3 ms·

It becomes interesting. You sounds as an advent of Church of Science from the very beginning, but now it becomes unmistakable. Science has no monopoly on truth.

by ordu 6mo ago

It becomes interesting. You sounds as an advent of Church of Science from the very beginning, but now it becomes unmistakable. Science has no monopoly on truth. I'm not familiar with academy, you are right, I don't know how much Science share your ideas, but if it is, then Science has defeated itself. I hope that it is not so, and I believe it is not so. Below there is a list of reasons why we cannot grant Science a monopoly on truth. I'm not claiming it is a comprehensive list, it is just reasons from top of my mind. But before that I'll say two more things. Science doesn't have a monopoly on truth and Science is not a perfect instrument. Therefore I'll seek wisdom in all places, and I'll use my own brains to think, even if I'm not an expert in a topic. I will not ask medium, but it is not because I believe it is absolutely useless, it is because I have a limited time and I need to prioritize sources with high expected value of their answers. But still I will not bind myself to highest value sources either, because the path to the truth is not linear, you'd better remember about Monte Carlo methods and add some randomness to your moves. I want also to say about "unanswered questions". It is really good, that you feel yourself comfortable despite uncertainty. Most of people are not, they can't sleep if they have unanswered questions and they could pick a random answer just to make the question answered. But it is possible to do better, than just stuff a question in a pile of unanswered questions. If you accept the idea of an answer as a probability distribution over all possible answers, then you can have an answer for any question and move all the uncertainty into the distribution of the answer. You can deal with the uncertainty in a more conscious way, and sometimes using more intricate methods. You can seek answer, find no definitive "yes" or "no", but still update your distribution. The unanswered questions stop being unanswered, they become questions with high entropy answers. Entropy is a continuous function, so question can become more unanswered or less unanswered. And now the list of reasons to reject Science claim for a monopoly on truth. 1. There are phenomena Science can't deal with due to its methods. The most glaring class of such phenomena are single irreproducible events. Did Christ rise from death? Science can't answer this question and probably it never won't be able to answer it, because it can't do multiple observations. Scott Alexander recently wrote again on topic of a collective vision of Virgin Mary[1], and science can't tackle the question. I think you should read it through. Because you'll notice that it seems that now science can meaningfully join the discussion, because there are similar events, but before these events we found, all the science could do about the vision, is to keep its proud silence on the topic. 2. We cannot trust Scott Alexander, but we cannot trust Science either. Science can be mistaken, and sometimes it may be mistaken for no good reason at all. Did you read Judea Pearl "The Book of Why"? Pearl tells the history of statistics in his book, and particularly the roles of Pearson and Fisher, who doesn't look as people prioritizing truth over everything else, they where fighting the truth due to... well, I'd say because they were humans with all our failings. Science can be led astray in its search for truth behind Alzheimer disease because of a junk-paper published 30 years ago. Or Science could spend enormous efforts to build String Theory and then... just chuck it away. We should hope that Science will correct itself eventually in all such cases, but should we just wait for it, or maybe we are allowed to stray from Science and use our brains instead? Maybe Science is close to truth than anything/anyone else, but still it is not the Truth. Which means than you need to use your own brains, and to accept any statement with a grain of salt. We have to part with boolean logic and embrace the probabilistic nature of truth even when we talk about scientific truths. 