4 ms·

Your examples are headline understandings of science, and not how science actually progresses. Science has an issue with public perception of how it functions,

Your examples are headline understandings of science, and not how science actually progresses. Science has an issue with public perception of how it functions, hence when knew data demonstrates that old hypothesis were incomplete or indeed wrong, people like you say “See, the scientific method doesn’t work” when in fact these are beautiful examples of how science progresses. New understandings of the “serotonin theory of depression” for instance, which is more accurately termed “monoamine hypothesis of depression” does not mean that science doesn’t work. Science makes the best of what data is available. Monamines like serotonin substantial impact the course of clinical depression. Current understanding via the scientific method reveals that early hypothesis don’t explain everything. This is a refinement. It does not discount the effects of SSRIs it other antidepressants which currently help millions of people. Could we do better once we have a more complete picture of depression. Yes. And the scientific method is how we will get there. Einstein’s theory of general relativity updated Newton’s laws of physics. Was Newton and the scientific method wrong? No, he simply didn’t have all the data, and the scientific method allowed us to refine those hypothesis. I urge anyone who has trouble with the scientific method to read Carl Sagan’s fabulous book, Demon Haunted World. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World

astazangasta 7y ago
>Your examples are headline understandings of science, and not how science actually progresses. I do science every day. I have done science for all of my adult life, at the best research institutions in America. I have a very intimate understanding of how science works. My guess from your writing is that you are NOT a scientist, you're an engineer with a deep technical education. You have learned a lot of science but you don't spend much time actually doing it. In point of fact science is a culture; its practitioners are subject to all sorts of weaknesses, moral and rational, that end up in its method. Let me give you an example from my field - my current PI invented CTLA4 blockade, a cancer immunotherapy, in 1996. His PhD advisor, Jim Allison, just won the Nobel Prize for this work. Since about 2014 people have become interested in immunotherapy following several successful new therapies, but it was largely ignored since 1996 - why? Because the cancer establishment wasn't interested. People who wished to study the immune component of cancer were shunned or ridiculed, and what is now an entire field was reduced to a rump study of the "tumor microenvironment" that could never receive funding. Why is it receiving funding now? Because drug companies are interested now that there are successful therapies on the market. The actual scientific evidence, meanwhile, was produced a generation ago. What this means is that whatever epistemology is at work in "science" is not merely evidence-driven, it's subject to all sorts of human foibles, being done by humans.
- crazydoggers 7y ago
  Your story is a shining example of the scientific method. It sucks it took so long. But that’s the whole point of science. Those human foibles are unavoidable. But in the end the science won out. I guess I’m not sure what you are arguing? Science has to contend with human bias. Any method has to. That’s not going away. Isn’t it still the best method we have, short of altering humanity?

astazangasta 7y ago

>Your examples are headline understandings of science, and not how science actually progresses. I do science every day. I have done science for all of my adult life, at the best research institutions in America. I have a very intimate understanding of how science works. My guess from your writing is that you are NOT a scientist, you're an engineer with a deep technical education. You have learned a lot of science but you don't spend much time actually doing it. In point of fact science is a culture; its practitioners are subject to all sorts of weaknesses, moral and rational, that end up in its method. Let me give you an example from my field - my current PI invented CTLA4 blockade, a cancer immunotherapy, in 1996. His PhD advisor, Jim Allison, just won the Nobel Prize for this work. Since about 2014 people have become interested in immunotherapy following several successful new therapies, but it was largely ignored since 1996 - why? Because the cancer establishment wasn't interested. People who wished to study the immune component of cancer were shunned or ridiculed, and what is now an entire field was reduced to a rump study of the "tumor microenvironment" that could never receive funding. Why is it receiving funding now? Because drug companies are interested now that there are successful therapies on the market. The actual scientific evidence, meanwhile, was produced a generation ago. What this means is that whatever epistemology is at work in "science" is not merely evidence-driven, it's subject to all sorts of human foibles, being done by humans.

crazydoggers 7y ago
Your story is a shining example of the scientific method. It sucks it took so long. But that’s the whole point of science. Those human foibles are unavoidable. But in the end the science won out. I guess I’m not sure what you are arguing? Science has to contend with human bias. Any method has to. That’s not going away. Isn’t it still the best method we have, short of altering humanity?