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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 c

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.
- crazydoggers 8y ago
  I think your giving the article too much credit. If it were saying what you are saying that’d be fine. But it continually, throughout the article attempts to discredit science all together. Look, science doesn’t make everything clear cut 100% if the time. Science is the act of making theories, and looking for evidence to dispute those theories. Sometimes, in some areas we have to be OK with not understanding things. That’s part of science, it’s not it’s limitation. By admitting ignorance in some areas, we open the doors to the pursuit of knowledge. Here are some choice quotes... “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” How about instead we suspend our beliefs and wait for data, rather than trusting someone just because? It’s okay to say, we don’t know! “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 none of those other fields embraced abandoning beliefs in the face of evidence and data. How one could even compare them with science clearly demonstrates an attempt to misconstrue facts.
  - moduspol 8y ago
    > Look, science doesn’t make everything clear cut 100% if the time. Science is the act of making theories, and looking for evidence to dispute those theories. Sometimes, in some areas we have to be OK with not understanding things. That’s part of science, it’s not it’s limitation. By admitting ignorance in some areas, we open the doors to the pursuit of knowledge. I think that's the key takeaway of the article, to be honest. > How about instead we suspend our beliefs and what for data, rather than trusting someone just because? It’s okay to say, we don’t know! This is what I think the author is saying, though. It's a political piece--we can't universally suspend our beliefs for the purpose of making policy. But we can try to evaluate what science is a closer approximation to "true" than others. > Because none of those other fields embraced abandoning beliefs in the face of evidence and data. How one could even compare them with science clearly demonstrates and attempt to misconstrue facts. You can say this with the benefit of hindsight. If you were, say, an American social scientist in the 1920s, you might be supporting eugenics, as it was quite common at the time. If you dogmatically defended eugenics as being "science," called people who questioned the value of it deniers, and equated it with truth... well, you would be wrong. And if you can acknowledge that it happened in the 1920s (and numerous other times), then it can be happening today. It's about being open-minded to the possibility that science (and its process in practice) has varying levels of value, and being able to rationally assess that is important.
JackFr 8y ago
> This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. This is such an astonishingly poor take on this article, I can only hope you didn't read it. Please go back and read the article and give a good faith effort to understand the author's point.
- crazydoggers 8y ago
  I really did.. please see comment attached to other reply here. I can only assume you didn’t read the article. It’s disguised as philosophy, but it’s filled with tons of logical fallacies. It’s anti-science propaganda in disguise as philosophy to make it palatable. The Weekley Standard has a history of anti-science agenda articles.
  - JackFr 8y ago
    It's a book review of two new books, "Lost in Math" and "The Secret Life of Science". The article's agenda is being fairly receptive to the themes of the books.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    It's rather remarkable, then, that anti-science propaganda is being churned out by a "professor of science and society at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation and Society and the co-director of the university’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes."
    - crazydoggers 8y ago
      Argument from authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
      - JackFr 8y ago
        e.g. using a Carl Sagan quote, rather than addressing the authors argument.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I completely agreed with you. And in fact, I think this statement from the article's conclusion makes it quite difficult not to! "Science cannot be cleanly demarcated from nonscience, and much of what we are hoping that scientists can tell us these days—about nutrition and health, about economics, the environment, education, aging, and the origins of the universe—will emerge from the vast fuzzy area between the two." And so I went to find something else from the author that might more clearly illustrate this point. I ended up finding the opposite. This [1] article from him is far more coherent and on point. His focus is much more about the institutions of science than science itself. And in particular how the modern institution of science is creating a 'product' that is often quite distanced from not only what we think science 'ought' be, but indeed what it genuinely was at one time. [1] - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science
torpidor 8y ago
Although you present it as ridiculous, whether or not 2+2=4 is actually a serious topic among mathematicians. The search term you are looking for is "alternative axiomatic set theories". The alternatives may or may not be useful, but a lot of math we use today was not originally useful and it's a good thing people worked on it. I understand that you are concerned about a general distrust of science that stands in the way of human progress. I am too. But this distrust is only partly caused by "those with an agenda". The other part is that science is sometimes oversold by zealous adherents. Then, when the results are more moderate, people feel lied to and they grow distrust. Being more critical about science, far from being the problem, is actually the solution to the problem you are concerned about. Elsewhere in the thread the question of eugenics etc have been raised. And I understand you know they are psuedo-science etc., but without you personally labeling all the pseudoscientists how is someone supposed to tell the difference? (And if there's an oracle who can tell us what is true or false we can just use that, we don't need science.) A more modern example might be this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26834996 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26834996. tl;dr it is a quite well-designed, peer-reviewed meta-analysis published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from a credible researcher who concludes that precognition exists (which is ESP, basically). Now obviously that is bullshit, but A) isn't it a little backwards to say something is obviously bullshit when it has strong evidence behind it, B) if obvious bullshit can make it through the scientific process what does that say about the usefulness of that process? The scientific method as it is practiced is deeply flawed. It is operated by fallible humans, funded (or not) to advance an agenda, and so on. At various times it has been the scientific view that the sun revolves around the earth, that electricity exists in two fluids, that flies are spontaneously generated from rotting meat, and on and on. Modern times are actually the golden era for scientific acceptance and its influence on human lives, and yet it is those same scientific discoveries – the combustion engine, atomic bomb, antibiotics and mass communication technology – that threaten our civilization. Being critical of the scientific method is not only important, it is necessary. The temptation throughout human history is to find some "holy grail" that will lift humanity beyond its current vantage point. Once upon a time this was actually a holy grail, but in modern times science – perhaps due to its effectiveness – has often captured this slot in human psychology. But a grail science is not; it's a human system with human triumphs and human weaknesses and the sooner we get a realistic picture of that, the better for learning how to use it to achieve our objectives effectively.
ksk 8y ago
>This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. And what exactly is wrong with a person attempting to challenge the value of science? >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. The average person sees science as a tool that humans have developed for our own benefit, and it is useful at the moment, because its applications improve our lives. It can, and will be thrown away when it stops being useful. If people start demanding an instant return on "investment" from science and stop caring about long term "science for the sake of science" type stuff, then thats it. Should you or I have an agenda to shape their thinking so that they always "believe" that science should be funded? >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: Do you only read articles by people whose politics you agree with?

