Problem with science today and the war on reason

[brainpushups]

There are barely any laws in biology either, does that make it a pseudoscience? When you're working with complex emergent systems with a huge number of variables you're not going to be able to reduce the observed phenomena to simple laws. I'd say that Feynman was wrong here and tbh I have virtually no interest in what he may or may not think on this topic.

Fair enough. I only use Feynman as an example as he was outspoken and well known. It's hard to know whether we may someday be able to reduce biological systems to obeying simple laws. Maybe someday they will and then biology would be 'elevated' (note: I agree with sentiments above that just because something is not 'hard science' that it is not valuable) to 'hard science.' It happened with chemistry.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Fair enough. I only use Feynman as an example as he was outspoken and well known. It's hard to know whether we may someday be able to reduce biological systems to obeying simple laws. Maybe someday they will and then biology would be 'elevated' (note: I agree with sentiments above that just because something is not 'hard science' that it is not valuable) to 'hard science.' It happened with chemistry.

You will never be able to reduce biology to simple laws. You're not going to get a neat little equation or absolute rule that describes cellular behaviour or pharmaceutic interactions. We may reach a point where we understand the underlying principles of chemistry so well that we can accurately model complex biological systems mathematically, but it's going to result in the same complex emergent behaviour as exists in vivo. It's not some question of limits, its a question of what biology is.

Also the idea that biology will be "elevated" to "hard science" as though the latter is some sort of special club for the better fields is laughable, no offense.

 

[UsableThought]

Sorry if that wasn't clear. I'm not saying that Feynman is the authority to trust here, but he is famous for arguing that social sciences are pseudoscientific. I'm assuming that some progress has been made since his death, but, as far as I know, there are no 'laws' yet. Some have argued in this thread that the statistical analysis inherent in the social sciences helps qualify them as scientific. I wonder how Feynman would respond.

There are barely any laws in biology either, does that make it a pseudoscience? When you're working with complex emergent systems with a huge number of variables you're not going to be able to reduce the observed phenomena to simple laws.

Something tickled my brain here while reading these two comments in order; and the word "reductionism" floated up.

Reductionism isn't quite the same as arguing that hard sciences are "better" ("more scientific", etc.) than soft sciences; but it seems awfully close. Now, I'm not trying to characterize anything that has been said in this thread so far, but in general, it seems to me there is a sort of lazy arrogance to saying "We in physics and the other hard sciences are better (morally, scientifically, whatever) than those squishy soft sciences who shouldn't even call themselves sciences"; and then, at the same time, when asked to help with the really tough problems of human society & physical environment - way tougher than cosmology, sorry - have nothing to offer because, guess what? "We say that's not science." Not, "Gosh that's tough, maybe certain aspects of the problem can be approached w/ similar techniques" but "That's not science."

That's not what has been said in this thread - fair enough - but doesn't it seem that is a chasm that could be fallen into if judgement is too severe & somehow the scientific community withdraws from these more difficult fields? The Wikipedia entry on reductionism, under the subtopic of science, summarizes the argument against over-application of reductionism pretty well:

Others argue that inappropriate use of reductionism limits our understanding of complex systems. In particular, ecologist Robert Ulanowicz says that science must develop techniques to study ways in which larger scales of organization influence smaller ones, and also ways in which feedback loops create structure at a given level, independently of details at a lower level of organization. He advocates (and uses) information theory as a framework to study propensities in natural systems.[19]Ulanowicz attributes these criticisms of reductionism to the philosopher Karl Popper and biologist Robert Rosen.[20]

The idea that phenomena such as emergence and work within the field of complex systems theory pose limits to reductionism has been advocated by Stuart Kauffman.[21]Ermegence is especially relevant when systems exhibit historicity.[22] Emergence is strongly related to nonlinearity.[23] The limits of the application of reductionism are claimed to be especially evident at levels of organization with higher amounts of complexity, including living cells,[24] neural networks, ecosystems, society, and other systems formed from assemblies of large numbers of diverse components linked by multiple feedback loops.[24][25]

Nobel laureate P.W. Anderson used the idea that symmetry breaking is an example of an emergent phenomenon in his 1972 Science paper "More is different" to make an argument about the limitations of reductionism.[26] One observation he made was that the sciences can be arranged roughly in a linear hierarchy — particle physics, many body physics, chemistry, molecular biology, cellular biology, physiology, psychology, social sciences — in that the elementary entities of one science obeys the laws of the science that precedes it in the hierarchy; yet this does not imply that one science is just an applied version of the science that precedes it. He writes that "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology nor is biology applied chemistry."

 

[Rive]

...sort of lazy arrogance..

Right. Since metaphysics cannot define itself as science (consequently: there is no scientific way to define science, regardless of the amount of words spent), without connections to practical means it tends to revert to authority and beliefs/religion.

I think as this conversation goes now the thread got completely derailed and is on a dead end already.

