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>To suppose a situation in which a potential parent will exercise a perfect and unencumbered liberal choice lends unwarranted impartiality to the scientific fac

>To suppose a situation in which a potential parent will exercise a perfect and unencumbered liberal choice lends unwarranted impartiality to the scientific facts. In reality, economics or politics might force that parent’s hand. A more extreme example makes the case clear: if a scientist explains nuclear technology to a bellicose despot, but leaves the ethical choice of deployment to the despot, we wouldn’t say that the scientist had acted responsibly. Odd smells preceded this passage and I was unsure of their origin. This is where the article went fully off the rails in my reading. The author conflates the individual economic actions of parents with the collective coercion of a despot. Next, she labels Hayek as neoliberal. It is hard to take an article seriously if it cannot distinguish between laissez-faire capitalism and neoliberalism. This is a surprisingly common inaccurate generalization. I cannot help but wonder if the author is sincere. >Popper’s appointment to a fellowship at the Royal Society marked the demise of a powerful strand of socialist leadership in British science... Having played her cards, one can expect to read the rest of the article as a lamentation of a lack of socialism. She delivers by pivoting immediately to climate change and identity politics. >Many of the same scientists went on to work for fossil fuel lobbyists, casting doubt on the science of anthropogenic climate change. It doesn’t take much time on a search engine to find examples of Popperianism wielded by deniers. Here we touch on one of my favorites. Yes, incentives matter. Are there no incentives for the climate change agenda? What is a carbon credit, if not monetized debt? Putting aside the veracity of the climate apocalypse, we should be able to agree that the climate agenda involves centralizing control over energy consumption. We are supposed to believe that incentives of petroleum companies exist, but those who would establish a new paradigm for international currency have no ulterior motives? Simply put, who exactly will be printing these carbon credits, what is their historical background and why should we trust them? Pure nonsense. Academic socialist declares that the sciences are not yet socialist enough, while the mainstream narrative is dominated by green socialism. If critiques of lockdowns, mass vaccinations, climate apocalypse or other political goals utilize falsifiability, she concludes falsifiability is the problem. Her favored political agendas remain infallible.

