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I think one cause of this inability to tolerate dissent is how scientists and capital-S Science have functionally (and inadequately) replaced religion/ethics/ph
by keiferski 3y ago
I think one cause of this inability to tolerate dissent is how scientists and capital-S Science have functionally (and inadequately) replaced religion/ethics/philosophy for a sizable portion of society. Many otherwise intelligent people think that religion/philosophy is purely subjective, merely a word game, or not something "serious" people study. Of course, they do this without understanding that this position is itself a philosophical position, the result of centuries of intellectual development.
The result: science, which is supposed to be a neutral process that encourages dissent, becomes a political game, where scientists are treated as the ultimate authority on non-scientific questions.
- nonethewiser 3y agoComplete with "believers" and "non-believers." Which has no place in the actual scientific process.
- mnky9800n 3y agoEven priests! When's the last time Neil Degrassi Tyson did any science? No he just preaches the good word for speaking fees that would embarrass you.
- 77pt77 3y agoDid he ever do anything worth mentioning? He sounds like a bureaucrat that just climbed the hierarchical ladder.
- apienx 3y agoI couldn't find any "influential" papers by him. Here's a fascinating read about Neil's scientific output. The graph at the bottom is quite informative. https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/09/neil-degrasse-tyson-not-much-of-an-astrophysicist/ https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/09/neil-degrasse-tyson-not...
- defrost 3y agoThe fame x paper sequence chart was telling: https://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/images/20100719_astronomer_HR_diagram.png https://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/images/20100719_astron... and, as noted, Dr Brian May is completely off the chart (fame - wise) with relatively few astro papers (just his doctorate?).
- bglazer 3y agoNeil de Grasse Tyson’s academic output is exactly what you would expect from someone did a phd then left research science. He has a few first author papers that have a couple dozen citations and a few papers where he’s only a contributor. He hasn’t written academically since then. He’s not doing active research, which may mean he’s fallen behind on the cutting edge, but that doesn’t mean he’s not qualified to talk about astronomy with the public. He has the relevant training and knowledge. Emil Kirkegaard, whose blog you linked to, is not a reliable or unbiased source for this kind of judgement for a wide variety of reasons.
- joshuaissac 3y agoThe gist of this article seems to be that Tyson is "not much of an astrophysicist" because he has too many social media followers compared to the number of papers he has published. That kind of analysis seems nonsensical to me.
- Dalewyn 3y ago"Trust the science.", which I recall was often preached during covid lockdowns, is about as religious as it gets.
- jquery 3y agoThings can get way more religious than that. For example, we can look at the science and do the exact opposite of what the data tells us.
- spookthesunset 3y agoFunny. That is what seemed to happen in reaction to covid. Data and science were routinely ignored and replaced by fear and tribalism. How else can you get people to sign up for insane never ending government mandates?
- verisimi 3y agoI couldn't agree more. Widespread belief in 'the science' is no different to any other cargo cult. One should either know whatever-it-is because one has verified it, or one should be able to express one's assumptions re one's hypothesis. Social beliefs ought to have no part of it. Objective truth is not uncovered by consensus.
- themitigating 3y agoScience is different from religion in that it could be wrong and the basis is empirical tests. Religion is never wrong, faith is believing without evidence, and religion doesn't test it claims
- AnonCoward42 3y agoThat is a game of motte and bailey really. The hard definition of science is another than the one we've seen over the years in mass media.
- themitigating 3y agoThe "mass media" is not one organization. I haven't seen any news reports redefining what science is, feel free to provide evidence of that. Finally it's not a game of definitions because science has a specific meaning. You can't just change that meaning (even if you add a captial S) then be critical about it. You're critical because some organization in the government lied? Nothing to do with science You're mad because some scientist committed fraud? Nothing to do with science. Peer reviewers aren't properly checking papers, that's their fault and or their university/company. Nothing to do with science. The majority of scientists believed something through experiments that were faulty or limited data then later turned out to be wrong? That's how it works, science isn't perfect but what's the alternative? If you aren't an expert in a field or willing to put massive amounts of time in researching something but you have to make a decision doing whatever the majority of people in a field say is the most logical course of action
- 3y ago
- KeplerBoy 3y agoThere are no non-scientific questions, are there?
- keiferski 3y agoLittle more complicated than that. Here’s a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
- lliamander 3y agoYou just asked one.
- xereeto 3y agoSure there are. "Is the universe really billions of years old, or did it pop into existence three seconds ago in its current state including all of your memories?" It's impossible to answer this question scientifically because no empirical test could ever possibly be devised.