 

[jack action]

That's not science. That's an a priori logical statement, it's no more scientific than "all bachelors are unmarried men". Empiricism is not required nor present in any way to explain or verify the statement. Again you seem to be claiming that the only real science is mathematics because anything else is just statistics.

When you're working with complex emergent systems with a huge number of variables you're not going to be able to reduce the observed phenomena to simple laws.

First, let me start by saying that it is all science to me. If you make observations and hypotheses about your environment, it is science.

That being said, the methods that are used to make the hypotheses are not all equals.

My example about speed, time and distance is not simple logic nor it is just mathematics: It's a physics law, i.e. $v=\frac{dx}{dt}$. To be called a "law" in science there is a repeatability criteria which always requires a well defined environment (for example the speed of light is exactly equal to 299792458 m/s ... in vacuum).

Like you said yourself, the more complex the system is, the more difficult laws can be made. It usually is because there are too many variables involved and they cannot be isolated or some values are so great that they are humanly impossible to verify (ex.: It's difficult to prove what exactly happen 1 billion year ago, as nobody was there to share their observations).

If you use statistical analyses and find that in a given environment you can observe something in 99.99% of the cases, you pretty much met my criteria of repeatability. So statistical analysis is a valid scientific tool.

But the further you get from that certainty - no matter the tool you use - the less you get to claim your observation is a "scientific fact". Though, it doesn't mean I'm not glad you didn't make the observation nor the hypothesis. It does contribute to the advancement of science; In the very least, it proves what is not true.

Here's a betting game based on scientific evidences:

If a car goes at 50 km/h for 2 hours, how much how are you willing to bet it will travel 100 km? I'm willing to bet my life on it. Why? Because there is a well defined physics law that proves it.

If there is a smoker and a non-smoker, which one do you think will get lung cancer? I'll bet on the smoker without a doubt because there are scientific studies that says that the odds are 100:1. Am I going to bet my life on it? No, because it is very plausible that the smoker will not get lung cancer regardless of the non-smoker getting lung cancer or not.

If there is a smoker, would you bet he would get lung cancer or not? I'll surely bet that the smoker will NOT get lung cancer, because the odds are at least 3:1. That is also based on scientific observations and that is why I'm confident about it.

As you can see science is a good advisor in all cases. But right now, most people will squint about my third bet because they are used to hear the message from a strong lobby trying to hide this fact that doesn't say that all smokers will get lung cancer. Not getting lung cancer for a smoker is not an exception, quite the opposite. But some think that smoking must be "evil" and it must be shown that everyone who embraces it must lose in the end. So we treat others like 2-year-old and just tell what needs to be told in order for them to act the way we want. This use of these scientific results is not OK by me because the methods used in those studies are not good enough to define clear lines between right and wrong of these complex systems.

And the more we allow politics to use science in that way, the more we are going to get people disavow science.

 

[gleem]

I think as this conversation goes now the thread got completely derailed and is on a dead end already

You think?

But relative to the thread's topic, it appears that elitists have initiated a skirmish in the war on reason .

 

[Rive]

If you make observations and hypotheses about your environment, it is science.

For me there is one extra step here: if you seriously test your hypotheses to have some result - that's science.

As you can see science is a good advisor in all cases.

I'm not sure that it's true right now. Science, as you refer to it in your examples is to know the consequences: but we actually used science to create an environment where we have several means to escape from consequences. As matter of investment and gain, in this environment the science is on the losing side. Requires serious investments, but has limited gain (for the individual), since most of it can predict can be avoided easily.

I can't think of this situation any other way than 'it's just natural'.

You think?

But relative to the thread's topic, it appears that elitists have initiated a skirmish in the war on reason .

Ouch. You have a point, really...

 

[Ryan_m_b]

First, let me start by saying that it is all science to me. If you make observations and hypotheses about your environment, it is science.

Science is the application of empirical philosophy which requires more than just observation and hypothesis. It requires rigorous testing, falsifiability and a good application of logic. By your definition as it stands creationism would count as a science, rather than the pseudo-science that it is.

My example about speed, time and distance is not simple logic nor it is just mathematics:

Actually it is. As I keep saying it's just an apriori statement, it requires no experimentation to verify. That's different to physical laws that describe more complex relationships.

If you use statistical analyses and find that in a given environment you can observe something in 99.99% of the cases, you pretty much met my criteria of repeatability. So statistical analysis is a valid scientific tool.

But the further you get from that certainty - no matter the tool you use - the less you get to claim your observation is a "scientific fact". Though, it doesn't mean I'm not glad you didn't make the observation nor the hypothesis. It does contribute to the advancement of science; In the very least, it proves what is not true.

Nonsense. If rigorous study reveals a reliable probabilistic phenomenon that is as much a fact as a deterministic one.

Here's a betting game based on scientific evidences

This isn't a betting game this is you, yet again, willfully misinterpreting a factual probability as not fact and not science. On top of that it is you who keep bringing politics into it by insisting that the statistically significant observation that smoking increases lung cancer risk does not meet the criteria for scientific fact and therefore should not be regulated on.

this use of these scientific results is not OK by me because the methods used in those studies are not good enough to define clear lines between right and wrong of these complex systems.

