Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Illusions of understanding in the sciences

link.springer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–68 of 68 posts

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#61

Post by rramadass »

ordu wrote: post #60
rramadass wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are on a tangent here and not what i was implying. It is not about censoring or playing politics. It is about the wording of the title of the OP article and its rather well-known thesis. All Scientists know the limitations of their own understanding and continuously revise it using the Scientific Method. Given the very real negative agendas out there, it is every scientifically-minded person's duty to be aware of…

> The fact that the anti-scientific crowd might find something else to attack is beside the point. I can't agree. If awareness doesn't change the outcome, then why to practice it?

Scientific awareness does change the outcome; just not 100% and not all at the same time. This is how Science has always advanced, slowly but surely overcoming obstacles over a period of time.

See Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a detailed analysis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re...

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#62

Post by ltbarcly3 »

usernametaken29 wrote: post #5

This is a classic case of overthinking. Induction should not yield new knowledge because nothing new is discovered, but it does. Deduction likewise also cannot establish new knowledge, yet it does. Empirical science is flawed on extremely many levels but it works because on average, over time, many converging observations can build refined and accurate causal theories. It’s a matter of practicality that things cannot…

You are just making the mistake of using two incompatible definitions of the word 'knowledge' here and then acting like it's a contradiction.

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#64

Post by armchairhacker »

OmindStash wrote: post #63

This is fascinating. It's so funny how everything flows back to philosophy... What is understanding? What is knowledge? Can we know what the truth is, and does it exist?

Relations formed by pattern recognition.

Knowledge is recalling A from B, e.g. the definition of a word, the answer to a question.

Understanding is more general knowledge: recalling A from related (e.g. “that’s a quadratic equation”) and recalling related from A (e.g. “quadratic equations are solved by the quadratic formula”)

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#65

Post by bigbadfeline »

OmindStash wrote: post #63

This is fascinating. It's so funny how everything flows back to philosophy... What is understanding? What is knowledge? Can we know what the truth is, and does it exist?

> everything flows back to philosophy...

Same as flowing forward off the edge of a cliff.

> Can we know what the truth is, and does it exist?

If you tried the forward motion at the aforementioned place you'd quickly find out the answer to that question.

The fact that not many are trying it clearly shows that truth exists, the only question is which way to get there - by science or by fooling around and finding out.

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#66

Post by ordu »

rramadass wrote: post #61
ordu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that the anti-scientific crowd might find something else to attack is beside the point. I can't agree. If awareness doesn't change the outcome, then why to practice it?

Scientific awareness does change the outcome; just not 100% and not all at the same time. This is how Science has always advanced, slowly but surely overcoming obstacles over a period of time. See Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a detailed analysis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re...

Thomas Kuhn wrote about workings of science as of a social institution, how science accepts paradigms and rejects them, not how anti-science activists do. I don't think it is relevant in any way. Scientists are expected to stick to the scientific method. Anti-science doesn't have a method, it is just a reactionary movement, moreover it is not a movement, it is a lot of movements. Consecutive movements oftentimes are unaware of their predecessors. Different structures, different motives, different dynamics, they are too different to generalize them into one bucket.

> Scientific awareness does change the outcome; just not 100% and not all at the same time.

It is a pretty big claim. I don't see you (or anyone) can provide a single example for it. The trouble is science doesn't have tools to prove counterfactual "if science was unaware the outcome would be different". This problem affect my opposite statement too: we can't prove that outcome wouldn't be different. Still, I believe, that I'm right: I talked a lot with different people of different views, and I don't think that any scientific awareness can stop them to be anti-science. They have their own motives to be anti-science, any scientific awareness doesn't address their motives. In most cases people either invested in anti-science views somehow, or it is something deeper on the level on self-actualization, like they exercise their free will to prove to themselves they have a free will. Both reasons have nothing to do with the truth or scientific awareness.

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#67

Post by rramadass »

ordu wrote: post #66
rramadass wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientific awareness does change the outcome; just not 100% and not all at the same time. This is how Science has always advanced, slowly but surely overcoming obstacles over a period of time. See Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a detailed analysis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re...

Thomas Kuhn wrote about workings of science as of a social institution, how science accepts paradigms and rejects them, not how anti-science activists do. I don't think it is relevant in any way. Scientists are expected to stick to the scientific method. Anti-science doesn't have a method, it is just a reactionary movement, moreover it is not a movement, it is a lot of movements. Consecutive movements oftentimes are…

Kuhn's work marries Sociology to Scientific Progress (i am not sure whether you have actually read the book; it is a difficult work to comprehend) and his thesis is often used by the anti-science crowd to argue that Scientific Facts are merely Social Constructs rather than Objective Truths. While the process of doing science and its progress are subject to sociological pressures (i.e. subjective) the theories/models arrived at are objective truths (for the hard sciences) and verified by employing the scientific method (mainly by peer review and experiment replication). But Kuhn argued against Scientific Realism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism) and instead proposed Scientific Paradigms (i.e. normal science as puzzle solving within a shared set of beliefs) and Scientific Paradigm Shifts (i.e. revolutionary science due to changed evidence and hence beliefs). This is what is exploited by the anti-science crowd to argue that nothing is definite and everything is subject to change since they are all "just beliefs". Note that Poincare's works on the philosophy of science gives more necessary background.

Contrary to your claim, anti-science does have methods/processes/techniques since it is a movement(s) with a definite goal(s). Wikipedia gives the details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience

What don't you understand from my statement "Scientific awareness does change the outcome; just not 100% and not all at the same time."? It is self-evident if you had actually read Kuhn or Poincare. The "outcome" referred to is the acceptance of scientific theory/model under discussion; "just not 100%" means all aspects of the theory/model might not be accepted initially pending further experimental validation and "not all at the same time" means the acceptance of the theory/model happens over a period of time.

> The trouble is science doesn't have tools to prove counterfactual "if science was unaware the outcome would be different". This problem affect my opposite statement too: we can't prove that outcome wouldn't be different.

This makes no sense at all. The various scientific theories/models have changed people's lives, civilizations/world etc. most definitely. It just happens over a period of time as more and more people buy into the new theory/model and/or see proofs of its correctness via technological advances.

As regards your last few lines w.r.t. sections of the anti-science crowd; it is easily explained by agendas (religious, political etc.), propaganda and plain old stupidity/pigheadedness. As the ditty goes; if you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the laws and if you have neither, pound the table.

Re: Illusions of understanding in the sciences

#68

Post by usernametaken29 »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #62
usernametaken29 wrote: post #5

This is a classic case of overthinking. Induction should not yield new knowledge because nothing new is discovered, but it does. Deduction likewise also cannot establish new knowledge, yet it does. Empirical science is flawed on extremely many levels but it works because on average, over time, many converging observations can build refined and accurate causal theories. It’s a matter of practicality that things cannot…

You are just making the mistake of using two incompatible definitions of the word 'knowledge' here and then acting like it's a contradiction.

I don’t think so. The point is that really nothing can be understood. This has been known since ancient times. But in practical terms it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you truly understand e.g explosions if your goal is to blow stuff up. You can drive this argument in circles like a child saying “but why” and you will discover that science is built on axioms, just things we kind of believe. They work well enough. Is it true knowledge? Probably not in the idealistic sense. But then again that just has no practical value. In the end science is a tool and not a means in itself, if you ask me.
Post reply on HN