Slashdot Mirror
How Our Botched Understanding of "Science" Ruins Everything
An anonymous reader writes "Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes at The Week, "If you ask most people what science is, they will give you an answer that looks a lot like Aristotelian 'science' — i.e., the exact opposite of what modern science actually is. Capital-S Science is the pursuit of capital-T Truth. And science is something that cannot possibly be understood by mere mortals. It delivers wonders. It has high priests. It has an ideology that must be obeyed. This leads us astray. ... Countless academic disciplines have been wrecked by professors' urges to look 'more scientific' by, like a cargo cult, adopting the externals of Baconian science (math, impenetrable jargon, peer-reviewed journals) without the substance and hoping it will produce better knowledge. ... This is how you get people asserting that 'science' commands this or that public policy decision, even though with very few exceptions, almost none of the policy options we as a polity have have been tested through experiment (or can be). People think that a study that uses statistical wizardry to show correlations between two things is 'scientific' because it uses high school math and was done by someone in a university building, except that, correctly speaking, it is not. ... This is how you get the phenomenon ... thinking science has made God irrelevant, even though, by definition, religion concerns the ultimate causes of things and, again, by definition, science cannot tell you about them. ... It also means that for all our bleating about 'science' we live in an astonishingly unscientific and anti-scientific society. We have plenty of anti-science people, but most of our 'pro-science' people are really pro-magic (and therefore anti-science). "
... half way through the summary
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
I guess all we know about the sun is not scientific because we didn't do experiments on the sun and another star that is approximately equal....
Lets leave the crazy rants to the comment section.
We fell most smart when we are seen "liking" smart things. Hence the idiotic, pseudo-intellectual "I Fucking Love Science" Facebook posts that flood my feed with juvenile memes and puns. Liking smart people like Niel deGrass Tyson does not make you smart. Taking sides on a scientific controversy you do not fully understand does not make you smart (even if you happen to chose the factually correct side). These things are simply part of the cargo cult science has become.
It really irks me that we teach more about the objects of Scientific investigation in school (Biology, Physics, etc) then the actual philosophy of Science itself. Sure, there is usually about an hour in HS that covers basic Scientific approach but then it gets left by the wayside.
Schools should be spending more time discussing and learning the philosophy of Science itself.
Just my 2 cents.
If it was easy, everyone would do it, and we would have done it a lot earlier than we did.
Science represents one of the greatest achievements of mankind. It requires the brightest of our highly-evolved brains. People of average intelligence who's lives are filled with mundane day-to-day concerns simply cannot get their heads around proper Science. They don't have the time, the resources, nor the brain power to gain that understanding. It is impossible. But such people are the majority and so their beliefs will have a significant impact on policy.
Rather than lament this statistical necessity, perhaps we should celebrate the fact that anyone at all can do proper Science, that as a result of our stumbling efforts our technological levels continue to rise, and that all of this suggests a brighter future where even more people will have an even better understanding of proper Science.
The only person with a botched understanding of science is the author. Science is the means by which we know what is true, and most definitely cover origins of things.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Getting this out of the way.
Science is the understanding of how the universe works. Faith, holds the supposition of why the universe exists both in its genesis and current state. The two don't overlap, and I personally find it rather funny when people try and debate a comparison to the two. To do so is like arguing about the hardness of fire. It makes no sense.
Life is not for the lazy.
No - engineering "gives us airplanes and flu vaccines and the Internet". Science gives us the theoretical (in the scientific sense) frameworks and tools that engineering can apply to do that. The author shows at least as much confusion as those he decries, and he does it from the start.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Not every opinion is of equal worth. Not every opinion is informed. Not every opinion is distinguishable from a feeling or hunch.
Democracy pertains to politics, where there is no objective reality -- only competing sets of values and subjective opinion.
In more objective areas of life, you live and die based on whether or not your ideas are objectively defensible. Science is a way of knowing: and the worth of an idea is usually based on its ability to explain or predict. That's the key ingredient that most people don't understand.