Please back up your assertion that the wealth of studies showing a statistically significant positive relationship between smoking and cancer rates are based on faulty methods.

 

[Student100]

Sorry, but it's no fact but only a (rather narrow-minded) opinion.
And jumping to conclusions based on opinions is just totally not scientific.

Some sciences follows different kind of rule sets (other than natural science) to seek their own truths which will be valid only within the boundaries of that science, but to deny the title is just like saying that Germany is not a 'country' because they don't have any Washington and White House.

I really do hope that people would rather find the common values under such topic - especially under such topic! - than try to covertly excommunicate whole other branches from the scientific community.

This whole 'science or not' thread within the topic is just destructive and invalid.

This is a lot of words to say nothing. Evidence?

The thread is about distrust in the sciences, part of the distrust stems from things being defined as science when it isn't.

 

[PeterDonis]

Given that we don't have policemen in every car (or perhaps we should by your logic) that can instantly stop a person the moment they begin to drive unsafe we have prescriptive laws.

This is a true statement, but I don't think it's responsive because @jack action was not arguing that we don't currently have laws like this, he was arguing that we shouldn't have laws like this. You are assuming that our current system of prescriptive laws is the best way to balance personal freedom of choice and the risk of harm to others. I don't think that is established (in fact I personally don't think it's true, but I recognize that reasonable people can disagree).

To try to keep this subthread on topic instead of veering off into more personal opinion, I don't think the rationale for our current prescriptive laws, which is basically that we can reduce the statistical incidence of harms by having such laws, is a very good one, because it only compares the state with those laws with the state where we have no regulation at all. In other words, it assumes that there is no other way to adjust people's incentives besides having prescriptive laws. But I can think of a simple alternative: stronger rules about liability for people who do cause harm. We have already moved in this direction to some extent with drunk driving: I believe that in some states one accident while driving drunk is enough to revoke your license permanently. A law like this, IMO, is much better than our current prescriptive laws because it focuses on actual harm, and gives people a strong incentive to avoid causing actual harm, without imposing one-size-fits-all rules that might not be appropriate in all cases. (Speed limit laws are an even better example to illustrate this, IMO: the alternative would be laws that said you can't get a ticket just for speeding, but if you are in an accident and are found to have been exceeding the posted limit, you are presumed to be at fault, get more points on your license, your insurance rates go up more, etc..) Individual people in individual cases are in a much better position to judge the risk of harm from specific actions than lawmakers or bureaucrats. Detailed statistics on risk can be used by individuals to make better decisions about such risks, just as well as they can be used by lawmakers and bureaucrats, and the individual decision option still has the advantage of not requiring a one-size-fits-all policy.

 

[PeterDonis]

It's a physics law, i.e. $v=\frac{dx}{dt}$.

This isn't a law, it's a definition of $v$. A law would be something like $F = m a$ (or the speed of light is always $c$ in a vacuum--although now we would have to phrase that one somewhat differently since SI units are defined to make this a tautology).

 

[PeterDonis]

we actually used science to create an environment where we have several means to escape from consequences. As matter of investment and gain, in this environment the science is on the losing side. Requires serious investments, but has limited gain (for the individual), since most of it can predict can be avoided easily.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Can you give some specific examples of what you are describing?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is a true statement, but I don't think it's responsive because @jack action was not arguing that we don't currently have laws like this, he was arguing that we shouldn't have laws like this. You are assuming that our current system of prescriptive laws is the best way to balance personal freedom of choice and the risk of harm to others. I don't think that is established (in fact I personally don't think it's true, but I recognize that reasonable people can disagree).

I'm not assuming that they are the best way, but I am saying that they demonstrably work. Studies like this one show that laws against driving after drinking do lower fatality rates:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823314/

Though they also show that in some areas an increase in alcohol tax is more effective (which makes sense given that it possibly lowers the demand for alcohol). What I'm not aware of is any study showing that after-the-fact punishment lowers accident rates to a greater extent than prescriptive regulation,

 

[PeterDonis]

Studies like this one show that laws against driving after drinking do lower fatality rates

Yes, but at what cost? Unless we know what we're trading off to get lower fatality rates, we can't judge whether the lower fatality rates are actually worth the tradeoff. Of course many of the costs will be very hard to quantify; for example, what costs do speed limit laws impose by increasing the amount of time people have to spend traveling instead of doing productive work? But that doesn't mean we can just ignore them, which is what many of our preemptive laws, IMO, do--they pick an arbitrary point (e.g., 55 mph speed limits) and say that is where the optimal point is, without justifying that in terms of an actual cost vs. benefit analysis.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Yes, but at what cost? Unless we know what we're trading off to get lower fatality rates, we can't judge whether the lower fatality rates are actually worth the tradeoff.

The cost is not being able to drink and drive, or at least taking care to limit how much you drink. Do you believe that the right to drink and drive is worth the cost of people's lives? Lives which in many cases are innocent third parties?

