The Limits of Science • Hacker News Board

Re: The Limits of Science

#11

Post by throwaway_bad » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 8:37 AM UTC

I was really hoping this would be about "Philosophy of Science"[0]

For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises but can't infer that there will be another. Likewise you can conduct a bajillion controlled experiments and can't really tell if the result will generalize. Worse yet is that the more conditions you control, the less likely it's to generalize. Infamously, clinical trials wanted to control for the variations caused by periods so they only tested on men and it turns out some drugs affect women differently! In general, if you control for everything, you can't say anything about the real world outside of those precise lab controlled conditions.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

Re: The Limits of Science

#12

Post by sgt101 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 8:38 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #2

Science is all about gathering data. Theorise all you like; but if the theory can't be tied back to data at some point in time then it is at best maths or philosophy. Experiments and dispassionate language are about gathering clear data and representing it accurately. Claiming that science is all about "clarity and economy" is ironically unscientific - if nature is unclear and uneconomical then good science has to re…

I agree, but there are two problems.

First; a point made in the article - the breadth of data available in many domains (economics, business, medicine, psychology, linguistics, biology, and more) is vast and unmanageable. An a-priori selection made by the attention of the investigator misdirects us. Additionally some data is not captured due to process problems, a classic is missed opportunity in business. You advocate focus on new business opportunities, I advocate focus on our old markets - I show that by treating our current customers differently a 5% reduction in cost is possible. You claim a 50% revenue opportunity, but how do you know? I can claim a causal link, you are claiming hypotheticals. I win the argument and then a year later we examine the data - I have achieved the cost saving, and there is no record of all the business that we didn't get. The opportunity loss is not on the spreadsheet. Conversely if you win and we look a year later I can show that our customers still cost us what they did, and I can show (if you were successful) that my initiative would have saved 7.5% of the spend one year ago (+50% thanks to you).

Problem two; outside physics and chemistry not many things are comparable in the sense that statistics expects them to be. This is closely related to the scope of data problem, but hides it. Widgets made by machines or seeds carefully selected and screened can be made to share (approximately) an identity so that they can be statistically reasoned about in bulk. Other things can't and medicine is really running up against this now. Pain killers work differently on people with different genetics and different genders (also different ages, contexts...) Cancer evolves differently from case to case. The assumption of similarity and category membership is often broken and we often do not notice before doing a t-test.

Re: The Limits of Science

#13

Post by sgt101 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 8:46 AM UTC

ameetgaitonde wrote: post #7

There are three things that bother me: 1. Using "true story," then telling a very general story without any citation. That he did it twice was worrying. 2. People like the writer who treat our current understanding of science as if it were a religious text that is complete. Science is an ongoing process of discovery and experimentation to try to further our understanding of the world. The fact that it's wrong is kind…

For 1 and 3 I think that the question is do these examples (assuming that they are real and true) support the argument made, and can we , do we, agree that it is plausible and reasonable to assume that these are real and true. If you doubt the notion that a social worker could be dismissed by this kind of data driven change of policy then I would concede that damages the argument. This is not a physics observation though (kinda the point here!) if you say that there is one example where a social worker wasn't dismissed in this way then I do not agree that is sufficient to derail the argument. On the other hand if you show me one example of a situation where an atom decays differently and produces behaviour not accounted for by the standard model I will happily declare that the standard model is bust.

For 2; this is not about the contingent knowledge that science produces, it's about the applicability of the process that produces that knowledge so effectively in some domains. There are domains where it is not appropriate or useful to think exclusively and uncritically in a scientific way, medicine and economics being just two examples of domains in which uncritical application of the scientific method and mindset have done significant harm to a significant number of people.

Re: The Limits of Science

#14

Post by diffeomorphism » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:07 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #10

username90 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating theories helps guide us towards collecting the right data. For example nobody would have checked Mercury's precession unless Einstein had suggested the theory of general relativity. That is what good science is, first you predict and then verify, not first get data and then make models to fit said data.

Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached. There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they ne…

> someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science.

No, the point is that is the wrong way around. Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits, e.g https://www.xkcd.com/882/ . You are not "predicting" anything if you come up with your fit afterwards.

