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>But science is the only method that eventually will rut out the biases. It’s self correcting, but you need to look at it from the long view. This is just dogm

>But science is the only method that eventually will rut out the biases. It’s self correcting, but you need to look at it from the long view. This is just dogmatic nonsense. Absent a mechanism, how does this vaunted self-correction operate? If the individuals that make up the scientific community can't be trusted to be free of bias, and that bias can persist for generations, what, in point of fact, is the mechanism for rejecting it? The fact is that insight does not emerge from any particular method, and science really has no foolproof way to advance inexorably towards the truth. This is why scientific advancement is frequently stalled - because it isn't fucking foolproof. You can claim otherwise, but you're at odds with both any kind of theoretical basis and with the observed history of science.

crazydoggers 7y ago
> This is just dogmatic nonsense. Absent a mechanism, how does this vaunted self-correction operate? There is indeed a mechanism. All it takes is a single individual that lacks the bias to develop a competing hypotheses that can be tested through experiment. A single person can take down years of group bias. The reason this is possible is because the scientific method requires evidence and the ability to falsify competing hypothesis. If for instance you went against the current “bias” that now takes Darwinian evolution for a given, and proved your hypothesis with data, then the scientific community would be forced (and indeed would honestly be delighted) to embrace the new understanding. > This is why scientific advancement is frequently stalled - because it isn't fucking foolproof. You can claim otherwise, but you're at odds with both any kind of theoretical basis and with the observed history of science. History shows an inexorable march forward in understanding the universe brought about via the scientific method. At no point in the history of the scientific method has this been reversed. It may be true that advancement stalls out in certain areas, but that’s to be expected. No other method has ever shown anything close to the scientific methods ability to understand how the universe actually functions. Any given hypothesis, any given experiment, any given consensus is not “foolproof”. But the scientific method over the long run is indeed “foolproof”, because ultimately data and it’s ability to falsify hypothesis will always overturn mistakes. “I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved, as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.” — Charles Darwin
- astazangasta 7y ago
  >History shows an inexorable march forward in understanding the universe brought about via the scientific method. At no point in the history of the scientific method has this been reversed. Again, this is just dogma. Science is frequently wrong and sometimes remains wrong for decades. You can say "well eventually someone will correct it, and we'll be open to that possibility", but that is JUST DOGMA. It is not incontrovertible or inexorable. As for "at no point in history has this been reversed", let's take a few simple examples. One good one is the recent serotonin theory of depression, which enjoyed a good run and racked up a few billion in drug sales before evidence began to accumulate that it is wrong. That is a reversal; people introduced a faulty theory and proceeded with it for decades. Even if we accept that Kirsch and others are overturning this, it was STILL WRONG for a long time. Or let's take another prominent recent example: fat. For decades we were told that eating fat is bad for you and causes obesity, but sugar was okay. This is all garbage science that persisted because (1) people were incentivized to look the other way and (2) the epistemology was weak. Or let's take decades of bad science on female physiology that persisted merely because science was controlled by men who were uninterested in women's health. This didn't change because of some self-correcting mechanism in science, it changed because feminism resulted in women taking up the role. >No other method has ever shown anything close to the scientific methods ability to understand how the universe actually functions. This is not the question under issue, and obviously if I really felt otherwise I wouldn't be doing science every day. But I don't believe there are foolproof 'scientific methods' that give us an ability to understand anything, there is just our commitment to observation and examining evidence. That is it. We do NOT have a foolproof epistemology. Where this becomes especially important is where our epistemology is weakest. Nutrition and psychology are good candidates because (1) what we are trying to examine is poorly understood in the first place and (2) we lack good methodologies for dissecting the