...the discipline of publicly testing ideas by systematic observation, controlled experiment, and Bayesian inference.
Science is not a "method". Feyrabend was more nearly right than he realized when he said the cardinal rule of science is, "Anything goes": we can use any clever tricks that pass the tests to change the posterior plausibility of an idea, and they do not have to adhere to some philosopher's notions of method.
Science is a discipline, and like any other discipline has to be practiced to get good at it. Methods in science are like katas in fighting disciplines: valuable training devices, but not anything like sufficient to win a real fight.
Furthermore, as a discipline, science does not explain anything and has no content: the sciences (biology, physics, geology...) do, but not the overarching discipline of science itself.
The discipline of science can be practiced by anyone, although history has shown that education can help (try inventing any fighting discipline on your own and you'll see how much better off you'd be learning from someone else.) The scope of science is unlimited, and it is the only way of creating knowledge. It is not "scientism" to practice the discipline of science when testing ideas about human behaviour or society: it is just science.
Because science is Bayesian, it does not produce certainty. Bayes' rule cannot generate a plausibility of 0 or 1 for any proposition, and it identifies anyone who assigns a plausibility of 0 or 1 as being in a state of sin... err... error.
A proposition that has 0 or 1 plausibility cannot have its plausibility changed by further applications of Bayes rule, so it is beyond correction, opaque to any further evidence, cut off from the world it claims to apply to.
The technical term for a belief held in such an erroneous fashion is "faith".
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
To whom here is this not obvious nonsense? In systems of geometry we have axioms "by definition." So if you're doing a problem in Euclidian terms, parallel lines don't meet in space. But if you're doing the problem in real, relativistic space rather than an Euclidian idealization, lines that start out parallel locally, and each continue absolutely straight, sometimes do.
Science is not any single geometry, and so has no fundamental set of definitional axioms. There are descriptions of the scientific method, by Popper and others, that generalize about falsifiability and so on. But even those don't exhaust the space of possible science, let alone establish axioms for it. The branch of physics called "cosmology" very properly, and fruitfullly, is concerned with the origin of the universe; and there is a branch of biology concerned with the origin of life. There is no axiom accepted by science that forbids scientific inquiry into origin questions.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
When they try to use the scientific method to prove intelligent design, global warming is a hoax, or that vaccines cause autism. My favorite "Big Pharma" conspiracy (as offered up by cracked.com), is that:
Big Pharma has secretly funded Jenny McCarthy to create the anti-vax movement because they make pennies on vaccines, but thousands on treating people that get the actual disease.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I read the summary and thought that this article might be on to something, but on reading it I don't think the author really understands science at all.
Here are some excerpts that I find particularly disagreeable:
"Science is not the pursuit of capital-T Truth. It's a form of engineering "
Absolutely not. Science is indeed in pursuit of Truth. The author criticizes Aristotle's form of "research", quite rightly, but then throws the baby out with the bathwater when he says this.
"Because people don't understand that science is built on experimentation, they don't understand that studies in fields like psychology almost never prove anything, since only replicated experiment proves something and, humans being a very diverse lot, it is very hard to replicate any psychological experiment."
This is factually incorrect. There are many Psychological phenomena that can be reproduced reliably. The Stroop effect, the Simon effect, visual illusions..
"What distinguishes modern science from other forms of knowledge such as philosophy is that it explicitly forsakes abstract reasoning about the ultimate causes of things"
This is completely incorrect. A core goal of science is to understand the cause of things by developing abstracted understandings of them (i.e. theories).
I know nothing about this author, but from the article, I suspect that he is trying to reconcile his beliefs in science and religion by convincing himself that science cannot answer the big questions, it's just for making airplanes and computers. I could be wrong of course (--- very important scientific principle)
Correlation is necessary but not sufficient to scientific proof of causation. To prove causation you need to have a theoretical model allowing you to construct experiements which, with variables controlled for, produce fresh demonstrations of the posited effect. There have been laboratory experiments demonstrating the "greenhouse" effect of CO2 levels since the late 1800s.
