The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#371

Post by pdonis » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #309

pdonis wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far as I can tell, there is no such authority for facts. Huh? You just described it: reality is the authority. > I think this situation is simpler if these all count as separate facts. No, they are different theoretical descriptions of the facts. The facts are the particular experimental apparatus Michelson and Morley used and the particular numbers they recorded when they made their measurements. > Do "the fact…

> reality is the authority Suppose you have two theories, and you run an experiment whose results produce two assertions, each couched in the language of their respective theories, (I'd call these assertions facts). You say that reality is the authority on whether the two assertions represent the same underlying fact or different underlying facts, but it's not like there's some oracle that I can consult in the matter…

> Suppose you have two theories, and you run an experiment whose results produce two assertions, each couched in the language of their respective theories, (I'd call these assertions facts).

I wouldn't. An experiment will produce one set of "assertions", about what was done and what happened. Those are facts.

Different theories might add different "assertions" on top of that, but that doesn't change what was done and what happened in the experiment, and the theoretical "assertions" aren't facts. They're theories.

> So you've got a bunch of mirrors and a pattern of light, and then later in the day you have the same pattern of light. That's not facts, that's just phenomena.

No, they're facts. What you are calling "phenomena" are facts. At least, I call them facts.

> a fact is some correspondence between a model (which lives in a theory) and some phenomenon (which lives in reality).

No, I would not call that a fact. The phenomenon is the fact. The correspondence is a successful test of the model.

To go all the way back to what I quoted from you to start this subthread: the question you asked was "which facts to use?" And my answer was "the ones that are confirmed by experiments". Now that I see what you meant by "facts", I think the way you should have phrased your question is simply "which theoretical models to use?" And the answer is still "the ones that are confirmed by experiments", but with the added note that "confirmed by experiments" means "confirmed as correctly describing the facts".

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#372

Post by pdonis » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #309

pdonis wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far as I can tell, there is no such authority for facts. Huh? You just described it: reality is the authority. > I think this situation is simpler if these all count as separate facts. No, they are different theoretical descriptions of the facts. The facts are the particular experimental apparatus Michelson and Morley used and the particular numbers they recorded when they made their measurements. > Do "the fact…

> reality is the authority Suppose you have two theories, and you run an experiment whose results produce two assertions, each couched in the language of their respective theories, (I'd call these assertions facts). You say that reality is the authority on whether the two assertions represent the same underlying fact or different underlying facts, but it's not like there's some oracle that I can consult in the matter…

> It was initially poor style to relativize this fact

You're confusing facts with models again. The statement you give is not a fact: it's a prediction based on a theoretical model. Einstein proposed a different theoretical model, which we now know makes more accurate predictions. But no facts changed during this process. Thinking that switching models changed the facts is like thinking that switching from a less accurate map of a city to a more accurate map changes the layout of the streets in the actual city.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#373

Post by pdonis » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

xfs wrote: post #310

pdonis wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raw facts are meaningless without models, theories, or even, ideologies. No, they're not. They just don't allow you to make predictions without a model. But you don't need to agree on a theoretical model to agree that, for example, Michelson and Morley had a particular experimental setup and procedure and recorded particular numbers when they ran the experiment. > You always have to have a theory in order to predic…

Allow me to clarify: facts are meaningless in the literal sense that facts are devoid of meaning without interpretation. When you say facts be confirmed by experiments, the very confirmation already presupposes the existence of criteria by which you prove or disprove facts. Those criteria are precisely what constitutes theories. Now back to the original question, it's true you can establish facts through experiments,…

> When you say facts be confirmed by experiments

I didn't say facts are confirmed by experiments. Facts are the experimental setup and results: what was done and what happened. Nothing has to be "confirmed"; the facts just are.

Theoretical models can be confirmed by experiments, but models are not facts. You appear to have the same confusion about this that MatrixMan has.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#374

Post by gus_massa » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

identity-haver wrote: post #177

gus_massa wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or think that abstinence-only sex education is effective. How did we prove that it doesn't work? I agree that it doesn't work, but I have a very hard time imagining how to make a study to prove it.

Here's a large study indicating that states with the highest abstinence education level had 25% higher teen pregnancies than states with the lowest level [1], after not controlling for Hispanic teen population, the teen population demographic with the highest birth rate. Whereas, here's one claiming that state policy affected STI rates, but not pregnancy rates [2]. edit: these studies consider "effective" to mean "re…

About the first: Correlation does not imply causation. It's very difficult to be sure if the same communities that makes laws to force abstinence-only education also make other laws like forbidding than teenagers get sexual counseling in hospitals without their parents. (And it's imposible to be sure unless you kidnap all the children and put them in two isolated islands in randomized groups.)

