29 replies to this topic

[rwac]

If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we accept the incredibly complex scientific phenomena in physics, astronomy, and biology through the process of belief, not through reason. We don’t practice the scientific method. We don’t rationally consider the evidence presented for a theory. We don’t learn science by doing science, we learn science by reading and memorizing. The same way we learn history. Do you really know what an atom is, or that a Higgs boson is a rather important thing, or did you simply accept they were what someone told you they were?

Can You Trust A Scientist?

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. If this is what it takes for people to accept scientific truths as truths, then so be it. But ask yourself, if an economist or a drug company told you about certain facts about free markets or psychopharmacology, would you believe them? Or are physicists on physics more credible than economists on economics? Because if they are, you are admitting that the credibility of the speaker plays a role in what you will accept as scientific truth.

http://partialobject...atter-of-faith/

[Panther]

The difference between science and cult is the understanding that seeming right isn't being right.

[eternaltraveler]

Can You Trust A Scientist?

clearly the answer is that you can't

http://www.plosmedic...al.pmed.0020124

However, science itself is not at all a matter of faith because it means doing all those things that most people are too lazy to do (like use reason, and learn about what the hell they are talking about before talking)

[Panther]

You've missed the point eternal. This is old philosophy. Progression includes the assimilation of new information. This process, repeated, reveals a pattern. One's perceptions will change. Entire world-views will change as additional information in learned. What we once thought was absolute truth is infact foolish arrogance. What Rwac is saying is that, unless all is known, the unknown will always be a factor leading to miscalculation. Thus, every action we take utilizing these perceptions in our decision making process, these incomplete views of the world, are acts of faith. This includes scientific pursuit. We don't truly know anything, as we don't know everything.

Bravo Rwac.

[eternaltraveler]

You've missed the point eternal

I have not

Entire world-views will change as additional information in learned.

updating based on evidence is science (or reason). Most people don't have science or faith.

every action we take utilizing these perceptions in our decision making process, these incomplete views of the world, are acts of faith

making a decision based on the best information available using reason is nothing like an act of faith.

We don't truly know anything

irrelevant

Edited by eternaltraveler, 07 April 2011 - 06:46 PM.

[Panther]

Yes, but assuming what's being updated, and the manner in which it is updated, and the information being taken in is worth remember, all that is "faith" in the sense that we're acting blind. Wouldn't you agree?

[eternaltraveler]

in the sense that we're acting blind

Acting on the best information available is not blind. It doesn't mean you're always or usually going to be right (being right only very rarely is enough for things to move forward).

So, no, I do not agree.

[niner]

If you think science is a matter of faith, you really don't understand science. Chinese scientists are on pace to surpass America in international journal citations by 2013. Why am I not surprised?

[rwac]

If you think science is a matter of faith, you really don't understand science. Chinese scientists are on pace to surpass America in international journal citations by 2013. Why am I not surprised?

I think the article itself is a far more limited statement. There are areas of science where you are not capable of reproducing any experiments, or perhaps even of understanding them. Then do you not take the results as a matter of faith ?

For instance anyone can verify the end-product of aerodynamics, because they can get in a plane and fly.
Or for nuclear physics you can look at the nuclear power plants, or the various nuclear tests.

Short of that, there's lots of science you can't verify, even indirectly, and must depend on "high priests" to analyze it.

[niner]

If you think science is a matter of faith, you really don't understand science. Chinese scientists are on pace to surpass America in international journal citations by 2013. Why am I not surprised?

I think the article itself is a far more limited statement. There are areas of science where you are not capable of reproducing any experiments, or perhaps even of understanding them. Then do you not take the results as a matter of faith ?

For instance anyone can verify the end-product of aerodynamics, because they can get in a plane and fly.
Or for nuclear physics you can look at the nuclear power plants, or the various nuclear tests.

Short of that, there's lots of science you can't verify, even indirectly, and must depend on "high priests" to analyze it.