Correlation + theory + well-designed experiments + confirming results = causation
Science often starts with observed correlations. But not always. Sometime the theory comes first. It's only on putting all the parts together that science can speak with confidence about causation. If we use the "corelation != causation" slogan as if it refutes all science which follows from observation of correlations, we entirely miss the point.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I agree completely. Many people have lost the idea that science is not a "point of view" (with its own beliefs and ideology) but a "process" which allows one to arrive at possible answers after investigation and examination of related evidence.
I remember my physics teacher used to tell us "How many people here know what 'gravity' is?" All hands would raise up. He would laugh. Then he would say, in his best "fake surprise" face: "Wow! I must be the only physics professor in the world who has a whole class that knows what gravity is." Half the hands would go down, lots of disturbed faces. "How did I get so lucky to have so many students that know something that no other man in the world knows?" More hands would go down. Puzzled faces everywhere. "So, which one of you would like to explain to me what gravity 'is'?" No hands would remain up. You could hear the crickets. Everyone was just looking at him.
His point was that while we may know the "effects" of gravity, and how objects behave while under the influence of gravity (we have great math to describe it), we have no actual clue what gravity "is". (We merely describe it by what it "does".) He used this point to make sure we understood the difference between "observation of behavior" and "definition of reality". If we run ahead and define our "reality" by its "behavior" we are missing the point altogether. He was a great professor, and a really funny teacher. Later that day he got us all again on "How many people here know what 'light' is?" :-)
I see that all to often when people begin to follow the cult of science, and theories are taken as "laws", and hence definitions of reality, which is altogether backwards. If you then forget that these "laws' were intended to describe observed phenomena, and not define the observed phenomena, then you have come full circle and reversed the definitions you were originally seeking. And if you have observed with faulty instruments, measuring things that you did not understand, and arrived at incorrect conclusions, then you are doubly mistaken.
I don't go too much into discussions of "science" anymore. I've had enough people get violently angry because I would not blindly agree with all that "science" says is right and good in the world, nor would agree to any conclusions without seeing the evidence for myself.
I reserve the right right think for myself.
The piece is mumbo-jumbo. Yes, Bacon eschewed the "Aristotelian" search for final causes. Does that mean that Baconian science doesn't try to determine the truth? Of course not.
The history of philosophy/history of science done in this piece is clap trap. He says that Galileo used experiment, whereas Aristotle did not. And that's why Aristotle thought that "heavier objects should fall faster than light ones". Supposedly. The problem: Aristotle didn't use "abstract reasoning" to come to that incorrect conclusion. He just didn't control his variables adequately. Not controlling variables adequately can happen to the very best of experimentalists.
So how does this argument run? Scientific knowledge is knowledge about specific empirical propositions. Therefore, scientific knowledge is not "true" knowledge. Therefore, science is not the pursuit of capital-T Truth? That's a terrible argument. This seems like just a case of begging the question from the author where he has an unargued "definition" of what "Truth" is. Why anyone else is beholden to this definition, of course, is a mystery.
I highly doubt Bacon ever said this. Of course, there is no citation to check. I think the author has confused Bacon's model of Bensalem, where he has the houses of specialists hide their operation from others, so that the others don't come to conclusions based on partial understandings, before the work of the specialists is completed.
Who made these "definitions"? No one in sight.
Oh I see, Dawkins, a great evolutionary biologist, is a philistine. The evidence? I guess because the author disagrees with Dawkins about God. No argument is given.
It can be the perfect setting for morality plays.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
As much as it may hurt _your_ beliefs, GP raises a point that many other "scientifically" minded people have been raising for some time. We can rarely have rational debate about numerous topics, which means that some of our "science" is really just bias. They even provide an example, which I think is a great one.
