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What I find concerning about these discussions on what qualifies as science and what doesn't is the excessive arrogance displayed by some writers, as if they st

What I find concerning about these discussions on what qualifies as science and what doesn't is the excessive arrogance displayed by some writers, as if they stand on the same esteemed ground as the countless individuals throughout history who have propelled scientific progress and shaped the technological world we live in today. Science is a remarkable collective effort of humanity, and it is crucial that we continue to allocate resources to this endeavor. If anything, studying the history of science would open one's eyes to the fact that the methodologies and approaches that have resulted in a vast reservoir of knowledge have not followed a linear or consistent path throughout time. There's a quote from his first blog post titled "A Clean-Sheet Introduction to the Scientific Method" that is unironically portraying science as a human endeavour somehow relieved of everything that made "religion" bad. > Let me start with the easy part: By "religious beliefs" I do not mean to imply that science is a religion in the usual sense. It isn't. Religions generally involve things like the worship of deities, respect for the authority of revealed wisdom, and the carrying out of prayer and rituals. Science has none of that, not because science rejects these things a priori, but because when you pursue science you are invariably (but not inevitably!) led to the conclusion that there are no deities active in our universe, and therefore no good reason to accept the authority of revealed wisdom, and hence not much point spending valuable time on prayer and ritual Science as an insistution has all those hallmarks: worship, authority and rituals. I'm not trying to make a case for religion here, but wanted to point out the shallowness of the whole write-up. I wish these science preaching guys would actually engage in more science worthy attitudes and be a bit more humble in their holistic assessment of what does and what doesn't constitute science. Anything goes! would Paul Feyerabend say.

remoquete 2y ago
Ah, Feyerabend. So often shunned and belittled as an enemy of science—so often feared. His conversations with Imre Lakatos still hold up well to this day. For an unbiased analysis of Feyerabend's impact, I recommend this book review:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/
lisper 2y ago
> excessive arrogance Why excessive? The objective fact of the matter, as I point out in the first article in the series, is that the scientific method produces vastly more accurate predictions than anything else humans have ever tried. This is the whole reason science is even a thing. I think that justifies a little bit of cockiness until someone actually comes up with something better.
- raskelll 2y ago
  The arrogance I mentioned is directed towards the people who think of themselves as appropriate to speak for the century-long success story of science itself while not really addressing (and understanding) how science emerged. Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science.
  - lisper 2y ago
    Ah. FYI, I have a whole series of unpublished chapters about the (very messy) history of science. I decided to take this different approach because I thought it would be a more effective way of reaching my target audience. > Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science. That's not true. There is one box you cannot get out of without destroying the process: any hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected (and as a corollary to that, unfalsifiable hypotheses must be rejected). But yeah, beyond that pretty much anything goes.
    - raskelll 2y ago
      Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. Regarding your second statement, out of curiosity, I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons.
      - lisper 2y ago
        > Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. You can find them here: https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ Note that they are quite drafty. That was the result of a previous effort to tackle this project of writing about the scientific method for a general audience that I ultimately abandoned in favor of this current approach. The history part starts in chapter 5. These were based on a series of lectures I gave a few years ago. I can dig up those links too if you're interested. > I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons. I'm not sure what you expect me to say. The results have not been reproduced, so whatever happened in 1989 it was almost certainly not cold fusion.
raverbashing 2y ago
Agree Popperians wish science behaved the way they wanted it to behave I'm still waiting to figure out how Popperians get their ideas for theories because "officially" they can't get them from anywhere (since anything not proven by experiments is "wrong" in their head).
keiferski 2y ago
The common thread among scientisim-followers is that few have actually bothered to read a book or paper on the philosophy of science by actual philosophers, and instead have adopted science as an identity label. One consequence of this is how religion is now juxtaposed directly with science, because if the atheists are scientism-followers, then religious people must be anti-science. This is directly contrary to how most scientific innovators thought about the relationship of science to religion (Newton as a prime example.)
tossandthrow 2y ago
This comment beautifully assembles everything I hate about institutionalised "science". > as if they stand on the same esteemed ground as the countless individuals throughout history who have propelled scientific progress There could absolutely not exist a more anti-scientific sentiment than this. This sentiment is what erodes the core of development. Esteemed my b*t. As a tenured professor you ar entitled to absolutely nothing. The fact that you decides masochism on yourself does not allow you to have any masochistic behaviour towards students and staff. Science is about accepting and realising the ideas that best possible describe the real world. If you can get direction out of history to do this well, be my guest. But do not set history og science up as a dogma to access an exclusive group. What this comment is describing the the "religion of scientific institutions" and has nothing to do with science.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Science is about accepting and realising the ideas that best possible describe the real world. > What this comment is describing the "religion of scientific institutions" and has nothing to do with science. Do you consider the real world actions of scientists to be a part of science? I think anyone who attributes scientific accomplishments to "science" must (at least when it serves their purposes, more on this below). This then (can) lead to the distinction between scientific scripture/intent/aspiration (the scientific method, etc) and things as they actually are. How is it possible to possess knowledge of what all scientists do, and not do, in fact (without resorting to the supernatural, or evasive rhetoric as one commonly witnesses politicians engage in as they dodge a question pointed at a legitimate weakness in a narrative)? Another angle is whether negative consequences of the actions of scientists should be attributed to science or not. In my experience, negative consequences somehow do not count, and there are few disciplines other than science that get this sort of a free ride in our culture... The only one that comes to my mind is (so-called) "democracy".
jskherman 2y ago
Indeed, anything goes! What matters is the result of experiments. Fundamentally science is about understanding more about the world. It does not matter if there are "magical" or "mythical" entities or not. In fact, I would even argue that my current position as to science and religion is similar to that of the position taken by Georges Lemaître. There's a lot of peculiarity when you study science and even math. Some things just seem too elegant to be coincidental like Euler's equation and the phenomenon of emergence, but even if they are coincidental that realization of coincidence and the slim chance of it happening is also fascinating. On the other hand there are also mind-boggingly unelegant things about nature that require empirical methods because exact and analytical methods aren't cutting it to describe phenomena. It feels all like a mish-mash of different mechanics/rules put together. I do believe Lemaître understood it well that by researching the sciences we also, in its own way, are trying to learn and know about God and his creations (assuming you accept the axiom that God created the universe).
xkcd-sucks 2y ago
There was a really good comment from someone here a while ago I failed to favorite that basically resolved "science" into a few separate concepts, like: * The ... front line bench top process; messing with the world, observing what happens, iterating based on observation, hypothesis testing, modeling reality and testing the model, etc * The *accumulated record of knowledge* related to everything, where faith matters -- Given this record is inherently subjective (if nothing else, re: the current state of knowledge when written!), what of this record of knowledge do you trust, what do you confirm, how deeply etc. * something else
civilized 2y ago
> Science as an insistution has all those hallmarks: worship, authority and rituals. I'm not trying to make a case for religion here, but wanted to point out the shallowness of the whole write-up. He's talking about science as a set of ideals, not human institutions that try to do science. There's a real difference between the scientific mindset and the religious mindset in whether fundamental questioning is considered virtuous. This difference matters.
_wire_ 2y ago
> Anything goes! would Paul Feyerabend say. "You can’t go to a physics conference and say: I’ve got a great theory. It accounts for everything and is so simple it can be captured in two words: 'Anything goes.'”- Noam Chomsky
pierrebai 2y ago
The fact that science and religion can have similar flaws or components is shallow. Churches in the US and universities in the US both use English. That does not make them the same. What makes science is a self-consistent framework and tree of knowledge that successfully model the universe and for which proof and experiments can repeatedly redone giving the (approximate) same results. All religions fail on one or more of these criteria.

