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In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

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Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#51

Post by amarcheschi »

bigs wrote: post #4
_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

Agree. At least in my western country, it has become almost expected that everyone is fully confident all the time. I’m someone who likes to deliberate on thoughts, take my time, listen to opinions and assess them, then provide my opinion (which may also change over time with more information or changing circumstances). I am humble, a listener, and don’t believe I know everything. I feel a little out of place in curr…

One of my professor at uni (he managed to talk to Bill gates to get Microsoft to fund his startup, which is now an established research center) told us that if we don't know something, being honest and saying you don't know it is usually a good sign. Be it at an oral exam, be it when you're answering question at a startup pitch (...)

I really appreciated when a professor, when asked with a question he doesn't know, stops trying to answer and says something in the lines of "I actually don't know the exact answer, I'll try to find and answer and tell you next lesson"

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#52

Post by kovac »

energy123 wrote: post #31
_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

Part of it is the English language doesn't have tools to express uncertainty without adding verbosity. For example, take what I said here, my sentence length increased by 25% by saying "part of it is" to communicate uncertainty. This gets tiring quickly for both the writer and reader. It becomes boilerplate.

That's a good point. As a non-native speaker, I use Grammarly to improve my writing. But often, when I add clauses that indicate uncertainty, grammarly complaints about how I can be more concise by dropping those parts.

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#53

Post by karmakurtisaani »

bigs wrote: post #4
_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

Agree. At least in my western country, it has become almost expected that everyone is fully confident all the time. I’m someone who likes to deliberate on thoughts, take my time, listen to opinions and assess them, then provide my opinion (which may also change over time with more information or changing circumstances). I am humble, a listener, and don’t believe I know everything. I feel a little out of place in curr…

Here's an idiot's guide to sounding smart:

- use big words

- speak with utmost confidence

- if you can't convince, confuse

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#54

Post by shadowmanifold »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #35
_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

I think it’s a newer culture pushed by the media and universities to accept scientific claims without questioning them. They usually cite whatever they say without evidence. What a scientific consensus or even unnamed scientist say can be used to dismiss others’ points. It’s almost like they’re the clergy of today. Some are calling this “scientism.” We need to go back to treating any claims with healthy skepticism, r…

There is a problem too that scientism has a dual meaning.

There is the belief in science as the best means to get at the truth and then the pejorative of using science as a type of orthodox religion. So for the true believer in the pejorative you can't even use the term.

Personally, I think this is a lost cause. Scientism in the pejorative sense is a new religion and most likely we are at the very early stages. Even when it comes to lifting weights, every youtube video pretends to be "based on science".

I might be too old to see it happen but I fully expect at some point in the future instead of a movie getting 5 stars, the commercial will say this is scientifically proven to be great movie. A restaurant will claim to have the best tacos based on science.

This is clearly the road we are on and I don't see a way back. Actual scientist will have to be more and more certain in their language because that is what scientism in the pejorative sense is to the true believer and the cult of the true believer in pejorative scientism is growing.

"SCIENCE IS REAL"

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#55

Post by MichaelZuo »

hansvm wrote: post #45
MichaelZuo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? People sometimes state things that are the genuine facts, as far as anyone has been able to prove, but that are not entirely possible to be 100% verified. This isn’t some obscure niche case either, it happens every day on HN.

If we're interpreting what I wrote charitably, it's implicit that "obvious" facts will extremely rarely have hedging language, so the anti-hedging conversation can focus elsewhere. I _knew_ somebody was going to nitpick that phrase and rejected the urge to write a few extra paragraphs in the format of a HN comment expressing the idea more completely... If we want to look at it a bit less charitably though, even thing…

It also happens from the opposite direction.

Seemingly random claims, that no one has been able to provide proof for so far, but the person has some special reasons to strongly believe it is true.

E.g. ‘Back channel’ communication in diplomacy.

