3 ms·

Yes, often what is taught is taught in a manner that seems mysterious in origin, as if it were revealed, certain and final, and developing a sensibility like th

Yes, often what is taught is taught in a manner that seems mysterious in origin, as if it were revealed, certain and final, and developing a sensibility like that concerning scientific matters is not good. You could argue that the viability of science as such rests on certain articles of faith, but the particular findings of science themselves are a matter of demonstration, interpretation of demonstration and argument making use of interpreted demonstration, as well as the making of certain working assumptions that do quite a bit of quiet heavy lifting. The last, I think, receives too little attention, but it also supports the idea that practical and pragmatic rather than theoretical motives and habits drive much of scientific activity.

nobrains 2y ago
Pragmatic or luck? Hear me out... Why assume "that the oil formed a single layer of molecules — a monolayer" ? That is a very fundamental assumption, and could have been wrong as well (we know it is right, because the values match with more accurate recordings, but still...)
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Yes! Not to get too political, but I saw a lot of this during the Covid debates, e.g. "Trust the science!" Noooo! Science is not just something you're supposed to "trust", but something that's supposed to be supported by evidence. Yes, I definitely understand that most people don't have the training and background to understand complex scientific topics, and in some ways we do have to trust the scientific community if we're not a part of it. And I get frustrated by the common calls of "Do your own research!", which often means "Look at these YouTube grifters with absolutely no training who are just spouting stuff with no research of their own." But even the underlying problem with that is that most people aren't trained to evaluate the quality of data and motivations of people making it, and that is what scientific education should be about. For example, I may have to "trust" the scientific community when it comes to data about infectiousness of COVID because I'm not an epidemiologist, but how that data is translated into rules and regulations is a policy call, and that policy call is not necessarily one where the epidemiologists are the experts. I shouldn't be told to "trust the science" as though I should just accept policy recommendations even if I do accept the underlying data about transmissibility.
- cb321 2y ago
  It isn't like "scientists" (whatever that means) don't also delegate to equipment or hardware manufacturers or (mathema|statis)ticians or compilers (or grad students, LOL). Sure they calibrate & cross-check, but while oil spread-out over water is easy to replicate at home in a few minutes with an oil dropper (maybe even with precocious (maybe pre-)pubescent kids not just Feynman Lectures on Physics Caltech Undergrads [1]), "more interesting/complex questions" usually have "full stacks" that are impractical to fully vet in general (see, e.g. Ken Thompson's _Reflections On Trusting Trust_). Epidemic disease coupled with human behavior is definitely getting into "holy crap complex" territory. In its barest essence the problem is this - delegation affords so much that it is basically unavoidable, but trust sure is tricky. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem - searches for how to demarcate trustworthiness. Sorry to say, but there is a long history of failure to get consensus. It's notably a competitive game and as long as anything has been deemed valuable there have been cheap knock-offs (e.g. Fool's Gold), but things like The News you seem to complain of (e.g. Crichton's Gell-Mann Amnesia [2]) or "conclusions", being more abstract than metal (often the metaphorically concrete), are trickier still to discern reliability. It may be the single most central (in latitude-long's of WHAAA? coordinates) problem of today's human condition / experience. I think it's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem BUT the problem applies recursively to advice from anyone about trust/delegation (or about anything else). So, don't trust me. LOL. ;-) I don't think others can really answer these questions for someone. Part of life is learning to live with uncertainty, however precisely modeled. I'm just trying to share a perspective (and several relevant links!) on some of the principles involved with someone who seems interested in and frustrated by the questions. [1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244659/how-did-rayleigh-compute-the-avogadro-number https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244659/how-did-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amn...

nobrains 2y ago

Pragmatic or luck? Hear me out... Why assume "that the oil formed a single layer of molecules — a monolayer" ? That is a very fundamental assumption, and could have been wrong as well (we know it is right, because the values match with more accurate recordings, but still...)

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

Yes! Not to get too political, but I saw a lot of this during the Covid debates, e.g. "Trust the science!" Noooo! Science is not just something you're supposed to "trust", but something that's supposed to be supported by evidence. Yes, I definitely understand that most people don't have the training and background to understand complex scientific topics, and in some ways we do have to trust the scientific community if we're not a part of it. And I get frustrated by the common calls of "Do your own research!", which often means "Look at these YouTube grifters with absolutely no training who are just spouting stuff with no research of their own." But even the underlying problem with that is that most people aren't trained to evaluate the quality of data and motivations of people making it, and that is what scientific education should be about. For example, I may have to "trust" the scientific community when it comes to data about infectiousness of COVID because I'm not an epidemiologist, but how that data is translated into rules and regulations is a policy call, and that policy call is not necessarily one where the epidemiologists are the experts. I shouldn't be told to "trust the science" as though I should just accept policy recommendations even if I do accept the underlying data about transmissibility.

cb321 2y ago
It isn't like "scientists" (whatever that means) don't also delegate to equipment or hardware manufacturers or (mathema|statis)ticians or compilers (or grad students, LOL). Sure they calibrate & cross-check, but while oil spread-out over water is easy to replicate at home in a few minutes with an oil dropper (maybe even with precocious (maybe pre-)pubescent kids not just Feynman Lectures on Physics Caltech Undergrads [1]), "more interesting/complex questions" usually have "full stacks" that are impractical to fully vet in general (see, e.g. Ken Thompson's _Reflections On Trusting Trust_). Epidemic disease coupled with human behavior is definitely getting into "holy crap complex" territory. In its barest essence the problem is this - delegation affords so much that it is basically unavoidable, but trust sure is tricky. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem - searches for how to demarcate trustworthiness. Sorry to say, but there is a long history of failure to get consensus. It's notably a competitive game and as long as anything has been deemed valuable there have been cheap knock-offs (e.g. Fool's Gold), but things like The News you seem to complain of (e.g. Crichton's Gell-Mann Amnesia [2]) or "conclusions", being more abstract than metal (often the metaphorically concrete), are trickier still to discern reliability. It may be the single most central (in latitude-long's of WHAAA? coordinates) problem of today's human condition / experience. I think it's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem BUT the problem applies recursively to advice from anyone about trust/delegation (or about anything else). So, don't trust me. LOL. ;-) I don't think others can really answer these questions for someone. Part of life is learning to live with uncertainty, however precisely modeled. I'm just trying to share a perspective (and several relevant links!) on some of the principles involved with someone who seems interested in and frustrated by the questions. [1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244659/how-did-rayleigh-compute-the-avogadro-number https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244659/how-did-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_amn...