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Trials and Errors: Why Science Is Failing Us

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-enough-newtons dept.

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.'"

15 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. Everyone a specialist now by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Everyone a specialist now by Omnifarious · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree.

      I think we need to start focusing on systems theory. Many large systems share some very similar characteristics. We need people who are big picture people, who can see the forest for the trees. Of course, without knowing about the trees, a forest is something of a mystery. We need both kinds of people. But the usefulness of pure reductionism is at its end, and we need to recognize that and start taking a different approach to understanding.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    2. Re:Everyone a specialist now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "Many large systems share some very similar characteristics...We need people who are big picture people, who can see the forest for the trees."

      Except that everyone who gets large systems dropped out of the current, fucked-up system long before being awarded a research post for their willingness to play along.

    3. Re:Everyone a specialist now by SgtDink · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This post and parents nailed it. If you don't do reductionist science, it is hard (but possible) to receive funding since everyone is trained in anti-systems (reductionist) theory. Very hard to get folks to understand that reality is complex so it needs to be studied that way when they are publishing and getting tenure. In biology it is now possible to do massively parallel reductionism using new technologies (genetic/genomic), but putting those measurements back into a system capable of predictive outcome is key. If diabetes goes away, people will listen. I am VERY excited that the roll out of applied network theory across all disciplines will reveal underlying principles that will allow for a massive shift in our ability to predict cause-effect relationships. Star Trek Tech is near...I can feel it.

    4. Re:Everyone a specialist now by travisco_nabisco · · Score: 5, Funny

      Then we will be one step closer to psychohistory!!

    5. Re:Everyone a specialist now by TerranFury · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you don't do reductionist science, it is hard (but possible) to receive funding since everyone is trained in anti-systems (reductionist) theory.

      Wait. Really? There are entire fields that do nothing but systems theory. The names shift. Cybernetics. Systems theory. Control systems. Complex networks. Cyberphysical systems. There are lots of people doing work in precisely the areas you suggest. Take a look at the NSF's "Broad Agency Announcements." There is funding.

      ...

      I do find it a bit amazing that science works at all. In machine learning, there are notions of the complexity of learning, and one of the basic ideas is that, as the class of models you are willing to consider grows, the amount of data you need to be sure, with reasonable statistical significance, which of those models describes it, grows very rapidly -- so rapidly that it is a miracle that we have apparently learned anything at all. See "VC dimension," "Rademacher complexity," etc.

      The best explanation I can come up with is that the class of physical theories the human mind can conceive is actually quite limited (or, our priors are very good), and that it is evolution, over millions of years, that has gathered the necessary data to build a brain capable of conceiving of only the right theories, and that the role of conscious experimentation is only to narrow things down within this already-restricted set.

      Because if the human mind is not much more limited than we like to think, then I do not know how we know anything.

  2. Who says by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that science is failing us? Define success...?

    1. Re:Who says by Beerdood · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe they could replace the header with "medical science" - as every example the TFA deals with some issue dealing with human biology. Science is not failing us (as the sensational headline indicates) in physics, or chemistry or even social / behavioral science. And it's not *failing* us in the medical department either really, there's just a lot more complexity when it comes to the human body. And when you throw in some other factors you don't see in other sciences, such as the placebo effect, or realizing that the body heals itself eventually, then maybe trial and error just doesn't work so well.

      The story seems to focus on the pharmaceutical industry specifically, maybe that's the problem here and not the scientific method. Most of their money is made by spending billions into R&D, then hoping they get a useable drug out of it they can patent and make money off of. Well maybe the problem here is the corners that are cut and they're essentially racing to get it FDA approved (and with as few side effects as possible). That's bound to bring up some bad science, and questionable or skewed results in the name of profit. That's not "Science failing us" - that's greed and human error causing the problem.

      --
      Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
  3. What does this have to do with science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Science isn't a goal by Fned · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a direction.

    1. Re:Science isn't a goal by jdgeorge · · Score: 5, Informative

      The scientific method is a simple, well-tested, approach to empirical study of a subject. The scientific method is as complete as it needs to be. However, if the method is not applied rigorously, the results will not be reliable.

      "Truth" is not part of the scientific method, and has a very ambiguous meaning. Furthermore, capitalizing the letter T in truth suggests interest in something other than science.

  5. And yet another troll headline by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Randian by tmosley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. It's the other way around, really by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  8. So here's my gratuitous Science quote by smoothnorman · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Es ist nicht das Ziel der Wissenschaft, der unendlichen Weisheit eine Tür zuöffnen, sondern eine Grenze zu setzen dem unendlichen Irrtum. -- Bertolt Brecht "Leben des Galilei"

    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.