The Folly of Scientism • Hacker News Board

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#131

Post by Alex3917 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:59 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #5

A reply under the title of "The folly of 'The folly of scientism'" by Professor Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, who frequently reads and comments on issues related to the philosophy of science: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/the-folly... ". . . . Hughes is an evolutionary biologist with wide-ranging interests, and I’ve really liked some of his papers." . . . . "The big problem with Hughe…

>he gives not a single example of a question that those disciplines have answered.

Relevant:

"recent advocates of scientism have taken the ironic but logical next step of denying any useful role for philosophy whatsoever, even the subservient philosophy of the positivist sort. But the last laugh, it seems, remains with the philosophers — for the advocates of scientism reveal conceptual confusions that are obvious upon philosophical reflection. Rather than rendering philosophy obsolete, scientism is setting the stage for its much-needed revival. [...] In contrast to reason, a defining characteristic of superstition is the stubborn insistence that something — a fetish, an amulet, a pack of Tarot cards — has powers which no evidence supports. From this perspective, scientism appears to have as much in common with superstition as it does with properly conducted scientific research. Scientism claims that science has already resolved questions that are inherently beyond its ability to answer."

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#132

Post by rohern » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 2:04 AM UTC

georgeorwell wrote: post #99

rohern wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can give an example of how such data can be used, you could make a case for this, but putting "emotions" and "intuition" in the same sentence as "valid and objectively true...data" is, I think, all the answer you need. If you are studying emotions, then of course reports of emotional responses are useful data. If you are studying intuition (as has been done in great detail in studies of how chess players make…

The original question was, "What are some [legitimate] examples of non-science ways of understanding the world?" and the answers given were largely things that aren't very useful as validating mechanisms under the scientific method, e.g. dreams, intuition, emotion, irrational thought, consciousness, and [subjective] experience. The point here is that just as non-science is useless for understanding the world in objec…

> science is useless for understanding the world in non-scientific, subjective terms

This is only true in so far as "subjective" things are poorly defined. Give me any subjective principle that is clearly defined and laid out and we can talk about scientifically.

> You cannot apply the scientific method to create art, but art is nevertheless created to communicate an understanding of the world.

This is false. People use scientific methods to create art every day. Record labels use machine learning and data analysis to understand what people find aesthetically pleasing in music and then go that route when they select bands to fund and songs to spend advertising money on (they have been doing this since the 1970's). Hollywood does intense studies of people and their tastes to guide script choices. They also use science directly to build art. Take Pixar for example. Blue screens.

Science is everywhere in the creation of art. Paint and pigment, we can go that basic, are the product of science. Understanding of light and art and perspective directly progressed art during the Renaissance, as did Leonardo's work on anatomy.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#133

Post by georgeorwell » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 3:15 AM UTC

rohern wrote: post #132

georgeorwell wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original question was, "What are some [legitimate] examples of non-science ways of understanding the world?" and the answers given were largely things that aren't very useful as validating mechanisms under the scientific method, e.g. dreams, intuition, emotion, irrational thought, consciousness, and [subjective] experience. The point here is that just as non-science is useless for understanding the world in objec…

> science is useless for understanding the world in non-scientific, subjective terms This is only true in so far as "subjective" things are poorly defined. Give me any subjective principle that is clearly defined and laid out and we can talk about scientifically. > You cannot apply the scientific method to create art, but art is nevertheless created to communicate an understanding of the world. This is false. People…

We seem to have incompatible worldviews. I understand and agree with your points about what science is and can do. But I do not share what appears to be an absolute devotion to science. I'm really quite confused, I cannot even fathom existing for a second in this world with what I understand to be your mindset.

Are you basically saying there is no point to any understanding of our lives that does not count as science? Or are you saying that it is impossible to have such an understanding? Is each and every artform a subdiscipline of science? Is making art fundamentally the same thing as performing scientific experiments?

Where do you believe that you got your opinions about the supreme utility of science? Were they derived using the scientific method?

I'm not asking these questions to attack you, I'm just curious. Maybe there's something I'm missing.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#134

Post by 001sky » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 3:16 AM UTC

rohern wrote: post #130

001sky wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this sort of a priori judgement occurs, it occurs because Hawking is a famously intelligent and thoughtful person. -- The famous "reverse" Ad-Hominem attack? WAT TLDR: Famously intelligent and thoughful people are frequently full of shit, evil, or amoral. Same rules apply. [1] _________ [1] Its worth noting [a] ad-hominem is not a per-se fallacy; And [b] its useful to questions motives. But since many serial kille…

In a word: duh. However, I do not for a second think that you would not listen more closely to someone like Stephen Hawking than you would a guy shouting "Praise Jesus" on a street corner. There is no fallacy involved here. If Hawking is speaking nonsense, his being Stephen Hawking is not going to save him.

*If [a scientist] is speaking nonsense, his being [a scientist] is not going to save him.

== Fixed that for ya.