3. Science develops the scientific method and employs the state of art methods to seek truth, but it is a scientific propaganda. xD I mentioned The Book of Why of Judea Pearl, which shows examples of Science rejecting better methods, and the causality proposed by Judea Pearl and his students is not a method science really wield. Bayesianism is the previous idea of Judea Pearl, it is older than causality by 10 years, and Science still relies on debunked p-values[2]. There are better methods, but Science still clings to old ones, rejecting the prospect of learning new tricks. 4. Science is a part of a bigger system and it can't avoid pressure from it. SJW pressured Science to a point, when its answers on questions including words "black", "white", "male", "female" are just plainly unreliable. Scientists can't publish a paper stating that black people are somehow "worse" than white. It doesn't matter if the paper contains truth or not, scientist just not allowed to publish it. So now any study talking about correlation of skin color or sex or gender with anything is just don't worth time needed to read it. I don't know other examples of this, but you need to be careful when seeking scientific answers, and keep in mind that some answers cannot be uttered. Or science is not allowed to diagnose politicians based on observations of their behavior. Science is restricted by society, culture, moral and ethical considerations. We should keep it in mind when we are seeking scientific answers. 5. There is knowledge Science never bothered itself to incorporate, or it just can't incorporate it. If my granny shows me how to use a specific herb to treat a wound, should I reject her knowledge as unscientific? Lets suppose I can't find a scientific answers about the herb, so what should I do? But knowledge can be just beyond Science. Science works with knowledge that can be written on a paper. If it can't then Science is out of luck. There is intuition for example, it cannot be written down. I use it to write English, I don't know grammar rules, I rely on intuition. I can't formalize my intuition, I can just use it. Well... English maybe not the best example for me, because English is my second language, and I'm not enough proficient with it to compete with professional linguists, but I am proficient in Russian to use it in ways that no linguist could explain. No grammar would accept my ways, but other Russians will understand what I'm doing. You see? I'm more proficient in Russian than Science with all its linguistic studies and thousands of linguists. 6. There are questions that are beyond Science. Like what does it mean to be conscious? When scientists try to answer this question, they are not better than laymans. For example, Anil Seth says that "consciousness is biological"[3] and kinda stops there. What a shame. Or Steven Hawking proclaiming that philosophy is dead. You can't just ask Science what is conscious and get an answer, because Science doesn't understand the question: it is a philosophical question right now. It can become a scientific question, but for now it is not. [1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-buddhist-sun-miracle https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-buddhist-sun-miracle [2] https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/Against_Inferential_Statistics_How_and_why_current_statistics_teaching_gets_it_wrong_/10152614 https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/Agai... [3] https://www.noemamag.com/the-mythology-of-conscious-ai/ https://www.noemamag.com/the-mythology-of-conscious-ai/

