4 ms·

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.
leothecool 6y ago
I think you are missing the point. Pop culture thinks science means space, chemicals, and electronics. We aren't even hearing the words of authority in this case. A scientist describing what science is doesn't sound like indoctrination or blind faith to me.
zepto 6y ago
Agreed, let’s not! What part of what Feynman said do you disagree with?
- ad404b8a372f2b9 6y ago
  It boggles the mind to see this quote by Feynman when the entire premise of the article is that this is already how we teach science and it leads to a whole host of problems.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    I read the article and disagree with its conclusions about science education. I think science education isn’t actually taught the way the article says it is. At least that’s not how I was taught it in good public schools until college, at which point it was taught the way Feynman says. If it actually was taught that way at earlier points, I think we’d be in a better place. We teach a bizarro world version of feynman’s quote, where it’s more like the way we teach the formulas in math. It’s the right formula that they’re teaching, but the way it’s taught is encouraging its use as a black box.
    - guerrilla 6y ago
      Better, for sure, I agree, but is it enough as the OP argues it's not?
  - zepto 6y ago
    Asking if people read the post is against HN guidelines: ‘Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."’ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - zepto 6y ago
    I read the article. It seems to be an argument that the problems with trust in science come from teaching a kind of logical empiricism, itself a straw man, and not what you’d come away with from listening to Feynman. There is nothing in the article that supports this claim about the cause of the ‘problem’ or even a really usable understanding of what the problem is, other than that cigarette companies have been able to make people doubt things they shouldn’t have doubted, and that climate deniers and other kinds of ‘deniers’ are doing the same building on the work of the PR firms used by the cigarette companies. The best I can read as what the problem is, is that we think that teaching people differently could make them immune to propaganda, and so the problem is that we aren’t teaching them differently. I think this is highly questionable. It argues that we should instead teach science based on a feminist critique. As far as I’m concerned the article is complete bullshit. It sets up a straw man, and then argues to a completely unsupported conclusion. It’s terrible. Having said that here’s what it touches on that is useful: Teaching scientific method alone as ‘science’ is outdated. Science is part of public discourse and so it is important for students to understand how science works as social, sociological, and political processes, as much as it is an epistemological method. From this point of view, I respect the various ideas that they are advancing as valid for study. However ‘valid to study’ is very different from attempting to claim that science education should be based on this ideology, and is an obvious political land-grab which must be rejected. The article makes a bunch of naked assertions as if they are simply facts about reality, when in fact they are very much the subject of social science itself. Consider these statements: > Believing based on trust is a pervasive human practice, not confined to scientific inquiry. Seems true enough, right? > It starts in infancy, when children learn language, everyday facts, and even religious beliefs from their caregivers. Does it? This is definitely not settled science. Obviously children learn from caregivers, but what they trust is a deeper question, and a subject of study. Also, then sources are far wider than ‘care givers’. This seems like an attempt to anchor the conversation in a blank slate kind of conception of the emergence of belief. This is discredited in social science, but is popular in the humanities. > Trust is only as reliable as the source of the knowledge; when that source is unreliable, we sometimes regard beliefs based on trust as the product of indoctrination. ‘Sometimes’ being the operative word. > Trust can be eroded when there is evidence of the unreliability of the source. Yes, but research has shown that it can be strengthened when there is evidence of the unreliability of the source, too. It depends on other factors, such as who is providing the evidence. Again this statement is simply not objective or reflective of current social science. > Reflective knowledge should therefore include some account of the reliability of the source of knowledge. If you delete all of the preceding elements, and just say: Reflective knowledge should include some account of the reliability of the source of knowledge. We are left with a reasonable proposal. Weirdly, one which is already common amongst science students, who don’t ignore the reliability of the results on which they base their work.
ccsnags 6y ago
Science is a method for understanding the world, not an ideology. I do give most non scientific people the benefit of the doubt. They are at least trying. What is really disturbing is that this is a real problem within sections of the scientific community and especially within the public relations of the scientific community. “Science Communicator” is almost synonymous with this trap. I think it stems from oversimplification and a need to generate funding for research.
SyzygistSix 6y ago
I feel like authorities betraying public trust is a large part of what got us into this mess. I trust the scientific process. I don't trust the people involved in the process and in charge of making and following policy based on scientific and technological process.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  One thing that allows for this is the oft neglected "method of discovery". The usual "scientific process" concerns itself with how to keep an experiment correct/truthful - but how do we decide what experiments to conduct in the first place? Scientific funding can be biased towards the successes of the past, and so future funding can be guided by political agendas.

