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People are political. Science is a method of confirming/ dis-confirming / finding truth. You are conflating the problematic statements of people who believe t
by thephyber 5y ago
People are political.
Science is a method of confirming/ dis-confirming / finding truth.
You are conflating the problematic statements of people who believe truth is on their side (using scientific finding to confirm their biases) and the process itself. I suspect you are correct except in your overloading of the word “science”
- kgarten 5y agoTruth is a tricky word. Science is not about finding the truth. Science can help you find evidence for a hypothesis you formulated. Yet, you still formulated the hypothesis. The scientific methods help you to be more evidence based. Yet,they don't take away any bias that came in over the research question or hypothesis you formulated.
- thephyber 5y agoYou are making an argument about a single scientist and a single experiment. I am making an argument about the aggregation of knowledge created by all scientific experiments since at least The Enlightenment. Admittedly truth is difficult to pin down, but science has been the best engine for helping humankind overcome myths and superstitions and give tools for people to use evidence to come to a common understanding of a common objective truth.
- kgarten 5y agoMy point is more that "being human" limits any type of knowledge acquisition, as we are tribal/political beings. Check the nature podcasts I linked to, they go into quite some detail and give good examples. I don't think, we as humans can understand an objective truth. A concept of knowledge makes only sense if we as species can comprehend it. This means knowledge and intelligence need to be embodied. Yet, if they are, they must be limited by the embodiment. Foucault makes some interesting arguments around that.