 

[PeterDonis]

What I'm not aware of is any study showing that after-the-fact punishment lowers accident rates to a greater extent than prescriptive regulation,

Any such analysis would also need to factor in the costs. It seems plausible to me that after the fact punishment should be significantly less costly than prescriptive regulation (for example, if we didn't have speed limit laws, we wouldn't have so many cops monitoring speeds instead of going after people who are doing actual harm--not to mention all the potential corruption that comes from using speeding tickets as a revenue source for local governments, and the consequent manipulation of the limits without any regard to any actual safety impact).

 

[PeterDonis]

The cost is not being able to drink and drive, or at least taking care to limit how much you drink.

The cost to that individual, yes. And I agree with you that at the individual level, this decision should be a no brainer. But if all individuals were that rational, we wouldn't even need to have this discussion, nor would we need to have prescriptive laws because the risk of being liable for actual harm would be more than enough to deter them from drinking and driving.

In any case, there are other costs associated with such laws, because they have to be enforced, and enforcement will necessarily include both false positives--people who turn out not to be under the influence when tested--and resources expended without any prevention of harm--the time spent by cops watching for people driving under the influence but not actually finding any, or by cops stopping a person who is driving under the influence but who would not have caused an accident if they were not stopped. (There are also other costs, but drunk driving laws are not the best example IMO to illustrate those--see below.)

For drunk driving, these costs might well be less than the benefits gained; but we are not talking just about that specifically but about the general question of prescriptive laws. Again, my go-to example here is speeding laws: I think it's highly unlikely that the costs of these laws, in enforcement, lost time, fostering of a general attitude of disrespect for laws, since speeding laws are obviously not efficiently enforced (just look on any major freeway), and the increased possibilities of corruption, are less than the benefits gained. But because those costs are not easily quantifiable, whereas the benefits are (just show statistics on accidents vs. speed limits), we have these prescriptive laws. That does not strike me as a scientific attitude.

 

[UsableThought]

I think as this conversation goes now the thread got completely derailed and is on a dead end already.

I hold with @Rive when he says that the thread has gotten derailed. It started out as a relatively tight, small topic (or at least seemingly so). Here's a reminder of what that topic was, taken from the link the OP gave in his opening post to an article in the Guardian - this is a quote from that article:

Media coverage and bad science communication sometimes gives the impression that scientists are always changing their minds on climate models, whether chocolate or wine will kill or cure you or whether Pluto is a planet or not. This wrongly creates the impression that scientists are a pretty fickle lot.

That's where the thread started. Now, 6 pages deep, we are mired in disagreements about public policy - disagreements which have less and less to do with science and more and more to do with our learned attitudes towards authority, government, individual responsibility; etc. Disagreements at this fundamental level are never going to get very far in a forum setting; they don't get very far in real life either; people tend to talk past each other; and the unstated assumptions behind each point of view rarely if ever get surfaced, yet tend to be what really controls us. Most of us are unaware of our own personal history and how that may have influenced our stance on how much control government should exercise over liberty, etc. etc.

As an example, two very different attitudes are being expressed here by @jack action and @Ryan_m_b.:

But some think that smoking must be "evil" and it must be shown that everyone who embraces it must lose in the end. So we treat others like 2-year-old and just tell what needs to be told in order for them to act the way we want.

The cost is not being able to drink and drive, or at least taking care to limit how much you drink. Do you believe that the right to drink and drive is worth the cost of people's lives? Lives which in many cases are innocent third parties?

I have a life-long friend who is very much in jack action's camp, while I myself am pretty firmly in Ryan's camp. If there were time and space for a really open discussion, I think it would have to be done in person by people who were willing to try & open their minds to each other & go past surface expressions that seem quite rational but are also connected to deep beliefs that aren't necessarily rational. A hell of a hard thing to do. I used to teach essay writing, and when people wrote argumentative essays (essays with claims) I got into trying to touch Toulmin-style argument as a way of encouraging fair discussion of claims; so that's why I'm so interested in all this. I have read a lot of books on argument & the pitfalls. I'm not very good at argument myself!

Now, regarding @PeterDonis's comments about assessing risk & consequence - e.g.:

Any such analysis would also need to factor in the costs. It seems plausible to me that after the fact punishment should be significantly less costly than prescriptive regulation (for example, if we didn't have speed limit laws, we wouldn't have so many cops monitoring speeds instead of going after people who are doing actual harm--not to mention all the potential corruption that comes from using speeding tickets as a revenue source for local governments, and the consequent manipulation of the limits without any regard to any actual safety impact).

In principle I agree; but what is hard is the practice. One must ask, who is doing the risk assessment? How fair are they going to be? How skilled are they going to be? What assumptions will they make & will we agree with those assumptions? Who is going to pay for the study? Will the public at large support policy changes that the study might suggest, even if these changes are new ideas that might be difficult for most of us to grasp? Critiquing on the sideline is easy. Governing is hard. Tradeoffs are inevitable. It's definitely true that we have a lot of bad laws. My thought is to support a government and a process that would gradually work towards better laws. Which to me is why public trust or distrust of science matters. That we have gotten lost in side arguments about whether sciences such as sociology should really be called "sciences" is ironic - because you ain't going to solve public policy disputes with physics, guys; you are going to have to do some studies that will involve things like sociology.

