Against Method
en.wikipedia.org
Against Method
1–10 of 69 posts
Re: Against Method
#2An interesting book for pointing out that actual scientific progress sometimes doesn't follow strict methodology (see e.g. Mendel's approximations). Alas, like most writing from the 60's/70's, it overstates its case through heavy sophistry that may go well with polemists and (pseudo-science) hacks, but not in real life.
Re: Against Method
#3This is just a bad take which was artificially pushed for pseudo-political reasons.
That we have no hard and fast rules for what is good science does not mean that anything goes. This is like saying that because it's impossible to write perfectly safe C++ programs, then we should just use raw pointers. Imprecise methods that work with a certain probability still have value.
Leaps of logic like that are popular even more generally and they leave me speachless.
Re: Against Method
#4An interesting book for pointing out that actual scientific progress sometimes doesn't follow strict methodology (see e.g. Mendel's approximations). Alas, like most writing from the 60's/70's, it overstates its case through heavy sophistry that may go well with polemists and (pseudo-science) hacks, but not in real life.
Yeah, I mostly agree.
I would put it slightly differently, and I honestly don't know if I'm being kinder or not. I'd say that in this book, Feyerabend is being a troll. He's out to get a reaction out of you more than to argue in great faith. In my view it's actually to the detriment of his point.
I'm still happy I read it, but I think it's one of those finicky, "meso-scale" ideas that's useful, but doesn't apply at very small or very large scales. It's also interesting that it came out a good decade after moral particularism came out, and it feels to me that his principle is "simply" methodological particularism.
Re: Against Method
#5This is probably wrong, interesting and useful.
Useful to train for critical thinking.
Nothing should be considered sacred, it's OK to be wrong when exploring new ideas.
Re: Against Method
#6An interesting book for pointing out that actual scientific progress sometimes doesn't follow strict methodology (see e.g. Mendel's approximations). Alas, like most writing from the 60's/70's, it overstates its case through heavy sophistry that may go well with polemists and (pseudo-science) hacks, but not in real life.
Sophistry unfortunately didn't die in the 70s, but it's not a bad book, IIRC. It's ages ago that I read it, but it does take a very formal, undergrad-philosophy-of-science model as the one and true model, which everybody religiously adheres to. Pedantic might be a better predicate. Which is odd, now that I think about it, because you can't really be pedantic without believing you know the truth.
Re: Against Method
#7This is just a bad take which was artificially pushed for pseudo-political reasons. That we have no hard and fast rules for what is good science does not mean that anything goes. This is like saying that because it's impossible to write perfectly safe C++ programs, then we should just use raw pointers. Imprecise methods that work with a certain probability still have value. Leaps of logic like that are popular even m…
> This is like saying that because it's impossible to write perfectly safe C++ programs, then we should just use raw pointers.
Anything goes does not imply a proscription like that.
Re: Against Method
#8> The author argues that science should become an anarchic enterprise, not a nomic (customary) one;[1] in the context of the work, the term "anarchy" refers to epistemological anarchy, which does not remain within one single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would restrict scientific progress.
So sometimes we can have randomized controlled trials to really understand the effectiveness of drugs, but we can't RCT climate change or the big bang, so we have to use simulations and models. That doesn't seem like "anything goes", more like a response to that one guy in my econ class who always ranted that if it wasn't backed by a RCT, all theories are BS.
Re: Against Method
#9> The author argues that science should become an anarchic enterprise, not a nomic (customary) one;[1] in the context of the work, the term "anarchy" refers to epistemological anarchy, which does not remain within one single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would restrict scientific progress. So sometimes we can have randomized controlled trials to really understand the effectiveness…
> that one guy in my econ class who always ranted that if it wasn't backed by a RCT, all theories are BS.
The converse may be true though. If it is not backed by a theory, an RCT is BS.
Re: Against Method
#10This is probably wrong, interesting and useful. Useful to train for critical thinking. Nothing should be considered sacred, it's OK to be wrong when exploring new ideas.
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