11 ms·

When do we have a scientific fact?

75 points by rzk 4y ago

Waterluvian 4y ago
I think that the mechanism of the universe is a black box. We can provide inputs and get outputs to build confidence of how we think it works, but we can’t ever know conclusively. That is, unless we escape the simulation and evaluate the mechanism’s implementation. I think anything else is just semantics.
- tgv 4y ago
  That's quite a common thought (well, since Kant anyway), but self-defeating in this context. We want to know as much as we can. Sure, there will be errors and omissions, but why should that stop us?
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  off topic, perhaps. Can someone tell me what Americans really mean by this fashionable slur: > I think anything else is just semantics. Semantics is the science of meaning. So what do people really mean when they say that something is "just semantics"? Do they really mean sophistry?
Jack_Hacker 4y ago
>The story is a long one, but for now let’s skip to the end: future-proof, established scientific facts can be identified via a solid (>95%) international scientific consensus, born of scientific labour, in a community that is large and diverse. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity for that to happen (if it were ever going to happen). Newtonian physics stood for hundreds of years, and we now understand it to be an approximation of quantum mechanics. It's still useful, but merely useful. Do not mistake "useful" for "true."
- yamrzou 4y ago
  Newtonian Physics is not a fact, but a whole theory. I think that the author is talking about facts within a theory.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  Your distinction is not useful for someone who needs help understanding what qualifies as "fact as we know it". It could easily be misconstrued as a counter example to the quote in the article, which it is only in the strictest, most pedantic sense. In any reasonable interpretation, Newtonian Physics is still true.
- version_five 4y ago
  Your example isn't great because newtonian physics is still correct and used everywhere. I agree with your point, reality is certainly not statistical, and e.g. there would have been circles in which heliocentricity or a flat earth or some pre-germ theory of disease would have been agreed upon fact. Arguing that those aren't science is hindsight, at the time they would have been learned consensus.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  If you can prove such a link between newtonian/relativity and quantum mechanics there are many many prizes in your future. The core problem is that both do not meet up. There is no link. They are both descriptions of observed phenomena, neither being any more or less an approximation the other.
- timr 4y ago
  > In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity for that to happen (if it were ever going to happen). Yeah, that's just not true. It's an absurd claim. Medical science is loaded with examples of things that had wide consensus (but...95%? Probably? Feels like this is a loophole in the argument...) which were subsequently found to be false. Consider just a few examples: * hormone replacement therapy * aspirin for heart attacks * mammograms for younger women (< 50) Just this year, a huge RCT called into doubt the usefulness of mass colonoscopy [1], which was absolutely "scientific consensus" until now (you can see this, because the study was met with rather vicious backlash). For a more basic science example, consider "The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology" [2] which, of course, was so "consensus" that they named it "The Central Dogma": genetic information goes from DNA to RNA to proteins. This was fact...until they discovered retroviruses. Then prions. Oops. This stuff happens all the time. The authors are either not scientists, or they're so blinkered by ideology that they're unreliable. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2208375 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2208375 [2] https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Central-Dogma https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Central-Dogma
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Just this year, a huge RCT called into doubt the usefulness of mass colonoscopy [1] This reference seems to be saying that mass colonoscopy reduces the 10 year risk of colorectal cancer by a statistically significant amount. How is this calling into doubt its usefulness?
    - BlackFly 4y ago
      An ongoing theme in cancer research with regards to diagnostics is that a lot of the cancers caught by the diagnostic techniques would not be fatal. Hence, there is not a statistically significant reduction in mortality but rather a reduction in cancer. It is basically just saying: not all cancers kill you, maybe you are better off not knowing about the non-fatal ones. Part of the backlash points out that cancer can affect quality of life in other ways and no one measured that. But either way, it throws the consensus into doubt.
    - 4y ago
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  International scientific consensus, in the past, had a man murdered for proving the earth orbiting the sun.
  - krapp 4y ago
    No it didn't. The Church was not a scientific body. The basis for their beliefs was not the scientific method, but faith in a literal interpretation of Scripture. Actual international scientific consensus (meaning, the consensus of actual scientists) has never had anyone murdered, if for no other reason than "science" has no body equivalent to the Church empowered or capable to do so, but certainly not for proving a hypothesis.
    - wizzwizz4 4y ago
      > Actual international scientific consensus (meaning, the consensus of actual scientists) has never had anyone murdered, Scientific racism and the various eugenics movements say hello.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Huh? Copernicus died in his home when he was in his 70s. Galileo died of old age as well. Tycho Brahe died from politeness. Bruno was burned because he was a hermetic mystic and didn't really prove anything significant about the planets.
    - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
      Well I'm glad Bruno died. Those hermetic mystics had it coming, and not proving anything significant is basically high treason to science, fully deserving immediate immolation!
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        My point is that although a lot of people want him to be because it fits the narrative, he is a remarkably poorly martyr for science.
- stochastimus 4y ago
  If you replaced QM with general relativity, you would be correct. So, your broader point is valid.
- jll29 4y ago
  > Do not mistake "useful" for "true." As far as theories are concerned, "useful" means "makes valid predictions", so true, but within a limited scope (Newtonian physics: macroscopic events, from a human perspective).
  - Jack_Hacker 4y ago
    If we take QM seriously, there's nothing stopping it from affecting macroscopic events from a human perspective. A cannonball whose trajectory was planned in accordance with Newtonian physics could suddenly and unexpectedly move three feet to the left, it's just ridiculously unlikely.[0] This isn't a piecewise function where Newtonian physics is true within some constraints of speed and scale, Newtonian physics is simply wrong and useful. [0]: Under the Everett interpretation, which is no more or less scientific than the Copenhagen interpretation, this happens all the time and is witnessed by many humans.
- dumpsterdiver 4y ago
  Yeah, "future proof, established scientific facts" are pretty much the opposite of what scientific progress brings. I find it repulsive to even entertain the idea of "future proof facts". To me that is hubris to the extreme, especially when it is based upon a consensus of those whose knowledge and instrumentation are grounded in the present. Finally, as others have noted, science revolves around theories and observations, and what we can currently ascertain from said observations - not facts. Often times "facts" are nothing more than bullshit that has yet to be called out. Imo, if someone is more interested in carving "facts" into stone than continually engaging with what we think we know - they aren't the right person for the job.
krona 4y ago
Since the article doesn't mention the word 'experiment' once I doubt it's even discussing science but rather 'scientific orthodoxy' which is something else entirely and should never be categorised as 'fact'.
version_five 4y ago
The article seems to be making it's definition of "fact" as a guide to policymakers on what should be accepted as fact. I think this is all a bit of a red herring. The question is how do policymakers deal with politically charged topics. And I personally haven't seen cases where more research or "science" is the answer, it's just crutch that people use to try and make their political point. The article mentions climate change, which is a great example of something that's been scienced to death. The future is unknowable, there will always be some "we can never know" component to it, but that doesn't necessitate more research to find a smoking gun that will shut down all sceptics, not does it require that since we can't prove it, we ignore it. Some mix of balance of probabilities plus public will easily passes the threshold for doing something. So do something. Sequester CO2, build dikes, if the whole thing comes to naught, it won't be the most wasteful thing government did. A pragmatic approach is what's needed, not some philosophical search for how we define truth, which just offsets the problem one layer and doesn't change the politics at all
