4 ms·

They're experts until we know they're not. And science, as a whole, only gets better at explaining phenomena, I'm not aware of anything that's had to be walke

They're experts until we know they're not. And science, as a whole, only gets better at explaining phenomena, I'm not aware of anything that's had to be walked back, unlike claims made by actual religions like "Native Americans are a tribe of Israelites who were punished for their sins by God, by giving them a different skin colour", which didn't survive the event of genetics. There's skepticism, and then there's contrarianism, and a lot of people mired in the latter think they're practicing the former. On an unrelated note I hardly ever hear "scientism" outside of Young Earth Creation apologetics...

StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>And science, as a whole, only gets better at explaining phenomena, I'm not aware of anything that's had to be walked back Ignaz Semmelweis, Rosemary Kennedy, Galileo and countless others would like to have a chat.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  About what? Yes, they were opposed in their time, but their findings eventually became the accepted facts. When I said "walk backwards", I meant exactly that - we haven't been washing our hands for a 170 years and had to say "actually, scientific evidence has shown that we were completely wrong, the people who considered Semmelweiz a loonie were actually right." Science has a definite tendency to go forwards, not backwards. Because scientists like to replicate results, and tend to reject things that don't properly explain the observed facts. Unlike statements of faith from, well, actual faiths, as opposed to "scientism".
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    Your model needs a definition of what is a "«finding»", destined to become an «accepted fact», and a "«have[-]been» idea", for which «scientific evidence [will] show[] that we were completely wrong». Because they are not easily distinguishable. Others have recommended Kuhn; I am partial for Imre Lakatos, and recommend the reading of at least the transcripts of his lessons at the London School of Economics. -- Edit: I do not know what meaning you intend to be giving to 'scientism', but partisan cheering is not sport, nor science, nor religion.
  - jawarner 4y ago
    Just for the sake of argument, I can name some an entire field of science that was invalidated in light of genetic & neuroscience evidence: phrenology. At the time, it was the newest advancement in the gleaming era of scientific Enlightenment. It just happened to justify colonial policies of that time. Now, a couple hundred years later, we're walking back on a widely supported but misguided "scientific" field.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    Terrain theory, which was originally dismissed entirely when germ theory won, has been making a major comeback in the past decade or so under new names, such as the "gut microbiome". Miasma theory as well, when it was originally proved wrong, has held back understanding of viral spread - experts stay away from aerosol spread and prefer droplet spread as much as possible because it's too similar to miasma.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I hear about scientism frequently from scientists and philosophy majors, your lack of hearing it might come from a perceived hostility due to the fact that you imply people who speak of "scientism" are akin to creationists.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  It's quite probable that I've heard it most from those who reject geological evidence or evidence for evolution for belief based reasons, because of my personal history, and, well, apparently my lack of engaging with philosophy majors[0] and scientists who apparently discuss it frequently (although it strikes me that it'd be people specialising in the philosophy of science who'd use it, rather than people doing actual scientific research). Also, I'm not entirely sure why I should care about what philosophy majors think about the scientific method. That said, if you have blogs etc. from scientists or scholars of the philosophy of science I can read discussing "scientism" (FYI, my spellcheck is insistent that's not a word) , then I'll happily read them. [0] Can I make the usual philosophy major joke about how I don't interact with them "other than when I'm ordering my burger at the drivethrough"? Heyoo, please, take my wife, I can't get no respect.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    > although it strikes me that it'd be people specialising in the philosophy of science who'd use it, rather than people doing actual scientific research I think this might to some degree demonstrate the point (lack of self-awareness/criticality among practicing scientists). > Also, I'm not entirely sure why I should care about what philosophy majors think about the scientific method. Cross-domain perspectives can offer valuable insight into complex problems is one reason, but there are surely many others. > That said, if you have blogs etc. from scientists or scholars of the philosophy of science I can read discussing "scientism" (FYI, my spellcheck is insistent that's not a word) , then I'll happily read them. Is constraining one's information sources to only the ideas of those who are being critiqued a logically, epistemically, and scientifically sound approach? > Can I make the usual philosophy major joke about how I don't interact with them "other than when I'm ordering my burger at the drivethrough"? Heyoo, please, take my wife, I can't get no respect. You can, and I encourage it - the more information you reveal about the manner in which you think, the more data it gives others to model the style and quality of your cognitive abilities (and luckily, this opportunity exists at the individual level, and collective level). Observing people describing how "science" appears to them (aka: "is", circa 2022) is one of my hobbies, and there seems to be substantial clustering of very common logical, categorical & epistemic errors in people's thinking across different dimensions. Ironically, this seems like the type of thing that science would/"should" be very interested in, considering the causal importance of human cognition in the end state of the world we live in. But alas, hyper-complex non-deterministic environments seem to have a repulsive affect on the curiosity of Scientific Materialists. Since this seems to be the predominant (and increasingly so) metaphysical framework in advanced western nations in this era of human history, I do not expect things to get better anytime soon, assuming something unusual does not occur to change the path we are currently on.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
Have you heard of the replication crisis[1]? There are many examples of claims that were once considered scientific, such as the idea that thinking of florida makes people walk slower due to an association with retirees, that are now rejected. I'm sure there's a kind of lindy effect here, where the longer a scientific result has been accepted, the less likely it is to be rejected, but the claim that science never walks back is simply false. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
tsol 4y ago
>I'm not aware of anything that's had to be walked back, unlike claims made by actual religions like "Native Americans are a tribe of Israelites who were punished for their sins by God, by giving them a different skin colour", Phrenology? How about all those lobotomies? I guess you can't call it walking back when they're incapacitated.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

>And science, as a whole, only gets better at explaining phenomena, I'm not aware of anything that's had to be walked back Ignaz Semmelweis, Rosemary Kennedy, Galileo and countless others would like to have a chat.

