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Cargo cult science (1974)

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Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#141

Post by staunton »

bjornsing wrote: post #136
caddemon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it as a general public problem but I actually do see it as an ongoing scientific training problem. Biology PhD programs these days spend a lot more time teaching prior biology results than they do having students engage with what it means to be a scientist, in the limited time that they teach at all. "Students" are then sorted into a lab where they learn the specific scientific cookbook of the subfield an…

> Student experiences of course vary widely, and even for those that do the menial slog version of a bio PhD, the attitude surrounding it varies. Some seem to be happy for the guidance when their advisor is like this while others resent the lack of intellectual freedom. This section I think captures the problem well: most good (future) scientists will recent the lack of intellectual freedom, while the less capable wi…

> This mechanism pushes academia more and more towards mediocre Cargo Cult Science

Ultimately, a cargo cult is a scientifically sound application of empiricism that just happens to completely fail, whereupon it may be rejected. If scientific methodology is evaluated empirically (which I endorse) in terms of enabling scientific progess, you end up with a cargo cult.

For example, why is it a good idea to have falsifiable hypotheses? Most philosophers don't adhere to this standard. You might make a great argument on the grounds of what scientific progress means, how tangible it is and how it prevents discussions that are in some precise sense a waste of time. However, if you ground your epistemology on experience, the best and most convincing reason to adopt falsifiability is that it's historically been enabling science in ways that we like. One non-obvious prerequisite for this is that people seem to more easily agree on whether something is falsifiable than on whether it is true. I think this is an empirical psychological fact.

Concerning what is a good scientist, I consider as the important metric their individual contribution to humanity's knowledge. It may be that the biggest marginal contributions are made by people who identify epistemological deficiencies in their field and initiate paradigm shifts. However, I believe most of the total contributions to scientific knowledge are made in ways that barely benefit from deep epistemological insights.

I think it's very hard to argue "it's not good for results" that we have too many compliant laborers, if "results" is advancing human knowledge. Successfully teaching philosophy of science to people such that they can meaningfully apply it in practice is hard and requires significant investment. I'm not convinced such efforts are the best way to advance science. Rather, I think a more effective measure would be better aligning the incentives of scientists with the goal of advancing humanity's knowledge.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#142

Post by themodelplumber »

CrazyStat wrote: post #102
themodelplumber wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And given a significant problem and a placebo, would you rather: 1) Not use the placebo, because even though it seems to work for you, it's been scientifically shown in trials to do nothing 2) Use the placebo, because it seems to work; somehow get good results A huge number of people will choose #1. They are extremely close to cargo cult without even realizing it. I'd say that if there's a pos/neg polarization t…

> 1) Not use the placebo, because even though it seems to work for you, it's been scientifically shown in trials to do nothing This is the opposite of a placebo. A placebo is a treatment that has been scientifically shown in trials to do something even though it shouldn't. For example, taking a pill or drinking a cup of "medicine" might make your headache feel better even though the pill is just sugar and the medicin…

That's interesting, I see the term has multiple definitions, to include contradictory definitions around the tested value of the placebo itself.

It reminds me of some other terms in my own areas of specialty, and the meaning they "properly" carry, vs. the meaning they generally carry when used by the public.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#143

Post by caddemon »

lisper wrote: post #128
caddemon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge set of potentially politically fraught middle grounds that exist between Einstein -> Newton and random quack -> some modern distinguished scientist. And by politically fraught I mean career politics that directly impact the scientific landscape, not "politics". It is my impression that back in the day it was more common for academics with differing opinions to banter or at times straight up disrespect…

I think you are missing an important bit of the contemporary political landscape: Feynman's quote is used by today's quacks -- particularly young-earth creationists and climate-change denialists -- to discredit the entire scientific enterprise.

I assumed that was the intention of the comment but I don't think HN is really a board for young earth creationists or climate change denialists. Maybe I'm wrong about that but I think there are legitimate questions to be debated on this topic and it's annoying to see critical discussions of science regularly side tracked by concerns about how someone's random crazy uncle might misinterpret the criticisms. It's not like the OP posted the quote on a climate research thread, so I don't see why it's especially relevant.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#144

Post by lisper »

caddemon wrote: post #143
lisper wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing an important bit of the contemporary political landscape: Feynman's quote is used by today's quacks -- particularly young-earth creationists and climate-change denialists -- to discredit the entire scientific enterprise.

