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I was having this exact discussion with a philosophy of science major a few days ago. We were both bothered by the current fetishization of science. It's trou

I was having this exact discussion with a philosophy of science major a few days ago. We were both bothered by the current fetishization of science. It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. The discussion came to Kuhn and the often touted belief in popular culture that science is not always completely right but in essence it's one big model of nature that keeps getting better and so we should trust it implicitly, while ignoring the concept of paradigm shift that arises specifically from people outside the consensus. Coupled with the fact that dissent gets blurred with denialism, and that the absence of evidence has come to mean "evidence of absence" on the news, it's become really tricky to discuss things critically without being openly mocked. I wish I had time to read more philosophy, even as a scientist you learn a whole bunch about science, it's really enlightening.

frockington1 6y ago
> Coupled with the fact that dissent gets blurred with denialism This is what gives me the biggest headache. When discussing any politically motivated topic you can't ask questions that even remotely disagree with the popular Science opinion of the day. I had a professor scold me for asking if there were any natural phenomenon that may also be contributing to rising CO2 levels
- jfengel 6y ago
  The professor has without doubt heard the question thousands of times, by those with dishonest intent. Because the answer is always no. There are no natural phenomena that coincide precisely with the industrial revolution. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere tracks exactly the amount of fossil fuels being dug out of the ground. CO2 levels had been stable for millennia before that, and then they changed sharply. Nothing natural has gone on to change that. If the question were intended honestly, you wouldn't call it "disagreement". You'd be asking for information and would make your decision after you had it. If your description is correct, that's why your professor scolded you. The name for disagreeing without knowledge is "denial". The name for asking questions that you don't really intend to listen to the answers is "sea lioning", which is a tactic for wasting time and frustrating people. It's dishonest and rude. If the situation was as I understood it from your description, I'm not surprised that they spoke sharply to you.
  - ianmcgowan 6y ago
    The trick is distinguishing naïve open-minded curiosity from the trolling. It doesn't hurt "science" in the abstract to have a bunch of people asking bad faith questions, but it must be pretty annoying/distracting to scientists.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Nothing about the GP’s description sounds like ‘Sea-Lioning’ to me. ‘Disagreement’ was the word the GP used to describe how it seemed the professor was interpreting the question. Your explanation that the professor had experienced a bunch of sea-lioning before is likely correct. But it seems likely that it was the professor who was wrong and behaved inappropriately, because their past bad experiences have led them to be distrustful and categorize some honest people as dishonest. All the professor had to say was this: > There are no natural phenomena that coincide precisely with the industrial revolution. Which is a concise encapsulation of what an honest interlocutor would need to hear to answer the question. Sea-lioning is a real phenomenon, and so is misuse of authority.
    - jfengel 6y ago
      The GP said "questions that even remotely disagree with the popular Science opinion". Sincere questions don't agree or disagree; they request information. Phrased that way it sounds very much like they were pre-supposing an answer. So does their use of "popular" (as if this is merely people agreeing with each other for fun, rather than their best judgment based on expertise) and "opinion" (as if this were merely a guess or an aesthetic preference". Even the capitalization of "Science" seems strange in this context. Plus, there's the way they went from "this professor acted inappropriately" to "any politically motivated topic you can't ask questions that even remotely disagree" [emphasis mine]. It was intended as an example, but it's a big jump to make, and it just happened to be on a topic where people consistently engage in sea-lioning behavior. That's why I suggested that it sounded like sea-lioning to me. I may be wrong: as I said, I'm basing that judgment solely on what I read in that very short description. But there were a lot of red flags in that short description.
      - 6y ago
jules 6y ago