You can however use the fit you got to try to predict the outcome of future experiments. Checking that those experiments fit is science.

Re: The Limits of Science

#15

Post by username90 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:08 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #10

username90 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating theories helps guide us towards collecting the right data. For example nobody would have checked Mercury's precession unless Einstein had suggested the theory of general relativity. That is what good science is, first you predict and then verify, not first get data and then make models to fit said data.

Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached. There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they ne…

> If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks.

I am not so sure it would have been a hit as a stand alone formula. Newton discovered calculus and used it to lay the groundwork for almost the entire field of physics, gravity was just a minor detail in his work. Or if you are talking about General relativity, there is no way people would have discovered it from observations alone, we'd get some kind of correction term explanation similar to dark matter or dark energy since the formula is extremely complicated.

It is even possible that most physicists would have accepted those corrections as the correct solution and would be looking for the new dark particles inside of large stars for a hundred years before someone corrected them. Or the discovery of black holes would be seen as evidence of these particles, cementing our ignorance forever.

Re: The Limits of Science

#16

Post by sgt101 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:13 AM UTC

akavel wrote: post #4

I believe the article is dangerously drawing incorrect conclusions. In particular, from the cases shown, I'd say it's rather that there's a lot in the world that we currently are unable to measure (esp. in human behaviors and mind). That's where science indeed and emphatically has limits, and that's why medicine doctors must not rely purely on science. And why anyone who tries to ignore people's descriptions of how t…

I don't think the article is saying "all science is crap" it is saying "we need to think critically about what we are doing and how we are doing it because we can see flaws in the current way of working"

Re: The Limits of Science

#17

Post by paganel » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #2

Science is all about gathering data. Theorise all you like; but if the theory can't be tied back to data at some point in time then it is at best maths or philosophy. Experiments and dispassionate language are about gathering clear data and representing it accurately. Claiming that science is all about "clarity and economy" is ironically unscientific - if nature is unclear and uneconomical then good science has to re…

> Experiments and dispassionate language are about gathering clear data and representing it accurately

And then you get into a philosophical discussion about what represents "clear data" (not to mention the "representing it accurately" part, which imho it's an issue we've been trying to solve for at least 2500 years and haven't progressed too much in doing it).

Re: The Limits of Science

#18

Post by roenxi » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:24 AM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #14

roenxi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached. There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they ne…

> someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. No, the point is that is the wrong way around. Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits, e.g https://www.xkcd.com/882/ . You are not "predicting" anything if you come up with your fit afterwards. You can however use the fit you got to try to predict the outcome of future experiments. Checking that thos…

There is no such thing as 'the right way round' when dealing with things that have been true for longer than the human species has existed and will continue to be true after the last human is dust. There are things that are true and things that are not, and we do our best to figure out what ideas get classified in which side of that hard boundary. We can agree on standards of evidence, but at the end of the day one can be scientific without being rigorous.

The XKCD comic isn't making a judgement on whether the characters in it are or are not scientists - in fact, it calls them scientists - it is pointing out that statistical significance is a low bar of evidence and best treated with suspicion.

Re: The Limits of Science

#19

Post by _Nat_ » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

The core argument seems to be that, since scientific analysis isn't a perfect tool, we ought to hedge our bets by also acting based on emotional reasoning.

> The time has come to pause the second phase of the scientific revolution — to recover a more humble and skeptical approach to what the scientific method can achieve, to unite the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions of life, and to find our way back to our humanity.

Re: The Limits of Science

#20

Post by roenxi » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #15

roenxi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached. There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they ne…

> If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. I am not so sure it would have been a hit as a stand alone formula. Newton discovered calculus and used it to lay the groundwork for almost the entire field of physics, gravity was just a minor detail in his work. Or if you are talking about General relativit…

> Newton discovered calculus and used it

Calculus is maths. Different field, and frequently classified into the arts or astand-alone discipline as opposed to a science.

People have lonog been suspect about classifying math as a science. Mainly, I suspect, because it does not rely on data as a form of evidence instead using logical proof as a foundation.