repetitive on Reddit, it's definitely off topic for HN. It's clear you didn't like the article, and that was clear a dozen or two comments ago.
        crazydoggers 8y ago
        You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve spoken with the moderators and won’t continue. I did flag the article now, not because I didn’t like it, but because I genuinely think it’s off topic and meant to insight political flame wars. I also genuinely want HN users to be aware of subtle disinformation campaigns that seem to be growing in social media from the alt-right. Sorry for exacerbating it. Won’t happen again.
tpeo 8y ago
>Popper’s idea that scientific theories must be falsifiable has long been an outdated philosophy. I am glad to hear this, as it’s a philosophy that nobody in science ever could have used . . . since ideas can always be modified or extended to match incoming evidence. I don't know what is the context of this quote, but this sounds like a deep misrepresentation of Popper's position. As far as I know, he explicitly addresses the issue of ad hoc and auxiliary hypotheses. Unless this is part of a bigger point about some the "fine-tuning" of theories i.e. just how much the main proposition can be off the mark given the additional hypotheses.
spicymaki 8y ago
Here is a link to an excellent discussion between Sabine Hossenfelder and Julia Galef about this issue: http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-211-sabine-hossenfelder-on-the-case-against-beauty-in-phy.html http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-211-sabine-hoss...
andrewl 8y ago
The topic itself is important, but I thought a few statements were subtle attacks on the scientific community. Perhaps I'm too suspicious. But here are the statements, with my italics emphasizing the key parts: "In a time when expertise and science are supposedly under attack, some convincing way to make this distinction would seem to be of value." It seems to me that science and rationality are under heavy attack in this country, and the author is attempting to undermine that view. "According to the New York Times, the Higgs discovery confirms “a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws—but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry.” Whatever that means—but I’ll come back to the question of meaning later." I take whatever that means as a dig at those highfalutin egghead scientists and their mouthpiece, the New York Times, who are trying to put something over on us. It's unbecoming of an author who is himself a research scientist. "But if all this activity is just self-correction in action, then why not call alchemy, astrology, phrenology, eugenics, and scientific socialism science as well, because in their time, each was pursued with sincere conviction by scientists who believed they were advancing reliable knowledge about the world? On what basis should we say that the findings of science at any given time really do bear a useful correspondence to reality? When is it okay to trust what scientists say?" I see this as more undermining of science. "What we nonexperts choose to believe about such matters will depend much more on whom we trust and what we find to be helpful than on what can be known to be true." Don't trust liberal scientists. As I say, maybe I'm too suspicious, and this author has no agenda.
- moduspol 8y ago
  It's from the Weekly Standard (a conservative opinion magazine). It certainly has an agenda, but that doesn't mean it can't make valid points. And I think it does.
- fmoralesc 8y ago
  Just a quick observation: this > "According to the New York Times, the Higgs discovery confirms “a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws—but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry.” Whatever that means—but I’ll come back to the question of meaning later." is mostly quoting the NYT's piece (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/science/cern-physicists-may-have-discovered-higgs-boson-particle.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/science/cern-physicists-m...). 'Whatever that means', as I read it, is a dig to the second part of the quote, which comes after the 'but'. Now, if you understand what that sentence means, I would like you to help me with it. Or, more precisely, I would like to know how that sentence can be true. If physical laws describe the universe, they should also describe those things which are described as 'interesting', and if these laws are elegant and symmetrical, there should be, in some sense, elegance and symmetry in the description of those 'interesting' phenomena (I'm skipping over the issue of reductionism, but that only makes things more complicated). The suggestion that things like ourselves require 'flaws or breaks' in the symmetry comes from nowhere in the NYT piece. The idea only tangentially comes back at the end, when (without context) a professor is quoted as saying: 'I personally do not want it to be standard model anything — I don’t want it to be simple or symmetric or as predicted. I want us all to have been dealt a complex hand that will send me (and all of us) in a (good) loop for a long time'. I guess this is an expression of the reasonable opinion that the fact that the standard model was vindicated would be the 'boring' case. However, the original claim is a faux pas, if not a non sequitur. OK, maybe that was a bit longer than I anticipated, so perhaps I should jump into the discussion of the larger picture here. I think the piece