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Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

math.columbia.edu

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Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#81

Post by JackYoustra »

OutOfHere wrote: post #66

The bias in favor of "dark matter" is a strong example of why academic physics is corrupt. There is absolutely no astrophysical evidence for dark matter, only gravitational anomalies of regular matter, yet significant money has been funded into it for decades, at the expense of ignoring other simpler satisfactory theories. The alternate theories have been prematurely rejected on false grounds without giving them suff…

> corrupt

What do you mean when you say this?

> prematurely rejected

What does this mean?

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#82

Post by giraffe_lady »

Terr_ wrote: post #14

The linked WSJ article has an interview-quote from Scott Aaronson: > Anyone perceived as the ‘mainstream establishment’ faces a near-insurmountable burden of proof, while anyone perceived as ‘renegade’ wins by default if they identify any hole whatsoever in mainstream understanding. I feel this Futurama clip about evolutionary "missing link" fossils [0] captures a little bit of that frustration. Building any cohesive…

> finding and attacking a weak spot and declaring the entire thing flawed.

It's funny because I've come to think of this exact thing as basically the defining characteristic of the HN rhetorical style. It's not unique to here of course but it's where this approach is taken most seriously as honest rigorous debate.

Long time commenters here have internalized it to the point where their writing is large defensive in anticipation of these rhetorical chisels that will try to pry into any minute crack to dismiss the entire issue at hand.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#83

Post by tracker1 »

jacobgkau wrote: post #57
tracker1 wrote: post #36

I'm not sure why the author is making digs at Joe Rogan so much... I mean, his podcast isn't really a deep dive into anything, its more conversations with generally interesting people from a number of different backgrounds. Sometimes MMA, sometimes conspiracy nuts... It's not a scientific podcast and I'm not sure that anyone is claiming it is. Of course, this is quite a bit different than bought and paid for corporat…

> I will separate Fox's written/web coverage as a bit better than their TV counterpart (and the others in general) though. I regularly check Fox's website along with CNN and NewsNation, which gets me ostensibly right/left/center views on things. Having not seen much TV Fox, I assumed Fox News Digital put more spin on things. It could just be the stupid little quip taglines they put over all of their image thumbnails…

Yeah, I tend to do similar to check article subjects from a couple different sources. It's amazing how many times bits of information are straight out missing from one or another that changes the context of things a lot. There's really no excuse for it with online reporting other than twisting/propagandizing events.

On Fox content, yeah I'm more referring to the written news content (not editorial).

All said, I'm probably going to unplug for a couple weeks regarding social media, news and politics... some of the posts on Bluesky and Reddit the past couple days just make me feel a bit ill.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#84

Post by jeffbee »

intalentive wrote: post #73
gainda wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allegedly, Charlie Kirk's killer, Tyler Robinson, may have been a groyper.

What's the evidence for this claim? Seems at odds with the details reported here: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

You don't think writing Helldivers memes on shell casings means anything?

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#85

Post by jacobgkau »

bryanlharris wrote: post #76
jacobgkau wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be true that news has always struggled to get certain/technical subjects entirely accurate while also being true that there's been a serious decline from an earlier point to now.

Gell-Mann amnesia isn't about being "not entirely accurate." The news has commonly gotten things completely backwards and completely wrong, from physics to babysitting. "Wet streets cause rain."

Ok, but are you arguing that it's always gotten as many things completely backwards and as completely wrong as often as it does today? If you're not arguing that, then it seems like a little bit of whatabout-ism to say "well they've gotten things wrong before." If you are arguing that, then that's fine, I can see your point and there's a historical case to be made there.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#86

Post by n4r9 »

tracker1 wrote: post #36

I'm not sure why the author is making digs at Joe Rogan so much... I mean, his podcast isn't really a deep dive into anything, its more conversations with generally interesting people from a number of different backgrounds. Sometimes MMA, sometimes conspiracy nuts... It's not a scientific podcast and I'm not sure that anyone is claiming it is. Of course, this is quite a bit different than bought and paid for corporat…

They're not making dogs at Rogan so much as lamenting that so many people use him as a primary source of information.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#87

Post by Terr_ »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #82
Terr_ wrote: post #14

The linked WSJ article has an interview-quote from Scott Aaronson: > Anyone perceived as the ‘mainstream establishment’ faces a near-insurmountable burden of proof, while anyone perceived as ‘renegade’ wins by default if they identify any hole whatsoever in mainstream understanding. I feel this Futurama clip about evolutionary "missing link" fossils [0] captures a little bit of that frustration. Building any cohesive…

> finding and attacking a weak spot and declaring the entire thing flawed. It's funny because I've come to think of this exact thing as basically the defining characteristic of the HN rhetorical style. It's not unique to here of course but it's where this approach is taken most seriously as honest rigorous debate. Long time commenters here have internalized it to the point where their writing is large defensive in an…

In my own writing experience of stuffing qualifier words and caveats everywhere, it's at least as old as Usenet.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#88

Post by JackYoustra »

because no one here seems to have said it yet: I actually think experts and academics, by and large and especially in physics, are the most likely to know what they're talking about! Personalized mavericks are rarely right, and the mavericks people hold up as mavericks are usually just conventional (researchers, leaders, etc) who either are right place right time (jack welch, for example: good ceo, but what catapulted him to myth wasn't him, it was being in the spot where law was such that he had the opportunity to make the first real shadow bank before people realized the consequences) or just have charisma so they seem different.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#90

Post by PhearTheCeal »

electric_muse wrote: post #13

[flagged]

Are you sure this isn't just an example of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect?

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

> In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

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