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> Scientific method is a great tool - for the type of questions that it is designed to deal with - and a disaster waiting to happen if used for other areas of i

> Scientific method is a great tool - for the type of questions that it is designed to deal with - and a disaster waiting to happen if used for other areas of inquiry. What other areas of inquiry would that be?

featherrust 8y ago
Interpersonal relationships?
- igor47 8y ago
  I'm a fan of NVC(non-violent communication) and that framework could be summarized by the sentence, "when you do X,I feel Y". You basically become an instrument that reports on your internal state, plus you're also supposed to avoid assuming anything about the other person's internal state. This is a lot more like science then the usual default of blaming and assumptions and implicit expectations that most people conduct their relationships in.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    I find that type of communication childing and dehumanizing. To each their own.
    - cobbzilla 8y ago
      Kinda ironic that your comment is a good example of this style, in describing your feelings using an “I” statement without attacking the speaker.
      - synecdoche 8y ago
        I would contend that despite the "I" the form of those words implies projection, or at least victimization of oneself.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Really? I do a similar thing when dealing with idiots (not idiots, fully formed human beings, with a legitimate point of view, probably not evil, probably quite normal in person) on the internet. I find it helps keep me sane.
    - tunesmith 8y ago
      If it were limited to "when you do blah, I feel blah" verbiage, it would feel like that. But it's more generally about taking accountability for one's own side, while listening to the other side, without needless escalation. I can't really see a flaw with that approach, other than it taking more work. I wonder how many arguments would be defused if both sides could phrase the other side's point of view in a way they would agree was accurately stated.
  - groovy2shoes 8y ago
    When you talk like that, I feel as though I am talking to the emacs psychotherapist. It too is a mere instrument that reports on its internal state. If you have found it a useful communicative tool, then I am glad for you. No doubt communication can be hard, so we've gotta use whatever tools we find effective. But honestly when I try speaking like that, I can't help but feel like a robot or a program. It feels very unnatural and very awkward to me. Perhaps that distance is exactly what lends it efficacy for some people, but that very distance only lends it offputticacy for me. Am I right and you wrong? No, I don't think so. I have no reason to doubt that you have found success with such an approach. But were I a barkeep and you a patron responding like that when asked "why the long face?", you'd be getting a double of tequila on the house. (Tequila has a funny way of bringing out one's inner party, in my experience—or getting one started where there's yet only a quiet inner evening get-together). https://i.imgur.com/ShGZjQ6.png https://i.imgur.com/ShGZjQ6.png
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    > "when you do X,I feel Y" Communication like that can be very helpful when dealing with personal conflict -- marriage, friendships, etc., but I can't see how that would help in the public sphere. If a political opponent, writer, or public speaker were to say or write something like that, it would be irritating and off-putting. I'd think "OK, but what's your point?"
    - TimTheTinker 8y ago
      To clarify, if a Senator stood up on the floor and began: “Mr President, when my honorable colleague argues in favor of [some policy], I feel shamed, belittled, and angry.” ... That would be inappropriate, unhelpful, and unproductive. It would be better to engage with the opponent’s argument with another argument than to resort to talking about personal feelings in that context.
vharuck 8y ago
What we value. The scientific method can be used to make better paints, but we decide what styles of art we prefer.
pfortuny 8y ago
Raising your children, talking to strangers, charity, you name it.
- benj111 8y ago
  Do you mean you shouldn't raise your kids based on science? You shouldn't experiment to see what works with your child, or you just shouldn't do experiments on your child?
  - Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
    Children need love, compassion and a lot of patience. They want to be treated like living beings, not like science projects. Yes science in general can obviously make some generic guidelines or provide some good insights in very specific questions of this childraising enterprise, but the vast majority of choices and everyday actions will fall outside of this.
    - benj111 8y ago
      "and a lot of patience" I find the distance, that analysing behaviour brings, actually helps with the patience, and compassion (if they're having a weird tantrum because they wanted something trivial). I also think it keeps me motivated in consciously raising my kids, rather than just passively whiling away the years. Maybe I have younger kids, so there aren't really any philosophical issues being raised.
maire 8y ago
A really good book to read on this is "the Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver. Basically, the scientific method requires modeling the system correctly which only works for certain kinds of systems. Systems where the complexity exceeds the available data causes people to see patterns where they don't exist and to be overly confident in their interpretation of the data. The entire area of nutrition and weight management is a joke. Medicine is problematic and Psychology is questionable. Another problem is that the popular media publishes inconclusive studies because they are click bait. People read them because they are interested in living longer and losing weight and being happy. Fear also turns studies into clickbait. The latest was the blizzard of articles on if bugs are dying off or not. Then there is the fact that negative studies tend to be ignored and when the study failed or it introduces data that does not conform to general knowledge. All this makes people question studies where the data is conclusive.
- bsder 8y ago
  > The entire area of nutrition and weight management is a joke. Medicine is problematic and Psychology is questionable. Note that the issue is that there is a human in that system. The problem is that we (rightfully!) don't easily allow experiments on humans that might be harmful. And, as an aside, nutrition and weight management does have people doing real science (things like studies of hunter gatherer societies with deuterated water), it's just that the results aren't very flashy (ie. a human burns roughly the same amount of calories regardless of activity level--so the only way to lose weight is to eat less--moving more is healthy but doesn't contribute substantially to weight loss).
  - maire 8y ago
    Scientists are trying to study nutrition, it is just that the data is inconclusive. Yet the popular media reports each conflicting study as fact. Here is an interesting Stanford Medicine study of individual variation on the impact on low carb vs low fat. The punchline is that they still don't know after a fairly rigorous study. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SBZ4HYOxf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SBZ4HYOxf0
50656E6973 8y ago
Social and political science. Psychiatrists paved the way for the Holocaust: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23511221 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23511221
mensetmanusman 8y ago
What the Germans did during WW2: which race is better, etc., etc.