It's not even just the trust in scientific consensus, but also the trust in particular scientific papers and studies in e.g. pop science articles. Scientists themselves are usually cautious about what conclusions to draw from a single study that has not been replicated in a variety of experimental conditions. Unfortunately, the popular idea of Kuhnian paradigm shifts is even more wrong than the popular idea that it's one big model of nature that keeps getting better. Paradigm shifts often don't invalidate earlier results; they refine them. Take the prototypical example: classical vs quantum mechanics. The statement "quantum mechanics is a more refined model of the world than classical mechanics" is far more accurate than "quantum mechanics proved that classical mechanics is wrong". Classical mechanics is still taught in universities (in the physics departement not in the history departement), and those courses spend a lot of time showing how classical mechanics arises as a particular limit of quantum mechanics, and how the two relate, and in which range of conditions the two theories give the same answers.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > Paradigm shifts often don't invalidate earlier results; they refine them While I agree with your quantum/relativistic vs classical, I think they're the exception rather than the rule. Like, phlogiston was remarkably wrong. Aether as well. Alchemical vs chemical. And the all-time classic of geocentric vs heliocentric: how can that be reconciled as a "refinement?" One of the problems Science has in pedagogy. There's a need to teach the material in a reasonable period of time. Teachers don't want to be spending a lot of time talking about things not true in the current paradigm, so there's a huge selection bias on providing a linear history. This has the effect of whitewashing Science to show definite "progress", as opposed to the more realistic twists and turns of wrongness.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Heliocentric is a refinement of geocentric. Geocentric isn’t “wrong.” It’s not even inaccurate. You can make it as arbitrarily accurate as you like. It’s just more complex so choosing the simpler model makes more sense. But they’re both just models. Heliocentric isn’t “the way it actually is” either. Both objects actually orbit the barycenter (i.e., center of mass). (In our model, not necessarily in reality!) That idea itself is a simplification of our model of how mass, forces, and space time work. And we usually ignore many factors when making these calculations.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
> elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. Science is simply the process of using of data to come to conclusions. Is there a better method for building a model of the world? Therefore, it doesn’t make any sense to talk about “science” as an authority. There are people and organizations that claim they used the scientific process to come to this or that conclusion. Maybe they used proper data and the right math. Maybe they didn’t. But their errors in the scientific process doesn’t say anything about the validity of the scientific process, for which there does not seem to be an alternative.
- perfmode 6y ago
  science is limiting... precisely because it merely builds models.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I don’t know what that means. Everyone is merely building models.
    - perfmode 6y ago
      can’t you see... who looks through your eyes? are you a model? or the real deal?
      - zepto 6y ago
        Is this a copy pasted GPT-3 response?
        perfmode 6y ago
        a high compliment =)
      - UnFleshedOne 6y ago
        What you see is very far from "real deal" and what you think you are is a model you have about yourself. It is models all the way down.
laurent92 6y ago
Here is one part where the problem comes from: - Traditionalism: Driving society according to the word of the elders, - Modernity: Driving society using science. Leaders understood that. So there are extremely high stakes in fabricating or twisting science, because once you have science on your side, all modern societies will help you. Example with feminism: It is literally illegal in some countries (ex: France, law for true equality 2014, followed by multiple decrees since Macron) to communicate information that unflatters women (it’s considered demeaning), so even though some figures are extremely false (girls aren’t better at math, it’s only when we put a female name on exams that the sheet has 6% higher mark, this science is considered demeaning towards women therefore illegal to publish – same goes for the wage gap, women work less and less intensively per hour worked, but it is illegal to point it out), everyone still believes wrong things. And just like this, laws pass. Same goes for immigration or all other science-backed laws where one side is forbidden to speak. Science works... assuming equal analysis of both sides of each hypothesis. That’s why it only works in democratic cultures, but that assumes the media is balanced.
ampdepolymerase 6y ago