If one is of above average intelligence, and one is willing to put in sufficient effort to learn a given field, then one could understand most any area of science, and given the appropriate apparatus and sufficient time and effort, reproduce any experiment that is reproducible. (obviously, not all results are reproducible.) However, we don't need to go to that much trouble for every field of science, because of the use of the Scientific Method. When the scientific method is followed, it produces reliable results. "Reliable" doesn't mean 100.000% correct, it's more like 'best available knowledge'. The Scientific Method is self-correcting. It may not happen overnight, but it slowly advances toward more perfect knowledge. If a scientist is particularly successful at correcting past misunderstanding, or putting a field on firmer ground, they are rewarded with prestige and usually money. That's one of the driving forces of the self-correction.

The fact that a nuclear power plant creates electricity only tells us that something is spinning the generators. For all we know, all that business about neutrons and protons was just made up be a cabal of high priests who don't want us to know the truth. I would contend that we don't need to 'believe' the atomic theory or evolutionary theory; we can simply consider the odds of it being a massive fraud, that hundreds of thousands or even millions of scientists and technical people are all pulling the wool over our eyes, and we know that those are very long odds. Of course, these are examples of very solid theories. What about something messier, like climate science? It's less precise, but the Scientific Method still applies, and that provides a measure of confidence that doesn't involve faith. Faith is when you accept something without evidence. While evidence of climate change that can be understood by laymen abounds, the Scientific Method having been employed means that trained people have examined the evidence in detail, so every single one of us doesn't have to.

There seems to be two arguments in this thread. One is the epistemological quagmire that questions how we can really "know" anything. I'm sure this is important on some level, but I don't see it getting us anywhere useful. The other is the swirling cauldron of lies argument, where nothing can be trusted unless we can directly sense the evidence. This is a symptom of a societal problem. Various of us don't trust the government, corporations, science, academics, the military, the church, or any institutions to speak of. We don't even think very highly of our neighbors and coworkers, considering how the degree of even semi-organized socializing has declined over recent decades.

[rwac]

If one is of above average intelligence, and one is willing to put in sufficient effort to learn a given field, then one could understand most any area of science, and given the appropriate apparatus and sufficient time and effort, reproduce any experiment that is reproducible. (obviously, not all results are reproducible.) However, we don't need to go to that much trouble for every field of science, because of the use of the Scientific Method. When the scientific method is followed, it produces reliable results. "Reliable" doesn't mean 100.000% correct, it's more like 'best available knowledge'. The Scientific Method is self-correcting. It may not happen overnight, but it slowly advances toward more perfect knowledge. If a scientist is particularly successful at correcting past misunderstanding, or putting a field on firmer ground, they are rewarded with prestige and usually money. That's one of the driving forces of the self-correction.

Well, half the people are below average by definition, and can't actually do so, so they must rely on faith/trust.

The Scientific Method is well and good in theory, but as an outsider we have no way to ensure that this was actually followed in practice. Most papers have nowhere near the information to actually provide evidence for it.

And people who try to introduce things that are too far ahead of the times will be excommunicated. It happens.

The fact that a nuclear power plant creates electricity only tells us that something is spinning the generators. For all we know, all that business about neutrons and protons was just made up be a cabal of high priests who don't want us to know the truth. I would contend that we don't need to 'believe' the atomic theory or evolutionary theory; we can simply consider the odds of it being a massive fraud, that hundreds of thousands or even millions of scientists and technical people are all pulling the wool over our eyes, and we know that those are very long odds. Of course, these are examples of very solid theories. What about something messier, like climate science? It's less precise, but the Scientific Method still applies, and that provides a measure of confidence that doesn't involve faith. Faith is when you accept something without evidence. While evidence of climate change that can be understood by laymen abounds, the Scientific Method having been employed means that trained people have examined the evidence in detail, so every single one of us doesn't have to.

Well, yes, lots of things may be wrong with the theory, but your lights and mine get lit up, and I'd say that's good enough for a layperson. The fact that it works is proof enough that some people somewhere do understand enough of the system.

How would you convince me that the Scientific Method was actually followed in this case ?

You know even the Catholic Church employs some variation of the Scientific Method to "prove" miracles. That's where the Devil's Advocate comes from.
And I'm sure that the "trained" Archbishops all agree with the pope.