And that goes back to my suggestion that if people really want to discuss things outside the narrow scope of the initial topic, then it would be good to do a lit search. Because there are tons and tons of studies on relevant subtopics, e.g. why & how even sensible approaches such as risk assessment - which Peter has offered up as the right way to do public policy ) go wrong. I have in front of me a 1994 book called https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DS8ZXEE/?tag=pfamazon01-20, 6th edition, which is an edited collection of case studies. (Yes, case studies by sociologists.) Included is an interesting study on a company that made aircraft brakes concealing the hazards its engineers discovered; how the Nazis made use of bureaucracy to overcome individuals' objections to participating in genocide; how Ford wasn't nearly as much to blame for the Pinto problem (remember, the exploding gas tank) as the whole bureaucratic/regulatory system, including the standards Ford was required to use as part of risk assessment; and a really interesting review of the Challenger disaster, attempting to demonstrate that the conventional narrative about how that disaster happened is not really accurate either.

Society is way too complicated for physicists to be telling us how to run it.

 

[PeterDonis]

the thread has gotten derailed

I think the scope of discussion has widened somewhat, yes; but I think we are trying, overall, to keep the discussion within the realm of how science is, can, or should be used to inform public policy discussions and decisions, and how the actions of scientists affect that process. I agree that personal beliefs about how public policy decisions should be made, independent of the question of how science informs such decisions, should be kept out of the discussion as much as possible. (I don't think they can be kept out completely.)

 

[KASCII]

The mistrust, disregard or disinterest in science is often framed as the "science community's" problem. But I see society's disengagement with science somewhat more as a symptom of other social problems than being a core problem in and of itself.

I'm sure we could all think of different factors that contribute to it, but drilling down would be a big task.

 

[Rive]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Can you give some specific examples of what you are describing?

Well, let's see an example.

Under 'Biology' here Drakkith has an excellent advice in a locked thread about how one should start invest (learn) in healthy food. Since I've alredady chew through that path once I know how much investment it means (a lot of time).

With eating whatever you want, taking a pill of supplement and some kind of medical insurance you are within five years of lifespan to that without any investment at all.

Applied science is an excellent tool to remove risks related to missing knowledge from life.

Ps.: it's the same for vaccination too. Maybe that's an even better example.

 

[jack action]

Society is way too complicated for physicists to be telling us how to run it.

I don't mind having someone (physicist or other) to share his/her knowledge such that I can make an informed decision. I actually want to know. Where the problem is when someone wants to impose his/her view on me because he/she thinks it is equal or superior to any opinion I may have.

And this why I stated this is not a war on reason (the topic of this thread). Everybody is able to reason (not only scientists). And when you undermine this ability from someone by the following logic:

1. «If you knew what I knew, you necessarily came to the same conclusions I did»;
2. «If you came to the same conclusions I did, then you would act the same way I do»;
3. «Therefore, I shall make all the decisions for you».

It will necessarily lead to people disavowing your reasoning or people completely abandoning themselves to your judgment. In the first case, they will reject everything you used to prove your points (i.e. science) because they don't agree and anything they say don't matter. In the second case, they will not care about how you came to your conclusions, since they know they will follow anyway; So, why bother learning the process?

In all cases, people won't care about science. No matter how you explain it to them.

It is extremely important that people have the freedom to choose - You must see it both as a right and responsibility - if you want them to embrace the decision process.

 

[PeterDonis]

It is extremely important that people have the freedom to choose - You must see it both as a right and responsibility - if you want them to embrace the decision process.

While this might be true, it's probably off topic for this thread.

 

[Dale]

But I see society's disengagement with science somewhat more as a symptom of other social problems than being a core problem in and of itself.

This is a good point. The public has become distrustful of institutions in general. Police, religion, marriage, finance, and other major institutions have all suffered a decline in public trust.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-dont-trust-their-institutions-anymore/

It could be that science has actually suffered less decline in trust than other institutions.

 

[PeterDonis]

Police, religion, marriage, finance, and other major institutions have all suffered a decline in public trust.

Looking at the graph in that article, I see the average has gone down some in the last 20 years or so, but the data on individual institutions seems more of a mixed bag: confidence in the police seems to have declined very little, and confidence in the military seems to have gone up, while confidence in Congress has gone down significantly.

Also, 20 years is a very short time window. Unfortunately there probably isn't reliable data on much longer time scales.

 

[Dale]

the data on individual institutions seems more of a mixed bag

Yes, that is certainly true. There is a lot of variatiation.

confidence in the military seems to have gone up,

This one surprised me since the time period covered includes before the Iraq war.

Also, 20 years is a very short time window.

I disagree that this is short. It is time for a new generation to grow up.

