...in it." --NdG Tyson

Had to post this because I've seen statements like this on the board.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steak-umm-twitter-beef-neil-degrasse-tyson_n_6075d744e4b043d6d4a445ac

A brief spin on Google will bring up scores of times "science" has gotten it wrong over history, since the 17th century, in the past 20 years. Well, then, what about the scientific method?

"The scientific method has a number of limitations including:

Constrained by the extent of existing knowledge - Developing a hypothesis and designing an experiment is based on current human knowledge. However, until viruses were discovered many diseases could not be explained e.g. smallpox.

Design of experiment is limited to observation method and instrument - e.g. discovery of viruses depended on the discovery of the electron microscope.

Human error - e.g. mistakes can occur in recording observations or inaccurate use of measuring instrument.

Deliberately falsifying results - i.e. scientific fraud.

Bias - prior confidence in the hypothesis being true/false can affect accuracy of observation and interpretation of results.

Data interpretation - research findings are limited by human ability to interpret the results. Wrong interpretations can lead to wrong conclusions e.g. thalidomide was used to treat morning sickness in human pregnancy in 1950s. It was safely tested on many animals and then wrongly interpreted as safe for humans. However, the drug was not tested on embryo in womb. This caused limb deformities in babies. The drug was later withdrawn in 1961.

Is limited to the present - what is true now may not have been true in the past or in the future e.g. penicillin used to be effective against many bacteria but new strains have evolved that are resistant to penicillin. As changes occur, scientific theories may require updating or revision.

Ethical and legal responsibilities - Ethics refers to whether issues are right or wrong e.g. use of captive animals in experiments, origin of life, whether or not evolution took place, the way in which evolution may have taken place, contraception, abortion, assisted fertilisation, GMOs, cloning animals, freezing human sperm and embryos, the use of stem cells from embryos to form new tissues/organs, organ transplants e.g. from animals to humans.

Accidental discoveries have contributed significantly to the development of scientific thinking - e.g. the discovery of antibiotic penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming carelessly left a dish of bacteria uncovered and it became contaminated by a fungus. He noticed that the bacteria were killed in areas around the fungus. The fungus produced penicillin which killed the bacteria."

In other words, the those using the method are not playing with a full deck or are cardsharps.

In a kind of rebuttal, Tyson posted his 2016 article "What Science Is, and How and Why It Works?" (https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/commentary/2016-01-23-what-science-is.php)

One of his statements there demonstrates the first two limitations above: "Once an objective truth is established by these methods, it is not later found to be false. We will not be revisiting the question of whether Earth is round..."

True...if the solar system has only three dimensions. (Are flat and round [spherical] the only options?)

Let me start by asking, why are you quoting "AllAboutIreland.ie"? (Damned if I know why your quotation comes from that website, but I'd hardly think that they're some kind of arbiters of epistemology.)

That said, let's accept that all of those limitations are in fact limitations, though not of the method per se. Without attempting to address the flaws in this document which appears to have been made I believe for schoolchildren, you try to play fast and loose here with your conclusion. The fact that the scientific method might have limitations doesn't make it the instrument of solely crackpots or charlatans. That's an unwarranted and unsupported leap.

As for Mr. Tyson, his overstatements as a science popularizer don't invalidate science, no matter how many people including some prominent folks on this board might worship at his feet. Science is not religion.

Tyson



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2021 09:41PM by Tyson Dunn.

Yes, I was wary of posting from that 'Ireland' page, but then I thought if the observations are valid, the source (ad hominem) doesn't invalidate them. I guess my takeaway (should have hedged with "MAY BE cardsharps") is that people--as people--typically work from the same constraints in knowing "truth," workers in science included.

No one says science is perfect or perfectly objective. What people say, correctly, is that science is a discipline that corrects itself.

No conclusion is permanent; no finding is incontestable. That's what differentiates science from religion and other forms of self-delusion.

You speak of science as if it's some kind of superorganic, like "culture." Does "it" correct itself...or does it "progress one funeral at a time"? How long do such corrections take? And in the meantime, we have a vast interpersonal scientific consensus that has it wrong. Maybe different from intrapersonal "self-delusion," yet I think most delusions, even Q-anon, have support networks.

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You speak of science as if it's some kind of
> superorganic, like "culture."

Yeah, I don't know what "superorganic" means. What I said, and what I say again, is that science is a discipline.


-----------
> Does "it" correct
> itself...

It corrects itself a lot better than other ways of thinking do.


------------
> or does it "progress one funeral at a
> time"?

I'm fine with that description. An old paradigm dies and is buried. If you want to call that a "funeral," I have no objection.


-----------
> How long do such corrections take? And in
> the meantime, we have a vast interpersonal
> scientific consensus that has it wrong.