remoquete 2y ago

Ah, Feyerabend. So often shunned and belittled as an enemy of science—so often feared. His conversations with Imre Lakatos still hold up well to this day. For an unbiased analysis of Feyerabend's impact, I recommend this book review:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/

lisper 2y ago

> excessive arrogance Why excessive? The objective fact of the matter, as I point out in the first article in the series, is that the scientific method produces vastly more accurate predictions than anything else humans have ever tried. This is the whole reason science is even a thing. I think that justifies a little bit of cockiness until someone actually comes up with something better.

raskelll 2y ago
The arrogance I mentioned is directed towards the people who think of themselves as appropriate to speak for the century-long success story of science itself while not really addressing (and understanding) how science emerged. Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science.
- lisper 2y ago
  Ah. FYI, I have a whole series of unpublished chapters about the (very messy) history of science. I decided to take this different approach because I thought it would be a more effective way of reaching my target audience. > Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science. That's not true. There is one box you cannot get out of without destroying the process: any hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected (and as a corollary to that, unfalsifiable hypotheses must be rejected). But yeah, beyond that pretty much anything goes.
  - raskelll 2y ago
    Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. Regarding your second statement, out of curiosity, I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons.
    - lisper 2y ago
      > Let me revisit my statement once I've read those chapters then. You can find them here: https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ https://flownet.com/ron/TIKN/ Note that they are quite drafty. That was the result of a previous effort to tackle this project of writing about the scientific method for a general audience that I ultimately abandoned in favor of this current approach. The history part starts in chapter 5. These were based on a series of lectures I gave a few years ago. I can dig up those links too if you're interested. > I wonder how you would characterize the 1989 series of experiments done by Fleischmann and Pons. I'm not sure what you expect me to say. The results have not been reproduced, so whatever happened in 1989 it was almost certainly not cold fusion.