- austinjp 3y agoFunny, that's a variety of Russell's Teapot, which stemmed from philosophical arguments about religion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
- theelous3 3y agoAlso known as Last Tuesdayism, where the universe happened last Tuesday. I and other intellectuals consider this ridiculous. It was in fact last Thursday.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoMetaphysics and ethics in philosophy are non-scientific. And these are extremely important things. Religion, which is folk metaphysics and folk ethics, is, to billions of people now living on this planet, more important and relevant to their daily lives than science is.
- 3y ago
- 77pt77 3y agoScience is a human endeavour and therefore it's always political.
- keiferski 3y agoIn some sense sure, but that doesn’t imply that scientists ought to function as political actors - especially when doing so puts the actual practice of science at risk.
- 77pt77 3y agoIt cannot be helped. Is always takes precedence over ought.
- keiferski 3y agoWhat can’t be helped? Your comment is too vague for me to understand what you’re getting at. As I said in my original comment, I think scientists are being put in political positions because of a failure of culture/people/society to care sufficiently about philosophy and religion. The solution to this seems obvious to me.
- pixl97 3y agoOne, what does religion have to do with those? Two, individuals are political therefore their politics bleeds into science. If you think there is an obvious solution then you are most assuredly incorrect. Understanding power dynamics is part of philosophy, not something that is separate from it.
- keiferski 3y agoThe entire intellectual history of the past 3,000+ years has been shaped by “religion”, which as a separate concept is a fairly recent phenomenon. Everything from individual rights, the value of Truth, the concept of secularism, and a million other things can be directly traced to conflicts and developments of religion. Part of the problem that I alluded to is the refusal of many intelligent people to recognize this. Secondly, there is a major difference between scientists having political beliefs and scientists being put in political positions where they make decisions for society at large. These are not the same thing. Thirdly, the obvious solution was to make people care more about philosophy and religion and not continue to put scientists into a political position where they are incentivized to quash dissent.
- tbrownaw 3y ago> think that religion/philosophy is purely subjective, merely a word game, or not something "serious" people study. When you turn the cultural relativism up to eleven.
- eastbound 3y agoModernity is when you pilot society using science. See: EPCOT and Disney’s vision in the 1950 of building entire cities with everything perfectly entirely planned. So when you control science, you control the laws. And you can’t control science, but you can control the press around science, and how people talk about science.
- deadbeeves 3y ago>Many otherwise intelligent people think that religion/philosophy is purely subjective, merely a word game Well, "subjective" is the wrong word, but I get what you mean. However, aren't they just word games? It's not like theology and philosophy study anything real. They just investigate what can be deduced from specific axiomatic systems that are entirely divorced from reality. Theologians aren't even consistent, since they have dogmas that they'll contort around in order to avoid contradicting, even if that involves contradicting other parts of scripture. I'll never forget the time I asked a philosophy undergraduate why he decided to go to university for philosophy rather than just reading the bibliography by himself, and he told me that by doing so he could teach philosophy. An academic pyramid scheme.
- maksimur 3y agoGenerally speaking university gives you the tools and guides you. Most of the people aren't able to study university level subjects on their own.
- bluescrn 3y agoThat was the idea in the past. University now teaches you precisely what to think, and makes clear the consequences of ‘wrongthink’.
- deadbeeves 3y agoThat might be the case for other disciplines, but it certainly isn't for philosophy. There are no special techniques, you just read what other people have said on the subject. What else is there?
- jamilton 3y agoDiscussions and having a peer group seems like it would be helpful for learning philosophy.
- deadbeeves 3y ago
- toshk 3y agoThere is also an aspect where it goes from science to policy, and there is this step where certain parts of society simple state: "how dare you think you know better then x, who studied y for x amount of year, or this scientist". It happens here too. During Covid, also here the lab leak theory was talked as a crazy non-scientific conspiracy.
- ekianjo 3y agoActual scientists proposed the lab leak early on before they were prompty shut down by the Fauci establishment and the fake Lancet
- toshk 3y agoCommon sense proposed the lab leak. Was absurd and scary how easily it was dismissed in pretty much the entire Western media, not only the US. Even this forum got subjected to it.
- HKH2 3y agoWell it's potentially racist to some, so common sense has to go out the window.
- ekianjo 3y agoThe fact that labs exist in other countries with people of different ethnicities is not racist
- Nasrudith 3y agoBut the fact it was basically a recycling of several racist "those filthy foreigners are responsible for disease" tropes along with "scheming orientals" tropes.
- jkhdigital 3y ago
- paradox242 3y agoOh boy, a good old fashioned science versus religion brawl is about to go down. I haven't had a good one of these since the Atheist Crusade of the early 2000s.
- keiferski 3y agoI don’t really think my comment suggests that. I am saying that people should study philosophy and religion more, because it’s an extremely influential topic, especially when it comes to science. The framing of science and philosophy/religion as antagonistic is part of the problem.