underlying questions. In general biology is not as tractable as physics, which is governed by fundamental physical laws that can be modeled using a few parameters. Biological complexity is much greater and can't be attacked using the same methods - you can't do thought-experiments to figure out how ribosomes operate. The mathematical tools required are mostly statistical and are often inadequate to model the complexity we observe. This means our epistemology just fails most of the time - without the necessary tools we can't generate the insights required, nor can we set up experiments to test the propositions we wish to make. > ultimately data and it’s ability to falsify hypothesis will always overturn mistakes. Data has no abilities, and falsification is only possible if you're able to create hypotheses in the first place. Creating a hypothesis requires insight; insight requires human understanding. If humans are unable to grasp the basic concepts at work (e.g., how cytokine cascades modulate immune responses) because they are too complex and are not easily amenable to controlled experiment, we can't do "science" to move ahead on these problems.
crazydoggers 7y ago
P.S. I’m always tickled pink at people who like to debate the validity of the Scientific Method online. You do realize that the scientific method is what made your computer and the the internet possible, right? The insights in physics, chemistry, etc. Everything that involves the behavior of electrons in things like semiconductors relies on quantum mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semiconductor#Early_history_of_semiconductors https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semiconductor#Ear...
- astazangasta 7y ago
  Yes? Jesus i hate this argument. You realize people were inventing devices long before they had science, right? You realize that making transistors says nothing about your ability to make valid claims about psychology, right? Having understood one principle does not mean you can understand anything.
  - crazydoggers 7y ago
    This argument doesn’t jive with the facts that the scientific method was required for us to have computers. It’s a simple fact, which you can read about. The complexity of solid state physics meant that early electronics had issues that couldn’t be resolved until a complete understanding of quantum mechanics was made. Also making transistors doesn’t have to say anything about psychology. The field stands on its own. So does the advance of medicine and psychology via the scientific method. “We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of clozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives.” — Carl Sagan
    - astazangasta 7y ago
      >“We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of clozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives.” — Carl Sagan This is a particularly bad example; clozapine is not much of a treatment, it is just a tranquilizer. It doesn't cure schizophrenics, it chemically lobotomizes them. When the tranquilizers stop, psychosis resumes. This work also didn't really come out of scientific studies, it came out of the system of mental institutions, and it isn't really about treating disease, it's about controlling and successfully institutionalizing mental patients. As for science, schizophrenia has remained stubbornly intractable to it, because science keeps looking for things like brain abnormalities (finding none in decades of searching - other than the stunting that results from long-term use of neuroleptics), since this is what it is able to operate on epistemologically. Meanwhile, outcomes for schizophrenics are actually WORSE in terms of recovery in the developed world than in the developing world, probably because of the use of antipsychotics, discussed here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mad-in-america/201005/schizophrenia-mystery-solved https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mad-in-america/20100.... In other words, this is a domain where it is pretty clear that the scientific establishment has bit the big one, and alternative treatments based on things more like talking therapy (e.g. Soteria houses) and understanding schizophrenics as requiring stability, empathy, etc., rather than chemical tranquilizers, are more likely to be promising. What's especially damaging here is the attitude of superiority, that "science knows best", that it has already understood something better, that whatever science is doing is implicitly better. This sort of arrogance is purely dogmatic, and leads to error. I seriously suggest you abandon it.
menckenjr 7y ago
Using words like "inexorably towards the truth" makes it sound like you're conflating "scientific truth" (which is a progressively less distorted view of reality facilitated by actual measurements and vigorous competition among competing explanations) with "religious truth" or "philosophical truth" which are much more difficult to pin down.

