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Fair enough. It is absolutely wider than science. The problem more widely, is that we trust others. Bear with me - I know this sounds bad. The fact is that

Fair enough. It is absolutely wider than science. The problem more widely, is that we trust others. Bear with me - I know this sounds bad. The fact is that we trust too much. We should be verifying all the claims that are made to us. We would soon learn discernment over what sources are trustworthy (friend's personal experiences - ie anecdotal evidence) versus evidence presented by those that govern us on the media (politicians + their megaphone the mainstream media). This in itself is jarring - we know politicians are not trustworthy, but we think they are trying to do their best. But really what we have is a dog and pony show to distract us, and the governance is going on anyway. The answer, in my opinion, is something like stepping up individually. We should test and present our results to those around. We would soon learn the difference between knowing and believing. And we would also learn to accept that we do not know - and that that's ok. If we don't know, that doesn't mean we have to accept any old story that's presented. We can defer acceptance as and when we have the data, without kidding ourselves. This is skepticism.

blackbear_ 6y ago
> We would soon learn the difference between knowing and believing. Well said, and it's not always so easy. Skepticism and critical thinking are in very short supply, that is true, and we should all try to verify as much as possible. But really, most things cannot be verified by you, personally. We do stand on the shoulders of giants, and you will not be able to verify centuries of scientific progress all on your own, from first principles. And this becomes even harder when you approach the softer parts of human knowledge such as economics or very recent discoveries that aren't fully settled. Most people are easily tricked by politicians and other evil actors simply because most things cannot be known for sure (immigration? interest rates? carbon taxes?), and the best one can do is to have educated guesses. And educated guess require education, which most have not. So I don't see how you can live without trusting most of what you are said or living partially outside society. I guess a compromise between our point of views is the good old adage "trust, but verify".
- feralimal 6y ago
  > But really, most things cannot be verified by you, personally. We do stand on the shoulders of giants, and you will not be able to verify centuries of scientific progress all on your own, from first principles. Absolutely. You cannot verify everything. One should try though, at least where possible. Of course we cannot verify everything. We should also get used to saying 'I don't know' rather than presenting hearsay as truth. When one has not verified a thing, one should be open about the level of knowledge we have. It is absolutely acceptable not to know everything. It is not acceptable to carelessly relay what might be lies. I don't agree that we stand on the shoulders of giants. I don't have any heroes. I stand by own judgement alone. The way I see it, if we don't verify a thing, we should not accept it. We simply say we don't know, that we are working on a hypothesis. We should explicitly state our assumptions and gratefully receive correction. We can say that 'such and such is the common consensus but that I have not proven this to myself'. We should let a modicum of doubt be expressed in what we say, if there is a modicum of doubt in what we are stating. You can even consider this from a spiritual perspective. If you erroneously believe something to be true, but in fact it is a lie, but you repeat it, are you a liar too? Are you stating a case that you shouldn't be stating? I think so. I think not living and breathing truth, you are relaying unverified hearsay. I think is in fact lying. It is careless use of language, and misleads the next person as you were misled yourself. I love to recommend this video, that I think accurately expresses the problem we have in trying to determine truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLs6nufCj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLs6nufCj4
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >The way I see it, if we don't verify a thing, we should not accept it. We simply say we don't know, that we are working on a hypothesis. We should explicitly state our assumptions and gratefully receive correction. We can say that 'such and such is the common consensus but that I have not proven this to myself'. We should let a modicum of doubt be expressed in what we say, if there is a modicum of doubt in what we are stating. While I appreciate your point of view and, especially in terms of policy and governance, it's a good idea to at least try to verify the veracity of the claims made by those seeking to implement policy, I think you go too far in dumping science and mathematics into that bucket. For example, do you find it necessary to prove the commutative property of addition, or the existence of rational numbers before you can compute the sales tax due on a purchase? Do you need to prove General Relativity (one of the most precise theories we've ever come up with) in order to trust your GPS? You can "verify" this by punching in an address in your phone's directions app and use the GPS receiver to confirm your location as you move. When you arrive at your destination, you'll find that you're within a few meters of where you wanted to go. That's only possible for GPS because the clocks on GPS devices and the satellites providing GPS signals are synchronized pretty precisely. Without General Relativity providing a framework for accurately measuring time for objects with vastly different velocities, this would be impossible. Or Quantum Mechanics, whose predictions have been shown to be more precise than any other scientific theory ever developed. If we were to take your advice and distrust those theories because we can't personally verify them (whether that be a lack of mathematical knowledge or a lack of equipment and methodologies to do so), then we should reject the idea that GPS devices can give is accurate directions and claim that lasers (or any sort of coherent EM emissions) don't exist. Which is objectively false. It's a good idea to question what others assert, but (as another poster put it), having to prove everything from first principles before accepting its validity is a huge waste of time and effort. That's where critical thinking, assessment of sources and the application of Occam's (and Hanlon's) razor really shines. I completely agree that we shouldn't trust everything we hear, read or even see. At the same time, rejecting everything we can't personally verify seems both counterproductive and deeply destructive of our science, our technology and our societies.
Cederfjard 6y ago
How much free time do you think people have on their hands?
- feralimal 6y ago
  what does the amount of time have to do with saying 'I know' when you don't?
sciprojguy 6y ago
That kind of thing looks good on paper but fails miserably in reality. No individual has the bandwidth to verify everything themselves, and precious few have the numerical and statistical literacy to be able to even verify samples here and there and not get stuck in a local minimum. To me, this whole line of thinking sounds like the dorm-room libertarian bullshit that gets generated from the Dunning-Kruger effect on steroids, but I'm willing to be convinced I'm wrong.
- feralimal 6y ago
  Absolutely. But you can't say 'you know'.