featherrust 8y ago

Interpersonal relationships?

igor47 8y ago
I'm a fan of NVC(non-violent communication) and that framework could be summarized by the sentence, "when you do X,I feel Y". You basically become an instrument that reports on your internal state, plus you're also supposed to avoid assuming anything about the other person's internal state. This is a lot more like science then the usual default of blaming and assumptions and implicit expectations that most people conduct their relationships in.
- justtopost 8y ago
  I find that type of communication childing and dehumanizing. To each their own.
  - cobbzilla 8y ago
    Kinda ironic that your comment is a good example of this style, in describing your feelings using an “I” statement without attacking the speaker.
    - synecdoche 8y ago
      I would contend that despite the "I" the form of those words implies projection, or at least victimization of oneself.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Really? I do a similar thing when dealing with idiots (not idiots, fully formed human beings, with a legitimate point of view, probably not evil, probably quite normal in person) on the internet. I find it helps keep me sane.
  - tunesmith 8y ago
    If it were limited to "when you do blah, I feel blah" verbiage, it would feel like that. But it's more generally about taking accountability for one's own side, while listening to the other side, without needless escalation. I can't really see a flaw with that approach, other than it taking more work. I wonder how many arguments would be defused if both sides could phrase the other side's point of view in a way they would agree was accurately stated.
- groovy2shoes 8y ago
  When you talk like that, I feel as though I am talking to the emacs psychotherapist. It too is a mere instrument that reports on its internal state. If you have found it a useful communicative tool, then I am glad for you. No doubt communication can be hard, so we've gotta use whatever tools we find effective. But honestly when I try speaking like that, I can't help but feel like a robot or a program. It feels very unnatural and very awkward to me. Perhaps that distance is exactly what lends it efficacy for some people, but that very distance only lends it offputticacy for me. Am I right and you wrong? No, I don't think so. I have no reason to doubt that you have found success with such an approach. But were I a barkeep and you a patron responding like that when asked "why the long face?", you'd be getting a double of tequila on the house. (Tequila has a funny way of bringing out one's inner party, in my experience—or getting one started where there's yet only a quiet inner evening get-together). https://i.imgur.com/ShGZjQ6.png https://i.imgur.com/ShGZjQ6.png
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  > "when you do X,I feel Y" Communication like that can be very helpful when dealing with personal conflict -- marriage, friendships, etc., but I can't see how that would help in the public sphere. If a political opponent, writer, or public speaker were to say or write something like that, it would be irritating and off-putting. I'd think "OK, but what's your point?"
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    To clarify, if a Senator stood up on the floor and began: “Mr President, when my honorable colleague argues in favor of [some policy], I feel shamed, belittled, and angry.” ... That would be inappropriate, unhelpful, and unproductive. It would be better to engage with the opponent’s argument with another argument than to resort to talking about personal feelings in that context.

vharuck 8y ago

What we value. The scientific method can be used to make better paints, but we decide what styles of art we prefer.

pfortuny 8y ago

Raising your children, talking to strangers, charity, you name it.

benj111 8y ago
Do you mean you shouldn't raise your kids based on science? You shouldn't experiment to see what works with your child, or you just shouldn't do experiments on your child?
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  Children need love, compassion and a lot of patience. They want to be treated like living beings, not like science projects. Yes science in general can obviously make some generic guidelines or provide some good insights in very specific questions of this childraising enterprise, but the vast majority of choices and everyday actions will fall outside of this.
  - benj111 8y ago
    "and a lot of patience" I find the distance, that analysing behaviour brings, actually helps with the patience, and compassion (if they're having a weird tantrum because they wanted something trivial). I also think it keeps me motivated in consciously raising my kids, rather than just passively whiling away the years. Maybe I have younger kids, so there aren't really any philosophical issues being raised.

maire 8y ago

A really good book to read on this is "the Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver. Basically, the scientific method requires modeling the system correctly which only works for certain kinds of systems. Systems where the complexity exceeds the available data causes people to see patterns where they don't exist and to be overly confident in their interpretation of the data. The entire area of nutrition and weight management is a joke. Medicine is problematic and Psychology is questionable. Another problem is that the popular media publishes inconclusive studies because they are click bait. People read them because they are interested in living longer and losing weight and being happy. Fear also turns studies into clickbait. The latest was the blizzard of articles on if bugs are dying off or not. Then there is the fact that negative studies tend to be ignored and when the study failed or it introduces data that does not conform to general knowledge. All this makes people question studies where the data is conclusive.

bsder 8y ago
> The entire area of nutrition and weight management is a joke. Medicine is problematic and Psychology is questionable. Note that the issue is that there is a human in that system. The problem is that we (rightfully!) don't easily allow experiments on humans that might be harmful. And, as an aside, nutrition and weight management does have people doing real science (things like studies of hunter gatherer societies with deuterated water), it's just that the results aren't very flashy (ie. a human burns roughly the same amount of calories regardless of activity level--so the only way to lose weight is to eat less--moving more is healthy but doesn't contribute substantially to weight loss).
- maire 8y ago
  Scientists are trying to study nutrition, it is just that the data is inconclusive. Yet the popular media reports each conflicting study as fact. Here is an interesting Stanford Medicine study of individual variation on the impact on low carb vs low fat. The punchline is that they still don't know after a fairly rigorous study. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SBZ4HYOxf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SBZ4HYOxf0

50656E6973 8y ago

Social and political science. Psychiatrists paved the way for the Holocaust: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23511221 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23511221

mensetmanusman 8y ago

What the Germans did during WW2: which race is better, etc., etc.