The issue is that the language of science is mathematics, and mathematics is a cruel mistress. Conventional ethical boards also makes exploration of these decisions impossible. If a government official makes a decision on an event that lie at the end of two gaussians, the black swan happens and a bunch of people died, who is to blame? The people for not realizing the law of large numbers? Statistical software and Monte-Carlo modeling for claiming things have low probabilities? The government official for deferring to scientific reasoning? You see this everyday right now during the pandemic. Policy making is very different from say, civil engineering, where failure scenarios can be quantified within tightly defined bounds. At the nation state level every decision may affect everybody. Nobody wants to be told their specific circumstances are the "statistical outliers". But science rarely gives good answers. The only time science has been reliable is when a large amount of resources is dedicated to figuring out answers in a single, specific problem. Unfortunately the life sciences don't have the luxury of physics and the formal sciences. There is no concerted level of effort to cure cancer that is comparable to the Apollo program. The military prefers to buy ten more hellfires than to redo life science ethics. If you quantify the ultimate utilitarian value, the damage ten missiles can do to humanity may be the same as a FDA that focus more on progress than covering their own ass. Yet the former is more acceptable than the latter. Science has failed because it no longer gives useful answers. When somebody's grandmother is lying sick in the hospital, they want a cure that is immediately accessible, not yet another feel-good post on Reddit or Facebook about "Scientists claim experimental cure for cancer found! Appearing in your friendly neighborhood pharmacy in ten years".
gameswithgo 6y ago
>It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. Who or where precisely have you ever seen that actually done? Are you perhaps confusing people who are asserting/suggesting that science is our best tool to understand truth, and assuming they believe it is always true, or that it can/has uncovered all truths? From my point of view science isn't fetishized nearly enough. People reject vaccines for crazy reasons, think the Earth is flat, think the moon landing never happened, basically have no idea how anything works at all.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  Anywhere people say, "trust the science." Science isn't one thing, so you can't trust it per sé. For a simple discombobulating example, we have the question, "which science?" There is economics and epidemiology, and those often conflict. Who do we listen to? The only answer is that you have to form an understanding of both sciences in order to synthesize a way that they form a single coherent picture.
  - ianmcgowan 6y ago
    Science is like violence? If it's not working, the answer is more of it? Sounds like a plan to me..
  - creaturemachine 6y ago
    The sea of sciences is vast, and the ones vying for our attention on a daily basis is overwhelming. What you're saying sounds easy for the well-read individuals on HN, but the masses need a trustworthy authority to do the work for them, and knowing what we do of Governments I wouldn't trust them either.
    - ironmagma 6y ago
      An authority telling people what to think? That sounds an awful lot like religion. I think we need to make up our mind which we want: education to make actually sure people understand science, or to go back to the ways of religion. It’s clear that the middle ground is not working.
ironmagma 6y ago
It's not fetishization, it's religion. Everyone has a need for something supernatural and supreme to believe in. For some it's functional programming, for others it's science, for others, it's conspiracy, and for an increasing minority, it's actual religion. We need to figure out what to do (read: better things to do) to replace the fact that people have lost actual religion and have this deep-seated desire for something ultimate to believe in.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
quasirandom 6y ago
Feynman's lectures on the character of physical law should be something everyone sees in school. In general we look for a new law by the following process: first we guess it, then we compute the consequences of the guess... and then we compare those computation results to experiment. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment its wrong, that's all there is to it. Notice however that we never prove it right... In the future there could be a wider range of experiments, or you could compute a wider range of consequences, and you may discover then that the thing is wrong. That's why laws like Newton's laws for the motions of planets last such a long time... It took several hundred years before the slight error in the motion of Mercury was developed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
- swayvil 6y ago
  Treating the words of authority like scripture is what got us into this mess.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I once thought that by leaving my old religion I was leaving dogma behind. But it appears that in the absence of one dogma/doctrine, people will create another.
    - irrational 6y ago
      People are people. Take away any differences in appearances, beliefs, communities, etc. and people will still find reasons to divide up and seek to destroy the outsiders.
    - lamename 6y ago
      1. The mind always tries to simplify. One way that manifests is in dogma. Many people are satisfied or just dont have the time and energy to continually update or critically assess their own beliefs (not that this is justified, just an explanation). This is the entire reason formal science education exists at the highest levels. We didnt evolve to be critical or rational. But at our best we can learn to approach it collectively. 2. Many people think that what they learn in school or from other authorities is immutable fact and that's the end of discussion. This is an unfortunate failing of the education system.