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.

leothecool 6y ago

I think you are missing the point. Pop culture thinks science means space, chemicals, and electronics. We aren't even hearing the words of authority in this case. A scientist describing what science is doesn't sound like indoctrination or blind faith to me.

zepto 6y ago

Agreed, let’s not! What part of what Feynman said do you disagree with?

ad404b8a372f2b9 6y ago
It boggles the mind to see this quote by Feynman when the entire premise of the article is that this is already how we teach science and it leads to a whole host of problems.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  I read the article and disagree with its conclusions about science education. I think science education isn’t actually taught the way the article says it is. At least that’s not how I was taught it in good public schools until college, at which point it was taught the way Feynman says. If it actually was taught that way at earlier points, I think we’d be in a better place. We teach a bizarro world version of feynman’s quote, where it’s more like the way we teach the formulas in math. It’s the right formula that they’re teaching, but the way it’s taught is encouraging its use as a black box.
  - guerrilla 6y ago
    Better, for sure, I agree, but is it enough as the OP argues it's not?
- zepto 6y ago
  Asking if people read the post is against HN guidelines: ‘Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."’ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- zepto 6y ago
  I read the article. It seems to be an argument that the problems with trust in science come from teaching a kind of logical empiricism, itself a straw man, and not what you’d come away with from listening to Feynman. There is nothing in the article that supports this claim about the cause of the ‘problem’ or even a really usable understanding of what the problem is, other than that cigarette companies have been able to make people doubt things they shouldn’t have doubted, and that climate deniers and other kinds of ‘deniers’ are doing the same building on the work of the PR firms used by the cigarette companies. The best I can read as what the problem is, is that we think that teaching people differently could make them immune to propaganda, and so the problem is that we aren’t teaching them differently. I think this is highly questionable. It argues that we should instead teach science based on a feminist critique. As far as I’m concerned the article is complete bullshit. It sets up a straw man, and then argues to a completely unsupported conclusion. It’s terrible. Having said that here’s what it touches on that is useful: Teaching scientific method alone as ‘science’ is outdated. Science is part of public discourse and so it is important for students to understand how science works as social, sociological, and political processes, as much as it is an epistemological method. From this point of view, I respect the various ideas that they are advancing as valid for study. However ‘valid to study’ is very different from attempting to claim that science education should be based on this ideology, and is an obvious political land-grab which must be rejected. The article makes a bunch of naked assertions as if they are simply facts about reality, when in fact they are very much the subject of social science itself. Consider these statements: > Believing based on trust is a pervasive human practice, not confined to scientific inquiry. Seems true enough, right? > It starts in infancy, when children learn language, everyday facts, and even religious beliefs from their caregivers. Does it? This is definitely not settled science. Obviously children learn from caregivers, but what they trust is a deeper question, and a subject of study. Also, then sources are far wider than ‘care givers’. This seems like an attempt to anchor the conversation in a blank slate kind of conception of the emergence of belief. This is discredited in social science, but is popular in the humanities. > Trust is only as reliable as the source of the knowledge; when that source is unreliable, we sometimes regard beliefs based on trust as the product of indoctrination. ‘Sometimes’ being the operative word. > Trust can be eroded when there is evidence of the unreliability of the source. Yes, but research has shown that it can be strengthened when there is evidence of the unreliability of the source, too. It depends on other factors, such as who is providing the evidence. Again this statement is simply not objective or reflective of current social science. > Reflective knowledge should therefore include some account of the reliability of the source of knowledge. If you delete all of the preceding elements, and just say: Reflective knowledge should include some account of the reliability of the source of knowledge. We are left with a reasonable proposal. Weirdly, one which is already common amongst science students, who don’t ignore the reliability of the results on which they base their work.

ccsnags 6y ago

Science is a method for understanding the world, not an ideology. I do give most non scientific people the benefit of the doubt. They are at least trying. What is really disturbing is that this is a real problem within sections of the scientific community and especially within the public relations of the scientific community. “Science Communicator” is almost synonymous with this trap. I think it stems from oversimplification and a need to generate funding for research.

SyzygistSix 6y ago

I feel like authorities betraying public trust is a large part of what got us into this mess. I trust the scientific process. I don't trust the people involved in the process and in charge of making and following policy based on scientific and technological process.

Chris2048 6y ago
One thing that allows for this is the oft neglected "method of discovery". The usual "scientific process" concerns itself with how to keep an experiment correct/truthful - but how do we decide what experiments to conduct in the first place? Scientific funding can be biased towards the successes of the past, and so future funding can be guided by political agendas.