What’s so bad about Scientism? • Hacker News Board

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#91

Post by kijin » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 12:20 AM UTC

mizzao wrote: post #81

kijin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's the point. You can't design an empirical experiment to falsify the definitions of basic concepts.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#92

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 12:22 AM UTC

acover wrote: post #12

kijin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever we need to take for granted in order for a scientific experiment to mean anything at all. Most of mathematics and logic would fall into this category: we can't falsify 1 + 1 = 2 by experiment, but if we throw it out, we won't have any science at all. A lot of people believe that fundamental principles of ethics also belong there. For example, we may be able to demonstrate whether or not something is a net be…

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.

> 1+1=2 is falsifiable as it relates to an experiment.

1+1=2 does not relate to an experiment; it is a statement about relations of concepts, not material entities.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#93

Post by inimino » Sat, Apr 01, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

lz400 wrote: post #50

inimino wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you're not just more familiar with science than with philosophy? I don't think any of those examples hold up under the slightest scrutiny. Philosophy is mostly demolished by better philosophy.

Philosophy of science is very relevant and more difficult than ever. But you couldn't do philosophy of quantum mechanics before the science of quantum mechanics. When I say philosophy I mean metaphysics or in general attempts to explain the natural world. A lot of that has been made redundant by science. Not ethics. Modern scientists don't usually like philosophy and don't write about this stuff from a philosophical…

Scientists in academia are often ignorant of philosophy; this seems to be a side-effect of increasing specialization and corresponding tunnel vision.

Science as an empirical practice of truth-seeking is reliant on philosophy for its foundations. Of course it is possible to "do science" without having any interest in epistemology, just as it is possible to program computers without having any interest in computer science, or to do mathematics without having any interest in mathematical foundations.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#94

Post by acover » Sun, Apr 02, 2017, 8:28 AM UTC

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?

You are right. There are thoughts that science can't explain or replicate.

Re: What’s so bad about Scientism?

#95

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 02, 2017, 8:28 AM UTC

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?

[deleted]