analog31 6y ago
>>> I was having this exact discussion with a philosophy of science major a few days ago. We were both bothered by the current fetishization of science. It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. I live in a neighborhood in the shadow of a big university, where you can't spit without hitting a scientist. I work for a science oriented business. My parents, my siblings, and our spouses, are all scientists. I don't know a single scientist who treats science as a god-like authority. In fact I believe this is a popular straw man, or a tu quoque fallacy trying to pin the characteristics of religion on science.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  I may be mistaken but they didn't say scientists did but other educated people, right? And that's what I see anyway.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  I think you're saying the same thing (and I agree with it). People who actually do science rarely (not never, but rarely) fall into this fallacy. The fallacy takes hold of generally-educated people who lack specific scientific training.
jvanderbot 6y ago
Yes. I think this is especially problematic when a legitimate policy idea is defended _only_ with "It's science based". That's not enough. Good policy is agreeable to a majority of people (both in benefit and cost and is therefore usually a tradeoff for all parties). Being grounded in truth, as much as science can provide, is not enough. You can use truth and facts to form an opinion and propose a policy, but it cannot be made to sound like the only option, or else we end up embittering those who would be put out by the policy, to the point that they have no recourse _but_ to attack the science and facts. You _have_ to be willing to tradeoff and find an imperfect compromise. Add to that the fact that scientific discoveries and understandings are especially easy to attack _because_ they are evolving.
throwaway894345 6y ago
In particular, I suspect science only "works" to the extent that a certain amount of heterodoxy is tolerated. If "science" as an institution becomes very conformist, then you'll only get science that reinforces the biases of the prevailing ideology. The quality of the output that the institution produces depends on the health of the institution, where "health" means something like "ideological diversity" as it does with natural ecosystems. A lot of pro-conformists make the argue that tolerating ideological diversity means regarding creationism and evolution as equally valid; of course this is untrue--science can (and indeed did) find that evolution is the more valid idea without explicitly persecuting creationists. In other words, normal heterodox science would already prefer evolution to creationism--not only is there no need to (for example) write open letters demanding various creationists' resignation/termination/excommunication/etc, but that sort of persecution actually harms the health (heterodoxy) of science (not because science needs creationists, but because science needs heterodoxy to be able to decide that creationism is the invalid idea in the first place).
- 13415 6y ago
  Creationism has nothing to do with science, neither has ideology any place in science, and you've really got to draw the limit somewhere more reasonable. I don't want my taxes to pay "research" in creationism, morphogenetic fields, astrology, or divining rods. There is plenty of heterodoxy in science as is - or do you really believe everyone agrees about almost everything in almost every discipline? Pretty much the opposite is the case. Pick any discipline you like and there will be plenty of disagreement about the respective issues in the forefront of scientific research.
Chris2048 6y ago
> we should trust it implicitly, while ignoring the concept of paradigm shift that arises specifically from people outside the consensus There's a difference in trusting "the scientific process" versus scientists; We can trust scientists so far as they are following that process, which isn't guaranteed. Also, the two things are not mutually exclusive; While peer review is important in science, it is not strictly the same as consensus; The paradigm shift of the outsider is enabled by this fact. What we really have to fear is that peer review degrades into the consensus-base of typical power structures.
lamename 6y ago
> We were both bothered by the current fetishization of science. It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority... I agree. But as you point out this is basically a reaction to the inverse: some loud non-scientists, which are overwhelmingly skeptical of science/medicine for the sake of sowing distrust, rather than being followed up by critical discussion. I'm not in favor of blind trust of anything. But for "scientism" it's an unfortunate reactionary message against the blind and blanket mistrust of science/medicine that has become popular e.g. on some circles of the internet. The problem is that many of the "skeptics" in media are more concerned with contrarianism and sowing doubt than healthy debate. How do you have a rational discussion with someone who comes to the table set on not trusting the scientific process?