- raincole 3y agoThe only "practical" thing I learned from pure math (I'm not good at it) is that everything is more or less, "word game", and everything can be questioned. Once you realize even the most obvious things, like "A < B || A == B || A > B" can be not necessarily true for real numbers, you really can't stop wondering if what authority says is so true...
- greysphere 3y agoThe Reals are ordered right? Any two elements can be compared. I'm guessing you might be referring to infinite sets of reals being potentially unordered under zfc w/o the axiom of choice. In that case, you made up this word 'infinite' so you have to say what it means. I guess calling that a word game is one way to think about it.
- raincole 3y ago> you might be referring to infinite sets of reals being potentially unordered under zfc w/o the axiom of choice. In that case, you made up this word 'infinite' so you have to say what it means. I guess calling that a word game is one way to think about it. Yeah. Since "uncountable infinite" has no real world meaning (maybe in some modern physics it does?), it's hard to say what the natural definition of real numbers is, and things like axiom of choice's true value is quite arbitrary. But even at a less-abstract level, I don't think the comparability of real numbers is so obvious. For example if you just define a (irrational) real number as a non-repeating decimal, or "a program on a Turing machine that prints digits and never halts"[1], then how do we know comp(A, B) halts or not? It's not a proof of that real numbers are not comparable (since it just reduces comp(A,B) to halting problem, not vice versa), but at least for me it's telling that simple things like comparison is not always simple. [1]: Of course it's ill-defined and can't cover all real numbers, since the number of programs on a giving Turing machine is countable.
- enugu 3y agoYou can encode halting of a program P as a comparison of a computable real number Q with a fixed number R by defining Q as 0.111..1 where each step of P adds one digit of 1 to Q’s expansion. P will halt iff Q is less than R=0.111… Any subset of reals is ordered as it inherits the usual order from reals. The existence of well ordering (related to AOC) is difficult issue). But the trichotomy of A>=<B does fail for a different but useful logic - remove the law of contradiction. There is a number e which is neither equal nor not equal to 0, with e^2=0. This leads to simplifications of concepts and proofs - you can define derivatives without limits for instance. This topic is studied in synthetic differential geometry. But the real response to the comment ‘everything is just a word game’ is ‘just’ is not apt. You are free to fix rules of the game, once done you face questions which are possibly beyond your ability to answer. A person could run a program checking id Fermat equations had solutions in 1950’s. Only In 1990’s we know after great advances (like discovering a route between mountain ranges) that this program wont halt (or ZFC is inconsistent which would be even more surprising).
- nathan_compton 3y agoDude, scientists (in my experience) handle dissent just fine. The idea that scientists have problems with dissenting opinions is mostly propagated by assholes with some other agenda, whose scientific ideas have already had a fair hearing, who are just trying to prolong the public discussion for reasons typically unmotivated by genuine scientific interest. I've spent most of my career around scientists of one stripe or another and I've literally never met a scientist committed to even their pet ideas at some kind of ideological level. Are scientists perfect? Hardly. Have their been scientific paradigms or ideas that have persisted longer than they should have? Definitely. Scientists are human beings. There are limits to how rational they can be, especially in groups, but to suggest that science is somehow intolerant of dissent is a straw man cartoon ass argument.
- noam_compsci 3y agoCovid debunks all your claims. I’ve taken all my covid jabs and boosters so I’m not coming at this as some alt right antivaxxer, but the systemic and systematic shut down of any dissent against mainstream science and scientific organisations was/is disgusting.
- rusk 3y agoIn my jurisdiction at least it was hijacked for business purposes. I believe that all the lockdown stuff was necessary but after a while certain actors started to take advantage of it, for instance supermarkets selling a broad range of stuff while all regular stores had to stay shut. Hurdur supply chain. Then there was the stockpiling of PPE, hand sanitizer. The dismissal of masks unless they were “very good” (totally ignoring collective benefit vs individual) and self testing (again ignoring aggregate benefit vs individual). As soon as particular commercial interests got their positions covered these things all of a sudden became “okay”. Again, like I say the Covid outbreak was real. We did need to do what we could not least to safeguard medical services. But boy did the schemers go to town once they figured out a way to get rich from it. Still waiting for that windfall tax on the supermarkets.
- chrisan 3y ago> Covid debunks all your claims. No it doesn't. Maybe something on social media but not a single one of my wife's colleagues at the hospital nor any other scientist would have turned down ivermectin (as an example, there were many other theories besides that one drug) if it had shown any sign of doing good for their patients. There were routine talking about alternate therapies among the scientists/doctors/researchers about these topics. You can search for the UCSF Covid Grand Rounds on youtube and watch the history of their open discussions as research was routinely presented from all over the globe on the various items. I code for a living and have no idea about this stuff, but my wife's goal is to make patients better and she would watch the grand rounds (or similar) every time and I'd listen from another room. Not a single alternate treatment wasn't discussed and evaluated.
