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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

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.
  - crazydoggers 7y ago
    First, I appreciate the debate here, and don't take anything personally. Hopefully you feel the same. So here you cite an article that uses the scientific method to determine if the current medical guidelines for care of schizophrenia could be better. The takeaway from the article is not to abandon science in the care of those with schizophrenia, but to better apply the data that current treatment has provided. New hypothesis: blanket use of clozapine has worse outcomes Data: comparing countries with lower use versus higher Result: skepticism and the scientific method opens new areas of research into the treatment of schizophrenia So I still don't understand your argument. It really seems like you are arguing that people make mistakes, they are bias, and they often can take the results of science as some holy word and ignore new data that conflicts with their beliefs That is all TRUE, and I wouldn't argue against that. But that is a result of poor education of science, even within the scientific community. Being a scientist does not insulate one from anything, even a lack of understanding of how the scientific method should function. The answer isn't to abandon the scientific method. It's to educate people, scientist or layperson, about what science really provides. It doesn't provide ultimate truths that are unquestionable. It doesn't result in anything close to perfect understanding that is mistake free. There is no superiority, that "science knows best". Instead science is humble and says the results of the scientific method are ALWAYS open to revision in the face of conflicting data. As Carl Sagan says, the scientific method only says the following: "First: There are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised." Science, and the results of the scientific method are not sacred truths. If that is your argument, then we agree. Arguments from scientists based on them being scientists (from authority) are worthless. If these biases are encountered within the scientific community (which honestly they must be, since we are all human) the solution is more rigorous application of the scientific method, and better education on how the scientific method functions. Not abandonment of science. "We accepted the products of science; we rejected its methods." --Carl Sagan
    - astazangasta 7y ago
      My argument is that basically all of what Sagan says is wrong. The argument from authority is paramount in science; in fact it is the entire basis of the scientific enterprise. This is why it is important for you to ridicule other ways of knowing, as you did above ("You'll have to use the scientific method to research whether your alternative methods result in better outcomes for patients. Otherwise its just faith or some other nonsense."), implying that there are no other valid or useful epistemologies besides science. Of course this is not true, because the vast majority of people are not scientists, and yet are able to gain useful knowledge about the world without making use of "scientific methods". You have continually asserted that all it takes to reject incorrect scientific knowledge is for one person to show up with new observations controverting a theory. But this is not true; it is not sufficient for you to do an experiment showing X to be false or Y to be true - because science produces knowledge by consensus. The basic requirement of science, above all else, is that your result must be peer-reviewed. That is it; there are no requirements of method, no statistical thresholds that must be crossed, no rules about the kinds of evidence that are admissible. The entry of your experiment into the domain of science requires you to cross this threshold. Even after that your experiment faces further review and scrutiny from members of your community. This immediately means there is an important social dimension to doing science, based on a principle of authority: who gets to do peer review? The answer is: those who have been accorded respect by the community of scientists. What this means is that powerful scientists are gatekeepers on what is considered to be "true" according to science. It is their judgement that determines what is scientifically valid and invalid, above and beyond the evidence. In general we expect that these people are correctly motivated and believe ideologically in the project of science, are good moral actors, scrupulous, etc. - but all of these things must be true in order for science to succeed. Without this foundation of authority, science has no mechanism for validating evidence, which, unfortunately, is not self-evident. It is up to these people, and their judgment, to make the determination that some hypothetical is consistent or inconsistent with the facts - that is, whether something is true. It has been observed many times that this can hold up the progress of science. And, to underscore, this is the extent of the scientific method. There are no rules for what the reviewer must do; they are merely handed a paper, told to critique it, and their determinations are handed back for further argumentation. The bounds of the disputation are up to the disputants. What this means is that the actual epistemology (how we decide "what is true") is continually shifting. One might summarize this by saying that the "scientific method" at any given moment consists of the set of instruments (physical or conceptual) that the community of scientists brings to bear on a problem. Right now there is a vogue of meta-analysis papers; meanwhile, multiple-test correction didn't even exist before 1960. This is just a taste, I'm not really prepared to develop what should be a book-length argument in a HN comment, but it indicates basically what I am saying: there is a lot, lot more to the "scientific method" than falsificationism can present to us, and the sociological dimension of scientific knowledge is equally important to understand, but underappreciated by people like Popper. Most of my thinking here has been shaped by two books, both seminal works: one is "Leviathan and the Air-Pump" by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer; the other is "Against Method" by Paul Feyerabend. I recommend you read them both.