frockington1 6y ago

> Coupled with the fact that dissent gets blurred with denialism This is what gives me the biggest headache. When discussing any politically motivated topic you can't ask questions that even remotely disagree with the popular Science opinion of the day. I had a professor scold me for asking if there were any natural phenomenon that may also be contributing to rising CO2 levels

jfengel 6y ago
The professor has without doubt heard the question thousands of times, by those with dishonest intent. Because the answer is always no. There are no natural phenomena that coincide precisely with the industrial revolution. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere tracks exactly the amount of fossil fuels being dug out of the ground. CO2 levels had been stable for millennia before that, and then they changed sharply. Nothing natural has gone on to change that. If the question were intended honestly, you wouldn't call it "disagreement". You'd be asking for information and would make your decision after you had it. If your description is correct, that's why your professor scolded you. The name for disagreeing without knowledge is "denial". The name for asking questions that you don't really intend to listen to the answers is "sea lioning", which is a tactic for wasting time and frustrating people. It's dishonest and rude. If the situation was as I understood it from your description, I'm not surprised that they spoke sharply to you.
- ianmcgowan 6y ago
  The trick is distinguishing naïve open-minded curiosity from the trolling. It doesn't hurt "science" in the abstract to have a bunch of people asking bad faith questions, but it must be pretty annoying/distracting to scientists.
- zepto 6y ago
  Nothing about the GP’s description sounds like ‘Sea-Lioning’ to me. ‘Disagreement’ was the word the GP used to describe how it seemed the professor was interpreting the question. Your explanation that the professor had experienced a bunch of sea-lioning before is likely correct. But it seems likely that it was the professor who was wrong and behaved inappropriately, because their past bad experiences have led them to be distrustful and categorize some honest people as dishonest. All the professor had to say was this: > There are no natural phenomena that coincide precisely with the industrial revolution. Which is a concise encapsulation of what an honest interlocutor would need to hear to answer the question. Sea-lioning is a real phenomenon, and so is misuse of authority.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    The GP said "questions that even remotely disagree with the popular Science opinion". Sincere questions don't agree or disagree; they request information. Phrased that way it sounds very much like they were pre-supposing an answer. So does their use of "popular" (as if this is merely people agreeing with each other for fun, rather than their best judgment based on expertise) and "opinion" (as if this were merely a guess or an aesthetic preference". Even the capitalization of "Science" seems strange in this context. Plus, there's the way they went from "this professor acted inappropriately" to "any politically motivated topic you can't ask questions that even remotely disagree" [emphasis mine]. It was intended as an example, but it's a big jump to make, and it just happened to be on a topic where people consistently engage in sea-lioning behavior. That's why I suggested that it sounded like sea-lioning to me. I may be wrong: as I said, I'm basing that judgment solely on what I read in that very short description. But there were a lot of red flags in that short description.
    - 6y ago

jules 6y ago

It's not even just the trust in scientific consensus, but also the trust in particular scientific papers and studies in e.g. pop science articles. Scientists themselves are usually cautious about what conclusions to draw from a single study that has not been replicated in a variety of experimental conditions. Unfortunately, the popular idea of Kuhnian paradigm shifts is even more wrong than the popular idea that it's one big model of nature that keeps getting better. Paradigm shifts often don't invalidate earlier results; they refine them. Take the prototypical example: classical vs quantum mechanics. The statement "quantum mechanics is a more refined model of the world than classical mechanics" is far more accurate than "quantum mechanics proved that classical mechanics is wrong". Classical mechanics is still taught in universities (in the physics departement not in the history departement), and those courses spend a lot of time showing how classical mechanics arises as a particular limit of quantum mechanics, and how the two relate, and in which range of conditions the two theories give the same answers.