- RandomLensman 3y agoThe discussion is about some specific area of science (epidemiology, sources of disease, ...) that inherently has social and political impact/interaction. There is no decoupling and decisions based on science there are political in nature, potentially trading off science vs social/political objectives. Typically, science cannot answer those trade offs easily (or at all sometimes).
- psychoslave 3y agoWhat do you mean with subjective? Both philosophy and religion are highly social topics. And past trivial instinctive moves, you need some languages and cultural framework to achieve anything that allows transcending individual limits. Science names a lot of heterogeneous practices which all have in common to be constraint by human interests. So they are neutral only if you define neutral with this highly sociosubjective consideration.
- keiferski 3y agoBy subjective I mean relative, I.e. there is no real difference between different options and it’s all no more significant than whether you prefer Pepsi or Coke. This is the attitude many people hold toward the topic.
- jjallen 3y agoNot all that greatly favor science turn science into a political game. Likely the small majority actually do. Anyone that treats a scientist as an authority on non-scientific questions isn't practicing science nor are they being smart.
- willis936 3y agoCould you fill in the logical leap from "spiritual institutions are no longer credible" to "science is now political"? That is not an intuitive leap. There are many independent and more plausible explanations. Also, the pretense of scientists not being good at science (i.e. cannot handle dissent) is a rocky one. Any scientist worth their salt is a person of science.
- keiferski 3y agoI think you can make a narrative something like this: traditional spiritual institutions lose their authority at the same time as technological-scientific ones gain in authority. Human beings are not good at following abstract ideas; they need other human beings to follow. Hence scientists fall into the role of “wisdom-givers” previously held by village elders, religious leaders, etc. Seeing as scientists are not trained to care about “wisdom” or ethics beyond the basics, it’s a mismatch that results in the problems I mentioned. Adding to this: the typical narrative is that scientific advances eroded spiritual authority, but many philosophers like Charles Taylor (in A Secular Age) show that is a vastly oversimplified view of what happened.
- wredue 3y ago[flagged]
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- mistermann 3y ago> Any scientist worth their salt is a person of science. Fun with set theory, tautologies, and rhetoric. Let's hope there are no negative repercussions!
- poszlem 3y ago"Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed."
- MC68328 3y ago> religion/philosophy is purely subjective, merely a word game, or not something "serious" people study Innit, though? The people who whine about 'scientism' tend to be selling a religious or political ideology. They reject the need to measure things because they don't want their shit tested.
- keiferski 3y agoNo, it isn’t, and the fact that someone could seriously suggest that the entire field of philosophy and religious studies is some kind of elaborate grift is a great example of what my original comment said.
- MC68328 3y agoSlow down, pardner, you're the one conflating religious studies with actual, and sometimes useful, philosophy. What your original comment said is that people are blindly deferring to the authority of scientists, when they should instead be blindly deferring to the authority of theologians and philosophers (and presumably only those of your preferred faction). (In the spirit of the continental philosophers, I read between the text.)
- keiferski 3y agoYour comment is full of false accusations and has nothing to do with what I wrote. Where did I say they should blindly defer to philosophers and theologians? I said these subjects should be studied more. Nor did I say people currently blindly adhere to scientists. If you’re going to argue, at least bother to read the comment carefully first.
- footlose_3815 3y agoWhy is it a bad thing that science has replaced superstition?
- disgruntledphd2 3y agoHow could one firstly measure science and superstition in such a way that this question would be answerable?
- teh64 3y agoI feeling like this whole science has replaced religion is just right wing cope because science doesn't represent their feelings. Also because people are becoming less religious, its an argument to prop up religions by saying: don't quit your current religion, all those "atheists" are just upholding different religious ideas, so they it is the same as switching to something like buddhism.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoThis is a non sequitur, which is ironic, given the rant. For one, there are entire disciplines about ethics and philosophy of science. Also, the number of scientists that have been legitimized outside their area of expertise, in the context of public discourse, is orders of magnitude lower than pretty much in any other career.
- csours 3y agoSome thoughts: Science as it is taught, is about the conclusions that scientists have come to over the centuries, it's about how they made their observations and how smart they were. It is taught as an orthodoxy, a settled thing that you can trust. This does not reflect science as a current work product. A related phenomenon is the math problem on social media - what is 2 + 2 * 3 (or similar). A complete answer is "Using PEMDAS, the answer is 2 + 6 = 8". But instead of giving the complete answer, which includes your assumptions, people fight about the answer. It's GREAT for engagement. --- It's interesting to me that religion has evolved many times in many places. It must fulfil a human need. It would be a nice story to tell oneself that one has no need of a childish crutch from a bygone era. It's a much nicer story than realizing everyone needs crutches. (Not the person reading this comment, of course, you are beyond such things; Now tell me again, who is the object of your righteous anger?)