Science has not answered the question of whether or not the Universe requires something in order to exist. Philosophy has attempted to answer that question for over two thousand years, and any honest Philosopher will tell you the same thing. "There is no proof, but it's a rational conclusion to believe that something did cause the Universe to exist. At least as rational as the thought that a Universe could spring up out of nowhere from nothing."
Many atheists can't, or refuse to, separate Religion from the Philosophical question regarding the origin of the Universe. The second argument from the same or similar set of atheists is a claim "the question does not matter". The former does not follow the Socratic Method or Scientific Method. The latter is about as unscientific as you can get, discouraging investigation and discovery (No, it's not about _you_ it's about discouraging others from pursuing the question). In reality, this one question is an exceptional question for training the mind to think critically, debate, and begin to question ethics and morals.
The question regarding the origin of the Universe is just one question where bias takes charge and science is put in the background. Vaccines, GMO foods, and Global Warming are other areas that are so entrenched with bias that it is nearly impossible to debate any of these topics rationally.
Anyone that dares to challenge the status quo is attacked and ostracized. If they have arguments that are really good, they are ignored and black listed from media. Society has gone through many phases just like this one previously, as a true Philosophy I study everything including History.
I can almost assure you that this post will be censored by people with mod points, and I will receive plenty of attacks (most likely from the anonymous cowards). Not because this post is offensive, in fact I was very cautious in wording, but because it challenges the status quo.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
News for ya, in America, everyone's opinion is worth something and is ultimately expressed through the ballot box. Science doesn't get to say "Do this, for I have obtained a 95% confidence level!"
Contrary to what you may think, you don't get to decide on what's facts.
The laws of nature are not decided by vote or fiat, but we learn about them from experimentation.
Even when a state introduces a bill that pi is exactly 3.2, nature stubbornly refuses to cooperate.
The article is just as bad or perhaps worse than the summary. Most of the summary is just taking snippets out of the article, and some of the more egregious ones that I bothered to check aren't taking anything out of context. And there is plenty of worse content that the summary has left out.
thinking science has made God irrelevant, even though, by definition, religion concerns the ultimate causes of things and, again, by definition, science cannot tell you about them
This particular line of reasoning is the first one I checked on hoping it was just embellishment by the submitter. But it was there. The article loses absolutely all credibility in this one sentence. Science is more than capable of contemplating the cause of anything. It may not be good at anthropomorphizing natural phenomena and giving it intent (like wondering why the universe was created), but that is simply because scientific reasoning easily dismisses such thought as not only irrelevant but ultimately incorrect.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
religious affairs are obviously beyond the realms of science, and are no obstacle in the quest for truth and understanding.
i think some scientists disagree. like for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
The pope who had Galileo prosecuted was *also* the bishop who defended him when he first pushed for heliocentrism years earlier. This pope also asked Galileo to write on heliocentrism. What then happened is that in these writing Galileo mocked the pope. His prosecution had far more to do with politics than science. Much like climate change today, one political faction decided to use it as justification for their political/economic agenda, another faction decided to attack the science to undermine the justification for the political/economic agenda. There was no inherent hatred of the concept, it was merely attacked to undermine something else. Then and now, science gets caught up in politics and suffers.
Bishops of this same church are also responsible for promoting and popularizing the western tradition of the scientific method during the middle ages.
Today this same church states that scientific discovery can not be in conflict with faith, that such discoveries describe how God's universe works. This includes everything from cosmology to human evolution. With respect to evolution where science and this church depart is that the church considers the origin of man to be when the soul was imparted, not when the biological form was created. With respect to the creation of the biological form they consider the biblical genesis to be figurative language not literal.
Also with respect to cosmology, the currently accepted theory of the origin of the universe, the Big Bang theory. It was originally put forward by a priest teaching at university of this church.
I think the mental patient that wrote that summary got sort of close to my feelings on this issue. What he hopefully meant to say was that engineering, product development, technology, etc are real things. Science is not real things. It's theories. Over the lats 500 years, about 99% of science was found to be incorrect. Yet, today people think we're so darn smart that everything is now magically correct...and then they find out that photons can crystallize. It's like everyone has no hindsight whatsoever and they keep presenting strongly-supported scientific theory as fact.
