On Feb 21, 2018 6:24 PM, "Biju Chacko" <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 2:31 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Paying respect to science is good form, but doesn't always mean it's an > > indication of quality. Neither is questioning science inherently a bad > > idea. > > Erm, there's a hell of a difference between questioning specific > studies or hypotheses and dismissing established scientific consensus.
Science is largely determined by the people doing the science and their human failings. There's no protection against human nature. A good rabbit hole is the Google search term, "half of all science is wrong", which is a paraphrase of the words of Richard Horton (www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60696-1/fulltext), editor of The Lancet, who admitted rather timidly or bravely (debateable) in his editorial that “much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.” Also in his words, “science has taken a turn toward darkness.” I thought he was being too polite and too late. He's in as prestigious a scientific position as they come. It'd be like the Pope questioning catholicism. And he was largely only talking about the lack of reproducibility in scientific results. If you hazard a guess about likely bad motives and bias, then it becomes silly in scale ( One very brave 2005 study briefly caused waves and then vanished, "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 ). There isn't more said about this because there's no easy solution to the problem, and of course no one wants to bite the hand that feeds - academics have little job security if they fall out with their peers or lose public trust. Most are silent, and the few defenders seem to come out with silly excuses that would make politicians blush. Here's one - https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7915-most-scientific-papers-are-probably-wrong/ << But Solomon Snyder, senior editor at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, US, says most working scientists understand the limitations of published research. “When I read the literature, I’m not reading it to find proof like a textbook. I’m reading to get ideas. So even if something is wrong with the paper, if they have the kernel of a novel idea, that’s something to think about,” he says.>> Still there have been other brave souls, occasionally, even in senior positions at world leading research institutions who have spoken out - either encouraged by the example of Dr. Horton, or because it's not just a pimple on the face of science, it's a giant tumor that's eating most of the face. The implications on public policy are obviously dire, https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/how-many-scientific-papers-just-arent-true/ << "If half of the scientific literature “may simply be untrue,” then half of the climate research cited by the IPCC may also be untrue. This appalling unreliability extends to work on dietary cholesterol, domestic violence, air pollution – in short, to all research currently being generated by the academy. The US National Science Foundation recently reminded us that a scientific finding “cannot be regarded as an empirical fact” unless it has been “independently verified.” Peer review does not perform that function. Until governments begin authenticating research prior to using it as the foundation for new laws and huge expenditures, don’t fall for the claim that policy X is evidence-based." >>. You failed to quote the next bit in my post about tribal identity. The debate on the validity of science (as we practice it for some decades now) should not automatically become a religious war. I think for a lot of people who aren't religious about science - science has been smelling like rotting fish for some time - but they often express this doubt in less than eloquent ways. Mainly because they don't know a lot about science, and were thus insulated from acquiring a tribal identity, and having to defend science at every turn. > And in either case, any serious disputation demands support of > objective evidence. Unless, of course, you're saying the scientific > method itself is questionable -- in which case I'd humbly ask for your > alternative way of understanding reality. Heh, why do you go opening that can of worms? That wasn't something I said, still if one goes there it soon begs a metaphysical question on the nature of reality itself. I don't think Silk is a medium built for that kind of debate. However there are some jumping off points for those interested, 1. Quantum events are not deterministic, but probabilistic, which requires reworking Francis Bacon's assumptions that experiments are always repeatable. Such debates are currently only being held in philosophy departments, and not in physics departments. Yet makers of still more accurate atomic clocks, random number generators all run into this sooner or later. 2. What we call Objective reality is actually only consensus reality. We can repeat events only when we limit precision. For example, let's take on the task of measuring out exactly 1 nanogram of something. If we had a weighing scale of infinite precision, or heck, even to a million decimal places, we wouldn't be able to repeat any two weighings because of atmospheric changes between two weighings, the subtly varying gravitational forces, the varying speed of earth's rotation and a hundred other factors. For most things it doesn't matter, but in sufficiently complex problems like cancer research where 80% of research is not repeatable, it matters. Scientists could only brush it aside as placebo effect for so long. Science is built on the closed world assumption, which isn't the case with the human body at the cellular level, where an open world assumption makes more sense. Most scientific research fails today for human reasons - bias, profit motive, ambition etc. which the scientific method doesn't protect against, but even with the human element removed, science will come up against the ever changing nature of reality itself. It's not possible to discuss these metaphysical ideas on Silk or in any other medium - it's best done as a personal inquiry. > Am I being idealistic If I expect > truth from our politicians. Yes. Politicians everywhere are in the business of getting re-elected - if their voters don't care about truth, neither do they. I'm not hungry to open another metaphysical inquiry into the nature of truth, but if so inclined - the Upanishads on Brahman, the Buddhist sutras on emptiness all conclude silence is the best option, because the moment one says anything it becomes untrue. We can spend days, nay years unwrapping that gem. Find a cave or monastery near you if so inclined. > Is it wrong to expect people to be honest about their views? Why can't > the BJP say that it wants to protect cows because it's religion asks > it to and that it thinks most Indians would agree. Don't invent > pseudoscientific drivel! Because it's politics. As I said, if they were clever, or if their voters cared enough, they would use scientific drivel instead of pseudo-scientific drivel, heaven knows there's a lot of both out there.