pron 6mo ago
First, science is what we call the best epistemological methodology. Of course it makes mistake, but what makes it unique is that it makes fewer mistakes than any other methodology. Second, I'm all for using your brain to get as close as possible to answers to the questions that interest you, but using your brain should lead you to choosing a good method of learning about the world. For example, using your brain will tell you that the difference between us and the ancient Greeks is a lot of intense study over millennia of people standing on the shoulders of those who came before them and continuing their painstaking study. So your brain should tell you that on almost any topic there are better sources than Scott Alexander, and these are the sources people who really want to do the best they can use. When I read Alexander, I didn't think he's a total moron; I just thought that he's not at all interesting, insightful, or knowledgeable compared to what else is out there. I just wonder why people who claim to want to use their brain pick such a third-rate source to read. Using your brain should also lead you to conclude that no amount of processing of information would lead you onto the right path to the answer if you're not starting out with all the relevant information. Again, it's like that film Memento: deductions from missing information lead you to wrong conclusions.
- ordu 6mo ago
  > First, science is what we call the best epistemological methodology. Of course it makes mistake, but what makes it unique is that it makes fewer mistakes than any other methodology. Yes. But it is a tradeoff. When your first priority is an epistemological quality of generated knowledge, you lose agility that can be needed for practical purposes. I mentioned Judea Pearl before, he describes how epistemological methodology of Science prevented it for years, more than a decade, from stating clearly and unambiguously that smoking tobacco leads to a lung cancer. To be honest, I should mention that other social institution where no better than that, and they failed to ban or limit tobacco smoking before Science declared the causal link. So science is still better than that, the story supports your claim that science has the best epistemological methodology. But still I can't help but to wonder if it is possible to do better? I believe you can do better at individual level. When it is all about your decisions as of individual, you could decide that smoking causes cancer and quit smoking long before science reached a consensus. > I just wonder why people who claim to want to use their brain pick such a third-rate source to read. Using your brain should also lead you to conclude that no amount of processing of information would lead you onto the right path to the answer if you're not starting out with all the relevant information. Our world generates insane amounts of relevant information and in a lot of cases it is still not enough to get as much as you need. You have to lean how to reason in uncertainty. You have to learn how to come to conclusions and make decisions when you have not enough information. Either because information you need is not available or because you have a limited time to make a decision. It is one more deficiency of Science we could add to my list: it concerned about truth too much, and is not that useful when you need to make a decision right now, when you need it so bad as you are going to base your decision on guesses, not on a proven scientific truth. Science has tools for that, but it leaves them to practitioners, and concentrates on generating truths of a solid scientific quality, not best guesses. > When I read Alexander, I didn't think he's a total moron; I just thought that he's not at all interesting, insightful, or knowledgeable compared to what else is out there. I just wonder why people who claim to want to use their brain pick such a third-rate source to read. Well... I can't answer this question. You see, I can't show you any charts as well I can't cite any reputable sources. My answer will be neither of Church of Charts nor of Church of Science. All I can is to give you a personal anecdote. Scott Alexander writes not only on topics he is under-qualified in. There are two exceptions: 1. People minds. He is a psychiatrist, so he is qualified to write about human minds. I'm not sure that the quality of his writing is of a good scientific quality still: he cites some studies sometimes, but while the existence of references is a necessary condition for a quality scientific writing, it is not sufficient by itself. But still his writing on this topic goes to at least top 0.1% of all Internet writings about people minds. I have a bachelor degree in psychology, I can see it with my eyes closed: everyone believes themselves competent enough when talking about psychology, and the Internet and book stores are filled to a brim by psychological garbage. Substantial amount of peer reviewed scientific papers are crap. It is not really hard to go to top 10% or even to top 1%, but Scott Alexander is still better than that. BTW, now AI is a hot topic, and while Scott Alexander is not an AI expert, it is useful to see at AI through eyes of a psychiatrist. You need to filter out a lot of he is saying on the topic, but still you can get some insights. 2. A bunch of topics that are more of a philosophical kind. You can't expect science to have any consensus on those topics. Science is just not good for these topics, till they migrate from a philosophy to a normal science. One of directions of his blog... It is hard to verbalize, but I can explain through history: Scott Alexander started with Yudkowski. It is an idea of "rationality", or a magic tool that allow you to reach the best possible conclusions in any situation. Yudkowski was (and probably still is) insane, he created a Cult of Yudkowski's Rationality. I have learnt a lot from Yodkowski, especially from his posts on why what he created was not a cult. Scott Alexander is much more saner, he writes these long blog posts about crime level or whatever, but he enumerates his mistakes also. I didn't read the references you provided above, but I've read titles and some abstracts, I'd bet that the crime levels will be one of Scott Alexander mistakes of '26. It is very interesting how you can use your brain the best in practice, and Scott Alexander explores exactly this. He maybe not perfect at this, but who is? Can you find someone who is better at it? I'm very concerned how humanity can tackle the loss of authorities of truth (no more media or public figures you can trust), people are believing in stupidest things, but how I manage to do better? (Do I?) Can I teach others or maybe can we create something that will help others to navigate the ocean of lies to find islands of truth? Scott is not about this, but still close enough to keep me interested. And, you see, you can have a discussion with smart people sometimes. Like this one for example. Such discussions force me to write down my thoughts and to think them through. They can help me to find my own blind spots. For example, I didn't thought really about data Scott Alexander relies to. I could do better earlier because I know, that you can't interpret data without understanding how it was generated. I know the theory behind it, I faced this issue on practice. But I never noticed Scott Alexander is interpreting data without understanding how it was generated and he does nothing about it. I mean, if you try to reach quick and dirty conclusion, you can just ignore some inconvenient question, but maybe you can do better without diving into the question for months? I have some ideas about this, but it is irrelevant to our discussion. What is relevant: discussions triggered by Scott Alexander are attracting people of a kind that can point to me to my blind spots and make me better.

