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Seems like the scientism in this paper neglected to historicise the notion of “post truth”. Sociologist and well studied scholar Nathan Jurgenson wrote a recen

Seems like the scientism in this paper neglected to historicise the notion of “post truth”. Sociologist and well studied scholar Nathan Jurgenson wrote a recent piece regarding our collective willingness to subscribe to this belief: https://reallifemag.com/faked-out/ https://reallifemag.com/faked-out/ > Kakutani misses how poststructural and postmodern thought has long been a response to science’s unwarranted claims of neutrality and objectivity. Yes, sometimes this work really is just a set of stylistic whims and nihilistic postures or arguments for full epistemic relativism. But the core of much of what was popular and is still taught — Foucault, Haraway, Harding, Latour, and so on — uses empirical evidence to show that objectivity is never as such. These theorists show how accepted notions of truth are deeply rooted in cultural contingencies, and that interrogating these notions helps better articulate reality than accepting false objectivism with blind faith. This work was not “post-truth,” but rather called for smaller, more local truths instead of absolute or universal claims made from a posture of neutrality. Epistemology isn’t new, and lays below the foundation of “science”. This isn’t a new concept, but one that we are sadly being forced to face in contemporary culture.

tensor 8y ago
I feel like this is the philosophical equivalent of "all sides are the same." That is to say, it's a way to just dismiss the issues rather then try to fix them and be more objective.
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  Is that incorrect? Is some science more correct than other science? All sides are the same in this case, and communication in a climate of science where P values are eeked out of questionable datasets who is truly agendaless? Science used to carry this undeserved "objectivism" which has always been informed opinion, subject to change by newer more compelling research. So I don't understand what really changed. It's always been a post truth society.
  - presscast 8y ago
    You realize _some_ science put a man on the moon, right? Clearly some of it is "more correct".
    - goatlover 8y ago
      Technology is a good counter to science being part of the post-truth world. Prior to modern science, the world was more post-truth than it is now with rampant superstition and religious authorities dictating the truth. Someone gets sick and the cause is likely a curse, possession, or sinning against God. Now we know about cells and germs.
  - tensor 8y ago
    All sides are not the same. First, science is a process with the goal of objectively determining truths about the world. Already it is wildly different from most other processes whose goals are things like building something, making money, influencing people, etc. Just that different alone is huge. It's like comparing runners to people who don't even enter the race and claiming they are the same. But what most people refer to when they talk about science is the results of the process. There too, we have a wide spectrum of quality. It's rather dishonest to throw all results into a single bucket and then cherry pick the poor quality results and claim everything is the same. It is not. On p-values, yes, there is currently a large problem with some areas of science not understanding statistics correctly. This is not a problem with the theoretical process or goal, it is a problem with implementation that should be addressed. But again, to compare even this with non-scientific information which is literally made up to suite various non-scientific goals is very dishonest. These bodies of information are not remotely "the same." The whole post-truth this article refers to is more about the wider dissemination of scientific knowledge to non-practitioners. While it's always been a challenge to communicate sometimes complex information to the wider public, what has changed in society today is arguably the amount of "corrupted" versions of the data. When you have people taking the scientific results and producing slightly distorted versions with the intention of misleading or making it hard to discern what is original, it's a bigger problem. This is what the article is referring to as "post-truth." It's a wider societal problem that affects both scientific knowledge and other information alike. Let's not dismissing the problem by saying "all sides are the same." There is a very large range of quality of information, it is not all the same. The amount of bias and ulterior agenda in information varies hugely.
- gweinberg 8y ago
  There's a huge difference between saying "there's more than one side to the story" and saying "all sides are equally valid". Similarly, there's a huge difference between saying " scientists must make value judgments, if only to decide what is important or interesting" and saying "it's all subjective". As scientists we are supposed to be trying to answer questions. If we've decided in advance what the answer should be, and that we'll spin the data to get the preconceived result if possible and bury the result if it isn't what we wanted, we're not doing science, we're doing antiscience masquerading as science. There is a lot of that out there.
  - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
    This. And ultimately to prove the record of scientific knowledge we need reproducible data that can be independently confirmed. Its entirely possible and common to do science wrong and that's kinda the point. To try and find truth and then corroborate claims with other researchers. Science is always a best guess until a better guess comes along.

tensor 8y ago

I feel like this is the philosophical equivalent of "all sides are the same." That is to say, it's a way to just dismiss the issues rather then try to fix them and be more objective.

DennisAleynikov 8y ago
Is that incorrect? Is some science more correct than other science? All sides are the same in this case, and communication in a climate of science where P values are eeked out of questionable datasets who is truly agendaless? Science used to carry this undeserved "objectivism" which has always been informed opinion, subject to change by newer more compelling research. So I don't understand what really changed. It's always been a post truth society.
- presscast 8y ago
  You realize _some_ science put a man on the moon, right? Clearly some of it is "more correct".
  - goatlover 8y ago
    Technology is a good counter to science being part of the post-truth world. Prior to modern science, the world was more post-truth than it is now with rampant superstition and religious authorities dictating the truth. Someone gets sick and the cause is likely a curse, possession, or sinning against God. Now we know about cells and germs.
- tensor 8y ago
  All sides are not the same. First, science is a process with the goal of objectively determining truths about the world. Already it is wildly different from most other processes whose goals are things like building something, making money, influencing people, etc. Just that different alone is huge. It's like comparing runners to people who don't even enter the race and claiming they are the same. But what most people refer to when they talk about science is the results of the process. There too, we have a wide spectrum of quality. It's rather dishonest to throw all results into a single bucket and then cherry pick the poor quality results and claim everything is the same. It is not. On p-values, yes, there is currently a large problem with some areas of science not understanding statistics correctly. This is not a problem with the theoretical process or goal, it is a problem with implementation that should be addressed. But again, to compare even this with non-scientific information which is literally made up to suite various non-scientific goals is very dishonest. These bodies of information are not remotely "the same." The whole post-truth this article refers to is more about the wider dissemination of scientific knowledge to non-practitioners. While it's always been a challenge to communicate sometimes complex information to the wider public, what has changed in society today is arguably the amount of "corrupted" versions of the data. When you have people taking the scientific results and producing slightly distorted versions with the intention of misleading or making it hard to discern what is original, it's a bigger problem. This is what the article is referring to as "post-truth." It's a wider societal problem that affects both scientific knowledge and other information alike. Let's not dismissing the problem by saying "all sides are the same." There is a very large range of quality of information, it is not all the same. The amount of bias and ulterior agenda in information varies hugely.
gweinberg 8y ago
There's a huge difference between saying "there's more than one side to the story" and saying "all sides are equally valid". Similarly, there's a huge difference between saying " scientists must make value judgments, if only to decide what is important or interesting" and saying "it's all subjective". As scientists we are supposed to be trying to answer questions. If we've decided in advance what the answer should be, and that we'll spin the data to get the preconceived result if possible and bury the result if it isn't what we wanted, we're not doing science, we're doing antiscience masquerading as science. There is a lot of that out there.
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  This. And ultimately to prove the record of scientific knowledge we need reproducible data that can be independently confirmed. Its entirely possible and common to do science wrong and that's kinda the point. To try and find truth and then corroborate claims with other researchers. Science is always a best guess until a better guess comes along.