I assumed that was the intention of the comment but I don't think HN is really a board for young earth creationists or climate change denialists. Maybe I'm wrong about that but I think there are legitimate questions to be debated on this topic and it's annoying to see critical discussions of science regularly side tracked by concerns about how someone's random crazy uncle might misinterpret the criticisms. It's not l…

There are a surprising number of YECs (many of whom are also climate-change denialists -- it's all part of the same ideology) lurking here. I suspect it's part of an organized covert effort to spread the doctrine. Part of the strategy is to discredit science and scientists in general.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#145

Post by caddemon »

staunton wrote: post #141
bjornsing wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Student experiences of course vary widely, and even for those that do the menial slog version of a bio PhD, the attitude surrounding it varies. Some seem to be happy for the guidance when their advisor is like this while others resent the lack of intellectual freedom. This section I think captures the problem well: most good (future) scientists will recent the lack of intellectual freedom, while the less capable wi…

> This mechanism pushes academia more and more towards mediocre Cargo Cult Science Ultimately, a cargo cult is a scientifically sound application of empiricism that just happens to completely fail, whereupon it may be rejected. If scientific methodology is evaluated empirically (which I endorse) in terms of enabling scientific progess, you end up with a cargo cult. For example, why is it a good idea to have falsifiab…

You need both types for sure. The major problem is that they've been confounded, and the more creative ones are subsequently being driven out at an alarming rate.

There are also not enough spots for the worker bee types, because even though many do reach PI status, the majority don't. The majority of people in general do not become a tenured professor, and the entire academic system is essentially like minor league baseball where either you make it all the way or you exit.

There should be way more laborers working on bio research, a lot of which doesn't even require understanding the science on the level of the "tradesman" PhD, let alone understanding the science on the level of being able to break new ground. This could involve both new viable long term positions to be a laborer in a university bio lab and a greater diversity in the type of biology research that can occur in industry. But government funding agencies needs to get their shit together first.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#146

Post by caddemon »

staunton wrote: post #132
caddemon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it as a general public problem but I actually do see it as an ongoing scientific training problem. Biology PhD programs these days spend a lot more time teaching prior biology results than they do having students engage with what it means to be a scientist, in the limited time that they teach at all. "Students" are then sorted into a lab where they learn the specific scientific cookbook of the subfield an…

> a large philosophical paradigm shift might be needed too Why? The way to learn a lot of prior knowledge is focused study and good teaching. Philosophy has little to do with it. I agree that it would make sense having more specialized lab workers (which definitely is a trade and should be learned while doing like one) assisting scientists whose education must be broader. Another thing concerning the philosophy is th…

No as fields get deeper and deeper there is a point at which it is no longer humanly possible to cover the prior material exhaustively in a vaguely reasonable timeframe. We can keep digging narrower and narrower niches at the expense of basic scientific literacy, or we can realize that at some point the system cannot keep scaling in a one dimensional way. Or I guess we can make people go to school until they're 60.

If you think what I'm proposing is three lectures on philosophy of science than either you have zero idea how a PhD program works or you're arguing in bad faith. The fact that someone can graduate from a top 5 biology PhD program without ever demonstrating the ability to come up with a decent research question nor to independently plan a decent study to address a given research question is appalling. The fact the programs actively discourage students from exploring anything intellectual outside of the narrow framework of their chosen lab, even projects that would clearly fit under the program's broader umbrella, is also appalling.

The primary point isn't whether students can learn those things on their own later. The primary point is that this is a huge indictment of the culture of graduate training. It is creating a legion of fucking drones as our next set of profs. Many of them are truly not aware that they lack this expertise.

Also, a PhD is explicitly designed as training to be in academia. There are a small set of industry jobs that require a PhD, and there are more industry jobs that appreciate a PhD, but really the only reason that PhDs have shifted so much towards industry is because the academic job market is completely fucked. It is only recently that biology professors will entertain the idea that someone should choose to leave academia after a PhD and that is not considered failure. Yet at the same time they do a bad job of preparing others for academic research.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#147

Post by caddemon »

lisper wrote: post #144
caddemon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed that was the intention of the comment but I don't think HN is really a board for young earth creationists or climate change denialists. Maybe I'm wrong about that but I think there are legitimate questions to be debated on this topic and it's annoying to see critical discussions of science regularly side tracked by concerns about how someone's random crazy uncle might misinterpret the criticisms. It's not l…

There are a surprising number of YECs (many of whom are also climate-change denialists -- it's all part of the same ideology) lurking here. I suspect it's part of an organized covert effort to spread the doctrine. Part of the strategy is to discredit science and scientists in general.