Veen 5y ago
Yes, after having read this article I’m none the wiser about why Popper was wrong or even if he was wrong about falsificationism. It starts with an interesting thesis, takes a detour which seems intended to smear Popper’s ideas by associating them with people who had some affinity for eugenics, and then degenerates into a lament about how neoliberals aren’t socialists and that somehow means falsificationism is responsible for the ills of the world. I share the author’s concerns about the supposed ethical neutrality of the application of scientific discoveries, but that has to do with politics and ethics and not the methods scientists use to make those discoveries. It’s like blaming theoretical computer science for the developing the techniques later programmers use in missile guidance systems. The theory isn’t the problem, the application is.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Meanwhile, if we were inclined to go there, there is a nexus between the population control movement, the Rockefeller Foundation(s), positive eugenics and the green agenda.
- routerl 5y ago
  > Yes, after having read this article I’m none the wiser about why Popper was wrong or even if he was wrong about falsificationism. "While all this was going on, three philosophers were pulling[0] the rug away beneath the Popperians’ feet. They argued[1] that[2], when an experiment fails to prove a hypothesis, any element of the physical or theoretical set-up could be to blame. Nor can any single disproof ever count against a theory, since we can always put in a good-faith auxiliary hypothesis to protect it: perhaps the lab mice weren’t sufficiently inbred to produce genetic consistency; perhaps the chemical reaction occurs only in the presence of a particular catalyst. Moreover, we have to protect some theories for the sake of getting on at all. Generally, we don’t conclude that we have disproved well-established laws of physics – rather, that our experiment was faulty." The basic argument is that falsificationism isn't actually how science is carried out. [0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2181906?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2181906?seq=1 [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0_14 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0_... [2] https://philarchive.org/archive/THOPBS https://philarchive.org/archive/THOPBS
zepto 5y ago
The author is a ‘she’ not a ‘he’ but.. I agree with your analysis. This is article is a way to take falsifiability off the table as a useful tool, which of course paves the way for unfalsifiable claims to be argued for on the basis of their purity. It’s quite disturbing, even before the place where you see it go off the rails, there were some red flags - the idea that you can always defend a hypothesis by casting doubt on any element of an experiment, for example, or by introducing a new good-faith explanation of how the origins hypothesis can still be true. Of course you can - and by doing so you generate new hypotheses that can be tested. This is to be expected and has no bearing at all on whether falsifiability itself is a problem. The author is a professor of ‘science humanities’, which is itself an Orwellian sounding title. This piece suggests that she doesn’t understand the philosophy r science at all.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Thanks for catching that. I had used the feminine elsewhere, but left one "he".
anemoiac 5y ago
> Next, she labels Hayek as neoliberal. It is hard to take an article seriously if it cannot distinguish between laissez-faire capitalism and neoliberalism. This is a surprisingly common inaccurate generalization. I cannot help but wonder if the author is sincere. Respectfully, I think you may be out of your depth here. You critique the author for associating a major player in the development of neoliberalism with... neoliberalism? Hayek was a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society (sometimes considered a symbolic birthplace of the ideology) and his contributions to the field of economics helped lay the foundation for neoliberalism's global ascendance. Neoliberalism's Wikipedia entry is littered with mentions of his name. It's difficult to think of someone more qualified to don the label.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  https://mises.org/library/against-neoliberals https://mises.org/library/against-neoliberals In practice neoliberalism does not represent the free-market as presented by Hayek. Mises was also a founding member of the MPS, will you have me believe that he was a neoliberal? These are generalizations leveled by socialist critics and third positionists who would use appeals to the market as a fig leaf. The incentives for distortion are clear. >Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate laissez-faire economic policy but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society. >the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, whose founding members included Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, George Stigler and Ludwig von Mises. Meeting annually, it would become a "kind of international 'who's who' of the classical liberal and neo-liberal intellectuals. Take the example of neoliberal negotiated "free trade" agreements and contrast that to laissez-faire unilateral free trade. The inability to distinguish between the two paradigms or the deliberate conflation of terms is what I am addressing.
  - anemoiac 5y ago
    It sounds to me like you're unaware of (or dismissive toward) the existing discourse around the topic of neoliberalism. Mises.org may view the term as a meaningless epithet leveled against their ideological kin by ignorant or irrelevant onlookers, but one can't simply hand-wave away the existing literature on the topic. Redefining existing terms to suit one's own goals, perhaps through the use of arbitrary purity tests, is unhelpful at best. As you acknowledged, "the incentives for distortion are clear." Moving on, I'll reiterate that Hayek is widely considered a (very significant) neoliberal. This isn't a controversial viewpoint - check out neoliberalism's entry in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism) or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/) for the mainstream perspective on his role in its development. The notion that Hayek is not a neoliberal, however, would seem quite controversial to most in this space. > In practice neoliberalism does not represent the free-market as presented by Hayek. Keep in mind that Hayek was a theoretician, so his ideas represent a starting point, not a conclusion, when it comes to enacted policy. What are some good examples of neoliberalism in practice that you find wholly incompatible with Hayek's views? > Take the example of neoliberal negotiated "free trade" agreements and contrast that to laissez-faire unilateral free trade. While I can appreciate the differences between unilateral free trade and "neoliberal negotiated 'free trade' agreements," I'm not sure how the existence of those differences removes Hayek's prominent role in the history of neoliberalism. I'll also point out that the (confusing) catch-all use of the word "neoliberal" to describe American center-left politics from Carter onward shouldn't be conflated with academic use of the term. > Mises was also a founding member of the MPS, will you have me believe that he was a neoliberal? While I probably wouldn't primarily characterize Mises as a neoliberal, he had a huge influence on Hayek and maintained many views that are compatible with neoliberalism. > Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate laissez-faire economic policy but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society. This is from economic historian/philosopher Philip Mirowski, I believe, and should be viewed in that context. He's describing an existing neoliberal political and economic system in toto, as opposed to the theoretical principles that Hayek or Friedman would have discussed. While one might discuss policies intended to increase economic freedom as if they could be overseen by a small, limited government, and would result in universally-increased freedom, actually implementing them could require a powerful and oppressive dictatorship like Augusto Pinochet's in Chile.

Veen 5y ago

Yes, after having read this article I’m none the wiser about why Popper was wrong or even if he was wrong about falsificationism. It starts with an interesting thesis, takes a detour which seems intended to smear Popper’s ideas by associating them with people who had some affinity for eugenics, and then degenerates into a lament about how neoliberals aren’t socialists and that somehow means falsificationism is responsible for the ills of the world. I share the author’s concerns about the supposed ethical neutrality of the application of scientific discoveries, but that has to do with politics and ethics and not the methods scientists use to make those discoveries. It’s like blaming theoretical computer science for the developing the techniques later programmers use in missile guidance systems. The theory isn’t the problem, the application is.

aww_dang 5y ago
Meanwhile, if we were inclined to go there, there is a nexus between the population control movement, the Rockefeller Foundation(s), positive eugenics and the green agenda.
routerl 5y ago
> Yes, after having read this article I’m none the wiser about why Popper was wrong or even if he was wrong about falsificationism. "While all this was going on, three philosophers were pulling[0] the rug away beneath the Popperians’ feet. They argued[1] that[2], when an experiment fails to prove a hypothesis, any element of the physical or theoretical set-up could be to blame. Nor can any single disproof ever count against a theory, since we can always put in a good-faith auxiliary hypothesis to protect it: perhaps the lab mice weren’t sufficiently inbred to produce genetic consistency; perhaps the chemical reaction occurs only in the presence of a particular catalyst. Moreover, we have to protect some theories for the sake of getting on at all. Generally, we don’t conclude that we have disproved well-established laws of physics – rather, that our experiment was faulty." The basic argument is that falsificationism isn't actually how science is carried out. [0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2181906?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2181906?seq=1 [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0_14 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0_... [2] https://philarchive.org/archive/THOPBS https://philarchive.org/archive/THOPBS