 

[PeterDonis]

This one surprised me since the time period covered includes before the Iraq war.

I think this is evidence for the claim, which I've seen made a number of times, that unlike in the Vietnam War, the American people generally now draw a distinction between supporting the troops and supporting the war; they are ok with the former even if they are not ok with the latter.

I disagree that this is short. It is time for a new generation to grow up.

I don't mean short compared to the time scale for social change. I mean short compared to the time scale over which American society has existed. In this graph we are only seeing a narrow window of the evolution of our society; that means we have to be sure to keep what we are seeing in perspective. It looks significant in the 20-year window we are seeing; but what if we compared this data with similar data (which AFAIK does not exist) for, say, 1955-1975?

 

[Dale]

we have to be sure to keep what we are seeing in perspective.

Good point. Perhaps other generations have faced the same. I wonder what happened for the next generation.

 

[KASCII]

I think this is evidence for the claim, which I've seen made a number of times, that unlike in the Vietnam War, the American people generally now draw a distinction between supporting the troops and supporting the war; they are ok with the former even if they are not ok with the latter.

I agree with your point, but I'd add that the Vietnam War didn't have a hunt for Bin Laden and was seen more as a pointless war, and the unfortunate "baby killers" perception of the troops. However, there are a lot of things that influence a society's attitude toward things, such as the interest in science. I'm always struck by contemporary perceptions of the decade of the 1970's with some nostalgia for a "70's culture". I lived my adolescence in the 1970's and I found it to be a period cynicism and conflict.

Good point. Perhaps other generations have faced the same. I wonder what happened for the next generation.

During the decade of the 70's there was a declining in interest in space exploration with Apollo program, but later on there was also a resurgence of interest with the developing shuttle program. I think that society is certainly interested in achievements (moon landing) as much as in a shared interest for achieve something (space shuttle program). The problem is maintaining their interest in achieving that something.

 

[RogueOne]

The only "Science" that I see people questioning are the conclusions that first came from politicians, were spread by mainstream media (that nobody trusts in the first place), and then were supported by contradicting reports and models that have not ever been proven to be predictive to a coefficient of determination.

The only "Science" that I question is that which misses a factor that I believe could be important, or any overwhelming "Scientific consensus" on an idea that diverges too far from this process

 

[Bandersnatch]

The only "Science" that I see people questioning are the conclusions that first came from politicians, were spread by mainstream media (that nobody trusts in the first place), and then were supported by contradicting reports and models that have not ever been proven to be predictive to a coefficient of determination.

How does that fit vaccinations, evolution, global warming, carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoking, geological age of Earth, big bang theory, harmlessness of cellphone emissions, (and going into even more out-there doubters) Earth not being flat or the origin of 'chemtrails'?

 

[Bystander]

carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoking,

Just suggestions.

 

[gleem]

This is a good point. The public has become distrustful of institutions in general. Police, religion, marriage, finance, and other major institutions have all suffered a decline in public trust.

But perhaps it is a resurgence of a prior time when there was much political and social unrest. Does anybody remember the statement "Don't trust anybody over 30" Jack Weinberg (math major Berkley) 1964. Even though this comment was not meant for any specific person or group it came to apply to the establishment. During the Vietnam War there was much debate about its validity and thus skepticism and mistrust of information put out by the government about the war followed by Kent State, Nixon and Watergate. A lot of credibility was lost. One would think that those ( the parents of genX) growing up during these times would have reason to instill in their children a suspicion for authority. With the relatively quiet times of the eighty and early nineties the cynicism remained dormant. Then the Clinton scandal, the Iraq war, the Great Recession awoke and fomented the current acrimony against the governing bodies that be. As justifiable as the outrage might be there most likely has strong elements of irrationality Science while not necessarily a focus of this outrage may be considered an accomplice of government policies.

 

[UsableThought]

Science while not necessarily a focus of this outrage may be considered an accomplice of government policies.

Yes, and in extreme cases this motif can feature in conspiracy thinking. E.g. folks who thought AIDS was a deliberately released disease; those who (reportedly) think that climate change is a deliberate hoax; that 911 didn't happen (thus all the investigations using science etc. were "fake"); ditto "faked moon landings"; etc. etc.

Now & again I revisit the Wikipedia article on "conspiracy theory", just to remind myself of how these things work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy without warrant, generally one involving an illegal or harmful act carried out by government or other powerful actors. Conspiracy theories often produce hypotheses that contradict the prevailing understanding of history or simple facts. The term is a derogatory one.

Note that "without warrant" here means there is no underlying logical hypothesis to connect the claim of a conspiracy to supposed evidence of same.

It makes sense that if you want an easy way to hatch a conspiracy theory, just center it on powerful institutions ("government or other powerful actors" in the above quote) that have lots of technology at their disposal - including lots of egg-headed, crazy, sinister "scientists": NASA, CDC, OSHA, any of the armed forces, etc. etc.; and of course the favorite whipping boy of The X-Files, FEMA (secret prison camps for various Democratic administrations, etc.) Just add water, and hey presto!