blackbear_ 6y ago

> We would soon learn the difference between knowing and believing. Well said, and it's not always so easy. Skepticism and critical thinking are in very short supply, that is true, and we should all try to verify as much as possible. But really, most things cannot be verified by you, personally. We do stand on the shoulders of giants, and you will not be able to verify centuries of scientific progress all on your own, from first principles. And this becomes even harder when you approach the softer parts of human knowledge such as economics or very recent discoveries that aren't fully settled. Most people are easily tricked by politicians and other evil actors simply because most things cannot be known for sure (immigration? interest rates? carbon taxes?), and the best one can do is to have educated guesses. And educated guess require education, which most have not. So I don't see how you can live without trusting most of what you are said or living partially outside society. I guess a compromise between our point of views is the good old adage "trust, but verify".

feralimal 6y ago
> But really, most things cannot be verified by you, personally. We do stand on the shoulders of giants, and you will not be able to verify centuries of scientific progress all on your own, from first principles. Absolutely. You cannot verify everything. One should try though, at least where possible. Of course we cannot verify everything. We should also get used to saying 'I don't know' rather than presenting hearsay as truth. When one has not verified a thing, one should be open about the level of knowledge we have. It is absolutely acceptable not to know everything. It is not acceptable to carelessly relay what might be lies. I don't agree that we stand on the shoulders of giants. I don't have any heroes. I stand by own judgement alone. The way I see it, if we don't verify a thing, we should not accept it. We simply say we don't know, that we are working on a hypothesis. We should explicitly state our assumptions and gratefully receive correction. We can say that 'such and such is the common consensus but that I have not proven this to myself'. We should let a modicum of doubt be expressed in what we say, if there is a modicum of doubt in what we are stating. You can even consider this from a spiritual perspective. If you erroneously believe something to be true, but in fact it is a lie, but you repeat it, are you a liar too? Are you stating a case that you shouldn't be stating? I think so. I think not living and breathing truth, you are relaying unverified hearsay. I think is in fact lying. It is careless use of language, and misleads the next person as you were misled yourself. I love to recommend this video, that I think accurately expresses the problem we have in trying to determine truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLs6nufCj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLs6nufCj4
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >The way I see it, if we don't verify a thing, we should not accept it. We simply say we don't know, that we are working on a hypothesis. We should explicitly state our assumptions and gratefully receive correction. We can say that 'such and such is the common consensus but that I have not proven this to myself'. We should let a modicum of doubt be expressed in what we say, if there is a modicum of doubt in what we are stating. While I appreciate your point of view and, especially in terms of policy and governance, it's a good idea to at least try to verify the veracity of the claims made by those seeking to implement policy, I think you go too far in dumping science and mathematics into that bucket. For example, do you find it necessary to prove the commutative property of addition, or the existence of rational numbers before you can compute the sales tax due on a purchase? Do you need to prove General Relativity (one of the most precise theories we've ever come up with) in order to trust your GPS? You can "verify" this by punching in an address in your phone's directions app and use the GPS receiver to confirm your location as you move. When you arrive at your destination, you'll find that you're within a few meters of where you wanted to go. That's only possible for GPS because the clocks on GPS devices and the satellites providing GPS signals are synchronized pretty precisely. Without General Relativity providing a framework for accurately measuring time for objects with vastly different velocities, this would be impossible. Or Quantum Mechanics, whose predictions have been shown to be more precise than any other scientific theory ever developed. If we were to take your advice and distrust those theories because we can't personally verify them (whether that be a lack of mathematical knowledge or a lack of equipment and methodologies to do so), then we should reject the idea that GPS devices can give is accurate directions and claim that lasers (or any sort of coherent EM emissions) don't exist. Which is objectively false. It's a good idea to question what others assert, but (as another poster put it), having to prove everything from first principles before accepting its validity is a huge waste of time and effort. That's where critical thinking, assessment of sources and the application of Occam's (and Hanlon's) razor really shines. I completely agree that we shouldn't trust everything we hear, read or even see. At the same time, rejecting everything we can't personally verify seems both counterproductive and deeply destructive of our science, our technology and our societies.

Cederfjard 6y ago

How much free time do you think people have on their hands?

feralimal 6y ago
what does the amount of time have to do with saying 'I know' when you don't?

sciprojguy 6y ago

That kind of thing looks good on paper but fails miserably in reality. No individual has the bandwidth to verify everything themselves, and precious few have the numerical and statistical literacy to be able to even verify samples here and there and not get stuck in a local minimum. To me, this whole line of thinking sounds like the dorm-room libertarian bullshit that gets generated from the Dunning-Kruger effect on steroids, but I'm willing to be convinced I'm wrong.

feralimal 6y ago
Absolutely. But you can't say 'you know'.