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I've learned that I have many biases and ideas that aren't grounded in reality, even though I really thought they were, but data couldn't support them. Since th

by Timon3 3y ago

I've learned that I have many biases and ideas that aren't grounded in reality, even though I really thought they were, but data couldn't support them. Since then I've tried to confront more and more of my knowledge in the same way. What you wrote might feel correct to you, but have you seen scientific research towards it? If you go by what you feel is right, how do you know you're not being manipulated? Seems like a perfect topic to divide people.

arp242 3y ago
It's a mistake to equate "scientific research" with "the truth" or "reality". Aside from some fundamental questions on what "scientific research" exactly is, it should be pretty obvious that "someone published a paper somewhere" is not really worth much of anything on its own; you can find published papers on all sorts of topics that are clearly nonsense. The further you move away from the hard sciences the harder it becomes to prove anything. Math, physics, and biology tends to be fairly easy as these things go; in medicine it already become significantly more murky, and with social sciences it's very hard indeed. I'm not saying there isn't a lot of valuable stuff in the social sciences, because there is, but "I will only accept what is scientificality proven" is a seriously limited view of things.
- Timon3 3y ago
  > It's a mistake to equate "scientific research" with "the truth" or "reality". Aside from some fundamental questions on what "scientific research" exactly is, it should be pretty obvious that "someone published a paper somewhere" is not really worth much of anything on its own; you can find published papers on all sorts of topics that are clearly nonsense. And yet it's an even bigger mistake to discount the idea of knowledge gain through the scientific process. Remember, we're not talking about two separate attempts to gain knowledge - we have one systematic but flawed attempt, whereas the opposite is simply not trying at all. Just because you cannot exactly determine the mass of "bias in scientific publishing" doesn't mean you can't try to systematically study it, to find objective metrics by which you determine some order on some scale. Just think about this from the other perspective. Is there any piece of knowledge you have that is fundamentally impossible to study scientifically? Is there an unwritten law of the universe preventing somebody from formulating a system by which emotionless judgement is denied? If not, why would you not want to see scientific evidence, to at least lessen the chances of you being fooled by the interests of others?

by Timon3 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

It's a mistake to equate "scientific research" with "the truth" or "reality". Aside from some fundamental questions on what "scientific research" exactly is, it should be pretty obvious that "someone published a paper somewhere" is not really worth much of anything on its own; you can find published papers on all sorts of topics that are clearly nonsense. The further you move away from the hard sciences the harder it becomes to prove anything. Math, physics, and biology tends to be fairly easy as these things go; in medicine it already become significantly more murky, and with social sciences it's very hard indeed. I'm not saying there isn't a lot of valuable stuff in the social sciences, because there is, but "I will only accept what is scientificality proven" is a seriously limited view of things.

Timon3 3y ago
> It's a mistake to equate "scientific research" with "the truth" or "reality". Aside from some fundamental questions on what "scientific research" exactly is, it should be pretty obvious that "someone published a paper somewhere" is not really worth much of anything on its own; you can find published papers on all sorts of topics that are clearly nonsense. And yet it's an even bigger mistake to discount the idea of knowledge gain through the scientific process. Remember, we're not talking about two separate attempts to gain knowledge - we have one systematic but flawed attempt, whereas the opposite is simply not trying at all. Just because you cannot exactly determine the mass of "bias in scientific publishing" doesn't mean you can't try to systematically study it, to find objective metrics by which you determine some order on some scale. Just think about this from the other perspective. Is there any piece of knowledge you have that is fundamentally impossible to study scientifically? Is there an unwritten law of the universe preventing somebody from formulating a system by which emotionless judgement is denied? If not, why would you not want to see scientific evidence, to at least lessen the chances of you being fooled by the interests of others?