abernard1 6y ago
> Paradigm shifts often don't invalidate earlier results; they refine them While I agree with your quantum/relativistic vs classical, I think they're the exception rather than the rule. Like, phlogiston was remarkably wrong. Aether as well. Alchemical vs chemical. And the all-time classic of geocentric vs heliocentric: how can that be reconciled as a "refinement?" One of the problems Science has in pedagogy. There's a need to teach the material in a reasonable period of time. Teachers don't want to be spending a lot of time talking about things not true in the current paradigm, so there's a huge selection bias on providing a linear history. This has the effect of whitewashing Science to show definite "progress", as opposed to the more realistic twists and turns of wrongness.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Heliocentric is a refinement of geocentric. Geocentric isn’t “wrong.” It’s not even inaccurate. You can make it as arbitrarily accurate as you like. It’s just more complex so choosing the simpler model makes more sense. But they’re both just models. Heliocentric isn’t “the way it actually is” either. Both objects actually orbit the barycenter (i.e., center of mass). (In our model, not necessarily in reality!) That idea itself is a simplification of our model of how mass, forces, and space time work. And we usually ignore many factors when making these calculations.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

> elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. Science is simply the process of using of data to come to conclusions. Is there a better method for building a model of the world? Therefore, it doesn’t make any sense to talk about “science” as an authority. There are people and organizations that claim they used the scientific process to come to this or that conclusion. Maybe they used proper data and the right math. Maybe they didn’t. But their errors in the scientific process doesn’t say anything about the validity of the scientific process, for which there does not seem to be an alternative.

perfmode 6y ago
science is limiting... precisely because it merely builds models.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I don’t know what that means. Everyone is merely building models.
  - perfmode 6y ago
    can’t you see... who looks through your eyes? are you a model? or the real deal?
    - zepto 6y ago
      Is this a copy pasted GPT-3 response?
      - perfmode 6y ago
        a high compliment =)
    - UnFleshedOne 6y ago
      What you see is very far from "real deal" and what you think you are is a model you have about yourself. It is models all the way down.

laurent92 6y ago

Here is one part where the problem comes from: - Traditionalism: Driving society according to the word of the elders, - Modernity: Driving society using science. Leaders understood that. So there are extremely high stakes in fabricating or twisting science, because once you have science on your side, all modern societies will help you. Example with feminism: It is literally illegal in some countries (ex: France, law for true equality 2014, followed by multiple decrees since Macron) to communicate information that unflatters women (it’s considered demeaning), so even though some figures are extremely false (girls aren’t better at math, it’s only when we put a female name on exams that the sheet has 6% higher mark, this science is considered demeaning towards women therefore illegal to publish – same goes for the wage gap, women work less and less intensively per hour worked, but it is illegal to point it out), everyone still believes wrong things. And just like this, laws pass. Same goes for immigration or all other science-backed laws where one side is forbidden to speak. Science works... assuming equal analysis of both sides of each hypothesis. That’s why it only works in democratic cultures, but that assumes the media is balanced.

ampdepolymerase 6y ago

The issue is that the language of science is mathematics, and mathematics is a cruel mistress. Conventional ethical boards also makes exploration of these decisions impossible. If a government official makes a decision on an event that lie at the end of two gaussians, the black swan happens and a bunch of people died, who is to blame? The people for not realizing the law of large numbers? Statistical software and Monte-Carlo modeling for claiming things have low probabilities? The government official for deferring to scientific reasoning? You see this everyday right now during the pandemic. Policy making is very different from say, civil engineering, where failure scenarios can be quantified within tightly defined bounds. At the nation state level every decision may affect everybody. Nobody wants to be told their specific circumstances are the "statistical outliers". But science rarely gives good answers. The only time science has been reliable is when a large amount of resources is dedicated to figuring out answers in a single, specific problem. Unfortunately the life sciences don't have the luxury of physics and the formal sciences. There is no concerted level of effort to cure cancer that is comparable to the Apollo program. The military prefers to buy ten more hellfires than to redo life science ethics. If you quantify the ultimate utilitarian value, the damage ten missiles can do to humanity may be the same as a FDA that focus more on progress than covering their own ass. Yet the former is more acceptable than the latter. Science has failed because it no longer gives useful answers. When somebody's grandmother is lying sick in the hospital, they want a cure that is immediately accessible, not yet another feel-good post on Reddit or Facebook about "Scientists claim experimental cure for cancer found! Appearing in your friendly neighborhood pharmacy in ten years".

