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What do you mean? There is scientific consensus that washing hands between medical procedures makes them safer. There is scientific consensus that the earth is

by dahart 3y ago

What do you mean? There is scientific consensus that washing hands between medical procedures makes them safer. There is scientific consensus that the earth is round and is not the center of the solar system. These are not political statements. > Science is never conclusive. There’s always the possibility of a different answer. The history of science illustrates that clearly. What do you mean, can you give some examples? Which scientific conclusions might change? Do you mean that the earth might be flat after all? Or that your doctor not washing her hands before operating on you might be good for your health? Is non-zero ‘possibility’ being used as a justification to ignore the actual probability of a dissenting idea, even when almost all scientists agree? A small possibility is exactly that: unlikely, no?

xhkkffbf 3y ago
Okay, maybe there's "consensus" in your mind about "washing your hands', but it's not clear what that means. We need people questioning what is the best way to clean your hands. Maybe soap is good. Maybe soap poisons a few patients. Maybe isopropyl alcohol is good. Maybe some other kind of alcohol is better. I could go on. The point is that there could be some cases where a traditional application of soap and water is actually worse for the patients, the doctors, the nurses or someone else.
- xkcd-sucks 3y ago
  A better example would be "antibacterial" soap containing triclosan, on which the consensus has shifted fairly recently
- dahart 3y ago
  This is making the same mistake that @Blackstrat made; the existence of subtleties doesn’t change the primary high level outcome. There is pretty much absolute consensus on whether doctors should wash their hands. We have lots and lots and lots of evidence that using any reasonable disinfectant cut hospital mortality rates by multiples compared to what they were before hand-washing was protocol, while soap poisoning in hospitals today is extremely rare and difficult to find (and BTW doesn’t even mean soap is the problem, it more likely means the doctor didn’t follow the rinse protocol.) What disinfectant product to use does have a minor effect on the margins of the outcomes, sure, and there is still some side-discussion about that, but there is no discussion about whether to wash hands. If you’re going to challenge the idea that there’s consensus, you must present and examine the magnitudes of the effects of each decision. I do not buy the argument that a sliver of a marginal effect challenges the primary outcome - and I especially don’t buy the argument that because you imagine there “could be” some cases, then consensus isn’t clear enough. One person in a million dying of soap poisoning has no real bearing on whether doctors should wash their hands, and doesn’t change or challenge the scientific consensus that doctors should wash hands.
AlbertCory 3y ago
So you pick the most extreme cases (hand washing, round earth) and equate them to "COVID is not a lab leak, case closed, you are censored if you try to argue it!" The article lays out many cases where "consensus" was, indeed, a political construct and not really a scientific consensus at all.
- mistermann 3y ago
  It's a staple part of these sorts of conversations, we've had these arguments so many times you can pretty much script out in advance the various talking points one can expect to see per topic.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    I believe this is #3 in the phases of Denial: 1. It's not true 2. It's true, but it's not important 3. It's true, and it's important, but I already knew it. (A variant of #3 is "it's old news")
    - mistermann 3y ago
      Agreed....I'm more so suggesting something along the lines of having an AI ingest HN comments, and then using that to construct virtualizations of the participants here....with that, you could then theoretically generate a system that can predict the responses (in general, or individual members) of people in this (or other) forums for any topic of discussion. Even without a technical solution like this, it is not terribly difficult to draw lines around 75%++ of comments and produce decent theories about what motivates each individual to say the (particularly incorrect) things they say...and it is even easier to predict what their responses will be if their claims are challenged (the algorithm/workflow seems amazingly simple, there are perhaps ~20 distinct categories of responses that cover ~90% of scenarios). Interestingly: humans are able to easily see this phenomenon clearly when they are dealing with children, but if the same suggestion is made regarding adults, opinions tend to change, and amplify in strength of belief (particularly among relatively intelligent people in my experience). Note: I am pulling these numbers out of my ass, as humans do! But the underlying idea is fascinating to me, and I will make a bold prediction: humanity will be grappling with these ideas within 20 years, likely less.....I think it is unavoidable now that AI is in the wild.
pstuart 3y ago
Consensus on hand washing was not without challenges: https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection
- dahart 3y ago
  Exactly! That’s why it’s a good example here; scientific consensus was hard-won, but the debate is now settled, right? Nobody believes the answer might change, and saying so is not a political statement; we have too much evidence now. The earth being flat was also challenged too, and was a nasty political debate. But scientific consensus now on these topics is not a political debate, contrary to the top comment’s claim, scientific consensus is just the historical artifact of truth eventually bubbling to the top.
brnaftr361 3y ago
Yeah, but is there say... Scientific consensus that "safer" for the procedure is safer for the species? I mean, we don't really have a predefined goal, right? And I'd posit we're increasingly distancing ourselves from any consensus there - which to a large extent is how the domain of knowledge is circumscribed. The powers disbursing research funding want results that would ostensibly yield benefit in some system in some formulaic calculation as to where we should be going - but the human species is so far away from consensus on that. For instance lot of contemporary issues can be tracked back to the effects of population and the infrastructure and logistics necessary to maintain it. Suddenly economists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, demographers, et cetera... There's suddenly manifold complications once you stop looking at it in a vacuum and under a microscope, and thus consensus ceases. Importantly, we must consider the resolution at which policy is informed by inputs from these various intersecting fields and what should be given precedence and also important is the practicality and the means of application. Most importantly of all, I think, is that autonomy be granted to individuals and communities to conduct the experiments of life as this forwards the goal of truthseeking rather plainly. And with that the flow of ideas and experience.

