What's the subtext of this column?
I thought that blind religion is suspicious, I thought.
More general: blind adherence to groupthink is perilous.
A scientist must go where the evidence leads
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Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#12What's the subtext of this column?
The current state of Physics research, as far as I can tell:
[if such and such then] ... physicists should move on to consider alternatives and admit that our original concepts of “naturalness” might have been wrong.
"naturalness" as in: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/11/naturalness-is-dead...
Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#13What's the subtext of this column?
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Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#14What's the subtext of this column?
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Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#15In my mind any perversion of this truth undermines the very credibility of the scientific discipline. For if our scientific leaders are swayed by forces other than facts, how can we be surprised when public opinion turns on science? One of my favorite quotes that resonates with this piece is by John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" EDIT: to address the possibility that t…
I change my mind then change the facts I focus on. I think we all do it at least a little, right?
Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#16In my mind any perversion of this truth undermines the very credibility of the scientific discipline. For if our scientific leaders are swayed by forces other than facts, how can we be surprised when public opinion turns on science? One of my favorite quotes that resonates with this piece is by John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" EDIT: to address the possibility that t…
Apologies, since I don't want to derail your point, but there is little evidence that Keynes ever said that:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/22/keynes-change-mind/
Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#17What if the evidence is deemed offensive by a mob because they don’t like the scientific findings? Or what if the scientist has personal beliefs or opinions that are disagreeable to some? And what if the evidence is politically toxic?
> What if the evidence is deemed offensive by a mob because they don’t like the scientific findings?
That depends on who the mob is voting for.
Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#18> There are major aspects of our life that remain unexplained, leaving professional scientists with the choice of whether to accept the general notion that they will also be resolved one day by the scientific method. ... This ambiguous state of affairs explains why some of the best scientists are religious.
This to me reflects huge deficit in the author's thinking and perception.
It also reflects a common sentiment and so reflects a common deficit in many people's thinking and perception, especially in the contemporary Western world.
At some point in history, Science and Religion both got tricked into a debate -- both got tricked into thinking that their propositions somehow exist in the same domain when they do not. Their domains are mutually exclusive and yet the conversation continues stupidly (on both sides) as if they were.
So a Scientist will say the Resurrection never happened and proceed with their proof leveraging physics and biology. The Scientist makes the first mistake by trying to engage on these grounds, as if any of that fundamentally mattered to the Religious person. The Religious person, not recognizing the flub, takes the bait, and tries to answer the Scientist using the scientific vocabulary (the internet is not short on religious apologists doing just this.)
The Religious makes this mistake because they are tricked into thinking that Truth is a pure function of propositions in scientific terms. They are tricked into this rhetoric, at least. They are not fully tricked, though, because after debating on these grounds (and likely losing -- b/c after all Science owns those terms, and brought them to the table), the Religious person will still go home and pray, will still go home and live according to the mimetic behaviors of the characters within their faith.
What a Religious person derives from their beliefs has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with the measurable/observable particle interactions of the material world. Even if they say it does, self-reports are not to be trusted here.
What a Scientist derives from their observations has nothing -- zero, nothing -- to do with how they approach the world and others in the way of morality, pursuit of contented life, etc. Again self-reports are not to be trusted here.
Corollary to this is that everybody is Religious and everybody is Scientific, and plays the card when its needed.
Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#19What if the evidence is deemed offensive by a mob because they don’t like the scientific findings? Or what if the scientist has personal beliefs or opinions that are disagreeable to some? And what if the evidence is politically toxic?
Assuming "evidence" in this context is something that has been sufficiently scrutinized and no alternative hypotheses pass muster, why would any of those three things matter? And if you're leaving open the possibility that the evidence in your hypothetical situation is wrong, then what is the point of your question?
The universe is what it is regardless of what we think of it. When we attain better understanding of the truth of things, we need to adapt to the truth. It is literally insane to do otherwise.
Fortunately, we are also part of the universe, so better understanding also grants us tools to change things more to our liking.
Re: A scientist must go where the evidence leads
#20> There are major aspects of our life that remain unexplained, leaving professional scientists with the choice of whether to accept the general notion that they will also be resolved one day by the scientific method. ... This ambiguous state of affairs explains why some of the best scientists are religious. This to me reflects huge deficit in the author's thinking and perception. It also reflects a common sentiment a…
Very good point.
Adding to it, there are things in life which are ineffable. This means they are (by definition), impossible to model or explain with words. Thus, these things will forever evade scientific scrutiny as science cannot deal with the ineffable.
Despite the above, we (and science) are continuously trying to reduce the immensity, inconmensurability and ineffability of reality into something that can easily fit into our small minds.
Unfortunately this is an impossible task to perform for all of reality.
However we do have the capacity to experience instead of thinking/modeling, which is a very good way of understanding things at an intuitive level. This was very well expressed by Nietzsche: "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy".