5 ms·

Must something be reproducible to be true?

imachine1980_ 5y ago
yes, at least if you want to say in the scientific way(is big chunk of the method), religion and philosophy isn't science.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  A thing can be irreproducible and still true, in scientific terms. Everyone here knows how the scientific method works.
  - djenendik 5y ago
    But few understand probability.
  - judahmeek 5y ago
    But you would never be able to prove it
Y_Y 5y ago
Scientifically yes. Logically no. Relativistically it depends. That is to say that there are meaningful answers to that question that go either way. Not to mention Tarski's undefinability theorem.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
honestly - I don't feel sentence/question has nearly enough detail/context to be answerable comfortable in a Yes/No fashion. But my comment was not even about reproducibility, though that is important, but another fundamental question: What is the goal? Yes, many people over hundreds of years have behaved a certain way. But putting aside burden of evidence/reproducibility, whether I want to behave a certain way / same way, to me, hinges on a) What's my goal and b) Have those people obtained that goal? Random trivial examples: IF my goal is to have a happy family life with a partner and bunch of kids; following people who practiced isolation and asceticism will probably not satisfy that goal, no matter how many of them did it over however many hundreds of years. Insert any number of other trivial or complex goals (leading people, developing a rich and meaningful social life, sending a rocket to the moon, experiencing a lot of different experiences, travelling, seeing the world - whatever ). I find the whole "lots of people did this, so I'll trust their experience" pretty meaningless without stating "what is your goal? What do you consider good? What do you desire?" and then "did those people reach that goal? And what are the aspects of their life that contributed to it?" (FWIW, I find that is frequently the case on internet forums; with my friends, explicitly or implicitly I understand their perspective/context/goals, so we can discuss politics or history or morals knowing each others assumptions or goals. On the internet, a LOOOOT of discussion is pretty circular because nobody stated their goals; so how can we discuss whether something is good/productive/leading to desired state; or bad/counter-productive/leading to negative state; etc. But that's a much broader concern than what we have here:).
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  You bring up fantastic points. Thank you for your detailed reply. My comment was solely to poke a hole in the idea that only things that can be reproduced in double blind studies are truth. When reality, our modern science is many times far from reality, and getting further each day. (See: reproducibility crisis) Even “scientific proof” should have a healthy dose of skepticism, and “nothing but anecdotal evidence” should be considered more thoroughly. The pitfalls of outsourcing critical thinking to double blind studies is the thrust of my point.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    >>to poke a hole in the idea that only things that can be reproduced in double blind studies are truth. I agree, though I will selfishly bring it up to my own point of defining goals/scopes/mandates a priori :) If my partner and I are discussing what's the best colour for the kitchen, double-blinded studies are of limited help and Truth is ephemeral and subjective :). If we are discussing mathematical theorems, double-blinded study may be an irrelevant construct. For some social or psychological areas, double-blinded study may be helpful but difficult or impossible to ethically configure, repeatably conduct, meaningfully interpret, and clean up of confounding variables etc. And for yet other areas, it's the best tool we have to help confirm at a workable, useful, predictive model.

imachine1980_ 5y ago

yes, at least if you want to say in the scientific way(is big chunk of the method), religion and philosophy isn't science.

imwillofficial 5y ago
A thing can be irreproducible and still true, in scientific terms. Everyone here knows how the scientific method works.
- djenendik 5y ago
  But few understand probability.
- judahmeek 5y ago
  But you would never be able to prove it

Y_Y 5y ago

Scientifically yes. Logically no. Relativistically it depends. That is to say that there are meaningful answers to that question that go either way. Not to mention Tarski's undefinability theorem.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

honestly - I don't feel sentence/question has nearly enough detail/context to be answerable comfortable in a Yes/No fashion. But my comment was not even about reproducibility, though that is important, but another fundamental question: What is the goal? Yes, many people over hundreds of years have behaved a certain way. But putting aside burden of evidence/reproducibility, whether I want to behave a certain way / same way, to me, hinges on a) What's my goal and b) Have those people obtained that goal? Random trivial examples: IF my goal is to have a happy family life with a partner and bunch of kids; following people who practiced isolation and asceticism will probably not satisfy that goal, no matter how many of them did it over however many hundreds of years. Insert any number of other trivial or complex goals (leading people, developing a rich and meaningful social life, sending a rocket to the moon, experiencing a lot of different experiences, travelling, seeing the world - whatever ). I find the whole "lots of people did this, so I'll trust their experience" pretty meaningless without stating "what is your goal? What do you consider good? What do you desire?" and then "did those people reach that goal? And what are the aspects of their life that contributed to it?" (FWIW, I find that is frequently the case on internet forums; with my friends, explicitly or implicitly I understand their perspective/context/goals, so we can discuss politics or history or morals knowing each others assumptions or goals. On the internet, a LOOOOT of discussion is pretty circular because nobody stated their goals; so how can we discuss whether something is good/productive/leading to desired state; or bad/counter-productive/leading to negative state; etc. But that's a much broader concern than what we have here:).

imwillofficial 5y ago
You bring up fantastic points. Thank you for your detailed reply. My comment was solely to poke a hole in the idea that only things that can be reproduced in double blind studies are truth. When reality, our modern science is many times far from reality, and getting further each day. (See: reproducibility crisis) Even “scientific proof” should have a healthy dose of skepticism, and “nothing but anecdotal evidence” should be considered more thoroughly. The pitfalls of outsourcing critical thinking to double blind studies is the thrust of my point.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  >>to poke a hole in the idea that only things that can be reproduced in double blind studies are truth. I agree, though I will selfishly bring it up to my own point of defining goals/scopes/mandates a priori :) If my partner and I are discussing what's the best colour for the kitchen, double-blinded studies are of limited help and Truth is ephemeral and subjective :). If we are discussing mathematical theorems, double-blinded study may be an irrelevant construct. For some social or psychological areas, double-blinded study may be helpful but difficult or impossible to ethically configure, repeatably conduct, meaningfully interpret, and clean up of confounding variables etc. And for yet other areas, it's the best tool we have to help confirm at a workable, useful, predictive model.