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.

crazydoggers 8y ago
I think your giving the article too much credit. If it were saying what you are saying that’d be fine. But it continually, throughout the article attempts to discredit science all together. Look, science doesn’t make everything clear cut 100% if the time. Science is the act of making theories, and looking for evidence to dispute those theories. Sometimes, in some areas we have to be OK with not understanding things. That’s part of science, it’s not it’s limitation. By admitting ignorance in some areas, we open the doors to the pursuit of knowledge. Here are some choice quotes... “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” How about instead we suspend our beliefs and wait for data, rather than trusting someone just because? It’s okay to say, we don’t know! “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 none of those other fields embraced abandoning beliefs in the face of evidence and data. How one could even compare them with science clearly demonstrates an attempt to misconstrue facts.
- moduspol 8y ago
  > Look, science doesn’t make everything clear cut 100% if the time. Science is the act of making theories, and looking for evidence to dispute those theories. Sometimes, in some areas we have to be OK with not understanding things. That’s part of science, it’s not it’s limitation. By admitting ignorance in some areas, we open the doors to the pursuit of knowledge. I think that's the key takeaway of the article, to be honest. > How about instead we suspend our beliefs and what for data, rather than trusting someone just because? It’s okay to say, we don’t know! This is what I think the author is saying, though. It's a political piece--we can't universally suspend our beliefs for the purpose of making policy. But we can try to evaluate what science is a closer approximation to "true" than others. > Because none of those other fields embraced abandoning beliefs in the face of evidence and data. How one could even compare them with science clearly demonstrates and attempt to misconstrue facts. You can say this with the benefit of hindsight. If you were, say, an American social scientist in the 1920s, you might be supporting eugenics, as it was quite common at the time. If you dogmatically defended eugenics as being "science," called people who questioned the value of it deniers, and equated it with truth... well, you would be wrong. And if you can acknowledge that it happened in the 1920s (and numerous other times), then it can be happening today. It's about being open-minded to the possibility that science (and its process in practice) has varying levels of value, and being able to rationally assess that is important.