Also, they classify the states according to the legislation about abstinence-only education:

0: no mention of abstinence

1: mention, but no promotion

2: promotion of abstinence

3: stressing abstinence as the fundamental teaching standard

It's very interesting that the pregnancy rates for 0 is very similar than 2. 1 is better, 3 is worse. Perhaps the states that don't mention it apply a strong implicit social pressure?

About the second one: I didn't expect this result.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#375

Post by balabaster » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

cat199 wrote: post #279

joe_the_user wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that an even larger problem exists. Among the public, science has always had some portion of people who understood it's processes as those of a secular priesthood and those who understood it's processes as discovering the truth through skepticism and experimentation. Even among this working scientists, this division has existed (and given a society that never discarded religion, anti-science along with an…

show me the science that says that religion is against science and intellect. many of those responsible for science as a discipline throughout the centuries sought to know more of their creator rather than to debunk religion

If science can't prove that we're not existing inside a simulation, or whether we have multiverses, how could we prove or disprove the existence of God?

Even if as most atheists agree the Bible is a fallacy, that still doesn't prove there isn't a God, or multiple Gods. Nor does it even prove our own existence. It just proves our abilities to contemplate and interpret the laws of the physics we appear bound inside this universe.

The only rules we can discover and prove are the ones that constrain the environment we are confined to. Anything outside this environment is opaque to us, which may include a God... or not.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#376

Post by Cogito » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 11:10 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #356

lutorm wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the last 200 years of history has demonstrated that science is a superior strategy, but it isn't obvious enough to be hand-waved. If you're talking about wars, you really think a hypothetical civilization with a technological development level of ca.1819 would have even a sliver of a chance against modern weapons?? I think history shows that not to be the case. But I think that misses the point. The real issu…

The 1819 society would obviously be flattened. However there needs to be a stable society to host the researchers (using the term loosely to include people who invent stuff). That is possible with extreme ethnic homogeneity, possible with strong shared religion and culture and possible with conducive economic conditions where everyone benefits from pulling together. It isn't obvious that 'science' can fill that role…

> However there needs to be a stable society to host the researchers (using the term loosely to include people who invent stuff).

I agree with you insofar that if people are living hand-to-mouth it's very hard to achieve scientific progress just because there is not enough time.

In general however this does not require a stable society, just that there are people within the society who have time to think and the resources to test their ideas. We've seen this in the past when 'rich' people sponsor someone to do 'science' even though in general the population is living hand-to-mouth, and we've seen it recently in Europe where science continued even though the land was being torn up by war.

That said, for large scale, wide spread advancement you obviously want more people able to contribute, so a stable society definitely helps with this.

> That is possible with extreme ethnic homogeneity, possible with strong shared religion and culture and possible with conducive economic conditions where everyone benefits from pulling together.

I agree that these things can lead to a stable society, with the correction "religion or culture", but actually think there is something more fundamental going on.

> It isn't obvious that 'science' can fill that role if it displaces religion and we go through 20 years of hard times. A cynic's read of science would support the idea that we stab the neighbor when the going gets tough.

First of all, it's not necessary for 'science' to fill this role, culture is already a fine fit. Indeed, the cases you probably think of when saying religion can form a stable society are better explained with culture (of which religion or religious observances may be a part), especially when we consider the many conflicts in history between groups of people who claim the same religion but have different culture.

Furthermore, 'science' doesn't say anything like "stab your neighbour when the going gets tough". One of the prevailing theories around the question of "why do we cooperate" is that cooperating is more economical, and societies that cooperate are more likely to survive. It is a self selecting trait of successful societies. Individuals within a society may choose to act in uncooperative ways, but even if I thought I could improve my lot in life by stealing from my neighbours, I'm able to recognise that if everyone acted like that it would be bad for me personally. Culture and law - cultural memes, these are the elements of a society that lead to it being stable.

> Eugenics, for example, was once considered the scientific option until WWII happened, there was a lot of interest in the early statistical community in that sort of thing. Some bits worked, some didn't, but the experience doesn't paint 'the scientific approach' as beyond moral question - there was lot of suffering and some very divisive ideas came to fruition.

There are not many people who believe any human endeavour is beyond moral question, but especially not science! Insofar as we can call 'science' the modern organised research institutions, we have entire systems set in place exactly because we (humanity) believe that some things are not worth knowing if you can't discover them without human suffering, or 'not immorally' for whatever we find immoral.

