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The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

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Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#61

Post by happytoexplain »

charliesharding wrote: post #5

The way in which public considers science today is much more analogous to the way the public considered religion during the time of Galileo. Think of the way people are castigated for not believing in scientific "truths". I see signs in peoples yard saying that "in this house, we believe science is real". As someone who has studied biochemistry for years, this kind of reverence for science is truly troubling. The one…

There is a difference between being skeptical of scientifically-arrived-at conclusions (which is healthy and I don't share your opinion that people are largely "castigated" for that) and explicitly ignoring science, and experts in general, based purely on the fact that their conclusions conflict with one's socio-political convictions, which I think is a real problem that people may feel castigated for falling into (which of course doesn't help). If anything has the ring of religious superiority to it, it's this trend of elevating skepticism to denial simply for political reasons.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#62

Post by unknownkadath »

gus_massa wrote: post #45
x220 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The way in which public considers science today is much more analogous to the way the public considered religion during the time of Galileo. I wish. In the US a huge number of people (large enough to be dangerous) reject climate change consensus, think that evolution shouldn't be taught in schools, are "skeptical" about vaccinating their children (I use quotes because skepticism implies reasonableness), think that t…

> or think that abstinence-only sex education is effective. How did we prove that it doesn't work? I agree that it doesn't work, but I have a very hard time imagining how to make a study to prove it.

Have you had a look around PubMed?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#64

Post by happytoexplain »

ummonk wrote: post #21
justintrtle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually take statements similar to "in this house, we believe science is real" as conveying the message that the people believe in the scientific method, rational inquiry, evidence-based arguments, etc, rather than a set of specific scientific theories.

In my experience, the people who proclaim this are generally not talking about the scientific method, but about specific theories. Generally evolution and climate change (and the safety of vaccination is becoming an issue as well). It's amazing for example how many of these people will turn around and believe hormone-replacement therapy creates a level playing field in sports between trans-women and cis-women.

>It's amazing for example how many of these people will turn around and believe hormone-replacement therapy creates a level playing field in sports between trans-women and cis-women.

I find it hard to believe that you've found such a specific correlation in a domain where the numbers are large and half the equation is so nebulous ("these people", i.e. people who often say out loud "we believe in science in this household"??). This is ripe with identity politics, and you're almost certainly projecting your feelings about "those people" as though there is a real correlation that makes "those people" worthy of condemnation.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#65

Post by rudigergerm »

douglaswlance wrote: post #8

We need a distributed scientific inquiry system that exists on the scale of social media. Imagine if instead of Twitter optimizing for attention, it optimized for rigorous scientific inquiry. The world would be a much more intelligent, reasonable place.

Not everyone has the drive to regorously reason.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#66

Post by pdonis »

happytoexplain wrote: post #61
charliesharding wrote: post #5

The way in which public considers science today is much more analogous to the way the public considered religion during the time of Galileo. Think of the way people are castigated for not believing in scientific "truths". I see signs in peoples yard saying that "in this house, we believe science is real". As someone who has studied biochemistry for years, this kind of reverence for science is truly troubling. The one…

There is a difference between being skeptical of scientifically-arrived-at conclusions (which is healthy and I don't share your opinion that people are largely "castigated" for that) and explicitly ignoring science, and experts in general, based purely on the fact that their conclusions conflict with one's socio-political convictions, which I think is a real problem that people may feel castigated for falling into (w…

> it's this trend of elevating skepticism to denial simply for political reasons

Well, there's just as much of a trend of claiming your position is "science" when it isn't, simply for political reasons.

For example, by any reasonable standards, economics is not a science; yet people who question the current orthodoxy in economics, for example by questioning whether having the Federal Reserve print money is really a good idea, are routinely castigated. Ron Paul became a nonstarter as a Presidential candidate for precisely this reason.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#67

Post by happytoexplain »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #24
savingthrow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. a parent spanks their child because their child misbehaved, and the parent is then investigated by the authorities They should be investigated if their parenting is so poor that they resort to physical violence against the child. It's absurd to suggest that hitting children is acceptable - as absurd as saying a boss can slap an employee, or that a husband can slap his spouse. You can be an authoritative parent w…

If you lead a child by the arm against their will, is this tantamount to physical violence or no? If we're busy redefining what is the acceptable behavior in parenting, we better discuss this all the way to the limits.

You sound like you're being sarcastic, but I can't be sure. It sounds like you think the premise is ridiculous, but your second sentence is totally reasonable - of course we should discuss all aspects of a topic. Again, I'm not sure if your first question was honest or not, but answering it is straightforward and I think you'll find only extreme minorities of opposing opinions: Leading forcibly by the arm may be objectionable in some contexts, but it is not physical violence in most cases where the person being lead doesn't have the strength to turn the struggle into violence, so for children it almost never is (if the parent isn't using unnecessary force).