illustrates something interesting about the whole science/anti-science debate. Personally, I think one can read the piece as having no anti-science bias whatsoever, although that requires one to pass over the context of the debate. One can take the writer to be saying: 'OK, so there's this discussion about an attack on expertise, and science, and it seems to matter a great deal. What is science, though? What is, actually, being attacked?' And the point they make is: well, there is no solid (unshakeably true) answer to that question. Perhaps their analysis is too simple (the stuff on ad hoc hypotheses, or about alchemy and the rest, is sloppy), but at the level of the layman that is as far as the discussion ever goes. I think the article captures this quite well. So, for example, that quote > What we nonexperts choose to believe about such matters will depend much more on whom we trust and what we find to be helpful than on what can be known to be true. is actually a description of the situation, not a prescriptive judgment about what the nonexperts are entitled to do or believe. It goes both ways for both conservative or liberal nonexperts when evaluating knowledge claims (either scientific or of other kinds). That question, about what should be believed, is philosophical. I'm not sure people appreciate the scope it has, how it is that hasn't yet been fully answered, and why it matters, so I appreciate that pieces like this bring it to the foreground. The point is not to doubt science and jettison it, but to get a better grasp of it. The task of knowledge is like repairing a boat while on it (Neurath). To give up is death. On the other hand, I see how something like this could be brought to the fore by people who, seeing these questions, jump to the conclusion that science is not to be trusted, and using the veil of the reasonableness of the questions, push forth that as a goal. One often sees the critics of reason to deploy the language of reason to undermine it. There's no easy solution for that. Again, I don't think that is the goal of this article.
crazydoggers 8y ago
An actually question for HN readers. Why do we think this article is worth discussing? Why shouldn’t we be discussing things like how maybe 2+2=4 might not be correct? This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. Why is science alone worthy of “debate” about if it’s useful or worthwhile or not? Is it perhaps because science often makes statements about the world that cause problems for those with an agenda? If we discuss articles like this seriously (who’s “philosophy” has been debunked 1000s of times already) then we’re giving voice and allowing doubt to sow about science. I’ll leave you with a quote from Carl Sagan... “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...” Edit: Just because it's hidden in a comment below, I'm adding it here. Some more examples of articles from The Weekly Standard to gauge whether they have a political agenda or not: Calling climate change a religion: https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-sc... Some Hawking bashing about climate change: https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science Or how about some Bill Nye bashing: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-quisling-guy https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-qu... An attempt to show that Democrats are astrologers: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-liberals https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-li... This list goes on...
- moduspol 8y ago
  > This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. I don't think so. I think it's questioning the assumption that the scientific process is infallible, or is necessarily always correct, or should always be trusted completely. That doesn't mean it's not almost always the best way to learn and understand our world (it is), but it does mean that it's not necessarily the case that anything found using the scientific method is as true / correct as other things. > Why is science alone worthy of “debate” about if it’s useful or worthwhile or not? The debate here is in acknowledging that its usefulness varies. I don't think anyone's arguing it's not useful. > Is it perhaps because science often makes statements about the world that cause problems for those with an agenda? Sometimes it causes problems because "what we think scientifically, today" is equivocated with "what is true." We should be able to acknowledge that, through science, we can get pretty close to what is true in some areas. And that's great! But we should also acknowledge that while science in other areas is still useful, sometimes our "best guess as of today" based on the science still isn't good enough to justify overhauling society. > If we discuss articles like this seriously (who’s “philosophy” has been debunked 1000s of times already) then we’re giving voice and allowing doubt to sow about science. Seeing any article like this as trying to refute science completely is being closed-minded. What would be more helpful would be to acknowledge how far science goes toward understanding the truth and be careful not to overstate how correct we think we are.
myWindoonn 8y ago
The author is a massive anti-science tool who has not read Quine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine#Confirmation_holism_and_ontological_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine#Confir...
madhadron 8y ago