There seems to be two arguments in this thread. One is the epistemological quagmire that questions how we can really "know" anything. I'm sure this is important on some level, but I don't see it getting us anywhere useful. The other is the swirling cauldron of lies argument, where nothing can be trusted unless we can directly sense the evidence. This is a symptom of a societal problem. Various of us don't trust the government, corporations, science, academics, the military, the church, or any institutions to speak of. We don't even think very highly of our neighbors and coworkers, considering how the degree of even semi-organized socializing has declined over recent decades.

I have to ask, do you really think that the Government deserves our trust ?
Their science can be all wrong. (See: Food Pyramid)
It's hard to change the government opinion on anything. I don't know if you remember how the AIDS patients had to fight to get their illness acknowledged.

[platypus]

Short of that, there's lots of science you can't verify, even indirectly, and must depend on "high priests" to analyze it.

Yes, but still in principle every experiment is reproducible by an independent group. Science is based on empirism - we know something to be true because in principle anyone with enough resources can verify it by themselves.

[rwac]

Yes, but still in principle every experiment is reproducible by an independent group. Science is based on empirism - we know something to be true because in principle anyone with enough resources can verify it by themselves.

Sure. But the point is that reproduction or even understanding many experiments is beyond most people. So practically, you take it on faith.

[platypus]

Yes, but still in principle every experiment is reproducible by an independent group. Science is based on empirism - we know something to be true because in principle anyone with enough resources can verify it by themselves.

Sure. But the point is that reproduction or even understanding many experiments is beyond most people. So practically, you take it on faith.

Even if I cannot send probes to orbit the Sun or build a Tevatron on my back yard I trust their results since they are resulting from a more-or-less controlled scientific process. I trust the scientific process, due to the safeguards built into the process, i.e. not befause of faith. Of course nothing is perfect or error-free, one just needs to take that into account in his/her world-view.

[drus]

in a sense, yes, science is faith for those who don't understand it, just as atheism is 'faith' for non-scientists. 'faith' is simply 'making peace with the unknown in a positive light'. faith can be come to by reason, contrary to what many think. in fact in some ways, faith can lead to great wisdom.

[Panther]

enternal,

Hm. I certainly agree that we are making the best of the available information. That is why I say, ultimately, science is a matter of faith. Of course, we must define "faith" as it seems we may be unclear as to each other's meanings. I absolutely do not mean in the cultist sense of assuming our views are correct merely because they are convenient. Again, concepts lacking the burden of proof, I'm not speaking of.

I mean that, when studying a situation, analyzing information, etc, we must understand our tools as well. In this case, we are the tools. Tell me that any person here understands themselves enough to be irrefutably certain that their every perception is correct and I will regard you as a raving lunatic. Though if there is someone here of that nature, do introduce yourself so I may study you closely. Esoteric, perhaps. But a true scientist calculates every factor in their studies.

So, overall, what I'm saying is that, as we do not fully understand ourselves, we must always consider that our calculations will most likely err to some degree. That our perceptions of the world are educated guesses built atop the unavoidable assumption that our sensory data is accurate, and that our brains are handling the info properly, etc. That is why I say science requires "faith". The bedrock of our calculations is ourselves, which we do not fully comprehend. Does that mean we are incapable of forming remotely correct theories? I doubt it. But it would be foolish to assume any calculation is entirely correct inwhich a single factor is left vague.

Edited by Panther, 08 April 2011 - 07:48 PM.

[platypus]

That our perceptions of the world are educated guesses built atop the unavoidable assumption that our sensory data is accurate, and that our brains are handling the info properly, etc. That is why I say science requires "faith".

Actually you seem to mean that "reality" requires faith, I don't think that your points have anything to do with science in particular.

Edited by platypus, 08 April 2011 - 08:16 PM.

[eternaltraveler]

We must define "faith" as it seems we may be unclear as to each other's meanings

How's this

"Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing" from wikipedia

however I would go so far as to say that belief in anything confident or not is not entirely rational and not needed for science.

If feeling this emotional belief state helps you get out of bed in the morning then keep using it.

the unavoidable assumption that our sensory data is accurate

who is making this assumption?

foolish to assume any calculation is entirely correct

and this means you need to have faith for what reason?