zepto 5y ago

The author is a ‘she’ not a ‘he’ but.. I agree with your analysis. This is article is a way to take falsifiability off the table as a useful tool, which of course paves the way for unfalsifiable claims to be argued for on the basis of their purity. It’s quite disturbing, even before the place where you see it go off the rails, there were some red flags - the idea that you can always defend a hypothesis by casting doubt on any element of an experiment, for example, or by introducing a new good-faith explanation of how the origins hypothesis can still be true. Of course you can - and by doing so you generate new hypotheses that can be tested. This is to be expected and has no bearing at all on whether falsifiability itself is a problem. The author is a professor of ‘science humanities’, which is itself an Orwellian sounding title. This piece suggests that she doesn’t understand the philosophy r science at all.

aww_dang 5y ago
Thanks for catching that. I had used the feminine elsewhere, but left one "he".

anemoiac 5y ago

> Next, she labels Hayek as neoliberal. It is hard to take an article seriously if it cannot distinguish between laissez-faire capitalism and neoliberalism. This is a surprisingly common inaccurate generalization. I cannot help but wonder if the author is sincere. Respectfully, I think you may be out of your depth here. You critique the author for associating a major player in the development of neoliberalism with... neoliberalism? Hayek was a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society (sometimes considered a symbolic birthplace of the ideology) and his contributions to the field of economics helped lay the foundation for neoliberalism's global ascendance. Neoliberalism's Wikipedia entry is littered with mentions of his name. It's difficult to think of someone more qualified to don the label.

aww_dang 5y ago
https://mises.org/library/against-neoliberals https://mises.org/library/against-neoliberals In practice neoliberalism does not represent the free-market as presented by Hayek. Mises was also a founding member of the MPS, will you have me believe that he was a neoliberal? These are generalizations leveled by socialist critics and third positionists who would use appeals to the market as a fig leaf. The incentives for distortion are clear. >Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate laissez-faire economic policy but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society. >the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, whose founding members included Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, George Stigler and Ludwig von Mises. Meeting annually, it would become a "kind of international 'who's who' of the classical liberal and neo-liberal intellectuals. Take the example of neoliberal negotiated "free trade" agreements and contrast that to laissez-faire unilateral free trade. The inability to distinguish between the two paradigms or the deliberate conflation of terms is what I am addressing.
- anemoiac 5y ago
  It sounds to me like you're unaware of (or dismissive toward) the existing discourse around the topic of neoliberalism. Mises.org may view the term as a meaningless epithet leveled against their ideological kin by ignorant or irrelevant onlookers, but one can't simply hand-wave away the existing literature on the topic. Redefining existing terms to suit one's own goals, perhaps through the use of arbitrary purity tests, is unhelpful at best. As you acknowledged, "the incentives for distortion are clear." Moving on, I'll reiterate that Hayek is widely considered a (very significant) neoliberal. This isn't a controversial viewpoint - check out neoliberalism's entry in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism) or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/) for the mainstream perspective on his role in its development. The notion that Hayek is not a neoliberal, however, would seem quite controversial to most in this space. > In practice neoliberalism does not represent the free-market as presented by Hayek. Keep in mind that Hayek was a theoretician, so his ideas represent a starting point, not a conclusion, when it comes to enacted policy. What are some good examples of neoliberalism in practice that you find wholly incompatible with Hayek's views? > Take the example of neoliberal negotiated "free trade" agreements and contrast that to laissez-faire unilateral free trade. While I can appreciate the differences between unilateral free trade and "neoliberal negotiated 'free trade' agreements," I'm not sure how the existence of those differences removes Hayek's prominent role in the history of neoliberalism. I'll also point out that the (confusing) catch-all use of the word "neoliberal" to describe American center-left politics from Carter onward shouldn't be conflated with academic use of the term. > Mises was also a founding member of the MPS, will you have me believe that he was a neoliberal? While I probably wouldn't primarily characterize Mises as a neoliberal, he had a huge influence on Hayek and maintained many views that are compatible with neoliberalism. > Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate laissez-faire economic policy but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society. This is from economic historian/philosopher Philip Mirowski, I believe, and should be viewed in that context. He's describing an existing neoliberal political and economic system in toto, as opposed to the theoretical principles that Hayek or Friedman would have discussed. While one might discuss policies intended to increase economic freedom as if they could be overseen by a small, limited government, and would result in universally-increased freedom, actually implementing them could require a powerful and oppressive dictatorship like Augusto Pinochet's in Chile.