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Science is based on reasoning (EDIT: and evidence), not trust. Asking people to trust scientists is an anti-science statement, IMHO. (Of course, vaccines are p

Science is based on reasoning (EDIT: and evidence), not trust. Asking people to trust scientists is an anti-science statement, IMHO. (Of course, vaccines are pretty obviously a great thing, and there is no reason to believe they cause autism.)

simpleTruth 15y ago
Science is based on evidence NOT reasoning. Thinking about problems don't provide new information. It's the same basic fallacy as assuming a really really powerful AI could deduce QM from a few minutes of webcam footage.
- aristidb 15y ago
  I didn't intend to claim that evidence was not necessary. It is not sufficient however to have evidence and not reason about it.
- tel 15y ago
  That's sort of a technical non-sequitur, no? I would imagine that a sufficiently advanced AI could deduce QM from a few seconds of real time, given that it could ask questions of any resolution. Or, equivalently, a large amount of webcam footage. In either case, the emphasis is on conclusions being bought in the currency of experience.
  - simpleTruth 15y ago
    I brought it up because people actually believe it. As you noticed both resolution and time are important limitations. You don't get to arbitrarily examine things at any resolution or for any length of time. Stick a AI up to a webcam at 648x480 @ 30 cycles per second pointed at a brick wall and it's not going to be able to say comment on politics in the middle east. Or in a more down to earth example, if we stop building ever higher energy particle accelerators there are things we simply don't get to know.
gjm11 15y ago
> Asking people to trust scientists is an anti-science statement I understand but disagree. If a member of the public trusts scientists on some particular issue, what they're doing is not science (because science is based on reasoning and evidence and controlled experiments and mathematics and so on) but that doesn't mean it's anti-science. There's nothing wrong with someone who isn't a scientist making a decision by means other than Doing Science -- after all, if they could do that then they would be a scientist. Trusting what scientists tell you is (for most people, most of the time) rational behaviour even if it isn't doing science. The only reason why scientists don't always do it is that they have an even better option, namely actually doing science. People who aren't scientists usually don't. (Note 1. Actually, most of the time scientists also trust what other scientists say, and quite right too. Note 2. Of course Doing Science isn't really an activity strictly limited to Real Scientists; anyone can, in principle, do it. But in practice, for most areas of active research, doing it competently requires the right sort of brain, the right sort of training, and sometimes the right equipment, and the great majority of the people who have those are scientists.)

simpleTruth 15y ago

Science is based on evidence NOT reasoning. Thinking about problems don't provide new information. It's the same basic fallacy as assuming a really really powerful AI could deduce QM from a few minutes of webcam footage.

aristidb 15y ago
I didn't intend to claim that evidence was not necessary. It is not sufficient however to have evidence and not reason about it.
tel 15y ago
That's sort of a technical non-sequitur, no? I would imagine that a sufficiently advanced AI could deduce QM from a few seconds of real time, given that it could ask questions of any resolution. Or, equivalently, a large amount of webcam footage. In either case, the emphasis is on conclusions being bought in the currency of experience.
- simpleTruth 15y ago
  I brought it up because people actually believe it. As you noticed both resolution and time are important limitations. You don't get to arbitrarily examine things at any resolution or for any length of time. Stick a AI up to a webcam at 648x480 @ 30 cycles per second pointed at a brick wall and it's not going to be able to say comment on politics in the middle east. Or in a more down to earth example, if we stop building ever higher energy particle accelerators there are things we simply don't get to know.

gjm11 15y ago

> Asking people to trust scientists is an anti-science statement I understand but disagree. If a member of the public trusts scientists on some particular issue, what they're doing is not science (because science is based on reasoning and evidence and controlled experiments and mathematics and so on) but that doesn't mean it's anti-science. There's nothing wrong with someone who isn't a scientist making a decision by means other than Doing Science -- after all, if they could do that then they would be a scientist. Trusting what scientists tell you is (for most people, most of the time) rational behaviour even if it isn't doing science. The only reason why scientists don't always do it is that they have an even better option, namely actually doing science. People who aren't scientists usually don't. (Note 1. Actually, most of the time scientists also trust what other scientists say, and quite right too. Note 2. Of course Doing Science isn't really an activity strictly limited to Real Scientists; anyone can, in principle, do it. But in practice, for most areas of active research, doing it competently requires the right sort of brain, the right sort of training, and sometimes the right equipment, and the great majority of the people who have those are scientists.)