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.
- crazydoggers 7y ago
  First, I appreciate the debate here, and don't take anything personally. Hopefully you feel the same. So here you cite an article that uses the scientific method to determine if the current medical guidelines for care of schizophrenia could be better. The takeaway from the article is not to abandon science in the care of those with schizophrenia, but to better apply the data that current treatment has provided. New hypothesis: blanket use of clozapine has worse outcomes Data: comparing countries with lower use versus higher Result: skepticism and the scientific method opens new areas of research into the treatment of schizophrenia So I still don't understand your argument. It really seems like you are arguing that people make mistakes, they are bias, and they often can take the results of science as some holy word and ignore new data that conflicts with their beliefs That is all TRUE, and I wouldn't argue against that. But that is a result of poor education of science, even within the scientific community. Being a scientist does not insulate one from anything, even a lack of understanding of how the scientific method should function. The answer isn't to abandon the scientific method. It's to educate people, scientist or layperson, about what science really provides. It doesn't provide ultimate truths that are unquestionable. It doesn't result in anything close to perfect understanding that is mistake free. There is no superiority, that "science knows best". Instead science is humble and says the results of the scientific method are ALWAYS open to revision in the face of conflicting data. As Carl Sagan says, the scientific method only says the following: "First: There are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised." Science, and the results of the scientific method are not sacred truths. If that is your argument, then we agree. Arguments from scientists based on them being scientists (from authority) are worthless. If these biases are encountered within the scientific community (which honestly they must be, since we are all human) the solution is more rigorous application of the scientific method, and better education on how the scientific method functions. Not abandonment of science. "We accepted the products of science; we rejected its methods." --Carl Sagan
  - astazangasta 7y ago
    My argument is that basically all of what Sagan says is wrong. The argument from authority is paramount in science; in fact it is the entire basis of the scientific enterprise. This is why it is important for you to ridicule other ways of knowing, as you did above ("You'll have to use the scientific method to research whether your alternative methods result in better outcomes for patients. Otherwise its just faith or some other nonsense."), implying that there are no other valid or useful epistemologies besides science. Of course this is not true, because the vast majority of people are not scientists, and yet are able to gain useful knowledge about the world without making use of "scientific methods". You have continually asserted that all it takes to reject incorrect scientific knowledge is for one person to show up with new observations controverting a theory. But this is not true; it is not sufficient for you to do an experiment showing X to be false or Y to be true - because science produces knowledge by consensus. The basic requirement of science, above all else, is that your result must be peer-reviewed. That is it; there are no requirements of method, no statistical thresholds that must be crossed, no rules about the kinds of evidence that are admissible. The entry of your experiment into the domain of science requires you to cross this threshold. Even after that your experiment faces further review and scrutiny from members of your community. This immediately means there is an important social dimension to doing science, based on a principle of authority: who gets to do peer review? The answer is: those who have been accorded respect by the community of scientists. What this means is that powerful scientists are gatekeepers on what is considered to be "true" according to science. It is their judgement that determines what is scientifically valid and invalid, above and beyond the evidence. In general we expect that these people are correctly motivated and believe ideologically in the project of science, are good moral actors, scrupulous, etc. - but all of these things must be true in order for science to succeed. Without this foundation of authority, science has no mechanism for validating evidence, which, unfortunately, is not self-evident. It is up to these people, and their judgment, to make the determination that some hypothetical is consistent or inconsistent with the facts - that is, whether something is true. It has been observed many times that this can hold up the progress of science. And, to underscore, this is the extent of the scientific method. There are no rules for what the reviewer must do; they are merely handed a paper, told to critique it, and their determinations are handed back for further argumentation. The bounds of the disputation are up to the disputants. What this means is that the actual epistemology (how we decide "what is true") is continually shifting. One might summarize this by saying that the "scientific method" at any given moment consists of the set of instruments (physical or conceptual) that the community of scientists brings to bear on a problem. Right now there is a vogue of meta-analysis papers; meanwhile, multiple-test correction didn't even exist before 1960. This is just a taste, I'm not really prepared to develop what should be a book-length argument in a HN comment, but it indicates basically what I am saying: there is a lot, lot more to the "scientific method" than falsificationism can present to us, and the sociological dimension of scientific knowledge is equally important to understand, but underappreciated by people like Popper. Most of my thinking here has been shaped by two books, both seminal works: one is "Leviathan and the Air-Pump" by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer; the other is "Against Method" by Paul Feyerabend. I recommend you read them both.