JackFr 8y ago

> This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. This is such an astonishingly poor take on this article, I can only hope you didn't read it. Please go back and read the article and give a good faith effort to understand the author's point.

crazydoggers 8y ago
I really did.. please see comment attached to other reply here. I can only assume you didn’t read the article. It’s disguised as philosophy, but it’s filled with tons of logical fallacies. It’s anti-science propaganda in disguise as philosophy to make it palatable. The Weekley Standard has a history of anti-science agenda articles.
- JackFr 8y ago
  It's a book review of two new books, "Lost in Math" and "The Secret Life of Science". The article's agenda is being fairly receptive to the themes of the books.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  It's rather remarkable, then, that anti-science propaganda is being churned out by a "professor of science and society at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation and Society and the co-director of the university’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes."
  - crazydoggers 8y ago
    Argument from authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
    - JackFr 8y ago
      e.g. using a Carl Sagan quote, rather than addressing the authors argument.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I completely agreed with you. And in fact, I think this statement from the article's conclusion makes it quite difficult not to! "Science cannot be cleanly demarcated from nonscience, and much of what we are hoping that scientists can tell us these days—about nutrition and health, about economics, the environment, education, aging, and the origins of the universe—will emerge from the vast fuzzy area between the two." And so I went to find something else from the author that might more clearly illustrate this point. I ended up finding the opposite. This [1] article from him is far more coherent and on point. His focus is much more about the institutions of science than science itself. And in particular how the modern institution of science is creating a 'product' that is often quite distanced from not only what we think science 'ought' be, but indeed what it genuinely was at one time. [1] - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science

torpidor 8y ago

Although you present it as ridiculous, whether or not 2+2=4 is actually a serious topic among mathematicians. The search term you are looking for is "alternative axiomatic set theories". The alternatives may or may not be useful, but a lot of math we use today was not originally useful and it's a good thing people worked on it. I understand that you are concerned about a general distrust of science that stands in the way of human progress. I am too. But this distrust is only partly caused by "those with an agenda". The other part is that science is sometimes oversold by zealous adherents. Then, when the results are more moderate, people feel lied to and they grow distrust. Being more critical about science, far from being the problem, is actually the solution to the problem you are concerned about. Elsewhere in the thread the question of eugenics etc have been raised. And I understand you know they are psuedo-science etc., but without you personally labeling all the pseudoscientists how is someone supposed to tell the difference? (And if there's an oracle who can tell us what is true or false we can just use that, we don't need science.) A more modern example might be this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26834996 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26834996. tl;dr it is a quite well-designed, peer-reviewed meta-analysis published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from a credible researcher who concludes that precognition exists (which is ESP, basically). Now obviously that is bullshit, but A) isn't it a little backwards to say something is obviously bullshit when it has strong evidence behind it, B) if obvious bullshit can make it through the scientific process what does that say about the usefulness of that process? The scientific method as it is practiced is deeply flawed. It is operated by fallible humans, funded (or not) to advance an agenda, and so on. At various times it has been the scientific view that the sun revolves around the earth, that electricity exists in two fluids, that flies are spontaneously generated from rotting meat, and on and on. Modern times are actually the golden era for scientific acceptance and its influence on human lives, and yet it is those same scientific discoveries – the combustion engine, atomic bomb, antibiotics and mass communication technology – that threaten our civilization. Being critical of the scientific method is not only important, it is necessary. The temptation throughout human history is to find some "holy grail" that will lift humanity beyond its current vantage point. Once upon a time this was actually a holy grail, but in modern times science – perhaps due to its effectiveness – has often captured this slot in human psychology. But a grail science is not; it's a human system with human triumphs and human weaknesses and the sooner we get a realistic picture of that, the better for learning how to use it to achieve our objectives effectively.

ksk 8y ago

>This article is attempting to refute the value of the scientific method. And what exactly is wrong with a person attempting to challenge the value of science? >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. The average person sees science as a tool that humans have developed for our own benefit, and it is useful at the moment, because its applications improve our lives. It can, and will be thrown away when it stops being useful. If people start demanding an instant return on "investment" from science and stop caring about long term "science for the sake of science" type stuff, then thats it. Should you or I have an agenda to shape their thinking so that they always "believe" that science should be funded? >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: Do you only read articles by people whose politics you agree with?