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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 th

by 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.
  - abernard1 6y ago
    > Heliocentric is a refinement of geocentric. This is very much stretching it in my opinion. The cycles and epicycles didn't need to be adjusted--the epicycles were the adjustment--they needed to be completely thrown out. There aren't any teachers who are like: "Well, we used to think that the Sun was this smallish thing orbiting the Earth, but actually it's only slightly different. The Sun is 3*10^5 times the mass of the Earth, and actually the Earth revolves around it. No big deal! Please turn to Chapter 2 of your astro book, where we will be exploring slight deviations from how the cosmos orbits the Earth."
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      If it wasn’t a big deal it wouldn’t have been a paradigm shift. However, it was just a refinement. You’re adding things (relative masses) that weren’t part of this shift, they were later refinements. The reasons this was a big deal were entirely human. It wasn’t religion: If you can accept the universe as a miracle it doesn’t much matter how God did it; God is just as glorious. It was power: the Church claimed the simpler model was The Truth and saw the new model as revealing a mistake and threatening their power; rather than seeing it as just a model.
      - abernard1 6y ago
        And I maintain this was not a refinement of a model. As a challenge: name one piece of geocentric math that can still be modified by today's practicioners to provide a sensible astrophysical answer. Static mass is still a useful fact in a world of relativistic physics. But we have not tabulated any facts from geocentric concepts in the last few centuries. No one would even know where to begin or what words to use to even describe them. That material produced from Kuhnian "normal science" under geocentrism had to be thrown out, as there was no way of fitting them in with the new paradigm.
        cgriswald 6y ago
        You're shifting the goalposts something crazy. I'd like to point out the original poster talked about refinement in the output of the models, not the models themselves. However, having said that, the heliocentric model is still a refinement (and further refinements, which came later) of the geocentric model. We didn't jump right from geocentrism to Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. The Copernican model still had heavenly spheres as a concept: a concept we don't use today. What you're thinking of as heliocentrism is a refinement of previous heliocentrism which itself was a refinement of geocentrism.

by jules 6y ago

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.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > Heliocentric is a refinement of geocentric. This is very much stretching it in my opinion. The cycles and epicycles didn't need to be adjusted--the epicycles were the adjustment--they needed to be completely thrown out. There aren't any teachers who are like: "Well, we used to think that the Sun was this smallish thing orbiting the Earth, but actually it's only slightly different. The Sun is 3*10^5 times the mass of the Earth, and actually the Earth revolves around it. No big deal! Please turn to Chapter 2 of your astro book, where we will be exploring slight deviations from how the cosmos orbits the Earth."
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    If it wasn’t a big deal it wouldn’t have been a paradigm shift. However, it was just a refinement. You’re adding things (relative masses) that weren’t part of this shift, they were later refinements. The reasons this was a big deal were entirely human. It wasn’t religion: If you can accept the universe as a miracle it doesn’t much matter how God did it; God is just as glorious. It was power: the Church claimed the simpler model was The Truth and saw the new model as revealing a mistake and threatening their power; rather than seeing it as just a model.
    - abernard1 6y ago
      And I maintain this was not a refinement of a model. As a challenge: name one piece of geocentric math that can still be modified by today's practicioners to provide a sensible astrophysical answer. Static mass is still a useful fact in a world of relativistic physics. But we have not tabulated any facts from geocentric concepts in the last few centuries. No one would even know where to begin or what words to use to even describe them. That material produced from Kuhnian "normal science" under geocentrism had to be thrown out, as there was no way of fitting them in with the new paradigm.
      - cgriswald 6y ago
        You're shifting the goalposts something crazy. I'd like to point out the original poster talked about refinement in the output of the models, not the models themselves. However, having said that, the heliocentric model is still a refinement (and further refinements, which came later) of the geocentric model. We didn't jump right from geocentrism to Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. The Copernican model still had heavenly spheres as a concept: a concept we don't use today. What you're thinking of as heliocentrism is a refinement of previous heliocentrism which itself was a refinement of geocentrism.