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The Limits of Science

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: The Limits of Science

#51

Post by Konnstann »

sgt101 wrote: post #16
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"

The final conclusion of the article is that we can use science to look at planets but not people because people are complicated. This coming from a doctor, who in my experience has little to no idea how much science goes into tools they take for granted. Even the example about the elderly patient ends with the doctor generating a hypothesis (something is wrong with the patient) and then testing it (using imaging) using a model generated by the modality.

Re: The Limits of Science

#52

Post by olooney »

hoseja wrote: post #41

Oh, it's a doctor .

It's worse than that:

> Ronald W. Dworkin is a physician AND political scientist. (emphasis mine.)

He's also written an essay entitled "Where Science Ends and Religion Begins" and a self-published book called "How Karl Marx Can Save American Capitalism."

If I was writing a novel and wanted to make it absolutely clear a given character should not be taken seriously, I would have tone it down a little to make it believable.

Re: The Limits of Science

#53

Post by fat_turdsicle »

mattigames wrote: post #21
_Nat_ wrote: post #19

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…

The number of red flags when people mention "spiritual" in any given argument is about as bad as someone talking about the Earth being flat or vaccines causing autism.

[dead]

Re: The Limits of Science

#54

Post by lostmsu »

vinceguidry wrote: post #49
DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, completely agree. But one thing that struck me the other day, I read a tweet from some random person that got retweeted a bunch. It went something like this, "Don't shame me for looking to natural remedies/my doctor rolls my eyes when I tell him what my chiropractor suggests/my naturopath has never rolled their eyes at something my doctor has said." It made me sad also because so many people jumped in and sai…

It's not a bad thing to point out the failures of modern medicine or to choose to put your health in the hands of naturopaths. It is, indeed, effectively how the human race got along until modern medicine. The problem is in forcing your choices on others.

Forcing here is entirely via verbal induction of cognitive dissonance.

Re: The Limits of Science

#55

Post by nighthawk648 »

phkahler wrote: post #46
atomack wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with GTP, the author's definition is vague. As GTP alludes to, temperature is defined perfectly clearly in statistical mechanics, through the sensitivity of the entropy to changes in the internal energy of a system (though there are several, equivalent ways to express it). The author really is incorrect to claim temperature is not a clearly understood concept

>> The author really is incorrect to claim temperature is not a clearly understood concept Temperature is a very inexact model of the dynamics of a system. It does not tell you anything about the energy of any individual atom. It's an aggregate number. Thermodynamics was an eye opening course for me. Its impressive how much real engineering can be done with lumped parameter models. The author wants to convey the limi…

Yeah this guy gets it! Thank you :)

Re: The Limits of Science

#56

Post by djokkataja »

If we consider ourselves as computational systems, I think there's a fundamental limit on our ability to understand ourselves. With an extremely accurate model of our bodies, we could simulate ourselves and see what our mental state would be like in the next moment. But that wouldn't be any use from inside of a computational system, ie as a system of thinking, because the total amount of state space needed to perform such a computation would by necessity be greater than the amount of state space we have available for thinking in any given moment. (We'd have to include the total state of what we're already thinking about plus all additional information describing our current physical state.)

This gets exacerbated in two "softer" ways: our brains are nonlinear systems, so trying to understand ourselves with just general principles can still result in significant deviations from predictions (for example, a single neuron could significantly affect our entire mental state in an un-accounted-for way). Secondly, this doesn't even try to account for the rest of the universe...

On the plus side, I think this implies some fundamental limits for any artificial intelligence...?

Re: The Limits of Science

#57

Post by nighthawk648 »

atomack wrote: post #36
nighthawk648 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I think it’s vague because it’s not accurately representing what is going on. Is that average kinetic energy even distributed throughout the system or can it be isolated to specific moving points of the system? Ie some particles in the north most part of the system have this energy and are moving around the system. Or even only the particles in the north have the energy. Feynman said it best that with each quest…

I agree with GTP, the author's definition is vague. As GTP alludes to, temperature is defined perfectly clearly in statistical mechanics, through the sensitivity of the entropy to changes in the internal energy of a system (though there are several, equivalent ways to express it). The author really is incorrect to claim temperature is not a clearly understood concept

Yeah while you are correct I am not talking about that specific additive. I am talking about a gaseous system of atoms and how temperature is related in a statistical manner rather then being identified as an individual process. Maybe it cannot be identified individually. That lack of individual identification or proof against the ability of individual identification is enough to say that science in its broadest terms is vague

Re: The Limits of Science

#58

Post by [deleted] »

msla wrote: post #33
throwaway_bad wrote: post #11

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…

> For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises but can't infer that there will be another. Which is why scientists, like everyone else, uses statistical reasoning. > In general, if you control for everything, you can't say anything about the real world outside of those precise lab controlled conditions. This is one of those statements which is only true if you ignore all the times it's f…

[deleted]

Re: The Limits of Science

#59

Post by vinceguidry »

lostmsu wrote: post #54
vinceguidry wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad thing to point out the failures of modern medicine or to choose to put your health in the hands of naturopaths. It is, indeed, effectively how the human race got along until modern medicine. The problem is in forcing your choices on others.

Forcing here is entirely via verbal induction of cognitive dissonance.

Then it's not really forcing. Cognitive dissonance != coercion.

Re: The Limits of Science

#60

Post by ASalazarMX »

msla wrote: post #33
throwaway_bad wrote: post #11

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…

> For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises but can't infer that there will be another. Which is why scientists, like everyone else, uses statistical reasoning. > In general, if you control for everything, you can't say anything about the real world outside of those precise lab controlled conditions. This is one of those statements which is only true if you ignore all the times it's f…

This is a classic philosopher vs. pragmatic discussion.

Zeno: "How can movement exist? A flying arrow, at any point in its trajectory, is static, but at the next moment, it-"

Pragmatic: "Hey, I shot ten arrows. They took 4 seconds average to reach the target at 200 m, so they move at 50 m/s, therefore movement does exist. Can we eat something? I'm hungry."

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