crazydoggers 7y ago

> This is just dogmatic nonsense. Absent a mechanism, how does this vaunted self-correction operate? There is indeed a mechanism. All it takes is a single individual that lacks the bias to develop a competing hypotheses that can be tested through experiment. A single person can take down years of group bias. The reason this is possible is because the scientific method requires evidence and the ability to falsify competing hypothesis. If for instance you went against the current “bias” that now takes Darwinian evolution for a given, and proved your hypothesis with data, then the scientific community would be forced (and indeed would honestly be delighted) to embrace the new understanding. > This is why scientific advancement is frequently stalled - because it isn't fucking foolproof. You can claim otherwise, but you're at odds with both any kind of theoretical basis and with the observed history of science. History shows an inexorable march forward in understanding the universe brought about via the scientific method. At no point in the history of the scientific method has this been reversed. It may be true that advancement stalls out in certain areas, but that’s to be expected. No other method has ever shown anything close to the scientific methods ability to understand how the universe actually functions. Any given hypothesis, any given experiment, any given consensus is not “foolproof”. But the scientific method over the long run is indeed “foolproof”, because ultimately data and it’s ability to falsify hypothesis will always overturn mistakes. “I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved, as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.” — Charles Darwin

astazangasta 7y ago
>History shows an inexorable march forward in understanding the universe brought about via the scientific method. At no point in the history of the scientific method has this been reversed. Again, this is just dogma. Science is frequently wrong and sometimes remains wrong for decades. You can say "well eventually someone will correct it, and we'll be open to that possibility", but that is JUST DOGMA. It is not incontrovertible or inexorable. As for "at no point in history has this been reversed", let's take a few simple examples. One good one is the recent serotonin theory of depression, which enjoyed a good run and racked up a few billion in drug sales before evidence began to accumulate that it is wrong. That is a reversal; people introduced a faulty theory and proceeded with it for decades. Even if we accept that Kirsch and others are overturning this, it was STILL WRONG for a long time. Or let's take another prominent recent example: fat. For decades we were told that eating fat is bad for you and causes obesity, but sugar was okay. This is all garbage science that persisted because (1) people were incentivized to look the other way and (2) the epistemology was weak. Or let's take decades of bad science on female physiology that persisted merely because science was controlled by men who were uninterested in women's health. This didn't change because of some self-correcting mechanism in science, it changed because feminism resulted in women taking up the role. >No other method has ever shown anything close to the scientific methods ability to understand how the universe actually functions. This is not the question under issue, and obviously if I really felt otherwise I wouldn't be doing science every day. But I don't believe there are foolproof 'scientific methods' that give us an ability to understand anything, there is just our commitment to observation and examining evidence. That is it. We do NOT have a foolproof epistemology. Where this becomes especially important is where our epistemology is weakest. Nutrition and psychology are good candidates because (1) what we are trying to examine is poorly understood in the first place and (2) we lack good methodologies for dissecting the underlying questions. In general biology is not as tractable as physics, which is governed by fundamental physical laws that can be modeled using a few parameters. Biological complexity is much greater and can't be attacked using the same methods - you can't do thought-experiments to figure out how ribosomes operate. The mathematical tools required are mostly statistical and are often inadequate to model the complexity we observe. This means our epistemology just fails most of the time - without the necessary tools we can't generate the insights required, nor can we set up experiments to test the propositions we wish to make. > ultimately data and it’s ability to falsify hypothesis will always overturn mistakes. Data has no abilities, and falsification is only possible if you're able to create hypotheses in the first place. Creating a hypothesis requires insight; insight requires human understanding. If humans are unable to grasp the basic concepts at work (e.g., how cytokine cascades modulate immune responses) because they are too complex and are not easily amenable to controlled experiment, we can't do "science" to move ahead on these problems.

crazydoggers 7y ago

P.S. I’m always tickled pink at people who like to debate the validity of the Scientific Method online. You do realize that the scientific method is what made your computer and the the internet possible, right? The insights in physics, chemistry, etc. Everything that involves the behavior of electrons in things like semiconductors relies on quantum mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semiconductor#Early_history_of_semiconductors https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semiconductor#Ear...

astazangasta 7y ago
Yes? Jesus i hate this argument. You realize people were inventing devices long before they had science, right? You realize that making transistors says nothing about your ability to make valid claims about psychology, right? Having understood one principle does not mean you can understand anything.
- crazydoggers 7y ago
  This argument doesn’t jive with the facts that the scientific method was required for us to have computers. It’s a simple fact, which you can read about. The complexity of solid state physics meant that early electronics had issues that couldn’t be resolved until a complete understanding of quantum mechanics was made. Also making transistors doesn’t have to say anything about psychology. The field stands on its own. So does the advance of medicine and psychology via the scientific method. “We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of clozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives.” — Carl Sagan
  - astazangasta 7y ago
    >“We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of clozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives.” — Carl Sagan This is a particularly bad example; clozapine is not much of a treatment, it is just a tranquilizer. It doesn't cure schizophrenics, it chemically lobotomizes them. When the tranquilizers stop, psychosis resumes. This work also didn't really come out of scientific studies, it came out of the system of mental institutions, and it isn't really about treating disease, it's about controlling and successfully institutionalizing mental patients. As for science, schizophrenia has remained stubbornly intractable to it, because science keeps looking for things like brain abnormalities (finding none in decades of searching - other than the stunting that results from long-term use of neuroleptics), since this is what it is able to operate on epistemologically. Meanwhile, outcomes for schizophrenics are actually WORSE in terms of recovery in the developed world than in the developing world, probably because of the use of antipsychotics, discussed here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mad-in-america/201005/schizophrenia-mystery-solved https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mad-in-america/20100.... In other words, this is a domain where it is pretty clear that the scientific establishment has bit the big one, and alternative treatments based on things more like talking therapy (e.g. Soteria houses) and understanding schizophrenics as requiring stability, empathy, etc., rather than chemical tranquilizers, are more likely to be promising. What's especially damaging here is the attitude of superiority, that "science knows best", that it has already understood something better, that whatever science is doing is implicitly better. This sort of arrogance is purely dogmatic, and leads to error. I seriously suggest you abandon it.

menckenjr 7y ago

Using words like "inexorably towards the truth" makes it sound like you're conflating "scientific truth" (which is a progressively less distorted view of reality facilitated by actual measurements and vigorous competition among competing explanations) with "religious truth" or "philosophical truth" which are much more difficult to pin down.