What makes something a science is actually a good question, and most practicing scientists don't have a good answer for that because they have only seen their own field, which is shaped by the peculiarities of its topic of study. I didn't have a clear view until I had been through three or four fields and spent several years resolving my mental dissonance. I [wrote a book](http://madhadron.com/into_the_sciences-sample.html http://madhadron.com/into_the_sciences-sample.html) on the structures I found. Sadly, I don't think it's an effective teaching tool. It's made most people's eyes glaze over except for other people who have also worked across different scientific fields who breezed through and say, "Yeah, that's it exactly."
mcguire 8y ago
"It’s one thing for theoretical physicists to chase the wrong theory about fundamental particles for 25 years with nothing to show for it but high-prestige publications. That’s fun." Nothing to show for it? Nothing? Supersymmetry is a very successful theory. Alzheimer's research had actually learned a lot. Sure, there are a lot of problems with how science is done, but there are a lot of problems work how anything is done. If you go into science expecting that your theory is the perfect answer and that anything else is failure, you are going to be disappointed.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  Those examples seriously undermined the article. If you want to be annoyed that an MRI of a dead fish gets publishable results, go ahead. I am too. But this very quickly took a detour into "sometimes hypotheses are wrong, therefore science is stupid". We haven't had 25 years of a wrong belief about Alzheimers, just 25 years of "shit, this is hard to understand". And given the history of non-scientific-theory medicine (we cured scurvy ~5 times before word got out), it still seems like a winning score. I know it's fair to criticize something without having a better solution, but it's still jarring to see science attacked on topics where it has a better track record than anything else ever devised.
  - extralego 8y ago
    I agree, but I won’t not disagree. We are due a resurgence in responsible Hegelian dialectics, but it’s easier said than done. I think both arguments fail the test in this case.
cryoshon 8y ago
a few interesting points here, but the author misunderstands one critical idea: science is always wrong by design. this is why the author claims that popper is irrelevant. he doesn't understand what popper understood: each scientific experiment is an asymptotic step towards a 100% accurate understanding of reality. that's it. it doesn't matter if the experiment "failed" or succeeded, so long as it was methodologically sound. you don't even need to understand that you're making an asymptotic step at all! every element of a hypothesis built this way is falsifiable by another such asymptotic step. note: falsifiable does not mean that the entire hypothesis is discarded -- just one element. is this process inherently self correcting? not on the timescale we'd like, but ultimately, yes. the current institutional problems with science are severe, but largely inconsequential in the very long run of human knowledge. institutional science as it is currently practiced is not the only "science" nor is it so flawed as to be unworkable. simply put, problems of scientists and people performing science can slow down the march of science, but it can't stop the production of new knowledge. the same goes for editorialization of findings, misuse of descriptive language by scientists, misuse of quantitative models, etc. these are problems which MIGHT cause a smaller number of asymptotic steps, but only on the scale of a hundred years at the worst. we're in the game for thousands or maybe millions of years. we have the time to make these mistakes and get over them. and often, when we realize our mistakes, we make a ton of progress immediately after. so, then, what is science? an intentional use of objective methodology to improve knowledge of reality.
08-15 8y ago
> ecology, epidemiology, cultural anthropology, cognitive > psychology, biochemistry, macroeconomics, computer science, > and geology? Why do they all get to be called science? They do?! Well, then the term "science" clearly means nothing anymore.
- madhadron 8y ago
  On the contrary, it does mean something. It just doesn't mean "looks like physics," which is actually a really strange science. Add musicology and history to that list, too.
  - 08-15 8y ago
    So, what does it mean? As far as I understand, science means to have at least one theory with some explanatory power, to test that theory by experiment, and, crucially, to discard the theory if it is invalidated by experiment. That quite obviously does not apply to many of those listed. > Add musicology and history to that list, too. History?! Well... nope, it isn't. I might change my mind if you (or anyone) can come with a definition of "science" that includes history and doesn't also include astrology, though.
    - fifnir 8y ago
      'Based on this map that i found in the tomb, I pose the theory, that the holy grail was burried on the spot marked with x' 'Let us test your theory by digging there' 'We found it! Yeah! Science bitch!' Seriously how is history not a scientific field for you?
      - 08-15 8y ago
        Fictional archaeology isn't history, is it? Anyway, there are no experiments in history, therefore any "theory" is untestable. History is... I'm missing a word here, but historians are scholars, not scientists.
        8y ago

