Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What’s so bad about Scientism?

philpapers.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 95 posts

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#71

Post by daptaq »

lz400 wrote: post #65
daptaq wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an extreme generalisation. Yes, there are philosphers and philosophies that would reject these things, but it's absurd to assume that all do. You also have to remember that science operates within it's own framework, and assumes concepts of truth that are accepted within this community, such as the scientific method to gain knowledge. But these are presumed to be true, without anyone having had proven them. Ph…

Not all do, but I'd say there's a real disconnect between the disciplines when there should be more teamwork. If Philosophy is going to argue that the scientific method doesn't work, or that the world doesn't exist, we can't trust our senses or stuff like that, go ahead. Has there been any practical advancement on this line of thinking in the last 50 years? do you envision that the scientific method will be revised b…

>I'd say there's a real disconnect between the disciplines when there should be more teamwork

Could you explain what you mean with this?

>If Philosophy is going to argue that the scientific method doesn't work

The critique isn't as blunt as you make it out to be. Philosophers argue that the scientific method isn't the ultimate epistemological tool to find out everything and to understand all there is to know.

>that the world doesn't exist >we can't trust our senses or stuff like that

Just as a side note, this hasn't been disproven, since it's beyond the reach of science. Science, as a materialist/physicalist philosophy presumes itself to be true, while at they same time limiting itself.

>Has there been any practical advancement on this line of thinking in the last 50 years?

What do you mean with "practical advancement"? For one to ask or answer this question seriously, one has to take a lot of things for granted and such as concepts of "practical" or "advancement". And what's so special about the last 50 years?

>do you envision that the scientific method will be revised by anything discovered in philosophy?

Philosophy as a discipline isn't science, you don't "discover" things, since that presumes these truths to be out there, ready to be found, which doesn't mean that people don't search for them.

But besides that, what do you mean with "revised"? The critique isn't as already mentioned, that the scientific method isn't right (it most certainly is a very good tool regarding science itself), but that it can't be the only one, used to find out everything. That's just naive positivism.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#72

Post by smhost »

Scea91 wrote: post #62
smhost wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably T <= 0, multiple universes, inside a black hole, etc. You also can't run an experiment on your own life, not really, since you only have one life and that's not a large enough sample. So questions like "what is true for you, uniquely?"

Your life is definitely a large enough sample for experiments about you, since it covers the whole domain. No need to even use statistics.

You can know scientific truths about parts of your life, but you can't know scientific truths about the whole of it.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#73

Post by cygx »

larksimian wrote: post #41
icen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all that says is that 1+1=2 is too obvious. How about some other, less straightforward mathematical theorem, then, like Fermat's Last Theorem. You can hardly accuse that of being an axiom, or just introducing frameworks of thought.

Mathematics is based on logical deduction. You start with a set of rules and you prove additional rules. Science is based on (lots of things but primarily) empirical induction. You observe some phenomena, decide that they are of the same type, generate a model that predicts how all phenomena of that type behave. By necessity you observe an infinitesimal fraction of the phenomena in your type. In math proofs are unive…

Or just wholesale thrown out(or at least become obsolete), see Newtonian orbital mechanics vs relativistic orbital mechanics.

Newtonian orbital mechanics is not obsolete: Within the limits of its applicability, it's a perfectly fine framework and in use to this day.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#74

Post by lz400 »

daptaq wrote: post #71
lz400 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all do, but I'd say there's a real disconnect between the disciplines when there should be more teamwork. If Philosophy is going to argue that the scientific method doesn't work, or that the world doesn't exist, we can't trust our senses or stuff like that, go ahead. Has there been any practical advancement on this line of thinking in the last 50 years? do you envision that the scientific method will be revised b…

>I'd say there's a real disconnect between the disciplines when there should be more teamwork Could you explain what you mean with this? >If Philosophy is going to argue that the scientific method doesn't work The critique isn't as blunt as you make it out to be. Philosophers argue that the scientific method isn't the ultimate epistemological tool to find out everything and to understand all there is to know. >that t…

Science also doesn't rely only on the scientific method. It relies mainly on maths and logic. Here both philosophy and science meet.

What I mean is that every time this debate happens it's the same a lot of "what do you mean by that?" And "define achievement". My thesis is that as a tool to gain knowledge about the natural world philosophy is not helpful anymore because the parts that are useful, logic and argumental rigor, are integrated in science already. Philosophy is still useful in ethics and morals but not useful in epistemology and metaphysics unless they follow modern science, which very few do.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#75

Post by gonvaled »

kapauldo wrote: post #70
TuringTest wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is an example of a hypothesis that is not falsifiable by experiment but should still be considered "knowledge"? As the paper points out, things like the following are problematic from a purely experimental approach: "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Yet many scientists treat it as common knowledge.

Jesus was conceived without sperm.

Which is not the same as saying the Virgin Mary was virgin - your statement is much stronger!