gameswithgo 6y ago

>It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. Who or where precisely have you ever seen that actually done? Are you perhaps confusing people who are asserting/suggesting that science is our best tool to understand truth, and assuming they believe it is always true, or that it can/has uncovered all truths? From my point of view science isn't fetishized nearly enough. People reject vaccines for crazy reasons, think the Earth is flat, think the moon landing never happened, basically have no idea how anything works at all.

ironmagma 6y ago
Anywhere people say, "trust the science." Science isn't one thing, so you can't trust it per sé. For a simple discombobulating example, we have the question, "which science?" There is economics and epidemiology, and those often conflict. Who do we listen to? The only answer is that you have to form an understanding of both sciences in order to synthesize a way that they form a single coherent picture.
- ianmcgowan 6y ago
  Science is like violence? If it's not working, the answer is more of it? Sounds like a plan to me..
- creaturemachine 6y ago
  The sea of sciences is vast, and the ones vying for our attention on a daily basis is overwhelming. What you're saying sounds easy for the well-read individuals on HN, but the masses need a trustworthy authority to do the work for them, and knowing what we do of Governments I wouldn't trust them either.
  - ironmagma 6y ago
    An authority telling people what to think? That sounds an awful lot like religion. I think we need to make up our mind which we want: education to make actually sure people understand science, or to go back to the ways of religion. It’s clear that the middle ground is not working.

ironmagma 6y ago

It's not fetishization, it's religion. Everyone has a need for something supernatural and supreme to believe in. For some it's functional programming, for others it's science, for others, it's conspiracy, and for an increasing minority, it's actual religion. We need to figure out what to do (read: better things to do) to replace the fact that people have lost actual religion and have this deep-seated desire for something ultimate to believe in.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

quasirandom 6y ago

Feynman's lectures on the character of physical law should be something everyone sees in school. In general we look for a new law by the following process: first we guess it, then we compute the consequences of the guess... and then we compare those computation results to experiment. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment its wrong, that's all there is to it. Notice however that we never prove it right... In the future there could be a wider range of experiments, or you could compute a wider range of consequences, and you may discover then that the thing is wrong. That's why laws like Newton's laws for the motions of planets last such a long time... It took several hundred years before the slight error in the motion of Mercury was developed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw

swayvil 6y ago
Treating the words of authority like scripture is what got us into this mess.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I once thought that by leaving my old religion I was leaving dogma behind. But it appears that in the absence of one dogma/doctrine, people will create another.
  - irrational 6y ago
    People are people. Take away any differences in appearances, beliefs, communities, etc. and people will still find reasons to divide up and seek to destroy the outsiders.
  - lamename 6y ago
    1. The mind always tries to simplify. One way that manifests is in dogma. Many people are satisfied or just dont have the time and energy to continually update or critically assess their own beliefs (not that this is justified, just an explanation). This is the entire reason formal science education exists at the highest levels. We didnt evolve to be critical or rational. But at our best we can learn to approach it collectively. 2. Many people think that what they learn in school or from other authorities is immutable fact and that's the end of discussion. This is an unfortunate failing of the education system.