. . . Carry On.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#135

Post by chrisdevereux » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 3:40 AM UTC

rohern wrote: post #88

chrisdevereux wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To give one ridiculous example, I had a graduate student in anthropology suggest to me that science needs to be democratized and taken away from the scientists and verified and decided upon by the common man. I asked by what method the common man could do such verification and make any such decisions, as the obvious answer to both is Science The irony here is that your argument against the anthropologist is very si…

> Yet when Hawking does metaphysics, the reverence for science as an institution leads people to treat it as they treat science. This simply is not true. If this sort of a priori judgement occurs, it occurs because Hawking is a famously intelligent and thoughtful person. Of course people take what he says seriously. However, he is also continually engaged in debates with other scientists, often publicly, and is in no…

You're underestimating how influenced people can be by status. The fact that science does work, and the resulting status, can lead people to give credibility to ideas about ideas that they otherwise wouldn't, ideas that aren't really about science at all, because they're presented with a scientific gloss. If you don't like the Hawking example, try Social Darwinism.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#136

Post by MrScruff » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 9:13 AM UTC

rohern wrote: post #128

MrScruff wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As in, the difference between the neurological processes that govern ones mental state, and the subjective experience of having that mental state. For example, if I'm hungry and eat a good meal the changes in my brain chemistry that induce the sense of well being that follows are well understood. That doesn't tell me anything at all about the actual subjective experience of feeling pleasure though. That is something…

Is it? The signals in your nervous system that give you the sensation of pain are pain. Let me make an argument by analogy. You are saying that understanding the chip architecture and the instruction set of a computer does not allow you to understand what it is like for that chip to run a given program. Is that a fair analogy? Can you improve it? If this is a fair analogy, then I think it is clear that you are wrong.…

Essentially your argument is that consciousness doesn't exist. That we are equivalent to highly sophisticated computers running a program, is that correct?

The problem with this argument is that your conscious perception is actually the only thing you can know to exist. Everything else is sense data fed into that consciousness. You assume that the external world that manifests itself via sense data exists because it appears consistent.

But as I sit here typing this the only thing I can know with certainty is that 'I' exist and am conscious (by definition).

This process of being conscious, of perceiving the world, is what I am arguing is outside the realm of science.

Now I know a number of people are of the opinion that if you have a sufficiently complicated machine, biological or otherwise, consciousness will become some emergent property. And maybe this is so. But just saying 'it emerges' is not science. It's hand waving. So instead we have to just accept that for the moment we cannot speak of it.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#137

Post by return0 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #85

cs702 wrote: post #32

The author believes scientific inquiry should not 'overreach' into subjects that have traditionally belonged to fields like philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and religion, because, he explains in painful detail, science can't have all the answers. Regardless of whether one agrees with him or not, his argument makes NO sense to me. The relevant question is not whether science can have all the answers, but whether…

It has been asked whether science yields "better or more accurate answers" than other approaches. We know that most published scientific research results are wrong. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal... Therefore flipping a coin and always guessing "heads" yields more accurate results than science. Now what? Has this insight taught us anything?

That's a sweeping over-generalization. More like "many inferences based on statistics are not as strong as they appear to be many are not even true". That article is important (and well known) for a certain type of life sciences publications; it's a problem that is being addressed already. That's another good thing about science, you can measure how wrong you are.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#138

Post by MrScruff » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 10:54 PM UTC

rohern wrote: post #129

MrScruff wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem there is that just because someone has made a name for themselves in one field does not imply that they have some sort of superhuman intellect that means they will offer useful insights on a range of subjects. You might think that to be the case but there is no evidence for it being so. Hawking's pontificating on metaphysics are of no more interest to me than Linus Torvald's on laptop screen resol…

> I think the problem there is that just because someone has made a name for themselves in one field does not imply that they have some sort of superhuman intellect that means they will offer useful insights on a range of subjects. Of course there is no such implication, nor did I make this claim. But it is absolutely true that certain people are simply better at reasoning than other people. This may be because of bi…

I am not at all clear why you would say this. In fact, I think you are committing an argument from authority in the reverse. You refuse to listen to this guys because you assume that they are not authorities. That's just bogus and I am sure you know that. Instead, you should listen to Hawking discuss metaphysics and decide if he is worth listening to. You would, I think, do exactly that if it were philosopher speaking.

Why should I listen to Hawking discuss metaphysics? I only have limited time, and I'm entirely unconvinced that would be a good use of it. It's not that I'm refusing, merely that I have no inclination to because I don't have any expectation of particular insight.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#139

Post by dmhdlr » Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 9:47 AM UTC

rohern wrote: post #123

Alkman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please give examples of these and Here's a Greek manuscript. There's a lacuna in the text. What is the most likely correct emendation? If you use a statistical method to answer, explain how you compiled your corpus of comparisons. >explain a) Why, if science cannot be done with these questions, is anything else worth doing? Oh my yes, just like football and gourmet cooking are worth doing. Besides which, your scienc…

I think we must be operating with very different definitions of science. In so far as a humanities scholar employs scientific methods, I am happy to call him a scientist. > Here's a Greek manuscript. There's a lacuna in the text. What is the most likely correct emendation? If you use a statistical method to answer, explain how you compiled your corpus of comparisons. This lacuna is going to be filled using scientific…

Why is psychoanalysis a problem in the humanities? Humanists aren't doing brain surgery. American psychology departments don't give them clinical psychology PhDs.

Psychoanalysis isn't popular because it gives an accurate depiction of reality. It's popular for an opposite reason. It helps talk about things that aren't present in the world. How do you propose the laboratory to account for that?