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#76

Post by daptaq »

lz400 wrote: post #74
daptaq wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd say there's a real disconnect between the disciplines when there should be more teamwork Could you explain what you mean with this? >If Philosophy is going to argue that the scientific method doesn't work The critique isn't as blunt as you make it out to be. Philosophers argue that the scientific method isn't the ultimate epistemological tool to find out everything and to understand all there is to know. >that t…

Science also doesn't rely only on the scientific method. It relies mainly on maths and logic. Here both philosophy and science meet. What I mean is that every time this debate happens it's the same a lot of "what do you mean by that?" And "define achievement". My thesis is that as a tool to gain knowledge about the natural world philosophy is not helpful anymore because the parts that are useful, logic and argumental…

Well I don't disagree with your thesis in principle, I'm just adding that science is part of philosophy, as it too seeks to find out what is true and what not. And after all, logic and mathematics come from philosophy - there is no clear distinction between the two.

If you are talking about idealist philosophy, and are asking yourself how much their theories on the true substance of the world has contributed to the general wellbeing of the average human being, then I already said, that most people would agree that the products of science, as a materialist philosophy, are more helpful.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#77

Post by lz400 »

daptaq wrote: post #76
lz400 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science also doesn't rely only on the scientific method. It relies mainly on maths and logic. Here both philosophy and science meet. What I mean is that every time this debate happens it's the same a lot of "what do you mean by that?" And "define achievement". My thesis is that as a tool to gain knowledge about the natural world philosophy is not helpful anymore because the parts that are useful, logic and argumental…

Well I don't disagree with your thesis in principle, I'm just adding that science is part of philosophy, as it too seeks to find out what is true and what not. And after all, logic and mathematics come from philosophy - there is no clear distinction between the two. If you are talking about idealist philosophy, and are asking yourself how much their theories on the true substance of the world has contributed to the g…

Yes you can argue science is part of philosophy, all is. I don't disagree. But there's been a divergence of not in principle, in practice. Philosophy departments and science departments barely talk in my opinion. 50 years ago it was different I think. The copnehaguen school of quantum physics, Bohr and all those guys, read and engaged in philosophy. Nowadays feels like there's a real disconnect. Not long ago discussing with a philosophy professor he told me that "those ignorant monkeys at MIT think they know everything and it's just pseudoscience". There's an feeling of entrenching within philosophy and of disinterest within Science. Another example is those silly Lawrence Krauss feuds with philosophers over his book about "nothing". Science is so strange nowadays, we need a philosophical treatment to make sense of multiverses, inflation, quantum interpretations, etc. Maybe it's more my biased impression than reality, I would be happy to be pointed to work along these lines.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#78

Post by IsaacL »

acover wrote: post #37
palad1n wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think therefore I am?

Yes. Maybe. Is it an axiom of the scientific method? [No?] Is it a tautology? [Maybe?] Are there other examples other than the basis of knowledge being knowledge? [?]

1. "There is an objective reality". 2. "Reality is consistent". 3. "The human mind is capable of knowledge about reality".

These all need to be taken as axioms if any further knowledge is going to be possible.

There's a book called Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology which covers this in much more detail. (Ayn Rand gets a bad rep, but few people know about her theories of concepts and knowledge. They indicate the path to solving many of the issues in philosophy of science).

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#79

Post by prance »

taejo wrote: post #66
werpon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I called it an axiom for the sake of brevity. I felt that reciting the Peano axioms would only cloud my point. Was I 100% precise? No. Did you add something meaningful to the discussion? That's for you to answer.

"axiom" is two letters shorter than "theorem", so no, brevity doesn't cut it as an excuse. The difference between an axiom and a theorem is, undoubtedly, germane to a thread about the different ways we can know things.

I would go further: is "Axioms exist" true? You don't find them lying around in nature. They exist only in people's minds. I would argue that this is an inherent metaphysical question.

The scientismist's (?) standpoint could be that it exists because it is manifested as a concept in human brains. But by the same argument, wouldn't they then need to acknowledge that God exists?

The crux of the matter is to do science, you need formalism to express your theories, to interpret measurement results etc. Those formalisms are what we usually call "math". But any mathematical system has axioms, i.e. something we need to just "believe" in in the first place, and those believes are not themselves provable by science.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#80

Post by carsongross »

barnabes wrote: post #5
juliangamble wrote: post #3

Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics — seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence. Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will ser…

The issue, in my eyes anyway, is when the scientific method is used as a hammer; when it's used to crush a debate. Any method, whether scientific, philosophical, spiritual or otherwise should be used to spawn debate, and to contribute to a rich discussion. But science being used to stop debate, used to stop exchange, used to stop meaningful conversation does more harm than good to all involved.

The issue, in my eyes anyway, is when the scientific method is used as a hammer; when it's used to crush a debate.

The scientific method isn't being used to crush debate. It simply isn't being used.

What's most responsible for crushing debate today is (empirically false) post-modern social constructionism coupled with female mother/protector ethics. Jordan Peterson is one of the best people on these (and many, many other) topics:

https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos

Post reply on HN