4 ms·

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

by 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.
  - foolrush 8y ago
    You failed to understand that science is built atop of epistemology. That is, there is no “post truth”, but rather that Foucault and all have long since provided massive amounts of research to indicate the shifting floors of epistemology, where science is wielded as power. More recently, Dr. Audra J Wolfe has been exploring this complex tapestry. http://audrajwolfe.com/ http://audrajwolfe.com/ > 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. Again, you’ve lost the thread when you are grounding yourself in an “this is information” and “this is not”. The question before your presumption is an epistemological one.
  - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
    How does one determine how high quality their information is? I was getting more at the fact that science fundamentally fails to ever find the truth instead finding a reproducible phenomenon in nature and catalogs it. There is so much illusory information people disseminate today through misquoting or cherry picking scientific consensus to push an agenda that ite toxic. But also we are blessed with the internet and means to fact check what we hear. I don't believe this problem is getting worse in 2018 than say the 1900's. Snake oil salesmen still typically quote facts, no matter how dubious.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- goatlover 8y ago
  I think it's perverse to argue that well established scientific facts are opinion. The Earth is roughly spherical in shape, water is made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and evolution happened. Those are objective facts that don't depend on anyone's agenda. Unless you want to argue some unprovable metaphysics that makes the empirical world a misleading appearance.
  - foolrush 8y ago
    Perhaps read the authors quoted in the article, then. You will see that “science” isn’t quite what you have learned.
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.

by 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.
- foolrush 8y ago
  You failed to understand that science is built atop of epistemology. That is, there is no “post truth”, but rather that Foucault and all have long since provided massive amounts of research to indicate the shifting floors of epistemology, where science is wielded as power. More recently, Dr. Audra J Wolfe has been exploring this complex tapestry. http://audrajwolfe.com/ http://audrajwolfe.com/ > 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. Again, you’ve lost the thread when you are grounding yourself in an “this is information” and “this is not”. The question before your presumption is an epistemological one.
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  How does one determine how high quality their information is? I was getting more at the fact that science fundamentally fails to ever find the truth instead finding a reproducible phenomenon in nature and catalogs it. There is so much illusory information people disseminate today through misquoting or cherry picking scientific consensus to push an agenda that ite toxic. But also we are blessed with the internet and means to fact check what we hear. I don't believe this problem is getting worse in 2018 than say the 1900's. Snake oil salesmen still typically quote facts, no matter how dubious.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
goatlover 8y ago
I think it's perverse to argue that well established scientific facts are opinion. The Earth is roughly spherical in shape, water is made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and evolution happened. Those are objective facts that don't depend on anyone's agenda. Unless you want to argue some unprovable metaphysics that makes the empirical world a misleading appearance.
- foolrush 8y ago
  Perhaps read the authors quoted in the article, then. You will see that “science” isn’t quite what you have learned.

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.