- akiselev 4y ago
  At this point I think that the definition of truth is just another wedge issue introduced to the political teamsport - the process of searching for truth was already so noisy that it's best left to the people nearest to the feedback loops that help us iterate on solutions. Reading between the lines, this is a push to take power away from the bureaucrats in charge of the US (Western?) regulatory model (the so called "deep state") and move the "fact finding" process to somewhere the politicians could better influence it. Climate change is a perfect example because oil companies and armed forces worldwide have been operating under the assumption that it's real and its coming, largely because they're the ones who have to deal with, for example, the immediate effects of storm size on ship builders, ports, and deep sea mining equipment. We've got a Jekyll and Hyde government with a Navy that has been preparing for climate change since the 90s while half the country fights tooth and nail against the very concept. I think the pragmatic approach is to let the experts at the CDC, FDA, EPA, etc do the work they're qualified to do while working on checks and balances to prevent regulatory capture, politicization, and corruption.
- becquerel 4y ago
  What if climate change turns out to be a hoax and we made the world better for nothing?
DarkNova6 4y ago
This is a good question to raise, but the question is mostly academic thought gymnastics. Would it be great if policies and decisions were based on facts? Sure it would. But the real problem is not the distinction between "fact" and "very high confidence". The real problem is that is the misuse of dubious correlations to justify agendas. Politics, economics, personal decisions etc. We don't have a crisis of scientific facts. We have a replication crisis. And because of that, a lot of bogus science goes unnoticed and makes way WAY larger impact than it should.
godelski 4y ago
> Why haven’t science scholars devoted time to this issue? This is a flat out lie. Metascientists have grappled with this question for a long time, including Kuhn and Popper (who are mentioned). The truth of the matter is that you can't identify a scientific fact, that's not really how science works. We rule things out, not in. But we also hone in on answers but never have an exact one. There will always be a lot of trust in the system. We trust that scientists won't lie. The truth is that there is very little lying. Because if you do, you are completely ruined. We're even seeing people distrust science not because scientists are wrong but because science reporting is wrong and people will blame scientists but not the reporting. Though the thing is, how is a layman supposed to know the difference? I wouldn't expect them to and I don't know how to. I can only really judge a "fact" that's in my niche in my field and everything else is an educated guess. I have training and experience, but there's still a lot of trust in the system. The world runs on trust and people are extremely trustworthy and good, even in this time where many people don't think this is true the evidence is right there that people are honest. But the article is talking about two different things. It opens with > Scientists, policymakers, and laypersons could all use an answer to [knowing what is a fact] but then starts discussing how we know the earth's core's composition. I'm surprised they didn't talk about the electron (or particles) as this is something Popper and Kuhn both talked about. Are they real or are they forces or just a mathematical construct? This is a far more philosophical question than discussing how public can understand if someone is teaching science or telling lies while sounding scientific. This is really missing the point if you're conflating these two philosophical ideas. I do think we should teach more metascience in the sciences but I'm not sure this will do anything to build peoples' trust in science, and more importantly, scientific communication. But how should policy makers deal with these questions? The same way news sources should. You communicate with the scientists and you have scientists (or former) on your team. People that can speak the language and communicate with you. This has to be a team effort because we live in a world of specialization. There is too much information for any singular person to even have a glimpse of reality. But you'll find that many politicians don't have members like these on their teams and I'm not sure how you could expect them to make accurate decisions (or how they can even trust themselves, but that's a different issue).
aaron695 4y ago
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biomcgary 4y ago
This very lightweight article doesn't touch on why Popper and Kuhn were so influential (although I'm partial to Imre Lakatos, who tried to rescue Popper from Kuhn). If you aren't familiar with the Logical Positivists and their approach to science, it's valuable background to understanding the debates. The article shows that the West has not really come to terms with rejecting divine revelation and the end of absolute certainty. Some personalities seem more drawn to "facts" than others, probably the same ones that are drawn to authoritarianism (of whatever flavor). I doubt people with high openness (in the OCEAN / Big Five sense) really clamor for FACTS.
- satisfice 4y ago
  Shout out to Lakatos!
- deleted 4y ago
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andreareina 4y ago
What a terrible, horrible, no-good article. Claiming to be able to arbitrate what is fact and what isn’t without even mentioning epistemology and all the open questions therein, the reason that science is a process and not an end result… very bad form for a professor of philosophy. Maybe he goes into the details in the book he’s flogging (his own book of course) but judging by tfa my confidence is low.
- nayroclade 4y ago
  The article is an extended intro for a book the author has written. Perhaps the book mentions these things? Have you read it?
  - andreareina 4y ago
    Things exist in context. What's good for an introduction to a book I've already bought is not necessarily good for a stand-alone article for a website. Although I would argue that even the former should have some mention of the obvious starting points and objections. If I read this introduction in a book store or library I'd be putting it back on the shelf. No, I haven't read the book and I shan't for this passage gives me little confidence that the book would do them justice.
anenefan 4y ago
In the landscape of hypothesis and theory ... there are no known facts apart from those who've been proven elsewhere. Too many people (science people) make this simple mistake, not a lot, but still, too many.
marifjeren 4y ago
Allow me to save you a click: "established scientific facts can be identified via a solid (>95%) international scientific consensus"
- jonbake 4y ago
  Is that really a fact? It seems like _scientific fact_ is a misnomer. Nothing can ever be a fact in science, even with 95% consensus.
  - marifjeren 4y ago
    I'm just quoting the article. Agreed though, perhaps nothing is a fact. All statements are false. Some are useful.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
Is there such a thing as a scientific fact? Seems to fly in the face of the philosophy of science, which typically has science as a process of ruling out things that are incorrect and incrementally approximating the truth.
Octokiddie 4y ago
The article doesn't fulfill the promise of the title. Not only does it not explain how to identify a scientific fact (who samples the 95% "consensus" and who decides what to ask, for example?), it doesn't even define the term, despite multiple uses. The reason is, of course, that there are no scientific facts. There are hypotheses, theories, and observations. There is a scientific method, which attempts to connect them together. This is a deeply unsettling perspective to a lot of people who demand something science can't deliver but which religion can, and I'd count the author among them. Whenever an author starts tooting about "scientific facts" I sense an agenda. And it's often followed by demands that I submit to it. Elsewhere, the author pitches the book like so: > My new book Identifying Future-Proof Science argues that we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever (so long as science continues). Examples include the evolution of human beings from fish, and the fact that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. ... https://petervickersphilosophy.com/publications/ https://petervickersphilosophy.com/publications/ The first claim is laughable. Without a path for abiogenesis (there is none yet), claims this specific about evolution are anything but "fact." And the tautology of classifying the Milky Way galaxy as a galaxy makes me wonder if the author has problems with basic logic.
- deleted 4y ago
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- satisfice 4y ago
  Seems to me we can identify a scientific fact: it's an empirical proposition for which we have sufficient scientific evidence. "Sufficient" is a community standard, and different communities may have different standards. That's not an ideal state of affairs, but it turns out to be a liveable one. This doesn't solve the problem of "future-proofing" or universalizing facts, because THAT is not a solvable problem. But it does solve the local problem of making a community decision about who deserves respect and what topics are worth debating.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > it's an empirical proposition for which we have sufficient scientific evidence. "Sufficient" is a community standard It doesn't have to be. We can use predictive power to judge how strong our evidence is.