by dahart 3y ago

xhkkffbf 3y ago

Okay, maybe there's "consensus" in your mind about "washing your hands', but it's not clear what that means. We need people questioning what is the best way to clean your hands. Maybe soap is good. Maybe soap poisons a few patients. Maybe isopropyl alcohol is good. Maybe some other kind of alcohol is better. I could go on. The point is that there could be some cases where a traditional application of soap and water is actually worse for the patients, the doctors, the nurses or someone else.

xkcd-sucks 3y ago
A better example would be "antibacterial" soap containing triclosan, on which the consensus has shifted fairly recently
dahart 3y ago
This is making the same mistake that @Blackstrat made; the existence of subtleties doesn’t change the primary high level outcome. There is pretty much absolute consensus on whether doctors should wash their hands. We have lots and lots and lots of evidence that using any reasonable disinfectant cut hospital mortality rates by multiples compared to what they were before hand-washing was protocol, while soap poisoning in hospitals today is extremely rare and difficult to find (and BTW doesn’t even mean soap is the problem, it more likely means the doctor didn’t follow the rinse protocol.) What disinfectant product to use does have a minor effect on the margins of the outcomes, sure, and there is still some side-discussion about that, but there is no discussion about whether to wash hands. If you’re going to challenge the idea that there’s consensus, you must present and examine the magnitudes of the effects of each decision. I do not buy the argument that a sliver of a marginal effect challenges the primary outcome - and I especially don’t buy the argument that because you imagine there “could be” some cases, then consensus isn’t clear enough. One person in a million dying of soap poisoning has no real bearing on whether doctors should wash their hands, and doesn’t change or challenge the scientific consensus that doctors should wash hands.

AlbertCory 3y ago

So you pick the most extreme cases (hand washing, round earth) and equate them to "COVID is not a lab leak, case closed, you are censored if you try to argue it!" The article lays out many cases where "consensus" was, indeed, a political construct and not really a scientific consensus at all.

mistermann 3y ago
It's a staple part of these sorts of conversations, we've had these arguments so many times you can pretty much script out in advance the various talking points one can expect to see per topic.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  I believe this is #3 in the phases of Denial: 1. It's not true 2. It's true, but it's not important 3. It's true, and it's important, but I already knew it. (A variant of #3 is "it's old news")
  - mistermann 3y ago
    Agreed....I'm more so suggesting something along the lines of having an AI ingest HN comments, and then using that to construct virtualizations of the participants here....with that, you could then theoretically generate a system that can predict the responses (in general, or individual members) of people in this (or other) forums for any topic of discussion. Even without a technical solution like this, it is not terribly difficult to draw lines around 75%++ of comments and produce decent theories about what motivates each individual to say the (particularly incorrect) things they say...and it is even easier to predict what their responses will be if their claims are challenged (the algorithm/workflow seems amazingly simple, there are perhaps ~20 distinct categories of responses that cover ~90% of scenarios). Interestingly: humans are able to easily see this phenomenon clearly when they are dealing with children, but if the same suggestion is made regarding adults, opinions tend to change, and amplify in strength of belief (particularly among relatively intelligent people in my experience). Note: I am pulling these numbers out of my ass, as humans do! But the underlying idea is fascinating to me, and I will make a bold prediction: humanity will be grappling with these ideas within 20 years, likely less.....I think it is unavoidable now that AI is in the wild.

pstuart 3y ago

Consensus on hand washing was not without challenges: https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection

dahart 3y ago
Exactly! That’s why it’s a good example here; scientific consensus was hard-won, but the debate is now settled, right? Nobody believes the answer might change, and saying so is not a political statement; we have too much evidence now. The earth being flat was also challenged too, and was a nasty political debate. But scientific consensus now on these topics is not a political debate, contrary to the top comment’s claim, scientific consensus is just the historical artifact of truth eventually bubbling to the top.

brnaftr361 3y ago

Yeah, but is there say... Scientific consensus that "safer" for the procedure is safer for the species? I mean, we don't really have a predefined goal, right? And I'd posit we're increasingly distancing ourselves from any consensus there - which to a large extent is how the domain of knowledge is circumscribed. The powers disbursing research funding want results that would ostensibly yield benefit in some system in some formulaic calculation as to where we should be going - but the human species is so far away from consensus on that. For instance lot of contemporary issues can be tracked back to the effects of population and the infrastructure and logistics necessary to maintain it. Suddenly economists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, demographers, et cetera... There's suddenly manifold complications once you stop looking at it in a vacuum and under a microscope, and thus consensus ceases. Importantly, we must consider the resolution at which policy is informed by inputs from these various intersecting fields and what should be given precedence and also important is the practicality and the means of application. Most importantly of all, I think, is that autonomy be granted to individuals and communities to conduct the experiments of life as this forwards the goal of truthseeking rather plainly. And with that the flow of ideas and experience.