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What point is that? Lumping unrelated fields together and disliking them all? What alternative does he offer?
by create_account 15y ago
What point is that? Lumping unrelated fields together and disliking them all? What alternative does he offer?
- JoachimSchipper 15y agoHe does suggest a few things which are useful but not practiced in all academic disciplines (note "academic" instead of "scientific"): systematic ways of finding truth (specifically, Bayesian analysis), carefully specifying the exact experiment done, being open about your confidence (or lack thereof) in the results. To pick a random example, I've been told economists don't often look back to check the accuracy of the macro-scale predictions they made. (Un)succesful predictions are an excellent way to check for (un)truth.
- archgoon 15y agoThese methods should be incorporated. Incorporating these methods will not significantly impact the public perception of science. My reasoning is that there is a game of telephone between scientists and the public. Currently it looks like this: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051809s.gif http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051809s.gif However, even if we were to refine the news process, or try to cut them out entirely through blogging, games of telephone will still happen, as people will still try to communicate a simplified version of what was said. This will not be intentional, but every time some fact gets left out, the certainties change, making the statement less and less true.
- jerf 15y agoAnd the last three or four years have been a bounteous cornucopia of false macro-scale economic predictions... with no apparent adjustment of the theories being considered necessary or desirable, at least from my outsider perspective.
- jerf 15y agoI believe the basic answer to that is in the first paragraph. He should almost copy & paste that first paragraph and append it to the end.