jll29 4y ago
The article portrays Popperian falsifiability as a negative thing, when in fact it is exactly the kind of defining criterion that the author is hunting for. Except it is a criterion of a scientific _theory_ , not a fact derived from it; because the natural sciences are entirely empirical disciplines (today), theories can only be _disproved_ , not proved, by experiments. Progress - in the form of convergence towards truth among the community of experts (Peirce) - is achieved by revising theories. Like with software, there comes a point when tweaking the old implementation becomes frustrating, and it's time for a re-write from scratch - that'd be a Kuhn-style change of paradigm a la Einstein's theory of relativity. Different from the realm of software, older theories (e.g. Newtonian physics) remain valid and often useful for some restricted scope. The author Peter Vickers appears to have written this blog post motivated by a recent line of work that resulted in a book that came out entitled "Identifying Future-Proof Science": https://academic.oup.com/book/44533?login=false https://academic.oup.com/book/44533?login=false (2022, Oxford University Press); putting it in my shopping basket/on my 2023 reading list & curious to hear from anyone who has read it already. Crazy idea: I propose someone collect a list of facts - e.g. a wiki - that actual scientists can sign individually (e.g. owners of academic email addresses that do not contain a .stud. sub-string). My contribution of a fact: "On earth, any fruit of _malus domestica_ (commonly called "apple") that is dropped will fall down" (which means from the height of any person towards the centre of earth) as long as (small print to establish the boundary conditions of Newtonian physics).
- pdonis 4y ago
  > theories can only be _disproved_ , not proved, by experiments While it is technically true that a theory cannot be "proved", that view ignores the huge range of predictive power in our various scientific theories. General relativity and quantum mechanics have extraordinary predictive power: we can make quantitative predictions that match experimental results to ten or more decimal places. But predictive power gets worse by many orders of magnitude as you go down the scale from "harder" to "softer" sciences, to the point where we don't have any real predictive power at all in many areas of social science. > a Kuhn-style change of paradigm a la Einstein's theory of relativity Actually, no, this wasn't a Kuhnian change of paradigm. Why? Because a Kuhnian paradigm shift requires that the two paradigms are incommensurable. And that's not true for relativity vs. Newtonian mechanics. Relativity contains Newtonian mechanics as a particular approximation (low speeds and weak gravitational fields). So Newtonian mechanics is not incommensurable with relativity. By contrast, the shift from Aristotelian physics to Galilean physics (I say "Galilean" since Galileo was actually the one that started the shift, before Newton was even born) was a Kuhnian paradigm shift, because Aristotelian physics and Galilean physics are incommensurable. Aristotelian physics contains teleological concepts that don't have any counterparts whatever in Galilean physics, not even as approximations. > older theories (e.g. Newtonian physics) remain valid and often useful for some restricted scope. With a true Kuhnian paradigm shift, this is not true: the old theory just gets thrown away. Aristotelian physics wasn't used by anyone after Galilean physics became the dominant paradigm, not even in a restricted scope. This is why Kuhn claimed that there is no such thing as scientific progress. He was wrong, of course: once a particular discipline actually becomes an experimental science (which Aristotelian physics was not), your statement about older theories does hold--Newtonian physics, as you say, being a prime example. But that is not what Kuhn was claiming happened in paradigm shifts.
satisfice 4y ago
The author seems disturbed that science fact is socially constructed. His solution is an appeal to social construction. He has not moved the ball by doing this. In fact, he's lost yardage, because now science would have to come together in consensus over his arbitrary 95% rule... which would be yet another social process... just to arrive at an ongoing popularity measurement process. Yuck. Seems like nothing he said really contradicts Kuhn. Kuhn agreed that normal science operates within a particular paradigm; and in that paradigm there are accepted facts. What we can't know is whether a new paradigm might emerge that rearranges sensory phenomena into a different set of facts that "makes more sense" in some way, or allows certain puzzles to be solved that cannot otherwise be solved. If enough of those puzzles can be resolved in the new paradigm compared the old, the stage is set for scientific revolution. There must be a stable reality of some kind, because when we operate as if there is, we are perpetually rewarded. But how we think about that reality is not necessarily stable. Oxygen definitely exists. But remember that the guy who discovered oxygen never called it by that name. The original term was "dephlogisticated air" which is a reference to the completely discredited phlogiston theory.
raincom 4y ago
All facts are theory-laden; that is, facts are facts of a particular theory. When a particular theory wins out, facts of such a theory are treated as facts beyond the confines of that theory.
water8 4y ago
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pella 4y ago
> "We want governments to base policies on scientific facts, insofar as that is possible" How we can act judiciously under uncertainty ? related: Medical Science: "The science-policy relationship in times of crisis: An urgent call for a pragmatist turn" ( August 2022 ) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622004464 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362... Keywords: Crisis, Public health policymaking, Uncertainty, Knowledge, Pragmatism, Covid-19 Abstract: "In this conceptual paper, we argue that at times of crisis, what is sometimes called “evidence-based” or “science-driven” policymaking—establishing scientific truths and then implementing them—must be tempered by a more agile, deliberative and inclusive approach which acknowledges and embraces uncertainty. We offer pragmatism as one potential option, using examples from the UK to illustrate how such an approach might have changed particular crisis decisions and led to better outcomes. We propose that to better prepare for the next public health crisis, five pragmatism-informed shifts are needed in the science-policy relationship: from scientism to science-informed narrative rationality that emerges from practice; from knowledge-then-action to acting judiciously under uncertainty; from hierarchies of evidence to pluralist inquiry; from polarized camps to frame-reflective dialogue; and from an “inside-track” science-policy dialogue to greater participatory democracy. We suggest an agenda for a pragmatist-informed program of applied research on crisis public health policymaking."
- mbg721 4y ago
  In a temporary crisis, the mandate is to enact policies that calm panic, even if they aren't just or scientific (and they usually aren't). A major complaint about COVID is that the panic came from the top down, as a justification for doing the unjust and unscientific things the people in charge wanted to do anyway. Nobody is really addressing the truth or lack of truth of that statement, we're all just slinging mud.
college_physics 4y ago
When we use a single word for a complex phenomenon (in this instance, the "scientific fact") we bound to have endless discussions talking past each other. The focus on "95%" gives away that the focus of the article is on a preliminary stage of scientific inquiry, where uncertainties around the measurement (observation) process are dominant and the explanatory framework of what is happening is sketchy (statistical) in nature. This is typically the case when the system we want to establish scientific facts about is very complex (e.g. biological or much worse, human social). Inceased scientific confidence obtains only when we can control that complexity and zoom-in into more fundamental behavior that can be both quantified and explained in more detail. That deepening of understanding leads to a cycle of prediction/measurement/experiment/confirmation that keeps adding "confidence" in a way that has nothing to do with statistical "95%" confidence. E.g., Netwonian laws were "proven" to very high certainty and yet they got eventually replaced by even more accurate scientific models. Scientific facts are a journey, not a destination. For a sane discussion we need to clarify what phase of the journey we are talking about.
- mistermann 4y ago
  > When we use a single word for a complex phenomenon (in this instance, the "scientific fact") we bound to have endless discussions talking past each other. I think of it as "what data type(s) would I need to store this information", and the epistemic status(es) (maybe with reasoning, etc) would be a part of that.
_tom_ 4y ago
"Scientific fact" is a term used by people who don't understand science.
- Timwi 4y ago
  The term is used by such eminent and respected scientists as Richard Dawkins and Neil de Grasse Tyson. I don't think that they misunderstand science.
  - _tom_ 4y ago