[rwac]

Even if I cannot send probes to orbit the Sun or build a Tevatron on my back yard I trust their results since they are resulting from a more-or-less controlled scientific process. I trust the scientific process, due to the safeguards built into the process, i.e. not befause of faith. Of course nothing is perfect or error-free, one just needs to take that into account in his/her world-view.

The problem is that you have insufficient knowledge of the process (or atleast I do) to say that the safeguards are adequate. There's tons of bad science (See: Nutrition) around, this would not be the case if the safeguards were good.

Edited by rwac, 09 April 2011 - 09:06 PM.

[Panther]

eternal,

You're a bag fun aren't you? So, I assume we agree on the theory that, despite knowing all calculations can and most likely will be false to some degree, we push forward nonetheless. That to do otherwise, to not act due to this, is worse than acting blindly. Are we in agreeance, or am I missing some deep understanding that you will be kind enough to educate me on, holding my hand with patience through the process, knowing that helping others better themselves is far more productive than otherwise?

[eternaltraveler]

So, I assume we agree on the theory that, despite knowing all calculations can and most likely will be false to some degree, we push forward nonetheless.

pushing forward isn't a theory, it's a preference. If pushing forward is your cup of tea then I will agree we have a similar subjective preference in a highly non specific sense.

That to do otherwise, to not act due to this, is worse than acting blindly.

I don't want to get into a moral discussion on whats better or worse. My preference is to not act blindly when avoidable using the best information available.

Are we in agreeance, or am I missing some deep understanding that you will be kind enough to educate me on, holding my hand with patience through the process, knowing that helping others better themselves is far more productive than otherwise?

if helping others helps you achieve your goals or makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Sometimes it does those things for me. However I'm not very interested in holding your hand with patience. The understanding you've been missing is that we have not be in agreement for much of this rather not deep discussion. You don't need to redefine words. We are not discussing definitions.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 09 April 2011 - 10:23 PM.

[Panther]

I see. You must know a great deal, be very important and busy, to let pass an opportunity to strengthen those who support your cause. You must be so very beyond the common yoke that not a single spare moment of your time can be given. This it the only possible scenario, seeing that teaching one person your wisdom is the same as teaching every person they teach, and so forth. Indeed, very strong. I hope, someday, I can be useful enough to you, meet your standards to such a degree, that you will share your deep insights. Until then, I will ply my uneducated, pitiable craft, hoping that chance is as favorable to me as it has been to you.

Thank you for your time.

[eternaltraveler]

to let pass an opportunity to strengthen those who support your cause.

I do miss opportunities on occasion. I do not think playing along with your dripping sarcasm is one of them, but I'm willing to update on that if adequate evidence is presented to the contrary.

I apologize if my directness and lack of emotional social signalling is disconcerting for you.

[Panther]

I did not view it as a lack of at all, quite the opposite. I instead saw dismissive remarks designed to display your superiority. I don't mind people being better than me, I mind people who use that strength to suppress others for their own sake. Was that your intent, I can't be certain. Nevertheless, when I suspect such actions, I am not receptive. I admit that I certainly retaliated, but similar events in my history have shown that those who do not truly intend harm upon others seek to find common ground at this point, rather than continue unproductive, combative behavior. As this currently seems to be the case, I feel my actions were well picked.

As for evidence, why don't we have a conversation? It's very rare that I find someone who shares my opinions on the nature of ignorance as we have just outlined, and I hope that a talk would further our understanding of such things. I hope that from this event, we can grow. And prevent others from making these same mistakes. We're all in this together, after all, wouldn't you agree?

[eternaltraveler]

I instead saw dismissive remarks designed to display your superiority

i had no such designs. It is usually not wise to make assumptions about others internal states. I only enjoy displaying my superiority when I'm attempting to attract a mate

http://lesswrong.com...om_one_example/

who do not truly intend harm upon others seek to find common ground at this point, rather than continue unproductive, combative behavior.

I did not perceive anything as being in any way combative. I was operating under the assumption we were having a discussion when you flew off the handle after I said I disagreed with you several times and why. This is not combative. This is not an attempt to flaunt superiority.

