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I don't follow your argument. Take something like Newton's theory of motion. It stands or falls on its mathematical and experimental foundations. It doesn't mat

I don't follow your argument. Take something like Newton's theory of motion. It stands or falls on its mathematical and experimental foundations. It doesn't matter if Newton belonged to the gentry, if he treated his servants badly or if he beat his wife. That's not pertinent to the truth of the theory. If the logic sound? Are the experiments reproducible? That's the only part that matters. As for the example you've given - a Gallup poll - there is no right or wrong answer to a poll. Nobody ever "got it right". If people are simply expressing an opinion, there isn't any right or wrong answer. Opinions are what they are, and they change over time.

wpietri 11y ago
I think your division of things discussed into "true facts" and "opinion" is not particularly subtle, but let's run with it. Most of what is discussed falls into the latter category, opinion. That includes things very relevant to people's lives, like who enjoys equal protection under the law. Approaching a conversation about a topic of social justice as if it's as simple, clear, and verifiable as Newtonian mechanics is the wrong approach. XKCD lampooned that here: https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ I'd add that even science isn't as clear as you make it out to be. Newtonian mechanics weren't really true; they were just an approximation adequate to the time. As Box writes, "all models are wrong, but some are useful." It took us a few hundred years to understand their limits. Out that struggle came quantum mechanics and relativity. Of that transition, Max Planck wrote, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." So as much as we'd like to pretend that science proceeds differently, it is also a social process. Kuhn's, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is the standard place to start reading about that, but there's now a large body of literature on the anthropology of science.
- atlantic 11y ago
  I'm aware of Kuhn, but I think Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery is more germane to this discussion, particularly his distinction between logic of proof and logic of discovery. Going back to your opinion poll example, there is no opinion about mixed marriages which is more "true" than any other. Even if scientific facts are approximative, they are at least rooted in physical reality; whereas opinions and norms simply relate to preferences and conventions. So I continue to maintain the truth of any assertion is independent of the identity of whoever formulates it, or more generally of the psychological and social context within which it arises. To deny this would be to deny that such a thing as truth exists. In which case any position, your own included, becomes indefensible.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I agree mostly but not completely; most people with opinions on interracial marriages at least claim to have some fact and/or reasoning behind them. I definitely agree agree that the truth of statements is notionally independent of the speaker. But in practice the truth of particular statements correlates well enough with things like the speaker's experience that we can use it as a handy evaluative heuristic. E.g., when a programmer and a manager both make statements about the technical merit of a particular approach, I will in practice be more likely to trust the programmer. Or if a real scientist and a bible-thumping young-earth creationist make assertions about the history of life on earth, I'm more likely to trust the scientist. This is a necessary heuristic for getting much done in the real world; we just don't each have time for evaluating all claims from first principles. But again, social policy is mainly determined by things that, in your construction, are opinion, not fact. So it would seem by your own model the sort of scientific give and take we are both fond of is mainly irrelevant to how mere opinions, and therefore our societies, get shaped with regard to social justice for groups who are currently disfavored by majority opinion.
    - atlantic 11y ago
      I don't think truth can be crowd-sourced. It's as simple as that. I don't think the majority is always right, or even that it's right most of the time. Which doesn't mean I'm anti-democratic because (and I'll paraphrase Popper) while democracy is certainly a bad system, it is the least bad of all the available systems. I would certainly agree that matters of social policy fall firmly into the realm of what I would call opinion (doxa, to use Plato's terminology). But then our language should reflect that. Let's not talk about true and false, or even right and wrong. We can set up some kind of goal (for example, the utilitarian goal of the greatest happiness for the greatest number), and define good or bad, just or unjust, in relation to that predefined goal. But there is no epistemological basis here for truth. I have no objection to people using opinion as a basis for public policy - it could hardly go otherwise in a democracy - but then, let's recognize opinions for what they are and avoid turning certain currents of opinion into moral crusading that shuts down debate. If we are in a democracy, in the realm of pure opinion, then all opinions deserve a hearing, however much they clash with what seems obvious to us and to the group we identify with. To deny one group the right to articulate their opinion undermines the foundations of democracy.

wpietri 11y ago

I think your division of things discussed into "true facts" and "opinion" is not particularly subtle, but let's run with it. Most of what is discussed falls into the latter category, opinion. That includes things very relevant to people's lives, like who enjoys equal protection under the law. Approaching a conversation about a topic of social justice as if it's as simple, clear, and verifiable as Newtonian mechanics is the wrong approach. XKCD lampooned that here: https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ I'd add that even science isn't as clear as you make it out to be. Newtonian mechanics weren't really true; they were just an approximation adequate to the time. As Box writes, "all models are wrong, but some are useful." It took us a few hundred years to understand their limits. Out that struggle came quantum mechanics and relativity. Of that transition, Max Planck wrote, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." So as much as we'd like to pretend that science proceeds differently, it is also a social process. Kuhn's, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is the standard place to start reading about that, but there's now a large body of literature on the anthropology of science.

atlantic 11y ago
I'm aware of Kuhn, but I think Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery is more germane to this discussion, particularly his distinction between logic of proof and logic of discovery. Going back to your opinion poll example, there is no opinion about mixed marriages which is more "true" than any other. Even if scientific facts are approximative, they are at least rooted in physical reality; whereas opinions and norms simply relate to preferences and conventions. So I continue to maintain the truth of any assertion is independent of the identity of whoever formulates it, or more generally of the psychological and social context within which it arises. To deny this would be to deny that such a thing as truth exists. In which case any position, your own included, becomes indefensible.
- wpietri 11y ago
  I agree mostly but not completely; most people with opinions on interracial marriages at least claim to have some fact and/or reasoning behind them. I definitely agree agree that the truth of statements is notionally independent of the speaker. But in practice the truth of particular statements correlates well enough with things like the speaker's experience that we can use it as a handy evaluative heuristic. E.g., when a programmer and a manager both make statements about the technical merit of a particular approach, I will in practice be more likely to trust the programmer. Or if a real scientist and a bible-thumping young-earth creationist make assertions about the history of life on earth, I'm more likely to trust the scientist. This is a necessary heuristic for getting much done in the real world; we just don't each have time for evaluating all claims from first principles. But again, social policy is mainly determined by things that, in your construction, are opinion, not fact. So it would seem by your own model the sort of scientific give and take we are both fond of is mainly irrelevant to how mere opinions, and therefore our societies, get shaped with regard to social justice for groups who are currently disfavored by majority opinion.
  - atlantic 11y ago
    I don't think truth can be crowd-sourced. It's as simple as that. I don't think the majority is always right, or even that it's right most of the time. Which doesn't mean I'm anti-democratic because (and I'll paraphrase Popper) while democracy is certainly a bad system, it is the least bad of all the available systems. I would certainly agree that matters of social policy fall firmly into the realm of what I would call opinion (doxa, to use Plato's terminology). But then our language should reflect that. Let's not talk about true and false, or even right and wrong. We can set up some kind of goal (for example, the utilitarian goal of the greatest happiness for the greatest number), and define good or bad, just or unjust, in relation to that predefined goal. But there is no epistemological basis here for truth. I have no objection to people using opinion as a basis for public policy - it could hardly go otherwise in a democracy - but then, let's recognize opinions for what they are and avoid turning certain currents of opinion into moral crusading that shuts down debate. If we are in a democracy, in the realm of pure opinion, then all opinions deserve a hearing, however much they clash with what seems obvious to us and to the group we identify with. To deny one group the right to articulate their opinion undermines the foundations of democracy.