    Dawkins makes it clear here, that he is using the terms to explain to people who don't understand science: https://richarddawkins.net/2015/11/is-it-a-theory-is-it-a-law-no-its-a-fact/ https://richarddawkins.net/2015/11/is-it-a-theory-is-it-a-la...
someonewhocar3s 4y ago
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8bitsrule 4y ago
A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong. ⇐ Francis Crick
nathias 4y ago
The author doesn't really get epistemology, it isn't that philosophers are out there mocking geologists and think that such ice ages probably didn’t exist and are just “nice ideas”. We are trying to establish frameworks of justification with explicit and rigorous criteria that we can use to determine when something is knowledge, and so far the double negative (non-falsifiable) is the closest we can get to an affirmation of scientific fact. This isn't some whim of epistemologists, this is because the task is very hard and simple 'its the current year' rhetoric does not resolve the problems with knowledge justification.
- yamrzou 4y ago
  The author is a philospher of science, it's a discredit to simply suppose that he doesn't get epistemology just from this article. This blog post is meant to be an introduction to the book, which has more discussion and details: https://petervickersphilosophy.com/2021/07/08/identifying-future-proof-science/ https://petervickersphilosophy.com/2021/07/08/identifying-fu....
  - nathias 4y ago
    Then the article is in bad faith, in any case a bad article.
madmaniak 4y ago
There are no scientific facts. There are only scientific proves. Didn't need to read the article thanks to the title.
remote_phone 4y ago
This article is garbage. If we agreed that 95% consensus was “scientific fact” then plenty of “truths” that we knew back in the past would never be revisited. For example, homosexuality was thought of as a choice as recently as the 1980s. Or high fat diets caused heart disease. Or larger heads equals smarter people. The reason why scientific facts don’t exist is because the truly great scientists before this author knew that facts are only as good until the next data point that disproves it. On the other hand, trying to establish scientific fact as consensus will result in political fights to try to force the scientific community and policy makers into decisions that further their own agendas. The sex/gender political fight right now is a great example of how consensus can be forced to further agendas. It’s evil and should never be pursued. Leave science as it is.
- 46394673928 4y ago
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  - gunchy 4y ago
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kuhewa 4y ago
This article reminder me of this classic from 1994 by Steven Jay Gould, "Evolution as a fact and theory". [1] I adore SJG but this is one essay where I disagreed. Actually started the first day of a research design course in a pretty heated debate with the dead wood professor where this essay was the topic of discussion, he couldn't wrap his head around taking epistemological or practical issue with the label of scientific fact and accused me of being a creationist. But I digress: I don't see what use the word fact is except in a contextual sense. We have scientific observations, which are pretty close to facts, but they can still change when we later discover measurement error or similar. Everything beyond those observations is a matter of inference and I can't see how calling them a fact is useful beyond a term of convenience in the context of a dialogue where all parties are informed on the subject and can agree on something akin to the Gould definition: > In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." Because you won't be convincing the unconvinced by calling something a fact, especially not in the post-truth era, so it's not going to turn creationists and will have limited use for public health messaging or similar. [1] https://wise.fau.edu/~tunick/courses/knowing/gould_fact-and-theory.html https://wise.fau.edu/~tunick/courses/knowing/gould_fact-and-...
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  There are two worlds colliding here. The scientific world is primarily oriented towards finding stable consensus truths that are independent of individual bias. The political world is primarily oriented towards persuasion and behaviour modification - either for personal gain, or (more rarely) to promote fairness, equality, and perhaps even opportunity. To politicians, scientific facts are only one of many available tools for persuasion, and they're not particularly good at it. These worlds are incompatible to such an extent that people operating in one world are fundamentally unable to understand the other. So the question is really "How do you create a political consensus?" The answer is well-known - you set up numerous apparently independent think tanks and PR operations to promote your message across multiple media, you put journalists-for-hire in positions of notability and influence, you design soundbite concepts and memes that spread the message virally. You use psychological techniques learned from the ad industries and corporate psychology to dramatise and frame your message to make it more personally relatable. For bonus points you set up an enemy who opposes your message and you demonise, belittle, and humiliate them. Ideally you frame the "debate" to make disagreement literally unthinkable, while also making all supporters feel as if their beliefs are entirely their own, arrived at rationally and objectively. Scientific consensus on its own will do none of this. And a scientific "fact" is powerless against this process.
bell-cot 4y ago
Humans want "Laws of Nature" which are set in stone, easy to understand, written to kinda favor them, and subject to the sort of wording twists, rules-gaming, and lawyering that they're always doing with human social rules (including laws, promises, contracts, & such), to get away with crap. Nature really doesn't care what humans want. Read every Superman comics ever written, dress up like him, jump off the cliff - and you'll go "splat" at the bottom. Nature also never shows anyone the magic stone, which has all the rules written on it. Babies figure out pretty early that dropped objects fall to the ground. After a lot of bloody "splat"s, clever grown-ups figured out how to run off cliffs with parachutes & hang gliders and stuff, and live to brag about it. Usually. Things still go wrong sometimes. Pretty much everything I've seen about on subjects like seems to boil down to humans wanting Nature to have rules that work their way, Nature not caring what humans want, and humans arguing about it anyway.
sega_sai 4y ago
As a scientist I disagree. I would rather call just facts as facts, and the rest can still be called theories/models/understanding. I.e. only stuff that is directly observed can be a fact. For sure I think the evidence of human caused global warming is overwhelming and is based on to large degree simple physics, I would still not call that a fact. I think relabeling some theories as facts is potentially dangerous and may prevent future progress.
- mythrwy 4y ago
  Agreed. Gravity is a theory. An apple fell on my head is a fact.
Certhas 4y ago
This seems to be, on the face of it, an incredibly superficial take. To start with there is a seminal work on just this topic: Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, Ludwik Fleck Then to summarize the "there are no facts" position as "the idea that many philosophers of science muse that such ice ages probably didn’t exist and are just “nice ideas” that are currently popular amongst scientists who have been indoctrinated into a particular paradigm." is in parts wrong and on top of that incredibly misleading. I challenge you to find a single philosopher of sciemce who would assert that "ice ages probably didn’t exist". This imaginary philosopher does not exist, doubly so as this strawman would assert a fact about the world (specifically that the probability that ice ages have existed is low), in blatant contradiction to the "there are no facts" idea.
ergonaught 4y ago
Author seems to be throwing a polite and courteous tantrum lacking serious intellectual rigor. Kuhn and Poppler left lasting marks because they were, in the author's apparent intended sense of the word, expressing facts. There are 10,000 things wrong with this whole approach. The point, I assume, is that we do have some vitally important things that need doing sometimes, and wasting enormous finite resources trying to achieve even consensus, nevermind unanimity, has been rendered impossible or senseless or horrifically dangerous. Yep. That's a real problem (one might call it a fact). This avenue is a dead end, though.
yawboakye 4y ago
begs the question, cui bono? obviously, the orthodoxy. the author is clear in his example of who cares about the so-called scientific facts: governments and policymaking agencies. from where i sit, it appears we're looking for another weapon in the arsenal to overruling the individual's free will to, importantly, harm themselves against their (and usually our) better judgement. coming off the back of the recent vaccine debacle, it has a certain curiosity to it. if "vaccines help" were a scientific fact, then we'd probably be in the clear to force straighten people's arms and hit several shots into their veins, for their own good.
hackeraccount 4y ago
All you have to do is pick up The National Enquirer to suspect that facts aren't really the itch people are trying to scratch. I'm not sure what it is people want ( Context maybe or capital T Truth.) but I know you can lie all day long with facts that are undisputed.

