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While this commentator invested far less effort than the scientists in reaching his result about dark mode, he also has no benefits from you choosing to believe

by guykdm 6y ago

While this commentator invested far less effort than the scientists in reaching his result about dark mode, he also has no benefits from you choosing to believe him or not. You are in fact choosing to see the brand "science" as something transcendental that doesn't concern any incentive structures, which if false and opens you to lots of manipulation.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
I am just wondering does the author alao distrust science when it comes to medical treatments and the law of gravity, or does is his distrust highly selective.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
  Medical treatments can be really faulty too.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  pretty selective. Maths has proofs. Logical reasoning from first arguments that a thing is true or not. It either is, or is not, proven. End of. Physics as applied maths, pretty solid. We need to conduct experiments to verify that nature agrees with our mathematical constructs, but on the whole these are simple and unequivocal. e.g . gravity. Particle physics gets dodgy because of the vast range of collision results - statistics starts creeping in. Rather than being able to say that particle A collides with particle B to produce particles D an E, we now have a statistical chance that somethng might happen. Chemistry as applied physics, again, pretty solid. Everything has to be tested by experiment, and experiment frequently throws up surprises, but if a reacts with B in Chicago, it probably does in Moscow too. Biology as applied chemistry. Mostly solid. It gets massively complex, and so the temptation to resort to statistics is overwhelming and most biological papers start talking about statistical probabilities rather than actual results. But the basic biology is mostly the same for most subjects, and if the conclusion is simple (virology and the effectiveness of vaccines, for example) then we're all good. Any social science as applied biology: not much. This is really dodgy territory where the experiment design totally dominates the result, and the result is statistical data that has to be massaged into a definitive statement. This is p-hacking territory, where experiments are largely unreproducible, very subject to bias, cultural references, and academia politics. E.g. whether creativity shares a limited resource pool with willpower - highly subjective, highly variable between individuals, hihgly suspect if your paper cites this as a proven result. Not all science is worthy of the same level of trust. The scientific method is trustworthy. Academia is not.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    The subject in question is not some fuzzy social science: this is a straightforward assessment of reading ability for a given color scheme. You access objective metrics like ability to detect errors, reading speed, accuracy, etc. Arguing with this is like disputing the fact that high heels make for terrible running shoes. Research in question with be quite similar.

by guykdm 6y ago

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

I am just wondering does the author alao distrust science when it comes to medical treatments and the law of gravity, or does is his distrust highly selective.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
Medical treatments can be really faulty too.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
pretty selective. Maths has proofs. Logical reasoning from first arguments that a thing is true or not. It either is, or is not, proven. End of. Physics as applied maths, pretty solid. We need to conduct experiments to verify that nature agrees with our mathematical constructs, but on the whole these are simple and unequivocal. e.g . gravity. Particle physics gets dodgy because of the vast range of collision results - statistics starts creeping in. Rather than being able to say that particle A collides with particle B to produce particles D an E, we now have a statistical chance that somethng might happen. Chemistry as applied physics, again, pretty solid. Everything has to be tested by experiment, and experiment frequently throws up surprises, but if a reacts with B in Chicago, it probably does in Moscow too. Biology as applied chemistry. Mostly solid. It gets massively complex, and so the temptation to resort to statistics is overwhelming and most biological papers start talking about statistical probabilities rather than actual results. But the basic biology is mostly the same for most subjects, and if the conclusion is simple (virology and the effectiveness of vaccines, for example) then we're all good. Any social science as applied biology: not much. This is really dodgy territory where the experiment design totally dominates the result, and the result is statistical data that has to be massaged into a definitive statement. This is p-hacking territory, where experiments are largely unreproducible, very subject to bias, cultural references, and academia politics. E.g. whether creativity shares a limited resource pool with willpower - highly subjective, highly variable between individuals, hihgly suspect if your paper cites this as a proven result. Not all science is worthy of the same level of trust. The scientific method is trustworthy. Academia is not.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  The subject in question is not some fuzzy social science: this is a straightforward assessment of reading ability for a given color scheme. You access objective metrics like ability to detect errors, reading speed, accuracy, etc. Arguing with this is like disputing the fact that high heels make for terrible running shoes. Research in question with be quite similar.