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I agree entirely. As a professional scientist who routinely uses Bayesian methods to solve complex computational and statistical problems, with actual real worl

I agree entirely. As a professional scientist who routinely uses Bayesian methods to solve complex computational and statistical problems, with actual real world applications, I cannot stress enough how irrelevant such philosophical musings about the foundations of Bayesian Statistics are for getting actual science work done.

parodysbird 2y ago
Because the use of Bayesian models does not require Bayesian epistemology, which, unfortunately, a lot of people conflate. Here is a decent paper by a statistician about this issue: https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.3868 https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.3868
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  That's missing the point--philosophy as a whole is not required for science. Invertebrates were adjusting their beliefs to observations (science) long before the first philosopher. I'm not confusing Bayesian models with Bayesian epistemology. What this is at its essence is that science has allowed us to evolve, learn to kill lions and bears, create agriculture, build ships, cure diseases, travel to the moon, build AI, etc. And all this time while science has been empowering humans and saving lives, science has been under attack by philosophy. You have a scientist saying, "I observe that solar and lunar patterns are more consistent with the earth revolving around the sun" and a philosopher saying "ackchyually the bible says the sun revolves around the earth". When evidence (collected through scientific methods) for a hypothesis becomes overwhelming, the last refuge of ignorance is the philosopher saying, "ackchyually, you don't know that because nothing is truly knowable". Epistemology is an attempt to understand how we know things, and Bayesian epistemology is probably the best description of how we know things based on science. It's a description, based on observation of how scientists practice science, of how science works. So when philosophers come in and say Bayesian epistemology doesn't work, they're saying science doesn't work. It's yet another attack on science by philosophers. And as I said in my other post, Popper's criticism of Bayesian epistemology is actually smart: he does understand what he's talking about, it just doesn't, ultimately, matter much, because the practice of science de facto works, in practice, even if the philosophical model says it doesn't. If all the nuance of Bayesian epistemology and Popper's ideas isn't captured, it's easy for it just to become a straw man argument for philosophers to say that science doesn't work. When it comes down to it, the way people talk about Popper and Bayesian epistemology is just a more sophisticated version of "ackchyually, you don't know that because nothing is truly knowable". I'm not defending Bayesian epistemology, per se. I'm defending science, as it's practiced, because as I said, science is fucking important. Now, more than ever, in the era of anti-vaxxers and climate change denial, we desperately need people to believe in science.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    Could you give an example of where a philosopher has impeded science in the way you describe? Where it has been not just irrelevant, but obstructive? Irrelevant is fine - science and the philosophy of science have different goals. You might as well say that chemistry is irrelevant to mathematics.
  - namaria 2y ago
    You're grossly misrepresenting both science and philosophy. Science is a conscious and self referential effort, it has nothing to do with animals learning how to survive in their environment. Philosophy is definitely not bible thumping.
    - kerkeslager 2y ago
      > Science is a conscious and self referential effort Is this supposed to be a meaningful sequence of words? > it has nothing to do with animals learning how to survive in their environment. As an animal who would have died in childbirth and taken my mom with me were it not for science, I disagree.
  - parodysbird 2y ago
    > Bayesian epistemology is probably the best description of how we know things based on science. This is wrong, and it's a bit ironic you are so adamant on a point that is bad philosophy and leads to bad science as a way of insisting that philosophy has no relevance for science.
    - kerkeslager 2y ago
      Okay, what's your explanation for how we can trust science?
  - parodysbird 2y ago
    > Invertebrates were adjusting their beliefs to observations (science) long before the first philosopher. To underscore the bad science you are led to in terms of assumed truth, let alone hypothesis: there is very little evidence or justification or explanation that any of the processes used by the invertebrate here execute calculation that obeys the very specific axioms of probability and updates to a state in accordance with Bayes' theorem. Stimulus response is not Bayes' theorem. Updating a state from new inputs is not Bayes' theorem.

parodysbird 2y ago

Because the use of Bayesian models does not require Bayesian epistemology, which, unfortunately, a lot of people conflate. Here is a decent paper by a statistician about this issue: https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.3868 https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.3868

kerkeslager 2y ago
That's missing the point--philosophy as a whole is not required for science. Invertebrates were adjusting their beliefs to observations (science) long before the first philosopher. I'm not confusing Bayesian models with Bayesian epistemology. What this is at its essence is that science has allowed us to evolve, learn to kill lions and bears, create agriculture, build ships, cure diseases, travel to the moon, build AI, etc. And all this time while science has been empowering humans and saving lives, science has been under attack by philosophy. You have a scientist saying, "I observe that solar and lunar patterns are more consistent with the earth revolving around the sun" and a philosopher saying "ackchyually the bible says the sun revolves around the earth". When evidence (collected through scientific methods) for a hypothesis becomes overwhelming, the last refuge of ignorance is the philosopher saying, "ackchyually, you don't know that because nothing is truly knowable". Epistemology is an attempt to understand how we know things, and Bayesian epistemology is probably the best description of how we know things based on science. It's a description, based on observation of how scientists practice science, of how science works. So when philosophers come in and say Bayesian epistemology doesn't work, they're saying science doesn't work. It's yet another attack on science by philosophers. And as I said in my other post, Popper's criticism of Bayesian epistemology is actually smart: he does understand what he's talking about, it just doesn't, ultimately, matter much, because the practice of science de facto works, in practice, even if the philosophical model says it doesn't. If all the nuance of Bayesian epistemology and Popper's ideas isn't captured, it's easy for it just to become a straw man argument for philosophers to say that science doesn't work. When it comes down to it, the way people talk about Popper and Bayesian epistemology is just a more sophisticated version of "ackchyually, you don't know that because nothing is truly knowable". I'm not defending Bayesian epistemology, per se. I'm defending science, as it's practiced, because as I said, science is fucking important. Now, more than ever, in the era of anti-vaxxers and climate change denial, we desperately need people to believe in science.
- n4r9 2y ago
  Could you give an example of where a philosopher has impeded science in the way you describe? Where it has been not just irrelevant, but obstructive? Irrelevant is fine - science and the philosophy of science have different goals. You might as well say that chemistry is irrelevant to mathematics.
- namaria 2y ago
  You're grossly misrepresenting both science and philosophy. Science is a conscious and self referential effort, it has nothing to do with animals learning how to survive in their environment. Philosophy is definitely not bible thumping.
  - kerkeslager 2y ago
    > Science is a conscious and self referential effort Is this supposed to be a meaningful sequence of words? > it has nothing to do with animals learning how to survive in their environment. As an animal who would have died in childbirth and taken my mom with me were it not for science, I disagree.
- parodysbird 2y ago
  > Bayesian epistemology is probably the best description of how we know things based on science. This is wrong, and it's a bit ironic you are so adamant on a point that is bad philosophy and leads to bad science as a way of insisting that philosophy has no relevance for science.
  - kerkeslager 2y ago
    Okay, what's your explanation for how we can trust science?
- parodysbird 2y ago
  > Invertebrates were adjusting their beliefs to observations (science) long before the first philosopher. To underscore the bad science you are led to in terms of assumed truth, let alone hypothesis: there is very little evidence or justification or explanation that any of the processes used by the invertebrate here execute calculation that obeys the very specific axioms of probability and updates to a state in accordance with Bayes' theorem. Stimulus response is not Bayes' theorem. Updating a state from new inputs is not Bayes' theorem.