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#69

Post by orblivion »

I think the whole idea of scientific authority is troubling. Of course (as another poster pointed out) we should all be convinced of the value of the scientific method in school. It doesn't require evidence. Believing the scientific establishment, however, is an epistemic challenge.

The way I think of it, for us to believe physicists to the extent it affects us is easy. We just buy gadgets, and they seem to work. We outsource the vetting of the science to companies, who outsource to engineers, who outsource to scientists. The engineers should be able to see pretty quickly if the science is somehow wrong.

Medicine affects us as well, and it's a bit harder. Cause and effect is a lot harder to determine, and as such there's a lot of controversy. Since there's ambiguity, there's an incentive to sell us bogus cures, and as such a (in my mind) reasonable skepticism of what we're being sold.

Climate science is even worse. There's only one climate, so cause and effect is really hard to determine, at least for the "consumer" (voter). There's not only business motives, but political motives.

I think science advocates should think in these epistemic terms, rather than throwing a tantrum because the ignorant masses don't believe them. Maybe there's a way we could set up credible institutions that could vet the scientific establishment for us. "Peer review" is not credible, especially given all the bad stories I hear about how that system is broken. Can a maverick get in there and publish something completely contrary to the "consensus" and be taken seriously? I have no idea. All I hear about is "quack scientists" who don't believe in climate change, and I get real suspicious.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#70

Post by voidhorse »

devoply wrote: post #15
charliesharding wrote: post #5

The way in which public considers science today is much more analogous to the way the public considered religion during the time of Galileo. Think of the way people are castigated for not believing in scientific "truths". I see signs in peoples yard saying that "in this house, we believe science is real". As someone who has studied biochemistry for years, this kind of reverence for science is truly troubling. The one…

Episteme is always political once it gets societal acceptance and there is little difference between it and doxa. Techné is what actually does all the work and though you can find how to do it through episteme or doxa, it does not actually depend on them -- it does not matter what you believe as long as you know how to do something. At the end of the day humans really only have techné, everything else is political...…

If you dig into some Philosophy of Technology you'll find that Techne, too, is often highly politicized and not easily separable from the knowledge or outcomes it is devised to produce. Techne is already political to the extent that it needs a motivation to get going in the first place--it's really impossible to think of technology's social effects in a way that is not informed by historical materialism. The hows are necessarily coupled with the whys and the belief systems behind them, especially when you consider the fact that in many cases there are multiple ways of getting things done, and the selection of one of these over the others comes down to value judgements (e.g. consider how many technical possibilities are deemed unsatisfactory because of exorbitant costs, this is the manifestation of a value judgement that places finances above other considerations that factor into a particular issue such as e.g. in some cases thoroughness or safety). Not to mention the whole field of techniques that don't make sense divorced from an epistemic context (e.g. the technicalities of performing a ritual sacrifice are partly determined by the belief system backing them--remove this belief system or exchange it with another and there's no way to even make sense of the practice as a technique. I.e. under the ancient greek religious system the procedure of visiting an oracle to glean information was technical and important. Within the context of modern beliefs such a procedure seems patently ridiculous, but it wasn't for the Greeks, and the deployment of the technique still had significant effects and consequences, and produced results in spite of its patent preposterousness from our modern day epistemic viewpoint).

Some of Robert Moses's schemes are a great example. Consider, for instance, how he hoped to deny whole segments of the population in NY access to his parks by making overpasses en route to the spaces too low for buses (which serval poor folks relied on to get around) to travel under. The application of technology and techniques is fundamentally entangled with the wills of the subjects employing said techniques.

I'd go as far as to say human life is inherently "political" in all its aspects. You can't really live and not be politicized in some way--the really baad state to be in is to be unconscious of the political implications of the way you live, which primes you for manipulation by parties that are more 'in the know'. This idea that certain realms of life are free from political influence or external factors doesn't really have any representatives in the real world. I think people often confuse our ability to treat something abstractly and divorced from the concrete situation of present reality with the ontological claim that said thing itself is abstract and can be wholly treated and solved in an abstract manner. That doesn't even hold in the case of a domain as fundamentally abstract as algorithmic time analysis, in which the concrete inputs have a direct impact on the performance of algorithms. In the jargon of historical materialist philosophy such a process is sometimes called reification--thinking the abstract representation of a concept is the thing itself, ignoring all its concrete manifestations. This leads to certain errors. E.g. thinking we can solve problems with schooling in a particular district without having to look at other issues, such as the population dispersion, the distribution of finances, the district's layout, etc. etc. We have to be vigilant of 'nounifying' abstractions and keep in mind that they are the products of thought and a helpful intellectual tool, and means of orienting and structuring the world, not latent realities.

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