75 points by rzk 4y ago

I think that the mechanism of the universe is a black box. We can provide inputs and get outputs to build confidence of how we think it works, but we can’t ever know conclusively. That is, unless we escape the simulation and evaluate the mechanism’s implementation. I think anything else is just semantics.

tgv 4y ago
That's quite a common thought (well, since Kant anyway), but self-defeating in this context. We want to know as much as we can. Sure, there will be errors and omissions, but why should that stop us?
kwhitefoot 4y ago
off topic, perhaps. Can someone tell me what Americans really mean by this fashionable slur: > I think anything else is just semantics. Semantics is the science of meaning. So what do people really mean when they say that something is "just semantics"? Do they really mean sophistry?

Jack_Hacker 4y ago

>The story is a long one, but for now let’s skip to the end: future-proof, established scientific facts can be identified via a solid (>95%) international scientific consensus, born of scientific labour, in a community that is large and diverse. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity for that to happen (if it were ever going to happen). Newtonian physics stood for hundreds of years, and we now understand it to be an approximation of quantum mechanics. It's still useful, but merely useful. Do not mistake "useful" for "true."

yamrzou 4y ago
Newtonian Physics is not a fact, but a whole theory. I think that the author is talking about facts within a theory.
jvanderbot 4y ago
Your distinction is not useful for someone who needs help understanding what qualifies as "fact as we know it". It could easily be misconstrued as a counter example to the quote in the article, which it is only in the strictest, most pedantic sense. In any reasonable interpretation, Newtonian Physics is still true.
version_five 4y ago
Your example isn't great because newtonian physics is still correct and used everywhere. I agree with your point, reality is certainly not statistical, and e.g. there would have been circles in which heliocentricity or a flat earth or some pre-germ theory of disease would have been agreed upon fact. Arguing that those aren't science is hindsight, at the time they would have been learned consensus.
sandworm101 4y ago
If you can prove such a link between newtonian/relativity and quantum mechanics there are many many prizes in your future. The core problem is that both do not meet up. There is no link. They are both descriptions of observed phenomena, neither being any more or less an approximation the other.
timr 4y ago
> In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity for that to happen (if it were ever going to happen). Yeah, that's just not true. It's an absurd claim. Medical science is loaded with examples of things that had wide consensus (but...95%? Probably? Feels like this is a loophole in the argument...) which were subsequently found to be false. Consider just a few examples: * hormone replacement therapy * aspirin for heart attacks * mammograms for younger women (< 50) Just this year, a huge RCT called into doubt the usefulness of mass colonoscopy [1], which was absolutely "scientific consensus" until now (you can see this, because the study was met with rather vicious backlash). For a more basic science example, consider "The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology" [2] which, of course, was so "consensus" that they named it "The Central Dogma": genetic information goes from DNA to RNA to proteins. This was fact...until they discovered retroviruses. Then prions. Oops. This stuff happens all the time. The authors are either not scientists, or they're so blinkered by ideology that they're unreliable. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2208375 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2208375 [2] https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Central-Dogma https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Central-Dogma
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Just this year, a huge RCT called into doubt the usefulness of mass colonoscopy [1] This reference seems to be saying that mass colonoscopy reduces the 10 year risk of colorectal cancer by a statistically significant amount. How is this calling into doubt its usefulness?
  - BlackFly 4y ago
    An ongoing theme in cancer research with regards to diagnostics is that a lot of the cancers caught by the diagnostic techniques would not be fatal. Hence, there is not a statistically significant reduction in mortality but rather a reduction in cancer. It is basically just saying: not all cancers kill you, maybe you are better off not knowing about the non-fatal ones. Part of the backlash points out that cancer can affect quality of life in other ways and no one measured that. But either way, it throws the consensus into doubt.
  - 4y ago
TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
International scientific consensus, in the past, had a man murdered for proving the earth orbiting the sun.
- krapp 4y ago
  No it didn't. The Church was not a scientific body. The basis for their beliefs was not the scientific method, but faith in a literal interpretation of Scripture. Actual international scientific consensus (meaning, the consensus of actual scientists) has never had anyone murdered, if for no other reason than "science" has no body equivalent to the Church empowered or capable to do so, but certainly not for proving a hypothesis.
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    > Actual international scientific consensus (meaning, the consensus of actual scientists) has never had anyone murdered, Scientific racism and the various eugenics movements say hello.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Huh? Copernicus died in his home when he was in his 70s. Galileo died of old age as well. Tycho Brahe died from politeness. Bruno was burned because he was a hermetic mystic and didn't really prove anything significant about the planets.
  - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
    Well I'm glad Bruno died. Those hermetic mystics had it coming, and not proving anything significant is basically high treason to science, fully deserving immediate immolation!
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      My point is that although a lot of people want him to be because it fits the narrative, he is a remarkably poorly martyr for science.
stochastimus 4y ago
If you replaced QM with general relativity, you would be correct. So, your broader point is valid.
jll29 4y ago
> Do not mistake "useful" for "true." As far as theories are concerned, "useful" means "makes valid predictions", so true, but within a limited scope (Newtonian physics: macroscopic events, from a human perspective).
- Jack_Hacker 4y ago
  If we take QM seriously, there's nothing stopping it from affecting macroscopic events from a human perspective. A cannonball whose trajectory was planned in accordance with Newtonian physics could suddenly and unexpectedly move three feet to the left, it's just ridiculously unlikely.[0] This isn't a piecewise function where Newtonian physics is true within some constraints of speed and scale, Newtonian physics is simply wrong and useful. [0]: Under the Everett interpretation, which is no more or less scientific than the Copenhagen interpretation, this happens all the time and is witnessed by many humans.
dumpsterdiver 4y ago
Yeah, "future proof, established scientific facts" are pretty much the opposite of what scientific progress brings. I find it repulsive to even entertain the idea of "future proof facts". To me that is hubris to the extreme, especially when it is based upon a consensus of those whose knowledge and instrumentation are grounded in the present. Finally, as others have noted, science revolves around theories and observations, and what we can currently ascertain from said observations - not facts. Often times "facts" are nothing more than bullshit that has yet to be called out. Imo, if someone is more interested in carving "facts" into stone than continually engaging with what we think we know - they aren't the right person for the job.

krona 4y ago

Since the article doesn't mention the word 'experiment' once I doubt it's even discussing science but rather 'scientific orthodoxy' which is something else entirely and should never be categorised as 'fact'.

version_five 4y ago

The article seems to be making it's definition of "fact" as a guide to policymakers on what should be accepted as fact. I think this is all a bit of a red herring. The question is how do policymakers deal with politically charged topics. And I personally haven't seen cases where more research or "science" is the answer, it's just crutch that people use to try and make their political point. The article mentions climate change, which is a great example of something that's been scienced to death. The future is unknowable, there will always be some "we can never know" component to it, but that doesn't necessitate more research to find a smoking gun that will shut down all sceptics, not does it require that since we can't prove it, we ignore it. Some mix of balance of probabilities plus public will easily passes the threshold for doing something. So do something. Sequester CO2, build dikes, if the whole thing comes to naught, it won't be the most wasteful thing government did. A pragmatic approach is what's needed, not some philosophical search for how we define truth, which just offsets the problem one layer and doesn't change the politics at all

akiselev 4y ago
At this point I think that the definition of truth is just another wedge issue introduced to the political teamsport - the process of searching for truth was already so noisy that it's best left to the people nearest to the feedback loops that help us iterate on solutions. Reading between the lines, this is a push to take power away from the bureaucrats in charge of the US (Western?) regulatory model (the so called "deep state") and move the "fact finding" process to somewhere the politicians could better influence it. Climate change is a perfect example because oil companies and armed forces worldwide have been operating under the assumption that it's real and its coming, largely because they're the ones who have to deal with, for example, the immediate effects of storm size on ship builders, ports, and deep sea mining equipment. We've got a Jekyll and Hyde government with a Navy that has been preparing for climate change since the 90s while half the country fights tooth and nail against the very concept. I think the pragmatic approach is to let the experts at the CDC, FDA, EPA, etc do the work they're qualified to do while working on checks and balances to prevent regulatory capture, politicization, and corruption.
becquerel 4y ago
What if climate change turns out to be a hoax and we made the world better for nothing?