It can take a long time or a short time. I'm not sure what "interpersonal" means in that sentence, but arriving at a consensus and then transcending it to reach a more accurate consensus is exactly what science is good at--and what other systems of thought are not so proficient at.


---------------
> Maybe
> different from intrapersonal "self-delusion," yet
> I think most delusions, even Q-anon, have support
> networks.

Are you asserting that there is no difference between science, which tries to correct itself, and faith systems that are independent of facts and correction?

Because that, I think, is illogical.

Thanks for taking the time and thought to respond. I think you deserve some clarification.

SUPERORGANIC is the title of a long 1917 essay by Alfred Kroeber, a founder of the discipline of anthropology, in which he was referring to Culture. The term has come to mean "of or relating to the structure of cultural elements within society conceived as independent of and superior to the individual members of society." That is, Culture is a force that is greater than the members of a culture, and it seems to grow and direct its members. Perhaps it 'uses' some of its members to introduce its evolving changes, but it doesn't depend on them. It's almost as if it were a 'super-organic' entity in itself.

The "funeral" idea comes from physicist Max Planck, and he meant it literally as well as figuratively. In his _Scientific Autobiography_ (1950), he writes that

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth."

Planck's quote has been used by Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and others to argue that scientific revolutions are non-rational, rather than spreading through "mere force of truth and fact".

The "interpersonal" consensus within a scientific community gradually becomes their "objective fact." It's like the old 1927 song title, "50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong."

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Planck's quote has been used by Thomas Kuhn, Paul
> Feyerabend and others to argue that scientific
> revolutions are non-rational, rather than
> spreading through "mere force of truth and fact".

Yeah, I have no problem with that. Science is not perfect, and scientific processes are always susceptible to normal human foibles, individual and collective. But it remains a discipline whose cornerstone is self-correction and it is a lot better than the alternatives.

Exactly.
Science self corrects over time.
It's never perfect.
Science makes mistakes but is still the most reliable methodology we have to align with facts as we confirm them.

There might be one lone scientist testing and verifying claims here and teams questioning findings there. It's not necessarily a "culture." The speed of clarifications depend on what we are able to verify. It's a methodology that allows and demands external verification. There are always personalities and refutations out there, but the process is not a cult of personality. It will correct and clarify.

Richard Foxe Wrote
. We will not be revisiting the
> question of whether Earth is round..."
>
> True...if the solar system has only three
> dimensions. (Are flat and round the only
> options?)

But established science proves that there are more than three dimensions. Time is the fourth dimension. There are even more than four. So why consider only three of them?

Science is sometimes manipulated to provide preferred outcomes, either in the laboratory or on the keyboard.

Much like statistics.

I’ve grown skeptical of science as a touchstone of truth.

The pursuit of money drives false narratives more frequently in these time of ‘enlightenment’.

Remember Lysenkoism?

Science is a method. It does not require belief.

Of course it does. If a scientists doesn't believe there is an answer to the problem and that she or he can discover it, they won't pursue it at all. If they have no belief in their work or effort = no science.

So a hypothesis is a belief ?

The scientific consensus in the early 20th century was that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the universe ("island universe" hypothesis) and that other objects were nebulas etc. ... within a couple of decades the estimated size of the universe increased by between 100,000 - 1 million fold thanks to improved observation and measurement techniques. I think that might be the biggest change in a perceived measurement in the shortest period of time!

There’s a hidden premise in the speech of many science fans, a belief that somehow scientists as individuals are not as subject to the usual order of human emotions and motivations, or that somehow Science as an institution is better at regulating these things than are institutions of politics, law, economics, etc. This is how you get to the “therefore they are more trustworthy.”

Envy
Greed
Gluttony
Sloth
Wrath
Pride
Lust

Scientists are not less subject to the above than the rest of us, and therefore scientific institutions are not less corrupt.

But I get it, the will to believe is strong in all of us.

"I'm more 'sciency' than you are, so I am due more respect.  It's nothing personal that we're not equals and that I am above you because of how 'sciency' I am.  You just need to learn to live with it. I have!"

--Guess Whoosh

I was crafting an explicit reply to Human's post but realized that your irony made the point better than I ever could.

Science tells us how to create nuclear bombs capable of destroying life on Earth, but failed to prevent us from making that potentially fatal mistake.

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...in it." --NdG Tyson
>
> True...if the solar system has only three
> dimensions. (Are flat and round the only
> options?)

What Hawking called,”Our best candidate for a unified theory,” M theory, is the only theory I know of that makes mathematical sense, because it predicts dark energy/matter, worm holes, super symmetry and black holes. It depends upon 11 dimensions, beyond the 3 or 4 we can see/experience.