EdwardDiego 4y ago
About what? Yes, they were opposed in their time, but their findings eventually became the accepted facts. When I said "walk backwards", I meant exactly that - we haven't been washing our hands for a 170 years and had to say "actually, scientific evidence has shown that we were completely wrong, the people who considered Semmelweiz a loonie were actually right." Science has a definite tendency to go forwards, not backwards. Because scientists like to replicate results, and tend to reject things that don't properly explain the observed facts. Unlike statements of faith from, well, actual faiths, as opposed to "scientism".
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Your model needs a definition of what is a "«finding»", destined to become an «accepted fact», and a "«have[-]been» idea", for which «scientific evidence [will] show[] that we were completely wrong». Because they are not easily distinguishable. Others have recommended Kuhn; I am partial for Imre Lakatos, and recommend the reading of at least the transcripts of his lessons at the London School of Economics. -- Edit: I do not know what meaning you intend to be giving to 'scientism', but partisan cheering is not sport, nor science, nor religion.
- jawarner 4y ago
  Just for the sake of argument, I can name some an entire field of science that was invalidated in light of genetic & neuroscience evidence: phrenology. At the time, it was the newest advancement in the gleaming era of scientific Enlightenment. It just happened to justify colonial policies of that time. Now, a couple hundred years later, we're walking back on a widely supported but misguided "scientific" field.
- Izkata 4y ago
  Terrain theory, which was originally dismissed entirely when germ theory won, has been making a major comeback in the past decade or so under new names, such as the "gut microbiome". Miasma theory as well, when it was originally proved wrong, has held back understanding of viral spread - experts stay away from aerosol spread and prefer droplet spread as much as possible because it's too similar to miasma.

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

I hear about scientism frequently from scientists and philosophy majors, your lack of hearing it might come from a perceived hostility due to the fact that you imply people who speak of "scientism" are akin to creationists.

EdwardDiego 4y ago
It's quite probable that I've heard it most from those who reject geological evidence or evidence for evolution for belief based reasons, because of my personal history, and, well, apparently my lack of engaging with philosophy majors[0] and scientists who apparently discuss it frequently (although it strikes me that it'd be people specialising in the philosophy of science who'd use it, rather than people doing actual scientific research). Also, I'm not entirely sure why I should care about what philosophy majors think about the scientific method. That said, if you have blogs etc. from scientists or scholars of the philosophy of science I can read discussing "scientism" (FYI, my spellcheck is insistent that's not a word) , then I'll happily read them. [0] Can I make the usual philosophy major joke about how I don't interact with them "other than when I'm ordering my burger at the drivethrough"? Heyoo, please, take my wife, I can't get no respect.
- mistermann 4y ago
  > although it strikes me that it'd be people specialising in the philosophy of science who'd use it, rather than people doing actual scientific research I think this might to some degree demonstrate the point (lack of self-awareness/criticality among practicing scientists). > Also, I'm not entirely sure why I should care about what philosophy majors think about the scientific method. Cross-domain perspectives can offer valuable insight into complex problems is one reason, but there are surely many others. > That said, if you have blogs etc. from scientists or scholars of the philosophy of science I can read discussing "scientism" (FYI, my spellcheck is insistent that's not a word) , then I'll happily read them. Is constraining one's information sources to only the ideas of those who are being critiqued a logically, epistemically, and scientifically sound approach? > Can I make the usual philosophy major joke about how I don't interact with them "other than when I'm ordering my burger at the drivethrough"? Heyoo, please, take my wife, I can't get no respect. You can, and I encourage it - the more information you reveal about the manner in which you think, the more data it gives others to model the style and quality of your cognitive abilities (and luckily, this opportunity exists at the individual level, and collective level). Observing people describing how "science" appears to them (aka: "is", circa 2022) is one of my hobbies, and there seems to be substantial clustering of very common logical, categorical & epistemic errors in people's thinking across different dimensions. Ironically, this seems like the type of thing that science would/"should" be very interested in, considering the causal importance of human cognition in the end state of the world we live in. But alas, hyper-complex non-deterministic environments seem to have a repulsive affect on the curiosity of Scientific Materialists. Since this seems to be the predominant (and increasingly so) metaphysical framework in advanced western nations in this era of human history, I do not expect things to get better anytime soon, assuming something unusual does not occur to change the path we are currently on.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

Have you heard of the replication crisis[1]? There are many examples of claims that were once considered scientific, such as the idea that thinking of florida makes people walk slower due to an association with retirees, that are now rejected. I'm sure there's a kind of lindy effect here, where the longer a scientific result has been accepted, the less likely it is to be rejected, but the claim that science never walks back is simply false. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

tsol 4y ago

>I'm not aware of anything that's had to be walked back, unlike claims made by actual religions like "Native Americans are a tribe of Israelites who were punished for their sins by God, by giving them a different skin colour", Phrenology? How about all those lobotomies? I guess you can't call it walking back when they're incapacitated.