DarkNova6 4y ago

This is a good question to raise, but the question is mostly academic thought gymnastics. Would it be great if policies and decisions were based on facts? Sure it would. But the real problem is not the distinction between "fact" and "very high confidence". The real problem is that is the misuse of dubious correlations to justify agendas. Politics, economics, personal decisions etc. We don't have a crisis of scientific facts. We have a replication crisis. And because of that, a lot of bogus science goes unnoticed and makes way WAY larger impact than it should.

godelski 4y ago

> Why haven’t science scholars devoted time to this issue? This is a flat out lie. Metascientists have grappled with this question for a long time, including Kuhn and Popper (who are mentioned). The truth of the matter is that you can't identify a scientific fact, that's not really how science works. We rule things out, not in. But we also hone in on answers but never have an exact one. There will always be a lot of trust in the system. We trust that scientists won't lie. The truth is that there is very little lying. Because if you do, you are completely ruined. We're even seeing people distrust science not because scientists are wrong but because science reporting is wrong and people will blame scientists but not the reporting. Though the thing is, how is a layman supposed to know the difference? I wouldn't expect them to and I don't know how to. I can only really judge a "fact" that's in my niche in my field and everything else is an educated guess. I have training and experience, but there's still a lot of trust in the system. The world runs on trust and people are extremely trustworthy and good, even in this time where many people don't think this is true the evidence is right there that people are honest. But the article is talking about two different things. It opens with > Scientists, policymakers, and laypersons could all use an answer to [knowing what is a fact] but then starts discussing how we know the earth's core's composition. I'm surprised they didn't talk about the electron (or particles) as this is something Popper and Kuhn both talked about. Are they real or are they forces or just a mathematical construct? This is a far more philosophical question than discussing how public can understand if someone is teaching science or telling lies while sounding scientific. This is really missing the point if you're conflating these two philosophical ideas. I do think we should teach more metascience in the sciences but I'm not sure this will do anything to build peoples' trust in science, and more importantly, scientific communication. But how should policy makers deal with these questions? The same way news sources should. You communicate with the scientists and you have scientists (or former) on your team. People that can speak the language and communicate with you. This has to be a team effort because we live in a world of specialization. There is too much information for any singular person to even have a glimpse of reality. But you'll find that many politicians don't have members like these on their teams and I'm not sure how you could expect them to make accurate decisions (or how they can even trust themselves, but that's a different issue).

aaron695 4y ago

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biomcgary 4y ago

This very lightweight article doesn't touch on why Popper and Kuhn were so influential (although I'm partial to Imre Lakatos, who tried to rescue Popper from Kuhn). If you aren't familiar with the Logical Positivists and their approach to science, it's valuable background to understanding the debates. The article shows that the West has not really come to terms with rejecting divine revelation and the end of absolute certainty. Some personalities seem more drawn to "facts" than others, probably the same ones that are drawn to authoritarianism (of whatever flavor). I doubt people with high openness (in the OCEAN / Big Five sense) really clamor for FACTS.

satisfice 4y ago
Shout out to Lakatos!
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andreareina 4y ago

What a terrible, horrible, no-good article. Claiming to be able to arbitrate what is fact and what isn’t without even mentioning epistemology and all the open questions therein, the reason that science is a process and not an end result… very bad form for a professor of philosophy. Maybe he goes into the details in the book he’s flogging (his own book of course) but judging by tfa my confidence is low.

nayroclade 4y ago
The article is an extended intro for a book the author has written. Perhaps the book mentions these things? Have you read it?
- andreareina 4y ago
  Things exist in context. What's good for an introduction to a book I've already bought is not necessarily good for a stand-alone article for a website. Although I would argue that even the former should have some mention of the obvious starting points and objections. If I read this introduction in a book store or library I'd be putting it back on the shelf. No, I haven't read the book and I shan't for this passage gives me little confidence that the book would do them justice.

anenefan 4y ago

In the landscape of hypothesis and theory ... there are no known facts apart from those who've been proven elsewhere. Too many people (science people) make this simple mistake, not a lot, but still, too many.

marifjeren 4y ago

Allow me to save you a click: "established scientific facts can be identified via a solid (>95%) international scientific consensus"

jonbake 4y ago
Is that really a fact? It seems like _scientific fact_ is a misnomer. Nothing can ever be a fact in science, even with 95% consensus.
- marifjeren 4y ago
  I'm just quoting the article. Agreed though, perhaps nothing is a fact. All statements are false. Some are useful.

marginalia_nu 4y ago

Is there such a thing as a scientific fact? Seems to fly in the face of the philosophy of science, which typically has science as a process of ruling out things that are incorrect and incrementally approximating the truth.

Octokiddie 4y ago

The article doesn't fulfill the promise of the title. Not only does it not explain how to identify a scientific fact (who samples the 95% "consensus" and who decides what to ask, for example?), it doesn't even define the term, despite multiple uses. The reason is, of course, that there are no scientific facts. There are hypotheses, theories, and observations. There is a scientific method, which attempts to connect them together. This is a deeply unsettling perspective to a lot of people who demand something science can't deliver but which religion can, and I'd count the author among them. Whenever an author starts tooting about "scientific facts" I sense an agenda. And it's often followed by demands that I submit to it. Elsewhere, the author pitches the book like so: > My new book Identifying Future-Proof Science argues that we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever (so long as science continues). Examples include the evolution of human beings from fish, and the fact that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. ... https://petervickersphilosophy.com/publications/ https://petervickersphilosophy.com/publications/ The first claim is laughable. Without a path for abiogenesis (there is none yet), claims this specific about evolution are anything but "fact." And the tautology of classifying the Milky Way galaxy as a galaxy makes me wonder if the author has problems with basic logic.