80 points by howsilly 8y ago

On Hossenfelder's book, but not so much on the (IMO doomed) philosophical project of logically demarcating some ideal notion of scientific practice, see also mathematical physicist and long-time String skeptic Peter Woit's review[1] which goes into some interesting details of her conversations and comes with a copious and interesting comments section. 1: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10314 http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10314

crazydoggers 8y ago

I’m sorry, but why is the neo-con anti science article on HN? The article is attempting to say that modern particle physics is not science because there are a ton of failed experiments to find exotic particles and test theories. This is how science works!! Your doing science correctly if you fail a lot. Yes it costs money to set up an experiment that fails to prove a hypothesis. That’s just science. Read more about “The Weekly Standard” here.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard Edit: Here’s an excerpt “Of course the standard explanation of the difficulties with theoretical physics would simply be that science advances by failing, that it is self-correcting over time, and that all this flailing about is just what has to happen when you’re trying to understand something hard. Some version of this sort of failing-forward story is what Hossenfelder hears from many of her colleagues. But if all this activity is just self-correction in action, then why not call alchemy, astrology, phrenology, eugenics, and scientific socialism science as well...” Umm... seriously?

crazydoggers 8y ago
Immediately downvoted without comment. Clearly someone here is attempting to push these neo-con anti-science pieces as news.
- sctb 8y ago
  Could you please stop with these off-topic insinuations? They're rather unscientific. If you have concerns, the guidelines ask you to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data.
jonstewart 8y ago
It's hard to think of a publication that has done more to degrade science over the entirety of its lifetime. The Weekly Standard is how we wound up with Darwin deniers serving on Congressional science & technology committees.
- dwaltrip 8y ago
  Links? I'm a very strong science supporter and found the article to have some interesting (yet debatable) points. I'd like to know if that publication isn't reputable. I haven't seen it before.
  - crazydoggers 8y ago
    Calling climate change a religion: https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-sc... Some Hawking bashing about climate change: https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science Or how about some Bill Nye smashing: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-quisling-guy https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-qu... An attempt to show that Democrats are astrologers: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-liberals https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-li... This list goes on...
    - dwaltrip 8y ago
      Thanks for finding those links. Good to know more about the publication.
coldtea 8y ago
>I’m sorry, but why is the neo-con anti science article on HN? Knee-jerk labelling much? What exactly do you disagree with the article with and why? Reading things outside of one's echo chamber and comfort zone is not something to be avoided. Even if it's something "anti-science" and "neo-con" -- you get to learn the ACTUAL points of anti-science people and neo-cons (as opposed to just second-hand reading your favorite writers disparaging their claims)
- crazydoggers 8y ago
  Okay, shall we upvote articles about how the earth is flat, or how evolution is false? Those are outside the echo chamber. How about considering if an article has points that are valid rather than nut case propaganda.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Okay, shall we upvote articles about how the earth is flat, or how evolution is false? Why not? The scientific method doesn't preclude anything a priori. >How about considering if an article has points that are valid rather than nut case propaganda. Where is this consideration though? And where are the counter arguments? I only see a quick labelling?
    - crazydoggers 8y ago
      > Why not? The scientific method doesn't preclude anything a priori. You're right it doesn't. But my criteria for an interesting and worthwhile article isn't one about crazy ideas that have been beaten to death 1000s of times already. If HN front page had tons of those types of stories, no one would come here!
- 131012 8y ago
  Because the underpinning theories are bullshit and been abandoned for almost 20 years in serious sociological circles. I gave more arguments lower in the comments.
- maxerickson 8y ago
3pt14159 8y ago
Disclosure: Even though I'm a centre-left neo-liberal, I've written an article that appeared in The Weekly Standard. I wanted to make sure that the GOP controlled US government saw it. It is true that the Weekly Standard is right wing—they make no qualms about it—but it is not true that they mis-report facts. Bill Kristol (editor at large) is a vocal supporter of the Never Trump movement and he is against fake news of all types. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/weekly-standard/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/weekly-standard/ The core point at the centre of this article is interesting (the boundaries of what is and isn't science aren't well demarked), but I agree that the author makes his point in a way that isn't how I would have written it.
emodendroket 8y ago
It is interesting that you chose to elide the last part of that sentence, which completes the thought.

matthewmacleod 8y ago

This article is literal nonsense from start to finish without a single compelling or novel point.