You made incorrect assumptions about my internal states and responded with ad hominem based on your flawed assumptions. One might say faith failed you

Its best to assume a person you are engaged in a discussion with is doing so in good faith until such point as you have no choice but to believe otherwise.

If you'd like to have a discussion on something else like strategies for curing death thats usually something I'm up for, however it would be off topic in this thread.

We're all in this together, after all, wouldn't you agree?

Immortalists are. Deathists want to kill every last one of us and themselves. If we are to have any chance we have to work very hard. But yes, those of us here are a vanishingly small portion of the population working on the most herculean of problems.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 10 April 2011 - 12:31 AM.

[niner]

Even if I cannot send probes to orbit the Sun or build a Tevatron on my back yard I trust their results since they are resulting from a more-or-less controlled scientific process. I trust the scientific process, due to the safeguards built into the process, i.e. not befause of faith. Of course nothing is perfect or error-free, one just needs to take that into account in his/her world-view.

The problem is that you have insufficient knowledge of the process (or atleast I do) to say that the safeguards are adequate. There's tons of bad science (See: Nutrition) around, this would not be the case if the safeguards were good.

Science is imperfect, and it sometimes goes up a blind alley or gets things wrong, but eventually it gets corrected. Considering the vast size of all of science, the amount that is in error is not that large. We can acknowledge that sometimes science is wrong, and sometimes it's even fraudulent, without giving up on all of science. It's important to distinguish between early reports, which can easily be wrong, and areas where a great deal of work has been done and things are more solidified. Science is our best shot at improving our condition. To essentially equate it with religion or mythology is really doing it (and us all) a disservice. Like platypus, my acceptance of science is due to my understanding of the process, not because of faith.

[e Volution]

So far I only really see Niner touching on the process that is the Scientific Method. I think not enough people truly appreciate how exactly this process unfolds, because it is a very complicated set of ideas to get your head around. I did science at school and university, and it wasn't until a good decade post-school and constant reading and scientific learning that I feel I now am fully starting to "get it".

A key cornerstone of science is Prediction (from Wikipedia):

In science a prediction is a rigorous, often quantitative, statement, forecasting what will happen under specific conditions; for example, if an apple falls from a tree it will be attracted towards the center of the earth by gravity with a specified and constant acceleration. The scientific method is built on testing assertions that are logical consequences of scientific theories. This is done through repeatable experiments or observational studies.

Scientific hypothesis and prediction
Established science makes useful predictions which are considered to be extremely reliable and accurate; for example, eclipses are routinely predicted. New theories make predictions which allow them to be falsified if the predictions are not borne out.

Many scientific theories (especially in the hard sciences like Physics) make predictions that have incredibly low odds of being correct just by chance, from 1 in 1000 to 1 in trillions. We have a strong enough confidence in statistics to be sure that this is prediction coming true tells us the theory is correct (or the most correct we currently have). It is equivalent to someone saying "I am psychic, and to prove it I am going to win the lotto tonight" and then they go out, buy a ticket, and win. Just winning once and that enough would probably be having you believe them. But if they then did it again, on another day with a different lotto draw, you would have complete confidence they are infact psychic!

Prediction is a key part of the process, and addresses the other point you made about Economists. Economists have HORRIBLE track records of prediction, many top "experts" faring no better than chance. Anything in the biological domain like climate science, economics, nutrition, is VERY VERY far away from the rigorousness we have in fields like Physics. There is a good reason why guys like Nassim Taleb call all economists "Intellectual Frauds", and this is coming from an economist (student) myself.

A great anecdote to think about the key differences between Physics and Biology (that was never even made apparent to me when studying both of those fields at university) is using prediction:

In Physics we can make a prediction like where the earth will be in relation to the sun in 500 years time with remarkable accuracy. We understand enough of the key variables like gravity, the mass of the sun and the earth, etc, to model this accurately in a computer. We then just crunch the numbers, and our digital earth swirls around the sun 500 times in a matter of seconds and we get a result.

