Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever • Hacker News Board

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#171

Post by StandardFuture » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

cuspy wrote: post #146

godelski wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is nuance? The problem with language is we have to make certain assumptions. It is easy to read your comment in that way. Just as it could be easy to read > cuspy 15 minutes ago | parent | on: Science and Scientific Expertise Are More Importan... I'm not proposing anything like that. I said that I'm glad others are becoming more skeptical of the message of relying on trust without oversight. The fact that you…

When you come into a conversation not knowing your interlocutor's intentions, I believe it is deeply unethical, inefficient and really a complete waste of everyone's time and energy to assume based on some weak superficial heuristic rhetorical cues that they are simply repeating a divisive talking point that you've heard elsewhere. Again it's this a priori assumption that the other person is dumb that has gotten us i…

And here they are downvoting you simply because you offer an alternative to deriding people you disagree with.

There has been a steadily increasing mentality that outright hostility is the only way of disagreeing (or conversing at all) with someone else. Interpreting every statement of what other people have said via a binary classifier (for or against), etc. and making judgements rather than engaging intellectual conversation.

It is all very intellectually lazy and a classic identifying mark of the ignorant and stupid. People who know that they should not be engaging in actual intellectual discussion on a topic simply downvote and run away like cowards.

Sadly, even HN is devolving alongside the rest of society at this time.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#172

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

cuspy wrote: post #136

ken47 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"STEM training itself has sadly become a hierarchical, cult-like, anti-intellectual system that deprives students of critical thinking skills" Engineering definitely doesn't deprive students and practitioners of critical thinking. Other disciplines? Maybe. I can't speak to that.

As someone with an undergraduate degree in engineering and some professional experience as an engineer, I would counter that the training of engineers absolutely does deprioritize the kind of high level critical thinking I'm talking about. I'm not saying every engineer needs to be an ethics and politics scholar, but there is definitely room for improvement. Nuance in communication and dealing intelligently with ambig…

Ethics and political are technically peripheral to critical thinking.

One can be an unethical bastard and have the critical thinking to realize something is unsustainable or a scam or be a saint and taken in by utter bullshit (although the bullshit may persuade them to do horrible things believing themselves right).

Engineering deals with nuance certainly - although it is often a more pedantic technical form like say the difference between the stength of wood and steel vs temperature. Steel doesn't readily combust like wood but wood while it chars and burns doesn't weaken like hot steel. You don't need to melt steel beams to collapse a skyscrapper.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#173

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #110

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

I find it interesting that everyone responding to this finds it unthinkable that democracy and critical thinking are possible without the need for monarchs nor experts who function as technocrats rather than peers. It's like pining for the Philosopher Kings of the Platonic tradition. Plato hated democracy fyi.

It is more a rejection of the "my ignorance is equal to your knowledge" anti-intellectualism as a foregone tragedy not only waiting to happen but also still ongoing.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#174

Post by slg » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #155

slg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not suggesting we be vindictive over strategic. I am suggesting that fixing corruption in the scientific community isn't going to solve this problem because the causes of the anti-science movement don't solely originate from within the scientific community. If my specific examples are too much of a straw man, how about climate change? The US has largely been ignoring the science on that for decades. What is the…

Nutters will be nutters, you can't affect that. What you can affect is how the general public perceives the difference between the two camps. They may not know enough to judge on the merit of the arguments, but they understand reputation and character. Every single bit of bullshit to come out of academia is one extra point for the detractors. I won't enumerate it here because there is an even chance you're in support…

Why doesn't this apply in both directions? If BS from academia invalidates the entire intellectual community shouldn't Flat Earthers invalidate the anti-institutional science community?

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#175

Post by danielam » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

achillesheels wrote: post #89

ptero wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard of tailoring findings to the preferences of the grant giver (advocate a wrong view and kiss your grant good-bye). This is very worrisome as a lot of experimental science labs are so grant dependent. I actually think this is partly a self-inflicted wound -- a large fraction of major grant givers want truth and can stand findings that go against their beliefs, but given the heavy dependence of labs on grants th…

Hence the reason science has always been an aristocratic pursuit. Georg Feuerbach demonstrates this point with the thought-provoking claim that only a polytheistic tradition (such as Athens) can breed a love of natural beauty which obligates a love of knowing its ways. But it is principally a love of Nature (and it’s universals) and not a love of wealth which moves the civilization higher. Galileo, Descartes, Newton…

Don't follow the part about polytheism. I would say, if anything, polytheism is a hindrance to the development of science. For one, the capriciousness of the gods makes nature arbitrary and unpredictable.

FWIW, Stanley Jaki argues something quite different to what you've written in "Science and Creation" and "The Road of Science and the Ways of God".