I would laugh about such nonsensical behavior except it exists, is fairly widespread, and not at all funny when encountered firsthand. For example someone I know actually believes in the most recent wave of FEMA-related conspiracy theories; his source was "the Internet" plus right-wing talk radio. He's a nice guy in other respects, very friendly; has excellent high-level mechanical skills that relate to his profession (which I will not disclose here as an extra measure of protecting his privacy); but he's not literate or well-educated & obviously was never trained in critical thinking. So I would say conspiracy theories of the above sort, whether science-related or not, are a real threat to democracy when encouraged by irresponsible members of the fringe media.

 

[UsableThought]

I know this thread is getting pretty diffuse, but I was just-reading through it with some interest; and would like to make just a couple of additional points before letting go for now.

First, I think we have to avoid conflating too much or attributing motives too monolithically; case by case is better than monolithic claims, and even for a single issue, conflation or attribution of monolithic thinking is risky. Take GMOs, for example:

For example, efforts to label GMOs are based on bad "science."

I've often heard this assertion; and there is some truth to it, in that most folks (including me) who oppose GMOs aren't scientists & often haven't read very much about the technology, certainly not in detail. However there are many reasons for wanting labeling of foods for GMO content; mine happens to be a concern with companies such as Monsanto that, from the reading that I have done (which isn't as much as I could do, but a lot more than many do), their pursuit of profit is resulting in bad public health decisions about pesticides; this interfaces with GMO technology pretty heavily. There are lots of nuances & possible ways to go; but Monsanto is not who should be in charge of these decisions via powerful lobbying. Europe has gone a different direction & appears to be doing just as well as us - if I can I'll hunt up some articles on this. But just for starters on the GMO crops/Roundup issue, see this: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/roundup-ready-crops/

And also read this about Big Ag and food security - this is just one article, but the concerns it mentions are widespread among independent scholars & quite well-documented: https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...h-for-mega-mergers-puts-food-security-at-risk

So sometimes opposition to a particular policy that tangentially involves a technology or a science (e.g. whether to label GMO foods as such) has to do with issues that aren't just about the technology, but about an entire industry - in this case an industry (Big Ag) that is very important but also notorious for pursuing profit & trying to crush competition at the expense of food security & public health.

How long before we have fMRI "lie detectors"? fMRI's can tell you one thing, blood oxygen levels in various parts of the brain, but there is all sorts of nonsense out there that extrapolates this to mean something it can never actually tell you.

This is one I wholeheartedly agree with. As it happens, I am friendly with a fairly large number of researchers & clinicians in the field of evidence-based psychology, mostly to do with what is sometimes called the "third wave" of behavioral models & therapies, and pretty much everyone is appalled at the abuse of fMRI modeling. Some years ago Ed Vul made noise with his "Voodoo correlations" paper, which I read - I can't say I get all the math by any means, but the implications were clear. And there are even worse problems with many of the MRI-based studies, e.g. very often the psychological "model" that is attached to the study is crude & has not been justified in the slightest. So even without the problems with the statistical modeling, in the worst case scenario you end up with a very expensive machine doing little more than confirming self-reporting by study subjects, all based on a psychological model that isn't itself scientific.

Yet these studies are apparently very alluring to many otherwise educated laypersons; in part because of the way mainstream pop-sci reporting pumps them up without asking questions. I especially dislike the science section of the New York TImes in this regard. It would be interesting (but very time-consuming) to examine in detail how the NYT science section goes about deciding what stories to pursue, and very interesting to try & find out their technical review process once a story has been drafted; such an enquiry would have to be done in a non-hostile manner via interviews with their staff, but it would not be easy.

 

[_PJ_]

I think most people here have a genetally 'good' sense for factt--chexking and seeking teliable answers from reputable sources, due to the fact they ate obviously willing and intetested in coming to a dedicated science forum for answers or- even those that are confused due to misleading or misinterpretations from other sources, are at least seeking to clarify etc.

In adfotion to the excellent points raised by PeterDonis with which I am whpolly in agreement, I offer these observations:

The rise of markwting and consumerist motivarion " polluting" science - its not new, but in modern social media echo chambers of confirmation bias, it or its influence has increased consideravvly. Even if there were actual scientific premise, the reputation and name is besmirched.
Actual PhD with actual (maybe not well statistically analysed nor care for null hypotheses or attenpts to account for errors nor real establishing fair systems) results are concluding outlandish claims to meet a funded agenda - rarher than impartially investigating to discovet a natural truth.
This may be considered 'bad science', but where is the distinction for the layman?

There is less difference between an actor in a lab coat (fuelling only the naive assumption thhey have any scientific qualification) describing the fanciful property of toothpaste or hair shampoo - and the likes of Stephwn Hawking.

There ARE scientific journalists, whom have a science background and mostly ought to be able to comprehend the accuracy, implication and reliability of a topic - typically, they are still writing:
a) for a lay readership
b) Under a biased editorship or sponsor ideology
c) With pressure to provide sensation or similarly less mundane pieces with a regular frequency.