Besides screwing with laws and government funding, the worst part is that scientists keep operating this way and when they're proven wrong, their career is over. You can't just say "this is the absolute new truth we discovered" and then be wrong and keep getting grants and jobs. All they need is a "we're pretty certain but lack solid evidence but this is the best guess at this time so we'll operate under this assumption until it is proven wrong" type of attitude and science would be much better.
That is not engineering. That is craftsmanship.
Master shipwrights built naval vessels for centuries while knowing little of nautical engineering. Engineers are the guys who design things using science, not the guys who create something with their own two hands. Those are artisans and craftsmen. Some engineers are craftsmen, but many if not most have clean nails.
Whereas science needs both hypothesis generation and experimental validation/repudiation of hypotheses.
Hypothesis generation sometimes has to go out there, and invent new concepts that have so far only been thought about, not yet tested.
So to summarize, science needs both creative conceptualization (ontology formation) and experimentation (validation or repudiation of the ontology and/or hypothesis).
These need to go on in circular reinforcement. (Spiral development model).
Experimentation without re-conceptualization will eventually run dry, because it will get stuck in a local-maximum paradigm, and people won't know what new things/aspects to test any more.
Remember, relativity was discovered in a thought experiment by Einstein. Is a thought experiment a real experiment in the article author's view? I doubt it.
Einstein, from the outside, was doing "magic". Speculating about the larger truth.
Relativity was an example of theory creating a completely new set of concepts that were way ahead of the ability to carry out experiments that could validate or repudiate them. It was a well-formed theory, in that it clearly suggested new kinds of experiments that could test it, but it was pure non-experimental theorizing nonetheless.
Darwin also, most likely, happened on his key theoretical insight about natural selection (the simple core of it), by thinking about the generalization of many observations, and having a theoretical insight.
Experimentation has its essential place in science, no doubt (keeps the theorists honest and humble), but it is only half of the game. The other half is innovative philosophy, carefully practiced, in the mind.
Exper
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Nope. In the words of someone Slashdot readers should respect, Alan Cox: "Engineering does not require science. Science helps a lot but people built perfectly good brick walls long before they knew why cement works."
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Here's the full quote from that partial in the summary:
He's wrong. The problem is that the concept of "God" is un-falsifiable. So you can always tack "because God wanted it that way" onto anything.
And then it gets worse:
Normally I'd say that that was trolling. Why toss irrelevant insults into a discussion? But I think it is an attempt to bolster an argument that he knows cannot stand on its own.
And then he COMPLETELY skips over how Tyson believes that science is "like magic". He makes that insulting statement and then fails to support it.
He thinks that Economics is a science. That's how wrong he is.
Please look up the definition of "bombastic".
TFA could be a great example of trolling or Poe's Law or such. But I think it is just crap writing from someone who does not understand the subject.
He wants to bang Uhura, same as everyone else.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Religion concerns mythology -- things people make up out of whole cloth. Faith, belief, credulous acceptance without backing facts, consensually demonstrable evidence, or testability -- not knowledge.
Science does indeed concern itself with the ultimate cause(s) of things; what TFS fails to understand is that just because there is no answer *yet*, that doesn't mean that there won't be, or that there can't be. We've really only been seriously at this with more than stone knives and bearskins for a hundred years or so. Directly because of science, we already know a great deal more than religion ever managed to determine in thousands of years over thousands of varieties of made-up ideas and almost unimaginable depths and expressions of faith.
The penultimate cause of things is indeed 100% in science's domain and, if indeed there is an answer that can be expressed in the physics humans can understand, the odds are at least decent that we'll figure it out. Using science. Not religion.
There's very little point, or sense, in giving religion credit it has not earned, nor in ceding to it whole chunks of reality it has shown absolutely no ability to pull back the curtains from.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.