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What’s so bad about Scientism?

philpapers.org

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Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#81

Post by mizzao »

kijin wrote: post #28
acover wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1+1=2 is falsifiable as it relates to an experiment. You could show that in an experiment that when you "add" a "one" and another "one" together you do not get "two". If it doesn't aid in understanding the world then I'm not sure it qualifies as knowledge.

When you add 1kg of some stuff to 1kg of another stuff and end up with 1.97kg instead of 2kg, have you really falsified 1 + 1 = 2, or have you just confirmed that some portion of your material was vaporized in the reaction? What does the number 1.97 even mean in a world where 1 + 1 ≠ 2? When you falsify 1 + 1 = 2, you also end up denying the validity of the very experiment that you used in the process. If a hypothesi…

Your experiment depends on the way your scale defines "1", "2", and "kg", and can't be used to test this.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#82

Post by mizzao »

ericdykstra wrote: post #64

"Science vs Philosophy" is a misguided debate. The scientific method answers questions about how the world works. Philosophy discusses how best we should act in the world as it is. Do they sometimes try to answer the same questions? Yes, and it's usually in the case where philosophical ideas can be, and have in the past, been the best model for explaining phenomenon that we didn't have the tools to measure with scien…

Given the reproducibility crisis in science (esp. in fields like psychology, where an estimated two-thirds of papers aren't replicable), it's good to be skeptical of new work instead of saying "scientists showed this! now let's redo an entire part of the world".

An important real consequence of scientism: the war on fat circa 1960, overconsumption of sugar, and resulting diabetes epidemic.

(Spoken as a practicing scientist.)

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#83

Post by TuringTest »

acover wrote: post #60
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.

> "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Isn't this a falsifiable hypothesis? If you analyzed various predictions made by scientific and non scientific knowledge then you could compare them and determine if one was "better". That historical performance might not hold but the sun may not rise in the east. That the scientific method has not be employed because our heuristics say the answer is o…

But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#84

Post by AstralStorm »

TuringTest wrote: post #83
acover wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Isn't this a falsifiable hypothesis? If you analyzed various predictions made by scientific and non scientific knowledge then you could compare them and determine if one was "better". That historical performance might not hold but the sun may not rise in the east. That the scientific method has not be employed because our heuristics say the answer is o…

But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?

Pragmatic utilitarism. It works and produces most beneficial results among tested methods.

The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement. But if certain human rights are universal, we can agree on at least a subset of benefits.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#85

Post by AstralStorm »

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.

To prove this statement you must define:

1) Who are you talking about.

2) What is sperm.

3) What do you mean by conceived.

4) Whether the statement is literal or requires specific context.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#86

Post by AstralStorm »

prance wrote: post #79
taejo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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,…

Axioms can be shown to be useful or not. This is why some mathematicians reason with or without axiom of choice. Likewise, systems of axioms can be shown to be consistent or not.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#87

Post by AstralStorm »

daptaq wrote: post #51
werpon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, the whole concept of scientism is the last attempt of philosophy to stay relevant, and it's usually only backed up by appeals to emotion and loaded words. So, the scientist in me asks: what areas of knowledge are out of the scope of science and the scientific method?

Founding all knowledge on the scientific method is just vulgar empiricism, and it's known to have it's limits, and philosophy isn't just "emotions", since science is part of philosophy itself (asking and answering questions about the world, Truth, etc.) This comic shows the limits of empiricism nicely: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/132

Not true. Scientific method does accept axiomatic systems as long as properties of them are verifiable.

Axioms that can be empirically shown to be likely true or likely false.

Also it treasures smaller set of axioms rather than larger ones.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#88

Post by sean_appleby »

TuringTest wrote: post #83
acover wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Isn't this a falsifiable hypothesis? If you analyzed various predictions made by scientific and non scientific knowledge then you could compare them and determine if one was "better". That historical performance might not hold but the sun may not rise in the east. That the scientific method has not be employed because our heuristics say the answer is o…

But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?

Is this not just an underdetermined question?

Isn't the loss of objectivity just a result of the question having more degrees of freedom than it does constraints, and the subjectivity just comes from picking which constraints to assume? Doesn't a well defined goal turn that question into a positive question?

A simpler example could be, "is it better for me to build a bridge over a highway out of cardboard or out of steel?"

It's superficially normative but becomes a positive question as soon as you define the constraint that a bridge that no one needlessly dies while walking across is better than one that kills people.

At that point all of these questions become scientifically approachable, although some are likely still hopelessly complex, as soon as you assume an axiom like, "it is best to maximize the ratio of well being over conscious suffering."

What that axiom should actually be is likely a nearly unapproachably complex amalgamation of philosophy, but it seems more reasonable to work with something than assume that there is no right answer, especially when we seem to be rapidly approaching the point of needing to have software systems make quick ethical decisions.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#89

Post by TuringTest »

sean_appleby wrote: post #88
TuringTest wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?

Is this not just an underdetermined question? Isn't the loss of objectivity just a result of the question having more degrees of freedom than it does constraints, and the subjectivity just comes from picking which constraints to assume? Doesn't a well defined goal turn that question into a positive question? A simpler example could be, "is it better for me to build a bridge over a highway out of cardboard or out of s…

Yeah, but the constraints themselves that define the scientific endeavour, or the preference over bridges that don't kill people, are not and cannot be scientific.

Science is necessarily neutral in that regard; it's a tool to achieve some goals that, as you said, require a judgement value. There is some moral knowledge that provides value and motivation, and which is not scientific knowledge.

> Is this not just an underdetermined question?

Not in philosophy, no. The mother of all sciences has ways to deal with the question, which is meaningless from a purely scientific POV, but which nevertheless merits being studied. For example, it could guide you to choose and refine the guiding principles for programming your autonomous car, and to analyze whether your missing something in your "amalgamation of philosophy" that you used as the basis of that technology project.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#90

Post by TuringTest »

AstralStorm wrote: post #84
TuringTest wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?

Pragmatic utilitarism. It works and produces most beneficial results among tested methods. The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement. But if certain human rights are universal, we can agree on at least a subset of benefits.

> Pragmatic utilitarism.

That's an acceptance that philosophy is useful. Pragmatic utilitarian is one kind of philosophy.

> The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement.

See my reply to the other post above. [1] Philosophy is the discipline that specialises in the problem of rational analysis of value judgements. A good way to agree on which rights and valuable benefits to use is to discuss them philosophically.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007546

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