Big scientific Earth shattering revelations as confirmed and applicable to change mankinds perspective or quality of life simply do not occur in timeframes of media periodicity. I'm not in favour nor justifyig such, only providing the point.

-

My final point is that the nature(pun coincident) of scientific discoveries (in Physics) are largely far removed from layman everyday experience nowadays.
Of course, historically scientific discoveries as the purview of natural philosophers amid piqued interests of bored aristocracy were similarly removed but these were demonstrable and evident without necessarily a prior deep understanding of theory or a rigorous mathematical background to appreciate.
This makes it much more difficult to bridge the gap in communicating scienrific advances to laymen without necessarily introducing the potential for bad anaöogy or misinterpretation.

I do believe that when analogies or metaphirical descriptions ARE employed, the limitations and particular distinctions shoyld be made expressly clear at least.

 

[nitsuj]

My final point is that the nature(pun coincident) of scientific discoveries (in Physics) are largely far removed from layman everyday experience nowadays.

This...but I feel it also weakens the argument for more accurate reporting of "discoveries".

Yes, but at what cost? Unless we know what we're trading off to get lower fatality rates, we can't judge whether the lower fatality rates are actually worth the tradeoff. Of course many of the costs will be very hard to quantify; for example, what costs do speed limit laws impose by increasing the amount of time people have to spend traveling instead of doing productive work? But that doesn't mean we can just ignore them, which is what many of our preemptive laws, IMO, do--they pick an arbitrary point (e.g., 55 mph speed limits) and say that is where the optimal point is, without justifying that in terms of an actual cost vs. benefit analysis.

A quick wiki read on speed limits I found this.

"The speed limit is commonly set at or below the 85th percentile operating speed (being the speed which no more than 15% of traffic is exceeding)[45][46][47] and in the US is typically set 8 to 12 mph (13 to 19 km/h) below that speed.[48] Thus, if the 85th percentile operating speed as measured by a http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d01/vc627.htm exceeds the design speed, legal protection is given to motorists traveling at such speeds (design speed is "based on conservative assumptions about driver, vehicle and roadway characteristics").[49]...

The theory behind the 85th percentile rules is, that as a policy, most citizens should be deemed reasonable and prudent, and limits must be practical to enforce.[50][51] ... This rule in substance is a process for voting the speed limit by driving; and in contrast to delegating the speed limit to an engineering expert.[52][53]...

 

[nuuskur]

Facts are the reason science is losing the war on reason? What is meant by reason? I cannot gather from the article. Is it a reference to what we, by our "intuition", think would "make sense"?
How provoking. Facts are facts. If something is not true then it's not fact.

"You’d think scientists could answer simple questions!?? like ‘when did the dinosaurs live?’. But the truth about science is bad news for those seeking certainty"
Only logic can guarantee certainty and schools of thought like mathematics. It isn't, and for VERY obvious reasons CANNOT be, the purpose of science to make all claims with utmost certainty (i.e probability 1). If such a claim existed, then great.

Despite the reputation for being about facts, there are very few hard facts in nature or science’s understanding of it.
A hard fact? How is that any different from a fact? Or harder?

Conversely, does flagging up the limits of our knowledge, as happened with modelling and predicting climate change, undermine the confidence in the scientific method even with unprecedented consensus on whether or not climate change exists?
The exaggerated documentaries with "scientists" speaking about relevant phenomena are not accurate enough and therefore ambiguity sets in. The truth is more boring and more complicated. The scientifc method will not fail. It is your understanding or mis-understanding of the latter, that will come into consideration.

There is a difference between what is fact and what is conjecture. For the love of god...

But my outburst only serves to prove that $\exists x \neg P(x)$.

I read an interview with fresh_42 and he says:
"Once you really know statistics and logic, political talk-shows will become even harder to stand as they are anyhow."

Not exactly a political talk-show at this moment, but I feel you, brother, I feel you!

 

[PeterDonis]

A quick wiki read on speed limits I found this

Do you have a link?

On its face, what you quote seems circular: drivers, at least in my experience, regulate their speed based on what the posted speed limit is, so it doesn't make sense to determine the posted speed limit based on the observed speeds chosen by drivers.

I also find it interesting that the language quoted admits, implicitly, that drivers will exceed the posted speed limit and that there is no way to enforce those limits strictly.

 

[nitsuj]

Do you have a link?

On its face, what you quote seems circular: drivers, at least in my experience, regulate their speed based on what the posted speed limit is, so it doesn't make sense to determine the posted speed limit based on the observed speeds chosen by drivers.

I also find it interesting that the language quoted admits, implicitly, that drivers will exceed the posted speed limit and that there is no way to enforce those limits strictly.

on the wiki entry for speed limits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit under maximum speed limits

 

[_PJ_]

i am so sorry for the awful typing errors throughout my earlier post. Unfortunately I am currently limited to accessing these forums via handheld device with unwieldy OSK