I'd think YEC is a small subset of climate deniers even if most YEC are climate deniers. I can image a climate denier contingency here but I have a hard time believing that YECs bother with HN. I'm not up to date on conspiracy theorists though. Are there any threads you can point to about YEC here?

Regardless, this is also a great way to stifle important scientific discourse. Nobody wants scientific commentary to happen hidden from public view, so more and more happens on preprint servers and social media. But then nobody wants to make even good faith criticisms because they don't want the general public to misinterpret, aided by bad faith spinning by other parties.

Of course you will see criticisms related to e.g. labor conditions, but when it comes to criticism of scientific practice or even in some cases specific results, there are always a bunch of people ready to comment about how most critics are quacks and we need to be careful about extremism. This is awfully convenient for the scientists that are doing subpar work.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#148

Post by lambdatronics »

debacle wrote: post #2

Humans are innately imaginative outside of the bounds of reality. Most people I know believe in things that aren't real, whether it be crystals, chakras, essential oils, random mythologies about random things. Most interestingly, these are generally weak beliefs strongly held. You'll never convince these people that they've divorced themselves from reality, and you have nearly nothing to gain from trying. Psychologis…

But they're generally not actually beliefs, in the sense that they wouldn't stake any substantial value on them. They are "performative" beliefs that are indicative of belonging to a certain subculture. What's interesting is when those performative beliefs collide with factual consequences (eg, COVID deniers dying of COVID). Nobody has died of "belief" in astrology as far as I know. I imagine most astrology fans would cop out if there were real consequences involved.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#149

Post by lambdatronics »

low_tech_love wrote: post #71

His analogy of teaching resonated too much with me. I have been feeling exactly that for a couple of years, and it feels scarily like when I abandoned the belief in god many years ago. There is that nagging feeling I can’t shake that, no matter how I look at it, I can’t negate the null hypothesis that organized education is basically useless . Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think educational institutions shouldn’t exist…

I wouldn't say it is useless. But, there's an extent to which "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it to you." There's an interesting school of thought saying that in order to understand an idea, it requires creative act similar to that of the individual who originated an idea. (B/c verbal communication is very limited.) For instance, in order to comprehend the idea of Newton's Laws, one needs to have in some sense the capability to have come up with them, because teaching is really just prompting the pupil to reinvent the concept in their own mind.

IMO, this is why "natural language processing" with LLMs will not amount to "natural language understanding." Natural language explanations are targeted at intelligences capable of forming concepts based on IRL experience (naive physics, etc). The goal of teaching is to induce the formation of the concepts, not to directly transmit the concepts.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#150

Post by lambdatronics »

caddemon wrote: post #106
staunton wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't even such a thing as "the methodology of science". People disagree about it and it is constantly evolving. Who should write that curriculum? Sure, there's a lot of common ground that could be taught (and it is taught in some places, we read some Popper in high school). But it's also very abstract, difficult to teach without extensive examples and of very limited use in most jobs. Hardly "the central probl…

I don't see it as a general public problem but I actually do see it as an ongoing scientific training problem. Biology PhD programs these days spend a lot more time teaching prior biology results than they do having students engage with what it means to be a scientist, in the limited time that they teach at all. "Students" are then sorted into a lab where they learn the specific scientific cookbook of the subfield an…

>To think deeply about meta science in any official capacity as part of PhD training requires you to go out of your way.

Yup. Not just life sciences, this applies to physics as well.

>I also imagine that even in less expensive/slow fields there is an increasingly unapproachable body of prior knowledge to learn, and people don't want to be trainees forever.

This is where AI might come in handy, for compressing the time it takes to ingest the prior work by providing tailored educational material, or even obviating the need for it by augmenting our intelligence (esp. when it comes to recall/search). Otherwise, we'll eventually be in the situation of Schlemiel the painter [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Spolsky#Schlemiel_the_Pai...

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