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Trials and Errors: Why Science Is Failing Us
Lanxon writes "An in-depth feature in Wired explores the reason science may be failing us. Quoting: 'For too long, we've pretended that the old problem of causality can be cured by our shiny new knowledge. If only we devote more resources to research or dissect the system at a more fundamental level or search for ever more subtle correlations, we can discover how it all works. But a cause is not a fact, and it never will be; the things we can see will always be bracketed by what we cannot. And this is why, even when we know everything about everything, we'll still be telling stories about why it happened. It's mystery all the way down.'"
As knowledge expands, it becomes harder and harder to see the big picture. Everyone becomes a specialist, focusing on narrower and narrower specialties.
But that's not a bad sign. It's just an inevitable wall. There are only so many years in a human life and only so much any one person can learn and retain in that time. We just have to work a little more at stepping back from our tiny cages and saying "So what does this really mean in the larger scheme of things?" and recognizing there is larger world beyond our narrowly-focused field of view.
Well, either that or we could just ask Jesus to tell us what to do.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
that science is failing us? Define success...?
Science is not about explaining everything, it's about explaining stuff that what we know in a way that is consistent with other stuff that we know.
The title has nothing to do with the summary, in fact the summary doesn't even comment on the title's conclusion, so what's the point of this article? The only thing I've learned from the article is that science does what it does and nothing has failed anything.
It's a direction.
Anyone see the massive irony in this being posted on the internet, run by computers, powered by electricity, declaring that science is "failing us?"
First example in the story: a drug that doctors thought was going to work... didn't... The scientists mixed up what was causing what.
They had a hypothesis and tested it. We can say that the hypothesis was wrong because of what? That's right, because of science.
To imply that science is failing, or we need to reconceptualize "causality," simply because it's difficult... that's idiotic.
Finally, this article falls into a common mistake with science writing: confusing clinical trials with ALL SCIENCE RESEARCH. I do basic biological research. Don't lump me in with clinical researchers, critique their methods, and then say that all science research is messed up.
Science needs to make it a top priority figure out a way to keep our consciousnesses around forever, or at least a very long time. Mortality is a cruel reset button.
Stop trying to cure diseases and work toward getting rid of the flesh, perhaps.
I (very) briefly looked at TFA and saw something about how some drug trial didn't go the way some pharmaceutical company thought it would.
Then I saw something about how people looking at the relative positions of a red and blue ball couldn't reliably put them into a casual relationship.
For the WIRED editors who allowed the story to be published (and slashdot editors who allowed this story to be posted) to see this as a repudiation of Science (and Causality) is ludicrous. Why didn't they say that maybe the reason why their drug didn't work out is because Science doesn't claim to understand completely the biochemistry of the human body (yet). Why didn't they say that the human proclivity to create a narrative where none exists (like with the red and blue balls) is an interesting and not (yet) wholly understood psychological phenomenon?
Science has given us so much (flight, health, food, cities, mobility, global communications, etc.) and has proven itself on every scale from the cosmic to the nano-scopic that I can only ask:
Is WIRED a Fox subsidiary?
Science is not failing us. Apparently, the pharmaceutical companies and their correlational studies are. Science - whether behavioral, biological, or physical - does not necessarily depend on correlations. Manipulating an independent variable and comparing it to other conditions (a control group, for example) is what makes an experiment more than just a correlational study. This is what allows us to make causal relationships clearer, even if we don't perfectly understand the pathways that lead A to cause B. By failing to make this distinction, the article makes it sound as if scientists are merely fumbling around in the dark without a clue as to how anything works. Really this article just provides many fine examples of how correlational information used by medical doctors is failing us - not scientists doing actual experiments.
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
It's like this article was written by a villain dreamed up by Ayn Rand.
The author's claim that you can't link cause and effect is utter hogwash. He claims you can't say that an apple falls to the Earth because of gravity, which is stupid because gravity is DEFINED by that action. What we don't KNOW is what causes the phenomena we have labelled as gravity. It is a very poor example. He then proceeds to talk about people assuming causation in an ANIMATED MOVIE. Well, of course one ball hitting the other ball on a screen didn't cause it to move. They are just light and shadow in patterns that change with time! Claiming that the people have faulty perception is like claiming that people who read superhero comics really believe in people with superpowers, and can't tell that they are looking at a piece of paper with ink on it. He ignores the suspension of disbelief that the original experimenters introduced when they chose to use a medium that wasn't based on physical objects.
This guy just presents fallacy after fallacy and expects us to accept his dumb conclusion that science is somehow "over". Fuck that, and fuck him.
Science isn't failing the public, rather the public is failing science - especially in the US. The American public expects great things from science for almost no money invested, and simultaneously refuses to make any effort to understand any results that are more complicated than "we just cured cancer!" (nevemind that such a thing is, inherently, massively complicated).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
here's my (dubious) translation: It is not the goal of Science to open a door to endless knowledge, but rather to place limits upon endless error.
this quote, i believe, it both filled with truthiness, and also reveals notable false-iness in the referenced article.
So theories change with new information. Sounds like science behaving correctly to me. Only an idiot thinks you always get perfect and correct information the first time around. All you get are higher and higher probabilities of accuracy. It's just not a boolean universe.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
and base 10 has it's own flaws: one of which is Pi. Pi, in base 10, cannot ever be calculated out.
I've solved that by switching to base Pi!
Of course, I'm still working out how to write 10...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Sigh. What a load of crap.
1) Wrong. Never was claimed outside of magazines picking up some hypothetical and highly qualified (i.e. full of could be's and needs more info) journal studies.
2) Wrong. Mammograms are determined to not be required at 35. Different from self-inspection
3) Wrong. Alcohol-based sanitizers are recommended, triclosan ones aren't.
4) I can't even find a reference to that nonsense. Not to mention that it is incredibly unlikely that the reversal happened in 2012
5) The only ones who put SIDS research into such absolute terms are glossy magazines trying to be bought by anxious parents.
6) Wrong. The reason they're not recommended at the level they used to be is the number of false positives.
7) Hyperbole to make a point that didn't exist. Try again.
8) See 7)
9) Wrong year for initial prediction (both author and target) and non sequitur.
10) Hyperbole, non sequitur.
11) Wrong.
12) Hyperbole, and purposeful incorrect attribution of statements.
For someone who is bitching about science, you sure don't have a fucking clue what is going on.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Science failed us?
Nope.
It's us, the human beings, who have failed science.
Science stays the way it is. Scientific principles stay the way they are.
It's us, the human, who have failed to put enough effort to get to know Science and now we blame Science for failing us.
Ridiculous !!!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The story describes how the use of our usual scientific methods leads, very often, to failure. Such failures are measured in billions of dollars.
"The TV scientist who mutters sadly, "The experiment is a failure; we have failed to achieve what we had hoped for," is suffering mainly from a bad script writer. An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or another."
- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Are you judging scientific methods on their ability to generate income???
Bottom line: As we try to understand very complicated systems, we find that our old trusted techniques of reductionism and correlation don't do a very good job.
I don't get it, reductionism and correlation don't work well at a high level of complexity... ?
Everything starts with a high level of complexity, that's why we employ reductionism.
The world is complex at ANY scale. We wouldn't have come to this level of understanding if we gave up, and bowed down fearfully to irreducible chaos.
Wait, what would you consider a 'good job' to be?