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satisfice 4y ago
Seems to me we can identify a scientific fact: it's an empirical proposition for which we have sufficient scientific evidence. "Sufficient" is a community standard, and different communities may have different standards. That's not an ideal state of affairs, but it turns out to be a liveable one. This doesn't solve the problem of "future-proofing" or universalizing facts, because THAT is not a solvable problem. But it does solve the local problem of making a community decision about who deserves respect and what topics are worth debating.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > it's an empirical proposition for which we have sufficient scientific evidence. "Sufficient" is a community standard It doesn't have to be. We can use predictive power to judge how strong our evidence is.

jll29 4y ago

The article portrays Popperian falsifiability as a negative thing, when in fact it is exactly the kind of defining criterion that the author is hunting for. Except it is a criterion of a scientific _theory_ , not a fact derived from it; because the natural sciences are entirely empirical disciplines (today), theories can only be _disproved_ , not proved, by experiments. Progress - in the form of convergence towards truth among the community of experts (Peirce) - is achieved by revising theories. Like with software, there comes a point when tweaking the old implementation becomes frustrating, and it's time for a re-write from scratch - that'd be a Kuhn-style change of paradigm a la Einstein's theory of relativity. Different from the realm of software, older theories (e.g. Newtonian physics) remain valid and often useful for some restricted scope. The author Peter Vickers appears to have written this blog post motivated by a recent line of work that resulted in a book that came out entitled "Identifying Future-Proof Science": https://academic.oup.com/book/44533?login=false https://academic.oup.com/book/44533?login=false (2022, Oxford University Press); putting it in my shopping basket/on my 2023 reading list & curious to hear from anyone who has read it already. Crazy idea: I propose someone collect a list of facts - e.g. a wiki - that actual scientists can sign individually (e.g. owners of academic email addresses that do not contain a .stud. sub-string). My contribution of a fact: "On earth, any fruit of _malus domestica_ (commonly called "apple") that is dropped will fall down" (which means from the height of any person towards the centre of earth) as long as (small print to establish the boundary conditions of Newtonian physics).

pdonis 4y ago
> theories can only be _disproved_ , not proved, by experiments While it is technically true that a theory cannot be "proved", that view ignores the huge range of predictive power in our various scientific theories. General relativity and quantum mechanics have extraordinary predictive power: we can make quantitative predictions that match experimental results to ten or more decimal places. But predictive power gets worse by many orders of magnitude as you go down the scale from "harder" to "softer" sciences, to the point where we don't have any real predictive power at all in many areas of social science. > a Kuhn-style change of paradigm a la Einstein's theory of relativity Actually, no, this wasn't a Kuhnian change of paradigm. Why? Because a Kuhnian paradigm shift requires that the two paradigms are incommensurable. And that's not true for relativity vs. Newtonian mechanics. Relativity contains Newtonian mechanics as a particular approximation (low speeds and weak gravitational fields). So Newtonian mechanics is not incommensurable with relativity. By contrast, the shift from Aristotelian physics to Galilean physics (I say "Galilean" since Galileo was actually the one that started the shift, before Newton was even born) was a Kuhnian paradigm shift, because Aristotelian physics and Galilean physics are incommensurable. Aristotelian physics contains teleological concepts that don't have any counterparts whatever in Galilean physics, not even as approximations. > older theories (e.g. Newtonian physics) remain valid and often useful for some restricted scope. With a true Kuhnian paradigm shift, this is not true: the old theory just gets thrown away. Aristotelian physics wasn't used by anyone after Galilean physics became the dominant paradigm, not even in a restricted scope. This is why Kuhn claimed that there is no such thing as scientific progress. He was wrong, of course: once a particular discipline actually becomes an experimental science (which Aristotelian physics was not), your statement about older theories does hold--Newtonian physics, as you say, being a prime example. But that is not what Kuhn was claiming happened in paradigm shifts.

satisfice 4y ago

The author seems disturbed that science fact is socially constructed. His solution is an appeal to social construction. He has not moved the ball by doing this. In fact, he's lost yardage, because now science would have to come together in consensus over his arbitrary 95% rule... which would be yet another social process... just to arrive at an ongoing popularity measurement process. Yuck. Seems like nothing he said really contradicts Kuhn. Kuhn agreed that normal science operates within a particular paradigm; and in that paradigm there are accepted facts. What we can't know is whether a new paradigm might emerge that rearranges sensory phenomena into a different set of facts that "makes more sense" in some way, or allows certain puzzles to be solved that cannot otherwise be solved. If enough of those puzzles can be resolved in the new paradigm compared the old, the stage is set for scientific revolution. There must be a stable reality of some kind, because when we operate as if there is, we are perpetually rewarded. But how we think about that reality is not necessarily stable. Oxygen definitely exists. But remember that the guy who discovered oxygen never called it by that name. The original term was "dephlogisticated air" which is a reference to the completely discredited phlogiston theory.

raincom 4y ago

All facts are theory-laden; that is, facts are facts of a particular theory. When a particular theory wins out, facts of such a theory are treated as facts beyond the confines of that theory.

water8 4y ago

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pella 4y ago

> "We want governments to base policies on scientific facts, insofar as that is possible" How we can act judiciously under uncertainty ? related: Medical Science: "The science-policy relationship in times of crisis: An urgent call for a pragmatist turn" ( August 2022 ) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622004464 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362... Keywords: Crisis, Public health policymaking, Uncertainty, Knowledge, Pragmatism, Covid-19 Abstract: "In this conceptual paper, we argue that at times of crisis, what is sometimes called “evidence-based” or “science-driven” policymaking—establishing scientific truths and then implementing them—must be tempered by a more agile, deliberative and inclusive approach which acknowledges and embraces uncertainty. We offer pragmatism as one potential option, using examples from the UK to illustrate how such an approach might have changed particular crisis decisions and led to better outcomes. We propose that to better prepare for the next public health crisis, five pragmatism-informed shifts are needed in the science-policy relationship: from scientism to science-informed narrative rationality that emerges from practice; from knowledge-then-action to acting judiciously under uncertainty; from hierarchies of evidence to pluralist inquiry; from polarized camps to frame-reflective dialogue; and from an “inside-track” science-policy dialogue to greater participatory democracy. We suggest an agenda for a pragmatist-informed program of applied research on crisis public health policymaking."

mbg721 4y ago
In a temporary crisis, the mandate is to enact policies that calm panic, even if they aren't just or scientific (and they usually aren't). A major complaint about COVID is that the panic came from the top down, as a justification for doing the unjust and unscientific things the people in charge wanted to do anyway. Nobody is really addressing the truth or lack of truth of that statement, we're all just slinging mud.

college_physics 4y ago

When we use a single word for a complex phenomenon (in this instance, the "scientific fact") we bound to have endless discussions talking past each other. The focus on "95%" gives away that the focus of the article is on a preliminary stage of scientific inquiry, where uncertainties around the measurement (observation) process are dominant and the explanatory framework of what is happening is sketchy (statistical) in nature. This is typically the case when the system we want to establish scientific facts about is very complex (e.g. biological or much worse, human social). Inceased scientific confidence obtains only when we can control that complexity and zoom-in into more fundamental behavior that can be both quantified and explained in more detail. That deepening of understanding leads to a cycle of prediction/measurement/experiment/confirmation that keeps adding "confidence" in a way that has nothing to do with statistical "95%" confidence. E.g., Netwonian laws were "proven" to very high certainty and yet they got eventually replaced by even more accurate scientific models. Scientific facts are a journey, not a destination. For a sane discussion we need to clarify what phase of the journey we are talking about.

mistermann 4y ago
> When we use a single word for a complex phenomenon (in this instance, the "scientific fact") we bound to have endless discussions talking past each other. I think of it as "what data type(s) would I need to store this information", and the epistemic status(es) (maybe with reasoning, etc) would be a part of that.

_tom_ 4y ago

"Scientific fact" is a term used by people who don't understand science.