P.S. A quick search doesn't bring up any noteworthy Georg Feuerbachs.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#176

Post by xkcd-sucks » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

manux wrote: post #59

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

> scientists who can be bought off for nothing and blackmailed easily. Bought off by who? I presume the "elite families" you mention. So either way we are ruled by the wealthy in this model. There are other options of course and I assume you would agree, I just wanted to point out my surprise at this false dichotomy (that's not even a dichotomy since they're mostly the same scenario). I also agree 100% that STEM prof…

> Bought off by whom?

Of course there's the usual shenanigans re: funding, but anecdotally it seems like most people are "bought off" (or coerced) by their colleagues or their selves, and the payment is career success and social approval.

For example: No grad student will invalidate their adviser's career. Very few people challenge the veracity of ubiquitous model systems or paradigms ("measuring $this means $that"). Results are sometimes tailored to be visually appealing. Unexpected results are discarded. The meaning of results can be overstated. An experiment can be set up which is internally perfect but which relies on completely nonsensical assumptions to inform its relation to salient natural phenomena. Etc.

To behave that way is to be a "bad citizen", make trouble for people, lose friends, and never get ahead. And practically speaking, most people who challenge prevailing wisdom are noob grad students who don't even know how wrong they are.

Of course, this happens to varying degrees in different fields. For materials chemistry of steel, it's pretty obvious when the tensile strength is less than reported. For organic synthesis, many published syntheses are bullshit but it's still obvious if a chemical isn't what it should be. For psychology and some of the newer theoretical disciplines (thinking of one rockstar "network scientist" here!), social consensus carries more weight than "reality" because reality is so tricky to measure.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#177

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #94

Press2forEN wrote: post #6

> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis? I see it in print so often that it appears to be a axiom that is considered so correct as to be unquestionable.

I think it's more of an assumption required by models which say "democracy is a good idea that will work well." In other words, the typical civics class model goes something like "democracy is a good idea that will work well, assuming that (among other things) the public is engaged and well-informed."

That ironically isn't true - it can work well for reasons seperate from good decisionmaking even when excluding incentives as a component (democracy gives a wider array of relevant interests in decision making).

For one democracy is a good pressure relief valve - far from the monarchist fears they were way more stabme compared to the regular secession civil wars of monarchies and rebellions. Election results let a potentially hotheaded minority faction know "you won't win you know, you got only 30% of the vote - let alone what percentage would actually fight for you. You are outnumbered so chill, campaign, and wait for the next election".

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#178

Post by DenisM » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #174

DenisM wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nutters will be nutters, you can't affect that. What you can affect is how the general public perceives the difference between the two camps. They may not know enough to judge on the merit of the arguments, but they understand reputation and character. Every single bit of bullshit to come out of academia is one extra point for the detractors. I won't enumerate it here because there is an even chance you're in support…

Why doesn't this apply in both directions? If BS from academia invalidates the entire intellectual community shouldn't Flat Earthers invalidate the anti-institutional science community?

It does. Both sides take a hit on intellectual integrity, except that intellectuals put a lot of weight on it so they stand more to lose.

When that field is “leveled” rhetoric becomes decisive.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#179

Post by baddox » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

keenmaster wrote: post #162

baddox wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all those criticisms to some extent, but without some alternative I don't find the argument very useful, and I certainly don't find the original commenter's approach useful. It's like listing the many many examples of plane crashes due to pilot error. That's not controversial. I don't think many people claim that individual pilots act without flaw, or that the entire system of pilot training and qualific…

Criticism moderates duplicity and complacency. The mere presence of widespread criticism would help. It would also serve as a foundation for a system to mitigate these problems going forward. You can't solve the problem until you: 1. First identify it as a problem (which I don't think we've done enough but you think the problem is apparent to everyone) 2. Direct the criticism to the right people (not just politicians…

The trouble with your example of healthcare is that Americans for whatever reason overwhelmingly approve of the American system of private health insurance plans, and even if they didn’t, I don’t think many would make an association between expensive health care and fundamental problems with the scientific community.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#180

Post by scottlocklin » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #91

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

> Personally, as a scientist, I am comforted that there are enough others out there who doubt the entire notion of a scientific establishment that the population should "trust" to make decisions without oversight. I'm not sure what you're actually proposing, but it sounds dangerously close to "pilots have been in control of airplanes for decades, and they've caused so many crashes, so maybe it's time to try people wh…

I realize HN sperdos have a hard time with this concept sometimes, but MUH SCIENCE isn't how we make decisions as a society, anywhere, ever.

Leadership is decision under uncertainty. The best thing most scientists can do for leadership is tell them the best guess and estimates of how big the uncertainties are. Recent events have shown how unbelievably shitty these guesses were, and, frankly, continue to be; and as far as I can tell, none of the important players over the last 6 months mentioned any of the uncertainties in a useful actionable way.

Putting scientists and operations research types in charge of anything more complicated than airline routing tables is basically the definition of madness; literally every time it's been tried in human history has ended up a disaster. Adam Curtis and that gasbag Taleb have made a career of documenting this obvious truism.