by ordu 6mo ago

pron 6mo ago

First, science is what we call the best epistemological methodology. Of course it makes mistake, but what makes it unique is that it makes fewer mistakes than any other methodology. Second, I'm all for using your brain to get as close as possible to answers to the questions that interest you, but using your brain should lead you to choosing a good method of learning about the world. For example, using your brain will tell you that the difference between us and the ancient Greeks is a lot of intense study over millennia of people standing on the shoulders of those who came before them and continuing their painstaking study. So your brain should tell you that on almost any topic there are better sources than Scott Alexander, and these are the sources people who really want to do the best they can use. When I read Alexander, I didn't think he's a total moron; I just thought that he's not at all interesting, insightful, or knowledgeable compared to what else is out there. I just wonder why people who claim to want to use their brain pick such a third-rate source to read. Using your brain should also lead you to conclude that no amount of processing of information would lead you onto the right path to the answer if you're not starting out with all the relevant information. Again, it's like that film Memento: deductions from missing information lead you to wrong conclusions.

ordu 6mo ago
> First, science is what we call the best epistemological methodology. Of course it makes mistake, but what makes it unique is that it makes fewer mistakes than any other methodology. Yes. But it is a tradeoff. When your first priority is an epistemological quality of generated knowledge, you lose agility that can be needed for practical purposes. I mentioned Judea Pearl before, he describes how epistemological methodology of Science prevented it for years, more than a decade, from stating clearly and unambiguously that smoking tobacco leads to a lung cancer. To be honest, I should mention that other social institution where no better than that, and they failed to ban or limit tobacco smoking before Science declared the causal link. So science is still better than that, the story supports your claim that science has the best epistemological methodology. But still I can't help but to wonder if it is possible to do better? I believe you can do better at individual level. When it is all about your decisions as of individual, you could decide that smoking causes cancer and quit smoking long before science reached a consensus. > I just wonder why people who claim to want to use their brain pick such a third-rate source to read. Using your brain should also lead you to conclude that no amount of processing of information would lead you onto the right path to the answer if you're not starting out with all the relevant information. Our world generates insane amounts of relevant information and in a lot of cases it is still not enough to get as much as you need. You have to lean how to reason in uncertainty. You have to learn how to come to conclusions and make decisions when you have not enough information. Either because information you need is not available or because you have a limited time to make a decision. It is one more deficiency of Science we could add to my list: it concerned about truth too much, and is not that useful when you need to make a decision right now, when you need it so bad as you are going to base your decision on guesses, not on a proven scientific truth. Science has tools for that, but it leaves them to practitioners, and concentrates on generating truths of a solid scientific quality, not best guesses. > When I read Alexander, I didn't think he's a total moron; I just thought that he's not at all interesting, insightful, or knowledgeable compared to what else is out there. I just wonder why people who claim to want to use their brain pick such a third-rate source to read. Well... I can't answer this question. You see, I can't show you any charts as well I can't cite any reputable sources. My answer will be neither of Church of Charts nor of Church of Science. All I can is to give you a personal anecdote. Scott Alexander writes not only on topics he is under-qualified in. There are two exceptions: 1. People minds. He is a psychiatrist, so he is qualified to write about human minds. I'm not sure that the quality of his writing is of a good scientific quality still: he cites some studies sometimes, but while the existence of references is a necessary condition for a quality scientific writing, it is not sufficient by itself. But still his writing on this topic goes to at least top 0.1% of all Internet writings about people minds. I have a bachelor degree in psychology, I can see it with my eyes closed: everyone believes themselves competent enough when talking about psychology, and the Internet and book stores are filled to a brim by psychological garbage. Substantial amount of peer reviewed scientific papers are crap. It is not really hard to go to top 10% or even to top 1%, but Scott Alexander is still better than that. BTW, now AI is a hot topic, and while Scott Alexander is not an AI expert, it is useful to see at AI through eyes of a psychiatrist. You need to filter out a lot of he is saying on the topic, but still you can get some insights. 2. A bunch of topics that are more of a philosophical kind. You can't expect science to have any consensus on those topics. Science is just not good for these topics, till they migrate from a philosophy to a normal science. One of directions of his blog... It is hard to verbalize, but I can explain through history: Scott Alexander started with Yudkowski. It is an idea of "rationality", or a magic tool that allow you to reach the best possible conclusions in any situation. Yudkowski was (and probably still is) insane, he created a Cult of Yudkowski's Rationality. I have learnt a lot from Yodkowski, especially from his posts on why what he created was not a cult. Scott Alexander is much more saner, he writes these long blog posts about crime level or whatever, but he enumerates his mistakes also. I didn't read the references you provided above, but I've read titles and some abstracts, I'd bet that the crime levels will be one of Scott Alexander mistakes of '26. It is very interesting how you can use your brain the best in practice, and Scott Alexander explores exactly this. He maybe not perfect at this, but who is? Can you find someone who is better at it? I'm very concerned how humanity can tackle the loss of authorities of truth (no more media or public figures you can trust), people are believing in stupidest things, but how I manage to do better? (Do I?) Can I teach others or maybe can we create something that will help others to navigate the ocean of lies to find islands of truth? Scott is not about this, but still close enough to keep me interested. And, you see, you can have a discussion with smart people sometimes. Like this one for example. Such discussions force me to write down my thoughts and to think them through. They can help me to find my own blind spots. For example, I didn't thought really about data Scott Alexander relies to. I could do better earlier because I know, that you can't interpret data without understanding how it was generated. I know the theory behind it, I faced this issue on practice. But I never noticed Scott Alexander is interpreting data without understanding how it was generated and he does nothing about it. I mean, if you try to reach quick and dirty conclusion, you can just ignore some inconvenient question, but maybe you can do better without diving into the question for months? I have some ideas about this, but it is irrelevant to our discussion. What is relevant: discussions triggered by Scott Alexander are attracting people of a kind that can point to me to my blind spots and make me better.