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Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

chem.tufts.edu

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Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#11

Post by olavk »

mdpopescu wrote: post #4
aout wrote: post #2

Surely everybody knows an "English Lit expert" but even after reading this exquisite requiem to believers I still find it impossibly hard to argue with these people. It always feels like they are trying to make the last stand of humanitarian values against the dictat of science. In all their glorious "everything science says will be as wrong as religion and you my friend are blindly following it" it seems they can't…

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

Scott Adams seems to want science to be like religion, and is disappointed that it isn't.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#12

Post by hansihe »

mdpopescu wrote: post #4
aout wrote: post #2

Surely everybody knows an "English Lit expert" but even after reading this exquisite requiem to believers I still find it impossibly hard to argue with these people. It always feels like they are trying to make the last stand of humanitarian values against the dictat of science. In all their glorious "everything science says will be as wrong as religion and you my friend are blindly following it" it seems they can't…

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

Steven Novella wrote a bit of a rebuttal to this article: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/scott-adams-on-...

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#13

Post by hyperpape »

This is a nicely written statement of one of the basic points/counterpoints in the philosophy of science and scientific realism. If you want to read more, you can probably find more by chasing citations from this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/#PesInd.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#14

Post by philh »

cholantesh wrote: post #9
mdpopescu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

Seems like Adams' thesis is that science is to blame for media's rampant misreporting of it. That's a really odd thing to suggest given that scientists express consternation about this on a regular basis, and devote much time and effort into trying to clear up common misconceptions that arise because of irresponsible pop media reportage.

I feel like Adams uses the word "science" to mean lots of different things in that article. It can be a process, or it can be "the people who perform experiments to see what happens", or "the media reports on those experiments", or "the government policies influenced by advisors who followed the media", or so on. This makes it hard to unpack precisely what he's saying.

But I don't think it's about assigning blame. He's attempting to describe a situation and how it came about. If all the public sees is the media's irresponsible reporting on journal articles, then for current purposes it doesn't much matter if scientists themselves are trying to correct the media. The public will read the newspaper, the newspaper says science says X, and X turns out to be false. Then they read the newspaper telling them science says Y, and they won't believe Y.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#15

Post by mdpopescu »

mdpopescu wrote: post #4
aout wrote: post #2

Surely everybody knows an "English Lit expert" but even after reading this exquisite requiem to believers I still find it impossibly hard to argue with these people. It always feels like they are trying to make the last stand of humanitarian values against the dictat of science. In all their glorious "everything science says will be as wrong as religion and you my friend are blindly following it" it seems they can't…

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

... and, of course, the rebuttals to this were mostly of the "no true Scotsman" flavor. "It's not the fault of scientists, it's the bad media". Let's ignore http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False) and many other similar results - we have to defend scientists because!

Look - I'm an engineer. I use a sort-of Bayesian reasoning: I started from what I learned as a child and then kept adjusting probabilities. You (plural "you") wouldn't be surprised if I told you I believe most politicians are liars. Well, I got to "most scientists are wrong" the same way. Sure, I didn't actually talk to most scientists, or even heard about them; those I did hear about, though, are at best misguided.

In any case, my original argument wasn't about the scientists; my argument was: most people treat science as a religion. They feel very superior to the religious people who are accepting everything they are told uncritically and then turn around and accept everything that is prefixed with "science says". Ten years ago, I used to make fun of people for believing the Earth revolves around the Sun - I have yet to find a single one who could do better than "that's what scientists say". That is arguably worse than those who accepted the Ptolemaic model - for one thing, they could at least see that the Sun was rising and setting.

(I can rant on this subject for hours but I don't think this is the proper forum.)

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#16

Post by cinquemb »

aout wrote: post #2

Surely everybody knows an "English Lit expert" but even after reading this exquisite requiem to believers I still find it impossibly hard to argue with these people. It always feels like they are trying to make the last stand of humanitarian values against the dictat of science. In all their glorious "everything science says will be as wrong as religion and you my friend are blindly following it" it seems they can't…

Why does one have to trust science, or what we think of the scientific process today? Does science enable us to do things in the "reality" that one and others may perceive than without it? I'd think yes. Is the way we go about it now, forever the most optimal for constructing such things? Probably not, but humans are probably closer to a local maxima constrained by all the things that make the process inefficient now… which to be fair, I don't think is limited to science but how we are as humans.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#17

Post by cinquemb »

mdpopescu wrote: post #15
mdpopescu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

... and, of course, the rebuttals to this were mostly of the "no true Scotsman" flavor. "It's not the fault of scientists, it's the bad media". Let's ignore http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False) and many other similar results - we have to defend scientists because! Look - I'm an engineer. I use a sort-of Bayesian reasoning: I started from what I learned…

> In any case, my original argument wasn't about the scientists; my argument was: most people treat science as a religion. They feel very superior to the religious people who are accepting everything they are told uncritically and then turn around and accept everything that is prefixed with "science says".

We had a subject in my lab yesterday that after the experiment had a "heated" debate where he put physics vs religion with one of the volunteers who was religious. While I was in the control room tinkering with the software, I listened in on their conversation and could hear the smugness of the subject as he used science as a tool to try and "convert" the volunteer. I thought the volunteer handled the conversation quite well, but it seemed like quite the inquisition from the "scientist"…

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#18

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mdpopescu wrote: post #15
mdpopescu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

... and, of course, the rebuttals to this were mostly of the "no true Scotsman" flavor. "It's not the fault of scientists, it's the bad media". Let's ignore http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False) and many other similar results - we have to defend scientists because! Look - I'm an engineer. I use a sort-of Bayesian reasoning: I started from what I learned…

So we think that is a dangerous thing? Believing the best, tested results of experiments (science) is not superior to random religious tracts written thousands of years ago?

The critical difference between treating science as a religion, and treating religion as a religion, is that the science people have a good chance of being right.

Its rational and reasonable to be uncritical of scientific results - the scientist has already been critical for you. That's kind of the whole point.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#19

Post by RodericDay »

mdpopescu wrote: post #15
mdpopescu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the people you're caricaturing here. I understand science, and mathematics, and logical thinking, which is why I believe (most) people blindly follow science as if it were a religion. (For a very recent example, see this article - io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 ) See also Scott Adams' musings on the subject: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-bigge…

... and, of course, the rebuttals to this were mostly of the "no true Scotsman" flavor. "It's not the fault of scientists, it's the bad media". Let's ignore http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False) and many other similar results - we have to defend scientists because! Look - I'm an engineer. I use a sort-of Bayesian reasoning: I started from what I learned…

I'm an engineer too, and I fully agree with you.

My particular peeve is engineers who kowtow to economics, putting it in a much higher pedestal than sociology or anthropology, because it is "mathy". The implicit assumptions are usually along the lines of "the assumptions seem obvious enough, and look at all those formulae in the transformations thereof!"

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989)

#20

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cinquemb wrote: post #17
mdpopescu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and, of course, the rebuttals to this were mostly of the "no true Scotsman" flavor. "It's not the fault of scientists, it's the bad media". Let's ignore http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False) and many other similar results - we have to defend scientists because! Look - I'm an engineer. I use a sort-of Bayesian reasoning: I started from what I learned…

> In any case, my original argument wasn't about the scientists; my argument was: most people treat science as a religion. They feel very superior to the religious people who are accepting everything they are told uncritically and then turn around and accept everything that is prefixed with "science says". We had a subject in my lab yesterday that after the experiment had a "heated" debate where he put physics vs rel…

Its easy to be smug about science; its so often right. If you don't have time to research the subject yourself, I'd always advise taking the side of the scientist.
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