crazydoggers 8y ago
I’m actually starting to worry about how much of this type of anti science stuff is getting pushed. It really feels like a campaign of some sort.
- aldoushuxley001 8y ago
  I'm more worried about the science zealots who try to push some faux purity test on legitimate scientific pursuits
  - crazydoggers 8y ago
    Can you give me an example? Is intelligent design your example of legitimate scientific pursuits?
    - dang 8y ago
      You're way overposting in this thread and turning it into a mediocre flamewar. Please stop. We don't need bickering about 'intelligent design' or 'Bill Nye'. Those topics are extremely well covered elsewhere, and HN is for things that haven't been repeated a million times. Let me put it this way: if it would sound repetitive on Reddit, it's definitely off topic for HN. It's clear you didn't like the article, and that was clear a dozen or two comments ago.
      - crazydoggers 8y ago
        You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve spoken with the moderators and won’t continue. I did flag the article now, not because I didn’t like it, but because I genuinely think it’s off topic and meant to insight political flame wars. I also genuinely want HN users to be aware of subtle disinformation campaigns that seem to be growing in social media from the alt-right. Sorry for exacerbating it. Won’t happen again.

tpeo 8y ago

>Popper’s idea that scientific theories must be falsifiable has long been an outdated philosophy. I am glad to hear this, as it’s a philosophy that nobody in science ever could have used . . . since ideas can always be modified or extended to match incoming evidence. I don't know what is the context of this quote, but this sounds like a deep misrepresentation of Popper's position. As far as I know, he explicitly addresses the issue of ad hoc and auxiliary hypotheses. Unless this is part of a bigger point about some the "fine-tuning" of theories i.e. just how much the main proposition can be off the mark given the additional hypotheses.

spicymaki 8y ago

Here is a link to an excellent discussion between Sabine Hossenfelder and Julia Galef about this issue: http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-211-sabine-hossenfelder-on-the-case-against-beauty-in-phy.html http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-211-sabine-hoss...

andrewl 8y ago

The topic itself is important, but I thought a few statements were subtle attacks on the scientific community. Perhaps I'm too suspicious. But here are the statements, with my italics emphasizing the key parts: "In a time when expertise and science are supposedly under attack, some convincing way to make this distinction would seem to be of value." It seems to me that science and rationality are under heavy attack in this country, and the author is attempting to undermine that view. "According to the New York Times, the Higgs discovery confirms “a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws—but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry.” Whatever that means—but I’ll come back to the question of meaning later." I take whatever that means as a dig at those highfalutin egghead scientists and their mouthpiece, the New York Times, who are trying to put something over on us. It's unbecoming of an author who is himself a research scientist. "But if all this activity is just self-correction in action, then why not call alchemy, astrology, phrenology, eugenics, and scientific socialism science as well, because in their time, each was pursued with sincere conviction by scientists who believed they were advancing reliable knowledge about the world? On what basis should we say that the findings of science at any given time really do bear a useful correspondence to reality? When is it okay to trust what scientists say?" I see this as more undermining of science. "What we nonexperts choose to believe about such matters will depend much more on whom we trust and what we find to be helpful than on what can be known to be true." Don't trust liberal scientists. As I say, maybe I'm too suspicious, and this author has no agenda.

