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> 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

> 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.
  - feralimal 6y ago
godelzilla 6y ago
>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 TBH most of economics is non-empirical ideology that's easy to debunk. More generally pseudo-science is rampant in "western science". That's another reason why this article is so ironic/islamophobic.
- prewett 6y ago
  The author is critical of Islam, but that is hardly "islamophobic": at no point in the article does the author indicate any fear of Islam, which is what the "-phobic" construction means. "-phobic" does not mean "says negative things about" and especially does not mean "disagrees with", despite the way it's frequently used.

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.
- feralimal 6y ago

godelzilla 6y ago

>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 TBH most of economics is non-empirical ideology that's easy to debunk. More generally pseudo-science is rampant in "western science". That's another reason why this article is so ironic/islamophobic.

prewett 6y ago
The author is critical of Islam, but that is hardly "islamophobic": at no point in the article does the author indicate any fear of Islam, which is what the "-phobic" construction means. "-phobic" does not mean "says negative things about" and especially does not mean "disagrees with", despite the way it's frequently used.