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What were really talking about is epistemology – how do we know what we know. What the author is saying is that much of what we call science are actually facts

What were really talking about is epistemology – how do we know what we know. What the author is saying is that much of what we call science are actually facts that we take on faith. Middle school science are experiments we can all confirm, like observing protazoa under a microscope, or basic chemistry experiments. College (and beyond) science delves into things that we have to trust others to perform on our behalf. 90% of western understanding of cosmology, anthropology, physics, molecular biology, etc all rely on us taking others’ observations on faith alone. And many are merely models or theories with no modern observation. Moreover, the researchers who are making observations, are themselves using complicated apparatus designed by another person, like an electron microscope. The researchers are putting faith that the apparatus is producing an accurate & informative signal. Your ability to observe and understand the world requires a lot of faith in that system. Just remember that the entire system is built upon people, who have biases and are vulnerable to groupthink. There have been misunderstandings in the past, which are glamorously called “scientific revolutions”. Even small-scale misunderstandings should remind people to remain intellectually vigilant.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
imgabe 5y ago
I was listening to a podcast that made a really good point about the varying reliability of different sciences. In psychology, for example, a theory might have been validated in only a small experiment and fails when replicated. Meanwhile, something like Maxwell's Laws of electromagnetism are replicated trillions of times a day. Every time your cell phone or wifi works correctly, that is another replication indicating that Maxwell's equations were correct. When the science becomes engineering and we can build functioning things based on the theories, that is a good indication that they are correct. Maybe you didn't personally verify that the Earth is round, but the people who built the GPS system used that fact. If the Earth were flat, the GPS wouldn't work. So far, no flat-earthers have built a functioning GPS based on the Earth being flat.
- tonymet 5y ago
  a lot of the behavioral economic ps experiments were discredited but the policies based on them are still active
mpmpmpmp 5y ago
> What the author is saying is that much of what we call science are actually facts that we take on faith This is true from a practical sense in that most people don't validate scientific assumptions that are widely accepted for themselves. But the reason why we are able to reliably take them on faith is the interesting part to me. Peer review and the scientific method allow for incentive to "prove each other wrong" as well as to have the ability to replicate (or try to) the results for yourself. When I ask my Catholic friend why he believes the Christian God is real, and he says his evidence is that he feels the holy spirit. I have no way to disprove that and no way to replicate or prove that evidence. Therefore it's not really a reliable way to have faith in that fact.
recursive 5y ago
The technology we have works. It's developed from R&D that's based on main-stream science. How do I know? The companies that are making it recruit from colleges that teach such science. It's round-about, but that's evidence for me.
TameAntelope 5y ago
It's not faith, it's trust, the difference being that trust can be broken and must be earned, faith relies on absolute adherence. You require zero faith to trust in the scientific community, because you can "spot check" what you learn at any point, if you decide you want to. It takes a lot less effort than you may initially think, to independently verify certain aspects of even complex scientific advancement. Consider even something as simple as ibuprofen; you're "spot checking" modern medicine when you take it and verify it reduces your fever or lowers your pain. Or when you make a phone call with your cell phone. You're "spot checking" a whole host of physics just be reliably receiving and sending signals from your cell phone; if any of the theory were wrong, your phone would not work. That's not faith, that's trust, because you have direct evidence of accuracy in what you've been told. It's probably not even worth getting into how much you're "spot checking" science by simply opening up Google Maps and seeing how accurately it determines where you are! I must repeat; zero percent of western understanding of hard or soft sciences require faith of any kind to be useful.
- tonymet 5y ago
  Naturally we're overindexing on telecom, given the HN audience – where we have practical applications of advanced physics. But it's less concrete with other "sciences" like evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics. Even cosmology & theoretical physics is taken more on faith than trust. What observations of the multiverse or string theory can we build our trust on? And medicine , molecular biology have also had mixed results, to the point that many beliefs were taken on faith (e.g. dietary vs blood cholesterol) My point is don't lump all the "sciences" together in one lot of "the science"– there's a spectrum of observability and corroboration depending on the field.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    No beliefs in science must be taken on faith. Some people do out of convenience perhaps, but they don't need to do, and if they decide not to, the path to corroboration is open to them.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

imgabe 5y ago

I was listening to a podcast that made a really good point about the varying reliability of different sciences. In psychology, for example, a theory might have been validated in only a small experiment and fails when replicated. Meanwhile, something like Maxwell's Laws of electromagnetism are replicated trillions of times a day. Every time your cell phone or wifi works correctly, that is another replication indicating that Maxwell's equations were correct. When the science becomes engineering and we can build functioning things based on the theories, that is a good indication that they are correct. Maybe you didn't personally verify that the Earth is round, but the people who built the GPS system used that fact. If the Earth were flat, the GPS wouldn't work. So far, no flat-earthers have built a functioning GPS based on the Earth being flat.

tonymet 5y ago
a lot of the behavioral economic ps experiments were discredited but the policies based on them are still active

mpmpmpmp 5y ago

> What the author is saying is that much of what we call science are actually facts that we take on faith This is true from a practical sense in that most people don't validate scientific assumptions that are widely accepted for themselves. But the reason why we are able to reliably take them on faith is the interesting part to me. Peer review and the scientific method allow for incentive to "prove each other wrong" as well as to have the ability to replicate (or try to) the results for yourself. When I ask my Catholic friend why he believes the Christian God is real, and he says his evidence is that he feels the holy spirit. I have no way to disprove that and no way to replicate or prove that evidence. Therefore it's not really a reliable way to have faith in that fact.

recursive 5y ago

The technology we have works. It's developed from R&D that's based on main-stream science. How do I know? The companies that are making it recruit from colleges that teach such science. It's round-about, but that's evidence for me.

TameAntelope 5y ago

It's not faith, it's trust, the difference being that trust can be broken and must be earned, faith relies on absolute adherence. You require zero faith to trust in the scientific community, because you can "spot check" what you learn at any point, if you decide you want to. It takes a lot less effort than you may initially think, to independently verify certain aspects of even complex scientific advancement. Consider even something as simple as ibuprofen; you're "spot checking" modern medicine when you take it and verify it reduces your fever or lowers your pain. Or when you make a phone call with your cell phone. You're "spot checking" a whole host of physics just be reliably receiving and sending signals from your cell phone; if any of the theory were wrong, your phone would not work. That's not faith, that's trust, because you have direct evidence of accuracy in what you've been told. It's probably not even worth getting into how much you're "spot checking" science by simply opening up Google Maps and seeing how accurately it determines where you are! I must repeat; zero percent of western understanding of hard or soft sciences require faith of any kind to be useful.

tonymet 5y ago
Naturally we're overindexing on telecom, given the HN audience – where we have practical applications of advanced physics. But it's less concrete with other "sciences" like evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics. Even cosmology & theoretical physics is taken more on faith than trust. What observations of the multiverse or string theory can we build our trust on? And medicine , molecular biology have also had mixed results, to the point that many beliefs were taken on faith (e.g. dietary vs blood cholesterol) My point is don't lump all the "sciences" together in one lot of "the science"– there's a spectrum of observability and corroboration depending on the field.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  No beliefs in science must be taken on faith. Some people do out of convenience perhaps, but they don't need to do, and if they decide not to, the path to corroboration is open to them.