Then we have more complex computational domains, like climate change that is an incredibly complex system of interactions that is the general weather, and then ontop of that must incorporate messy biology into its models. As such there is simply no equivalent prediction power like in Physics. The weather 500 years from now? Or how about just a year from now? Not a chance. Hell your weather report for just one week from now is probably no more likely to be correct than chance (50%). The key difference is that in weather there are so many excruciatingly complex and intertwined variables, that there is just no way we can model them all in a computer. Unlike the physics example, the only way to get to the end result is to run through the process in real time and let the web of interactions unfold (aka sit and watch). We still have a long way to go before computers can do this for us, and then some like Stephen Wolfram believe in the process of Computational Irreducibility: the inability to shortcut a program (e.g., a system), or otherwise describe its behavior in a simple way, "computational irreducibility". The empirical fact is that the world of simple programs contains a great diversity of behavior, but, because of undecidability, it is impossible to predict what they will do before essentially running them. The idea demonstrates that there are occurrences where theory's predictions are effectively not possible.

[rwac]

Science is imperfect, and it sometimes goes up a blind alley or gets things wrong, but eventually it gets corrected. Considering the vast size of all of science, the amount that is in error is not that large. We can acknowledge that sometimes science is wrong, and sometimes it's even fraudulent, without giving up on all of science. It's important to distinguish between early reports, which can easily be wrong, and areas where a great deal of work has been done and things are more solidified. Science is our best shot at improving our condition. To essentially equate it with religion or mythology is really doing it (and us all) a disservice. Like platypus, my acceptance of science is due to my understanding of the process, not because of faith.

As e volution pointed out, sometimes there's not a good testing mechanism.
Even when there is as in the case of nutrition, and research points in one direction, a lot of doctors and dieticians continue to point in the other, because that's the line they've always taken.

To paraphrase Keynes: The Science can remain on the wrong path longer than your lifetime.

Feynman talked quite a bit about Cargo Cult Science. The hard part is to distinguish between Real science and Cargo Cult Science. This is hard if you have not done much research into the field.

Edited by rwac, 10 April 2011 - 01:28 PM.

[Connor MacLeod]

Feynman talked quite a bit about Cargo Cult Science. The hard part is to distinguish between Real science and Cargo Cult Science. This is hard if you have not done much research into the field.

I love it.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

The reality in my experience working as a researcher for the federal government is more typically "give only that information which will help secure future funding."

[niner]

Science is imperfect, and it sometimes goes up a blind alley or gets things wrong, but eventually it gets corrected. Considering the vast size of all of science, the amount that is in error is not that large. We can acknowledge that sometimes science is wrong, and sometimes it's even fraudulent, without giving up on all of science. It's important to distinguish between early reports, which can easily be wrong, and areas where a great deal of work has been done and things are more solidified. Science is our best shot at improving our condition. To essentially equate it with religion or mythology is really doing it (and us all) a disservice. Like platypus, my acceptance of science is due to my understanding of the process, not because of faith.

As e volution pointed out, sometimes there's not a good testing mechanism.
Even when there is as in the case of nutrition, and research points in one direction, a lot of doctors and dieticians continue to point in the other, because that's the line they've always taken.

To paraphrase Keynes: The Science can remain on the wrong path longer than your lifetime.

Feynman talked quite a bit about Cargo Cult Science. The hard part is to distinguish between Real science and Cargo Cult Science. This is hard if you have not done much research into the field.

Yeah, it can be hard to evaluate from the outside. One thing that comes to mind is to get in touch with the editors of journals where papers of interest to you are published, and ask them about their peer review criteria. That's an excellent paraphrase, too. Particularly when it comes to areas like the ones that we're interested in, which might have a real bearing on the length of your life. I recently posted a link to a review of radiation hormesis. I think that the LNT hypothesis is going to be another lipid hypothesis. Funny the power that hypotheses can take on. The Cargo Cult Science talk was good. I've seen papers where the authors really seemed to be doing it the way Feynman was asking for; 'bending over backward' to cover all the bases. Other papers are just the opposite. That talk was from 1974, and the Cargo Cult Sciences he was talking about were primarily parapsychology and some of the social sciences. He did have this to say as well:

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other
experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you
were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll
disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some
temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation
as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind
of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to
fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the
research in cargo cult science.