moduspol 8y ago
It's from the Weekly Standard (a conservative opinion magazine). It certainly has an agenda, but that doesn't mean it can't make valid points. And I think it does.
fmoralesc 8y ago
Just a quick observation: this > "According to the New York Times, the Higgs discovery confirms “a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws—but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry.” Whatever that means—but I’ll come back to the question of meaning later." is mostly quoting the NYT's piece (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/science/cern-physicists-may-have-discovered-higgs-boson-particle.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/science/cern-physicists-m...). 'Whatever that means', as I read it, is a dig to the second part of the quote, which comes after the 'but'. Now, if you understand what that sentence means, I would like you to help me with it. Or, more precisely, I would like to know how that sentence can be true. If physical laws describe the universe, they should also describe those things which are described as 'interesting', and if these laws are elegant and symmetrical, there should be, in some sense, elegance and symmetry in the description of those 'interesting' phenomena (I'm skipping over the issue of reductionism, but that only makes things more complicated). The suggestion that things like ourselves require 'flaws or breaks' in the symmetry comes from nowhere in the NYT piece. The idea only tangentially comes back at the end, when (without context) a professor is quoted as saying: 'I personally do not want it to be standard model anything — I don’t want it to be simple or symmetric or as predicted. I want us all to have been dealt a complex hand that will send me (and all of us) in a (good) loop for a long time'. I guess this is an expression of the reasonable opinion that the fact that the standard model was vindicated would be the 'boring' case. However, the original claim is a faux pas, if not a non sequitur. OK, maybe that was a bit longer than I anticipated, so perhaps I should jump into the discussion of the larger picture here. I think the piece illustrates something interesting about the whole science/anti-science debate. Personally, I think one can read the piece as having no anti-science bias whatsoever, although that requires one to pass over the context of the debate. One can take the writer to be saying: 'OK, so there's this discussion about an attack on expertise, and science, and it seems to matter a great deal. What is science, though? What is, actually, being attacked?' And the point they make is: well, there is no solid (unshakeably true) answer to that question. Perhaps their analysis is too simple (the stuff on ad hoc hypotheses, or about alchemy and the rest, is sloppy), but at the level of the layman that is as far as the discussion ever goes. I think the article captures this quite well. So, for example, that quote > What we nonexperts choose to believe about such matters will depend much more on whom we trust and what we find to be helpful than on what can be known to be true. is actually a description of the situation, not a prescriptive judgment about what the nonexperts are entitled to do or believe. It goes both ways for both conservative or liberal nonexperts when evaluating knowledge claims (either scientific or of other kinds). That question, about what should be believed, is philosophical. I'm not sure people appreciate the scope it has, how it is that hasn't yet been fully answered, and why it matters, so I appreciate that pieces like this bring it to the foreground. The point is not to doubt science and jettison it, but to get a better grasp of it. The task of knowledge is like repairing a boat while on it (Neurath). To give up is death. On the other hand, I see how something like this could be brought to the fore by people who, seeing these questions, jump to the conclusion that science is not to be trusted, and using the veil of the reasonableness of the questions, push forth that as a goal. One often sees the critics of reason to deploy the language of reason to undermine it. There's no easy solution for that. Again, I don't think that is the goal of this article.

crazydoggers 8y ago

An actually question for HN readers. Why do we think this article is worth discussing? Why shouldn’t we be discussing things like how maybe 2+2=4 might not be correct? This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. Why is science alone worthy of “debate” about if it’s useful or worthwhile or not? Is it perhaps because science often makes statements about the world that cause problems for those with an agenda? If we discuss articles like this seriously (who’s “philosophy” has been debunked 1000s of times already) then we’re giving voice and allowing doubt to sow about science. I’ll leave you with a quote from Carl Sagan... “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...” Edit: Just because it's hidden in a comment below, I'm adding it here. Some more examples of articles from The Weekly Standard to gauge whether they have a political agenda or not: Calling climate change a religion: https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/irwin-m-stelzer/the-sacred-sc... Some Hawking bashing about climate change: https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science https://www.weeklystandard.com/nathan-cofnas/dadaist-science Or how about some Bill Nye bashing: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-quisling-guy https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/bill-nye-the-qu... An attempt to show that Democrats are astrologers: https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-liberals https://www.weeklystandard.com/the-scrapbook/anti-science-li... This list goes on...

moduspol 8y ago
> This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. I don't think so. I think it's questioning the assumption that the scientific process is infallible, or is necessarily always correct, or should always be trusted completely. That doesn't mean it's not almost always the best way to learn and understand our world (it is), but it does mean that it's not necessarily the case that anything found using the scientific method is as true / correct as other things. > Why is science alone worthy of “debate” about if it’s useful or worthwhile or not? The debate here is in acknowledging that its usefulness varies. I don't think anyone's arguing it's not useful. > Is it perhaps because science often makes statements about the world that cause problems for those with an agenda? Sometimes it causes problems because "what we think scientifically, today" is equivocated with "what is true." We should be able to acknowledge that, through science, we can get pretty close to what is true in some areas. And that's great! But we should also acknowledge that while science in other areas is still useful, sometimes our "best guess as of today" based on the science still isn't good enough to justify overhauling society. > If we discuss articles like this seriously (who’s “philosophy” has been debunked 1000s of times already) then we’re giving voice and allowing doubt to sow about science. Seeing any article like this as trying to refute science completely is being closed-minded. What would be more helpful would be to acknowledge how far science goes toward understanding the truth and be careful not to overstate how correct we think we are.

myWindoonn 8y ago

The author is a massive anti-science tool who has not read Quine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine#Confirmation_holism_and_ontological_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine#Confir...