Timwi 4y ago
The term is used by such eminent and respected scientists as Richard Dawkins and Neil de Grasse Tyson. I don't think that they misunderstand science.
- _tom_ 4y ago
  Dawkins makes it clear here, that he is using the terms to explain to people who don't understand science: https://richarddawkins.net/2015/11/is-it-a-theory-is-it-a-law-no-its-a-fact/ https://richarddawkins.net/2015/11/is-it-a-theory-is-it-a-la...

someonewhocar3s 4y ago

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8bitsrule 4y ago

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong. ⇐ Francis Crick

nathias 4y ago

The author doesn't really get epistemology, it isn't that philosophers are out there mocking geologists and think that such ice ages probably didn’t exist and are just “nice ideas”. We are trying to establish frameworks of justification with explicit and rigorous criteria that we can use to determine when something is knowledge, and so far the double negative (non-falsifiable) is the closest we can get to an affirmation of scientific fact. This isn't some whim of epistemologists, this is because the task is very hard and simple 'its the current year' rhetoric does not resolve the problems with knowledge justification.

yamrzou 4y ago
The author is a philospher of science, it's a discredit to simply suppose that he doesn't get epistemology just from this article. This blog post is meant to be an introduction to the book, which has more discussion and details: https://petervickersphilosophy.com/2021/07/08/identifying-future-proof-science/ https://petervickersphilosophy.com/2021/07/08/identifying-fu....
- nathias 4y ago
  Then the article is in bad faith, in any case a bad article.

madmaniak 4y ago

There are no scientific facts. There are only scientific proves. Didn't need to read the article thanks to the title.

remote_phone 4y ago

This article is garbage. If we agreed that 95% consensus was “scientific fact” then plenty of “truths” that we knew back in the past would never be revisited. For example, homosexuality was thought of as a choice as recently as the 1980s. Or high fat diets caused heart disease. Or larger heads equals smarter people. The reason why scientific facts don’t exist is because the truly great scientists before this author knew that facts are only as good until the next data point that disproves it. On the other hand, trying to establish scientific fact as consensus will result in political fights to try to force the scientific community and policy makers into decisions that further their own agendas. The sex/gender political fight right now is a great example of how consensus can be forced to further agendas. It’s evil and should never be pursued. Leave science as it is.

46394673928 4y ago
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- gunchy 4y ago
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kuhewa 4y ago

This article reminder me of this classic from 1994 by Steven Jay Gould, "Evolution as a fact and theory". [1] I adore SJG but this is one essay where I disagreed. Actually started the first day of a research design course in a pretty heated debate with the dead wood professor where this essay was the topic of discussion, he couldn't wrap his head around taking epistemological or practical issue with the label of scientific fact and accused me of being a creationist. But I digress: I don't see what use the word fact is except in a contextual sense. We have scientific observations, which are pretty close to facts, but they can still change when we later discover measurement error or similar. Everything beyond those observations is a matter of inference and I can't see how calling them a fact is useful beyond a term of convenience in the context of a dialogue where all parties are informed on the subject and can agree on something akin to the Gould definition: > In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." Because you won't be convincing the unconvinced by calling something a fact, especially not in the post-truth era, so it's not going to turn creationists and will have limited use for public health messaging or similar. [1] https://wise.fau.edu/~tunick/courses/knowing/gould_fact-and-theory.html https://wise.fau.edu/~tunick/courses/knowing/gould_fact-and-...

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
There are two worlds colliding here. The scientific world is primarily oriented towards finding stable consensus truths that are independent of individual bias. The political world is primarily oriented towards persuasion and behaviour modification - either for personal gain, or (more rarely) to promote fairness, equality, and perhaps even opportunity. To politicians, scientific facts are only one of many available tools for persuasion, and they're not particularly good at it. These worlds are incompatible to such an extent that people operating in one world are fundamentally unable to understand the other. So the question is really "How do you create a political consensus?" The answer is well-known - you set up numerous apparently independent think tanks and PR operations to promote your message across multiple media, you put journalists-for-hire in positions of notability and influence, you design soundbite concepts and memes that spread the message virally. You use psychological techniques learned from the ad industries and corporate psychology to dramatise and frame your message to make it more personally relatable. For bonus points you set up an enemy who opposes your message and you demonise, belittle, and humiliate them. Ideally you frame the "debate" to make disagreement literally unthinkable, while also making all supporters feel as if their beliefs are entirely their own, arrived at rationally and objectively. Scientific consensus on its own will do none of this. And a scientific "fact" is powerless against this process.

bell-cot 4y ago

Humans want "Laws of Nature" which are set in stone, easy to understand, written to kinda favor them, and subject to the sort of wording twists, rules-gaming, and lawyering that they're always doing with human social rules (including laws, promises, contracts, & such), to get away with crap. Nature really doesn't care what humans want. Read every Superman comics ever written, dress up like him, jump off the cliff - and you'll go "splat" at the bottom. Nature also never shows anyone the magic stone, which has all the rules written on it. Babies figure out pretty early that dropped objects fall to the ground. After a lot of bloody "splat"s, clever grown-ups figured out how to run off cliffs with parachutes & hang gliders and stuff, and live to brag about it. Usually. Things still go wrong sometimes. Pretty much everything I've seen about on subjects like seems to boil down to humans wanting Nature to have rules that work their way, Nature not caring what humans want, and humans arguing about it anyway.

sega_sai 4y ago

As a scientist I disagree. I would rather call just facts as facts, and the rest can still be called theories/models/understanding. I.e. only stuff that is directly observed can be a fact. For sure I think the evidence of human caused global warming is overwhelming and is based on to large degree simple physics, I would still not call that a fact. I think relabeling some theories as facts is potentially dangerous and may prevent future progress.

mythrwy 4y ago
Agreed. Gravity is a theory. An apple fell on my head is a fact.

Certhas 4y ago

This seems to be, on the face of it, an incredibly superficial take. To start with there is a seminal work on just this topic: Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, Ludwik Fleck Then to summarize the "there are no facts" position as "the idea that many philosophers of science muse that such ice ages probably didn’t exist and are just “nice ideas” that are currently popular amongst scientists who have been indoctrinated into a particular paradigm." is in parts wrong and on top of that incredibly misleading. I challenge you to find a single philosopher of sciemce who would assert that "ice ages probably didn’t exist". This imaginary philosopher does not exist, doubly so as this strawman would assert a fact about the world (specifically that the probability that ice ages have existed is low), in blatant contradiction to the "there are no facts" idea.

ergonaught 4y ago

Author seems to be throwing a polite and courteous tantrum lacking serious intellectual rigor. Kuhn and Poppler left lasting marks because they were, in the author's apparent intended sense of the word, expressing facts. There are 10,000 things wrong with this whole approach. The point, I assume, is that we do have some vitally important things that need doing sometimes, and wasting enormous finite resources trying to achieve even consensus, nevermind unanimity, has been rendered impossible or senseless or horrifically dangerous. Yep. That's a real problem (one might call it a fact). This avenue is a dead end, though.

yawboakye 4y ago

begs the question, cui bono? obviously, the orthodoxy. the author is clear in his example of who cares about the so-called scientific facts: governments and policymaking agencies. from where i sit, it appears we're looking for another weapon in the arsenal to overruling the individual's free will to, importantly, harm themselves against their (and usually our) better judgement. coming off the back of the recent vaccine debacle, it has a certain curiosity to it. if "vaccines help" were a scientific fact, then we'd probably be in the clear to force straighten people's arms and hit several shots into their veins, for their own good.

hackeraccount 4y ago

All you have to do is pick up The National Enquirer to suspect that facts aren't really the itch people are trying to scratch. I'm not sure what it is people want ( Context maybe or capital T Truth.) but I know you can lie all day long with facts that are undisputed.