That is to say, 'science' doesn't dictate how we structure our lives or behave ourselves, we do. The institutions we build and the cultures that persist are what lead to stable societies, but it's much easier to make good decisions when you have more knowledge.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#377

Post by jhbadger » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

madspindel wrote: post #146

vkazanov wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source, pls. Where and when did he say that?

It's from the book Ideas And Opinions: https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Opinions-Albert-Einstein-ebook/... Some other quotes: "The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition." "Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goa…

The problem is that Einstein didn't mean "religion" to mean a belief in either a God or an afterlife, as most people assume. He just had a sense of wonder in regard to the natural world. So what? So does Richard Dawkins.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." -- Albert Einstein, 1954, letter to Joseph Dispentiere.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#378

Post by yters » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:18 AM UTC

Cogito wrote: post #312

yters wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there is the fact that science was created by religious societies, Christianity in particular. Many of the fundamental discoveries came about due to religious motivations and religious principles: the world is orderly and understandable because it was created by a transcendent mind. Take away religion and we would not have science.

This argument falls flat because it doesn't show a requirement that the first proceeds the second, and additionally it assumes that "the end justifies the means". It may be true that our current scientific culture arose from religion, but it's easy to imagine it arising separately. There are even countless stories of times when scientific progress was hindered by religious thinking, situations where people tried to f…

It's easy to imagine anything, so that doesn't really say much.

Atheists were science blockers in Plato's day. They were called sophists, and didn't believe in gods, but used the beliefs of the people and fancy rhetoric to get what they want. Most of Plato's dialogues are debates with sophists.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#379

Post by Cogito » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:48 AM UTC

yters wrote: post #378

Cogito wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument falls flat because it doesn't show a requirement that the first proceeds the second, and additionally it assumes that "the end justifies the means". It may be true that our current scientific culture arose from religion, but it's easy to imagine it arising separately. There are even countless stories of times when scientific progress was hindered by religious thinking, situations where people tried to f…

It's easy to imagine anything, so that doesn't really say much. Atheists were science blockers in Plato's day. They were called sophists, and didn't believe in gods, but used the beliefs of the people and fancy rhetoric to get what they want. Most of Plato's dialogues are debates with sophists.

> It's easy to imagine anything, so that doesn't really say much.

You claimed that science exists because of religion, but did not show that religion is a requirement (or even catalyst) for science.

Organised science definitely requires a society (otherwise it would not be organised) and it so happens that historical societies tended to have some association with religion, but I would claim science arose from these societies despite religion, not because of it.

If science was an outworking of religion, rather than the society a religion happens to cohabit, why do we not see more and more science coming from societies with more and more religion?

> Atheists were science blockers in Plato's day. They were called sophists, and didn't believe in gods, but used the beliefs of the people and fancy rhetoric to get what they want. Most of Plato's dialogues are debates with sophists.

Sorry, not sure what the link here is.

Atheism is just not believing in gods, in the same way I don't believe we are living in a simulation. Even if the premise is true, as far as we can measure (so far!) there is no impact on us. Not believing in things that we can't experience or measure is the default for us in general.

I would go so far as to say that religions themselves only exist because we were trying to explain the world we live in, and were unable to with the tools and ideas available to us throughout history. Over the course of history many people have observed the same phenomena and come up with a multitude of ideas as to what is going on.

Many of those ideas go on to form the nexus of a religion, many hundreds or thousands of religions trying to make sense of the world. The ideas that hold up to interrogation, that are testable and can be observed repeatably, they become science. Science reduces the set of possible explanations to the ones that are feasible.

Re: The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back

#380

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #371

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reality is the authority Suppose you have two theories, and you run an experiment whose results produce two assertions, each couched in the language of their respective theories, (I'd call these assertions facts). You say that reality is the authority on whether the two assertions represent the same underlying fact or different underlying facts, but it's not like there's some oracle that I can consult in the matter…

> Suppose you have two theories, and you run an experiment whose results produce two assertions, each couched in the language of their respective theories, (I'd call these assertions facts). I wouldn't. An experiment will produce one set of "assertions", about what was done and what happened. Those are facts. Different theories might add different "assertions" on top of that, but that doesn't change what was done and…

If we water down the label "fact" so that it represents mere sense data--just the perception of an interferometer's output that happens to not vary based on time or orientation--then what good are facts anyway?

For them to be useful, they need to be in some way convincing, don't they?