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Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

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Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#341

Post by TuringTest »

galdosdi wrote: post #338
TuringTest wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, in real life, we do have this constraint Which IMO is what causes confirmation bias. But science should strive to get rid of confirmation bias as much as possible.

Your comment is vacuous if you don't expand on it; it goes without saying we want to try to minimize bias as much as possible. Science is part of a world of limited resources too, and investigators have to decide what experiments to try, what topics to pursue

In the context of confirmation bias being an evolved trait, my comment was meant to imply that we should expect science to spend much more resources than mere intuition, but doing so is still worthwhile.

Any scientist will be subject to cognitive bias at some level (if only by choosing the core principles and axioms on which their reasoning is based), but there are systematic ways to mitigate it. Applying more resources to a particular problem will get rid of at least the superficial levels of cognitive bias.

Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#342

Post by sinxoveretothex »

coldtea wrote: post #304
sinxoveretothex wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the problem: we can't even say that. The paper you cite says that most published research is false. You infer from this that published research is no better than no source. But this is wrong! If published research is true 30% of the time, but people's intuitions (on questions research is published on) are so only say 10% of the time, then going with published papers is a better choice. I'd like to know if pe…

> But this is wrong! If published research is true 30% of the time, but people's intuitions (on questions research is published on) are so only say 10% of the time, then going with published papers is a better choice. Only if "people's intuitions" are true on a less than a "published research" percentage.

Indeed, technical error on my part. The parent commenter is only "most likely wrong" given the psychological literature on this is most likely right. Some of it you can prove to yourself by experiment such as by following along this ASAP science video[1] (it's essentially Kanehman's Thinking Fast and Slow in accessible form).

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JiTz2i4VHFw

Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#343

Post by balabaster »

marknutter wrote: post #313
balabaster wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I wonder if anything is a source of objective fact. The more I try and remain objective and strive for enlightenment, the cloudier everything seems to become.

Strive less for objective facts and strive more for keeping an open mind.

Objective facts are so few and far between and based on assumptions that are either vague in their definitions, limited or flawed that chasing them appears to enforce keeping an open mind. These two paradigms appear to be intrinsically linked.

Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#344

Post by mcguire »

philipov wrote: post #333
mcguire wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, Hilbert's program, Godël, and Turing.

I think a lot of mathematicians distinguish zealously between Mathematics per se, as opposed to mathematical logic/philosophy.

True, but Hilbert was a mathematician and was expressing the general thought, that mathematics could be formalized and when that was done, it would be complete, consistent, firm, round, and fully-packed. When that was demonstrated to be false, it had no great effect on day-to-day mathematics.

But still,....

Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#345

Post by timje1 »

conistonwater wrote: post #131
coldtea wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All you are really saying is its impossible to know anything for certain. Yeah, in the sense that all you are saying is its possible to have degrees of trust on difference sources of "facts". That said, you'd be surprised how often the fact (pun intended) that it's "impossible to know anything for certain" is lost on people. > Having a citation from a well regarded source is better than having no citation. Peer rev…

> That said, you'd be surprised how often the fact (pun intended) that it's "impossible to know anything for certain" is lost on people. I think David Hume was quite good on this subject. If chance of being right is all there is to knowledge, then maximizing your chance of being right is what knowledge is. So all the peer review, the numbers and statistics, for example, contribute to knowledge even if it might be wro…

I love this concept as a defence against the 'well virtually anything can be proven wrong or right' anti-knowledge argument...

Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#346

Post by gregmac »

balabaster wrote: post #129
gregmac wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> repeatable enough to be accepted as fact No. They are accepted as a scientific theory [1]. A scientific fact is "a repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experimentation or other means), also called empirical evidence" [2]. The media and general public doesn't really understand the distinction, and tends to call widely-accept scientific theories "facts" and treat them as if they are proven true -- when i…

> No. They are accepted as a scientific theory [1]. Thanks for clarifying that... indeed, I agree with that adjustment. The problem you highlight is that most people aren't exposed to anything but "this is fact" spewed by the media and don't have the benefit of time or contradictory evidence at hand to decide what is true and what isn't... so even with the ability to think critically, they're bombarded with so many a…

I think this is why science education is so important, even for people not going into hard science. Really the two main takeaways should be understanding the difference between empirical evidence and scientific theory, and that theories can never be proven 'true', but they can be proven false, and until then they're really only considered 'not yet false'.

Using their critical thinking skills they can then apply this knowledge to non-scientific situations, so when a politician say something is a "fact" they can figure out if it's a "fact" like empirical evidence, or they just mean it's a theory they believe in.

Through this lens, "alternative fact" must mean either "alternative theory" -- which is fine, and can be tested against another theory by figuring out a way to prove one false -- or "alternative empirical evidence" -- which is not possible, and therefore is just a fancy way of saying 'lie'.

Re: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

#347

Post by philipov »

mcguire wrote: post #344
philipov wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of mathematicians distinguish zealously between Mathematics per se, as opposed to mathematical logic/philosophy.

True, but Hilbert was a mathematician and was expressing the general thought, that mathematics could be formalized and when that was done, it would be complete, consistent, firm, round, and fully-packed. When that was demonstrated to be false, it had no great effect on day-to-day mathematics. But still,....

Right, there are game-changing advances in mathematical logic and sea changes in mathematical philosophy. The discovery of non-euclidean geometry did not mean euclidean geometry was false, and real analysis is the same whether you found it on sets or categories, by definition. Incompleteness doesn't eliminate the possibility of consistency. Mathematics changes by becoming more expressive and growing outwards and inwards.

Sometimes, a theorem is proven to be inconsistent and thrown out. My point was this happens a lot less often with mathematical theorems than it does with scientific facts because facts are based on our inductive study of the universe, whereas mathematics only makes statements about syllogisms. Unlike the real world, math is an area of study where incontrovertible facts are at least possible, because we make everything up, and just have to make sure we're consistent about it. We do not have access to such a priori knowledge about reality.

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