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The author believes scientific inquiry should not 'overreach' into subjects that have traditionally belonged to fields like philosophy, metaphysics, epistemolog

by cs702 14y ago

The author believes scientific inquiry should not 'overreach' into subjects that have traditionally belonged to fields like philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and religion, because, he explains in painful detail, science can't have all the answers. Regardless of whether one agrees with him or not, his argument makes NO sense to me. The relevant question is not whether science can have all the answers, but whether science yields better or more accurate answers than those other approaches.

return0 14y ago
Ethical questions cannot not really be answered by science cause that would be an appeal to nature. Some evo-psychologists may claim otherwise, but i think he's right about their narrow utilitarian position.
AffableSpatula 14y ago
Is it better to classify a rabbit by its meat or by its fur? It depends what you want to do with it.
droithomme 14y ago
It has been asked whether science yields "better or more accurate answers" than other approaches. We know that most published scientific research results are wrong. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal... Therefore flipping a coin and always guessing "heads" yields more accurate results than science. Now what? Has this insight taught us anything?
- thirdtruck 14y ago
  And how did that research come to the conclusion that most research comes out wrong? Statistically-rigorous research. Second: it remains a question of degree. Most preliminary medical research, for example, suffers from heavy biases, but it remains far more predictive than the "alternative medicine" beliefs that are more than 90% incorrect.
- return0 14y ago
  That's a sweeping over-generalization. More like "many inferences based on statistics are not as strong as they appear to be many are not even true". That article is important (and well known) for a certain type of life sciences publications; it's a problem that is being addressed already. That's another good thing about science, you can measure how wrong you are.

by cs702 14y ago

return0 14y ago

Ethical questions cannot not really be answered by science cause that would be an appeal to nature. Some evo-psychologists may claim otherwise, but i think he's right about their narrow utilitarian position.

AffableSpatula 14y ago

Is it better to classify a rabbit by its meat or by its fur? It depends what you want to do with it.

droithomme 14y ago

It has been asked whether science yields "better or more accurate answers" than other approaches. We know that most published scientific research results are wrong. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal... Therefore flipping a coin and always guessing "heads" yields more accurate results than science. Now what? Has this insight taught us anything?

thirdtruck 14y ago
And how did that research come to the conclusion that most research comes out wrong? Statistically-rigorous research. Second: it remains a question of degree. Most preliminary medical research, for example, suffers from heavy biases, but it remains far more predictive than the "alternative medicine" beliefs that are more than 90% incorrect.
return0 14y ago
That's a sweeping over-generalization. More like "many inferences based on statistics are not as strong as they appear to be many are not even true". That article is important (and well known) for a certain type of life sciences publications; it's a problem that is being addressed already. That's another good thing about science, you can measure how wrong you are.