raverbashing 2y ago

Agree Popperians wish science behaved the way they wanted it to behave I'm still waiting to figure out how Popperians get their ideas for theories because "officially" they can't get them from anywhere (since anything not proven by experiments is "wrong" in their head).

keiferski 2y ago

The common thread among scientisim-followers is that few have actually bothered to read a book or paper on the philosophy of science by actual philosophers, and instead have adopted science as an identity label. One consequence of this is how religion is now juxtaposed directly with science, because if the atheists are scientism-followers, then religious people must be anti-science. This is directly contrary to how most scientific innovators thought about the relationship of science to religion (Newton as a prime example.)

tossandthrow 2y ago

This comment beautifully assembles everything I hate about institutionalised "science". > as if they stand on the same esteemed ground as the countless individuals throughout history who have propelled scientific progress There could absolutely not exist a more anti-scientific sentiment than this. This sentiment is what erodes the core of development. Esteemed my b*t. As a tenured professor you ar entitled to absolutely nothing. The fact that you decides masochism on yourself does not allow you to have any masochistic behaviour towards students and staff. Science is about accepting and realising the ideas that best possible describe the real world. If you can get direction out of history to do this well, be my guest. But do not set history og science up as a dogma to access an exclusive group. What this comment is describing the the "religion of scientific institutions" and has nothing to do with science.

mistermann 2y ago
> Science is about accepting and realising the ideas that best possible describe the real world. > What this comment is describing the "religion of scientific institutions" and has nothing to do with science. Do you consider the real world actions of scientists to be a part of science? I think anyone who attributes scientific accomplishments to "science" must (at least when it serves their purposes, more on this below). This then (can) lead to the distinction between scientific scripture/intent/aspiration (the scientific method, etc) and things as they actually are. How is it possible to possess knowledge of what all scientists do, and not do, in fact (without resorting to the supernatural, or evasive rhetoric as one commonly witnesses politicians engage in as they dodge a question pointed at a legitimate weakness in a narrative)? Another angle is whether negative consequences of the actions of scientists should be attributed to science or not. In my experience, negative consequences somehow do not count, and there are few disciplines other than science that get this sort of a free ride in our culture... The only one that comes to my mind is (so-called) "democracy".

jskherman 2y ago

Indeed, anything goes! What matters is the result of experiments. Fundamentally science is about understanding more about the world. It does not matter if there are "magical" or "mythical" entities or not. In fact, I would even argue that my current position as to science and religion is similar to that of the position taken by Georges Lemaître. There's a lot of peculiarity when you study science and even math. Some things just seem too elegant to be coincidental like Euler's equation and the phenomenon of emergence, but even if they are coincidental that realization of coincidence and the slim chance of it happening is also fascinating. On the other hand there are also mind-boggingly unelegant things about nature that require empirical methods because exact and analytical methods aren't cutting it to describe phenomena. It feels all like a mish-mash of different mechanics/rules put together. I do believe Lemaître understood it well that by researching the sciences we also, in its own way, are trying to learn and know about God and his creations (assuming you accept the axiom that God created the universe).

xkcd-sucks 2y ago

There was a really good comment from someone here a while ago I failed to favorite that basically resolved "science" into a few separate concepts, like: * The ... front line bench top process; messing with the world, observing what happens, iterating based on observation, hypothesis testing, modeling reality and testing the model, etc * The *accumulated record of knowledge* related to everything, where faith matters -- Given this record is inherently subjective (if nothing else, re: the current state of knowledge when written!), what of this record of knowledge do you trust, what do you confirm, how deeply etc. * something else

civilized 2y ago

> Science as an insistution has all those hallmarks: worship, authority and rituals. I'm not trying to make a case for religion here, but wanted to point out the shallowness of the whole write-up. He's talking about science as a set of ideals, not human institutions that try to do science. There's a real difference between the scientific mindset and the religious mindset in whether fundamental questioning is considered virtuous. This difference matters.

_wire_ 2y ago

> Anything goes! would Paul Feyerabend say. "You can’t go to a physics conference and say: I’ve got a great theory. It accounts for everything and is so simple it can be captured in two words: 'Anything goes.'”- Noam Chomsky

pierrebai 2y ago

The fact that science and religion can have similar flaws or components is shallow. Churches in the US and universities in the US both use English. That does not make them the same. What makes science is a self-consistent framework and tree of knowledge that successfully model the universe and for which proof and experiments can repeatedly redone giving the (approximate) same results. All religions fail on one or more of these criteria.