Isaac Asimov: The Relativity of Wrong (1989) • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

cinquemb wrote: post #27

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If one considers all the research papers that have ever been published and retracted, and could enumerate over them and calculate their "rightness" and notices that greater than half are "right" then that would be a fact. As of today, no one has done that, and to assume it to be "often right" is quite dogmatic. I posit that if one doesn't have time to research the subject themself, one shouldn't form opinion about su…

You typed that on a portable device, right? And without any sense of irony about the unreliability of science.

The rise of a civilization based on technology and information is a towering testament to the successes of science. Lets not fool ourselves.

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

#32

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:50 PM UTC

gizi wrote: post #30

RodericDay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

Science id defined by its method: to set up experiments in order to look for counterexamples for a theorem. It is pretty much impossible to set up experiments in economics. While I agree that sociology and anthropology do not satisfy the definition of science, economics does not either. Where are the experiments? Without experiments, no science.

That's an antique notion. There are plenty of rigorous experiments being done in all of those fields.

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

#33

Post by cinquemb » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

DanBC wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's foolish. Scientists have to work hard to avoid bias. A lot of them don't manage it. Most science isn't as rigorous as eg ATLAS at CERN at avoiding biases. There are plenty of scientists who are fucking idiots.

There are a vast majority doing good work. Your cell phone is a towering testament to this. To be fair, try making the converse argument: how many religious zealots avoid bias? Zero. Lets not condemn science on the basis of a strawman ("some scientists somewhere are not very good")

> There are a vast majority doing good work. Your cell phone is a towering testament to this. To be fair, try making the converse argument: how many religious zealots avoid bias? Zero. Lets not condemn science on the basis of a strawman ("some scientists somewhere are not very good")

Yet to uphold what people consider science today, you use one example. As if the vast majority of scientists had anything to do with the development of the cell phone (and use the word testament which has a non zero religious connotations), and give no lip service to how many religious people throughout the times have supported scientific endeavors…

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

#34

Post by calinet6 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

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…

This is why the liberal arts are, in fact, so critically important. It's difficult to understand the beauty of knowledge and science without also understanding it's humanity, and conversely, it's difficult to fully understand humanities without also understanding knowledge, how we know things, and the profound reality of the world around us.

Furthermore, a scientist well versed in the humanities almost to the point of spirituality will have a much easier time translating knowledge between the logical and the human. Both are intertwined, and both contain mountains of truth, and each is made better by the other.

Loren Eiseley was one such scientist.

Some good writings of his can be found here: http://www.american-buddha.com/eiseley.toc.htm

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

#35

Post by megaman22 » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

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…

> ... 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!

It seems like the worst offenders are in biology/pharmacology/genetics/biochemistry. I'm not trained in any of those fields, but it seems pretty obvious that organic life should be orders of magnitudes more complex than mechanics, materials science, aeronautics, or any of the other man-made scientific fields. They are also comparatively young subjects. We don't really understand enough about how all the pieces fit together, or even what all the pieces are, in biological processes to make much in the way of definitive statements.

But seriously, if I hear another nightly news story about how food X prevents cancer based on a study of a dozen people or the current consensus on whether eggs are good or bad for you...

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

#36

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

gizi wrote: post #24

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The essence of science is its method: Setting up experiments in order to look for counterexamples for a scientific statement. Therefore, anybody who is uncritical of scientific results and does not desire to find counterexamples, is not engaging in science but in anti-science, which in turn is a dangerous and counterproductive ideology. The science-as-religion people do not have a good chance of being right. They are…

Advocating positions shown likely true by science does not require a scientist at all. We don't all have to be in the lab, testing every conclusion. We have people for that.

The rest of us will do very, very well to believe the results of science. Because its the only game in town that's actually trying to get it right.

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

#37

Post by JackFr » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

JackFr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 'badly' mean? Sounds a lot like an opinion to me.

Lets not pretend we don't know how badly murderers end up in court. This is getting silly.

It's not silly -- it's the whole point.

Suicide bombers see a different purpose to their lives than (presumably) you and I do. By their own measure they are not doing badly, they are doing quite well.

Or consider Richard Dawkin's famous criticisms of Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa unashamedly put religion ahead material comfort among the poor she ministered too. To say she was wrong in so doing is not a statement of fact. It is a statement of ones personal values.

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

#38

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, May 30, 2015, 3:58 PM UTC

cinquemb wrote: post #33

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a vast majority doing good work. Your cell phone is a towering testament to this. To be fair, try making the converse argument: how many religious zealots avoid bias? Zero. Lets not condemn science on the basis of a strawman ("some scientists somewhere are not very good")

> There are a vast majority doing good work. Your cell phone is a towering testament to this. To be fair, try making the converse argument: how many religious zealots avoid bias? Zero. Lets not condemn science on the basis of a strawman ("some scientists somewhere are not very good") Yet to uphold what people consider science today, you use one example. As if the vast majority of scientists had anything to do with th…

I leave other examples to the reader. Hint: point at anything near you. It was the result of science.

As for honoring the religious who supported science. I say, to the degree they pursued religion, they shortchanged their scientific accomplishments. Consider what else Newton might have done, had he abandoned his alchemy and astrology.

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

#39

Post by cinquemb » Sat, May 30, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31

cinquemb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one considers all the research papers that have ever been published and retracted, and could enumerate over them and calculate their "rightness" and notices that greater than half are "right" then that would be a fact. As of today, no one has done that, and to assume it to be "often right" is quite dogmatic. I posit that if one doesn't have time to research the subject themself, one shouldn't form opinion about su…

You typed that on a portable device, right? And without any sense of irony about the unreliability of science. The rise of a civilization based on technology and information is a towering testament to the successes of science. Lets not fool ourselves.

I didn't argue about the unreliability of science. Do I think such could be quantifiable by what information is available to humans today? Yes. Do I think humans without the aid of technology can say either way to the degree that science is unreliable? Maybe for tiny slivers like meta analysis papers on relatively minute subjects within science, but as a whole? I think not.

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

#40

Post by mdpopescu » Sat, May 30, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18

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…

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…

Just look at this statement:

_Its [sic] rational and reasonable to be uncritical of scientific results_

I do not believe that this person is sarcastic; I say that because I have talked to hundreds of people with the same opinion. People actually believe this. My authority is better than yours so you uncritically accepting your authority is wrong, me uncritically accepting mine is not only right but obviously so.

Ignoring the absurdity of the statement, and the mind-numbing appeal to authority - this also shows a lack of knowledge of history. When people used Aristotle as an authority 500 years ago, they did it using this same rationale: Aristotle had already done all the thinking, who are you to claim to know better?

This is just painful.