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#56

Post by bakuninsbart »

hansvm wrote: post #43
_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

An explanation some teachers beat into me over the years is that everyone already knows you're only stating a thing because it's your opinion. It's discourteous to waste time repeating something so basic, so such hedging language should only be used when it actually adds something to the conversation -- warning the reader of something with an unexpected level of certainty. On some level, that makes even more sense in…

We lose nuance by only usign maximalist statements. Take these rather typical intro-phrases:

We find [strongest result]

Our findings strongly indicate [likely result]

Our findings suggest/indicate [result that needs more research]

The way I and many other people read papers is that we read method and appendix last, good writing can give you hints at those things without needlessly bloating the paper. The nuance also makes me trust the authors more, as it indicates humbleness and diligence

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#57

Post by noobermin »

_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

As a grad student it was beaten out of me to be honest about my misgivings about my own results. But now that I'm in the system I don't know how we change this system.

I get the sense sometimes there are actual psychopaths amongst us who do mean it, however and they often do rise in the ranks, and those folks are essentially the other nuke holders in this MAD sort of situation. Amongst other things that need structural reform in science, I don't know what it takes to fix it.

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#58

Post by poincaredisk »

bigs wrote: post #4
_yb2s wrote: post #2

I think this is a general cultural phenomenon not specific to the sciences- people are told they need to be aggressively confident to be taken seriously. Even as a kid parents and teachers will suggest to kids to edit words expressing uncertainty out of their writing. They are coached to talk like that when public speaking, at job interviews, and even dating. As a scientist- I also think papers and grant applications…

Agree. At least in my western country, it has become almost expected that everyone is fully confident all the time. I’m someone who likes to deliberate on thoughts, take my time, listen to opinions and assess them, then provide my opinion (which may also change over time with more information or changing circumstances). I am humble, a listener, and don’t believe I know everything. I feel a little out of place in curr…

>it has become almost expected that everyone is fully confident all the time

I still remember my first discussion with a CEO in my first job as a programmer (not even out of uni yet). My project was delayed because of a buggy installer and I had problems reproducing the issue.

I was am repeatedly asked "how long until the fix" and I kept saying "I don't know, it's a bug, can take 2 hours can take a week".

We both left this conversation frustrated. Though of course for her it was business as usual, and for me it's still awkward and stressful when I think back to it.

Anyway this taught me to confidently state something like "this will take three days" instead of trying to convey uncertainty to the higher management.

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#59

Post by _yb2s »

shadowmanifold wrote: post #54
nickpsecurity wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a newer culture pushed by the media and universities to accept scientific claims without questioning them. They usually cite whatever they say without evidence. What a scientific consensus or even unnamed scientist say can be used to dismiss others’ points. It’s almost like they’re the clergy of today. Some are calling this “scientism.” We need to go back to treating any claims with healthy skepticism, r…

There is a problem too that scientism has a dual meaning. There is the belief in science as the best means to get at the truth and then the pejorative of using science as a type of orthodox religion. So for the true believer in the pejorative you can't even use the term. Personally, I think this is a lost cause. Scientism in the pejorative sense is a new religion and most likely we are at the very early stages. Even…

As a scientist this stuff irks me more than the openly anti-science people- because it deprives science of the whole point- to be able to question and understand things yourself.

I dislike how every food item, exercise, etc. is now “scientifically proven to be optimal.” And if you look at the actual research it will show that some biomarker was higher in some comparison… but who is to say having that higher is better, and that they were actually measuring the only relevant factor out of thousands of possibilities to measure? We simply don't know nearly enough about biology to measure one biomarker and conclude that it proves something is "optimal" for the health of every member of an entire species of complicated organisms over their entire lives. If I'm going to lift weights I don't care how it modulated some level of some immunological molecule the authors were studying because it's what they happened to get funded to measure- I just care if when other people tried it if they got stronger, and didn't get hurt... something I can learn from word of mouth rather than peer reviewed literature. And you will get called “anti science” if you question it… as if questioning things that don’t make sense wasn’t the main point of science. /rant

Re: In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased (2023)

#60

Post by DrillShopper »

mmooss wrote: post #36
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want to get into religious debate, but you might want to re-read the Gospels - you are missing the fundamental message of Jesus, which has turned out to be extremely popular - arguably the most popular text and message in the world. You might want to reread the upthread context: I was discussing the role of humility “in concrete terms of actual people in terms of attracting a contemporary following” and dis…

Jesus's message of humility was clear. The rest is your speculation, 2000 years later, about what worked.

If it's so clear and persuasive then why is it more lacking today than 2000 years ago?
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