madhadron 8y ago

What makes something a science is actually a good question, and most practicing scientists don't have a good answer for that because they have only seen their own field, which is shaped by the peculiarities of its topic of study. I didn't have a clear view until I had been through three or four fields and spent several years resolving my mental dissonance. I [wrote a book](http://madhadron.com/into_the_sciences-sample.html http://madhadron.com/into_the_sciences-sample.html) on the structures I found. Sadly, I don't think it's an effective teaching tool. It's made most people's eyes glaze over except for other people who have also worked across different scientific fields who breezed through and say, "Yeah, that's it exactly."

mcguire 8y ago

"It’s one thing for theoretical physicists to chase the wrong theory about fundamental particles for 25 years with nothing to show for it but high-prestige publications. That’s fun." Nothing to show for it? Nothing? Supersymmetry is a very successful theory. Alzheimer's research had actually learned a lot. Sure, there are a lot of problems with how science is done, but there are a lot of problems work how anything is done. If you go into science expecting that your theory is the perfect answer and that anything else is failure, you are going to be disappointed.

Bartweiss 8y ago
Those examples seriously undermined the article. If you want to be annoyed that an MRI of a dead fish gets publishable results, go ahead. I am too. But this very quickly took a detour into "sometimes hypotheses are wrong, therefore science is stupid". We haven't had 25 years of a wrong belief about Alzheimers, just 25 years of "shit, this is hard to understand". And given the history of non-scientific-theory medicine (we cured scurvy ~5 times before word got out), it still seems like a winning score. I know it's fair to criticize something without having a better solution, but it's still jarring to see science attacked on topics where it has a better track record than anything else ever devised.
- extralego 8y ago
  I agree, but I won’t not disagree. We are due a resurgence in responsible Hegelian dialectics, but it’s easier said than done. I think both arguments fail the test in this case.

cryoshon 8y ago

a few interesting points here, but the author misunderstands one critical idea: science is always wrong by design. this is why the author claims that popper is irrelevant. he doesn't understand what popper understood: each scientific experiment is an asymptotic step towards a 100% accurate understanding of reality. that's it. it doesn't matter if the experiment "failed" or succeeded, so long as it was methodologically sound. you don't even need to understand that you're making an asymptotic step at all! every element of a hypothesis built this way is falsifiable by another such asymptotic step. note: falsifiable does not mean that the entire hypothesis is discarded -- just one element. is this process inherently self correcting? not on the timescale we'd like, but ultimately, yes. the current institutional problems with science are severe, but largely inconsequential in the very long run of human knowledge. institutional science as it is currently practiced is not the only "science" nor is it so flawed as to be unworkable. simply put, problems of scientists and people performing science can slow down the march of science, but it can't stop the production of new knowledge. the same goes for editorialization of findings, misuse of descriptive language by scientists, misuse of quantitative models, etc. these are problems which MIGHT cause a smaller number of asymptotic steps, but only on the scale of a hundred years at the worst. we're in the game for thousands or maybe millions of years. we have the time to make these mistakes and get over them. and often, when we realize our mistakes, we make a ton of progress immediately after. so, then, what is science? an intentional use of objective methodology to improve knowledge of reality.

08-15 8y ago

> ecology, epidemiology, cultural anthropology, cognitive > psychology, biochemistry, macroeconomics, computer science, > and geology? Why do they all get to be called science? They do?! Well, then the term "science" clearly means nothing anymore.

madhadron 8y ago
On the contrary, it does mean something. It just doesn't mean "looks like physics," which is actually a really strange science. Add musicology and history to that list, too.
- 08-15 8y ago
  So, what does it mean? As far as I understand, science means to have at least one theory with some explanatory power, to test that theory by experiment, and, crucially, to discard the theory if it is invalidated by experiment. That quite obviously does not apply to many of those listed. > Add musicology and history to that list, too. History?! Well... nope, it isn't. I might change my mind if you (or anyone) can come with a definition of "science" that includes history and doesn't also include astrology, though.
  - fifnir 8y ago
    'Based on this map that i found in the tomb, I pose the theory, that the holy grail was burried on the spot marked with x' 'Let us test your theory by digging there' 'We found it! Yeah! Science bitch!' Seriously how is history not a scientific field for you?
    - 08-15 8y ago
      Fictional archaeology isn't history, is it? Anyway, there are no experiments in history, therefore any "theory" is untestable. History is... I'm missing a word here, but historians are scholars, not scientists.
      - 8y ago