analog31 6y ago

>>> I was having this exact discussion with a philosophy of science major a few days ago. We were both bothered by the current fetishization of science. It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority, and scientific consensus as the source of all truths. I live in a neighborhood in the shadow of a big university, where you can't spit without hitting a scientist. I work for a science oriented business. My parents, my siblings, and our spouses, are all scientists. I don't know a single scientist who treats science as a god-like authority. In fact I believe this is a popular straw man, or a tu quoque fallacy trying to pin the characteristics of religion on science.

guerrilla 6y ago
I may be mistaken but they didn't say scientists did but other educated people, right? And that's what I see anyway.
nerdponx 6y ago
I think you're saying the same thing (and I agree with it). People who actually do science rarely (not never, but rarely) fall into this fallacy. The fallacy takes hold of generally-educated people who lack specific scientific training.

jvanderbot 6y ago

Yes. I think this is especially problematic when a legitimate policy idea is defended _only_ with "It's science based". That's not enough. Good policy is agreeable to a majority of people (both in benefit and cost and is therefore usually a tradeoff for all parties). Being grounded in truth, as much as science can provide, is not enough. You can use truth and facts to form an opinion and propose a policy, but it cannot be made to sound like the only option, or else we end up embittering those who would be put out by the policy, to the point that they have no recourse _but_ to attack the science and facts. You _have_ to be willing to tradeoff and find an imperfect compromise. Add to that the fact that scientific discoveries and understandings are especially easy to attack _because_ they are evolving.

throwaway894345 6y ago

In particular, I suspect science only "works" to the extent that a certain amount of heterodoxy is tolerated. If "science" as an institution becomes very conformist, then you'll only get science that reinforces the biases of the prevailing ideology. The quality of the output that the institution produces depends on the health of the institution, where "health" means something like "ideological diversity" as it does with natural ecosystems. A lot of pro-conformists make the argue that tolerating ideological diversity means regarding creationism and evolution as equally valid; of course this is untrue--science can (and indeed did) find that evolution is the more valid idea without explicitly persecuting creationists. In other words, normal heterodox science would already prefer evolution to creationism--not only is there no need to (for example) write open letters demanding various creationists' resignation/termination/excommunication/etc, but that sort of persecution actually harms the health (heterodoxy) of science (not because science needs creationists, but because science needs heterodoxy to be able to decide that creationism is the invalid idea in the first place).

13415 6y ago
Creationism has nothing to do with science, neither has ideology any place in science, and you've really got to draw the limit somewhere more reasonable. I don't want my taxes to pay "research" in creationism, morphogenetic fields, astrology, or divining rods. There is plenty of heterodoxy in science as is - or do you really believe everyone agrees about almost everything in almost every discipline? Pretty much the opposite is the case. Pick any discipline you like and there will be plenty of disagreement about the respective issues in the forefront of scientific research.

Chris2048 6y ago

> we should trust it implicitly, while ignoring the concept of paradigm shift that arises specifically from people outside the consensus There's a difference in trusting "the scientific process" versus scientists; We can trust scientists so far as they are following that process, which isn't guaranteed. Also, the two things are not mutually exclusive; While peer review is important in science, it is not strictly the same as consensus; The paradigm shift of the outsider is enabled by this fact. What we really have to fear is that peer review degrades into the consensus-base of typical power structures.

lamename 6y ago

> We were both bothered by the current fetishization of science. It's troubling that otherwise well-educated, logical people have come to elevate science as this god-like authority... I agree. But as you point out this is basically a reaction to the inverse: some loud non-scientists, which are overwhelmingly skeptical of science/medicine for the sake of sowing distrust, rather than being followed up by critical discussion. I'm not in favor of blind trust of anything. But for "scientism" it's an unfortunate reactionary message against the blind and blanket mistrust of science/medicine that has become popular e.g. on some circles of the internet. The problem is that many of the "skeptics" in media are more concerned with contrarianism and sowing doubt than healthy debate. How do you have a rational discussion with someone who comes to the table set on not trusting the scientific process?