Pretty good take down of "science" falsely so called. This is why we can't have nice things.
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How our botched understanding of 'science' ruins everything
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How our botched understanding of 'science' ruins everything
Pretty good take down of "science" falsely so called. This is why we can't have nice things."Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)Tags: None
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Originally posted by whag View PostI can't figure out if you think this is on the mark or off the mark."Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
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Originally posted by Jesse View PostI think it is on the mark .
The author didn't take down anything but specific, easily assailable targets like the new atheists, which is fine but has been done to death. And Neal Degrasse Tyson doesn't think science is "magic." He uses that metaphor to help you see that science isn't boring guesswork but exciting as magic. The epistemology inherent in science gives you permission to accept exciting, wild findings because that information is reliable. That you typed your anti-science OP on a slab of circuitry should hammer that point home. Are you only for the science that heals you and provides you comfort and entertainment?
This point is laughable:
"Modern science is one of the most important inventions of human civilization. But the reason it took us so long to invent it and the reason we still haven't quite understood what it is 500 years later is it is very hard to be scientific. Not because science is "expensive" but because it requires a fundamental epistemic humility, and humility is the hardest thing to wring out of the bombastic animals we are."
Science made its vast gains because it's grounded in methodologies that enforce epistemic humility and reject "bombast."
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Funny, when one scientist said this:
Originally posted by Richard P. DickersonScience, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule:
Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural.
Operational science takes no position about the existence or non-existence of the supernatural; only that this factor is not to be invoked in scientific explanations. Calling down special-purpose miracles as explanations constitutes a form of intellectual "cheating." A chess player is perfectly capable of removing his opponent's king physically from the board and smashing it in the midst of a tournament. But this would not make him a chess champion, because the rules had not been followed. A runner may be tempted to take a short-cut across the infield of an oval track in order to cross the finish line ahead of his faster colleague. But he refrains from doing so, as this would not constitute "winning" under the rules of the sport.
Originally posted by Darwin's Black BoxCertainly the taxpayers who fund science to the tune of several tens of billions of dollars a year would be surprised. They probably think they’re spending their money to find cures and treatments for cancer, AIDS, and heart disease. Citizens concerned about diseases they have or may acquire in old age want science to be able to cure the disease, not to play a game that has no bearing on reality.
The credited Dark Enlightenment view on this issue is simple enough and easily explained with concrete examples:
Originally posted by Mencius MoldbugFedco's approach to research bears some resemblance to that of the large, and often slightly Fedco-like, software-hardware corporations that have dominated the industry for quite some time. Typically these outfits employ large numbers of researchers, at places like Microsoft Research, Sun Labs, etc. And these researchers, who are PhD types from academia, receive some mild encouragement toward productive directions, but of course have actual rank and can't simply be told what to do, as if they were mere employees. For the most part (although with some exceptions), these corporate research arms, which are basically run as a tax writeoff and general prestige farm, are simply sponsoring these scientists' academic careers in a way that provides less status than working at a research university, but does not involve the onerous and degrading T-word.
The result is that the researchers wind up managing themselves. And one of the things I learned after I said my goodbyes to the whale is that, again contrary to popular belief, there is this thing called management and it's actually necessary. There are individuals who can be productive without active management, but there are no organizations that can. And when basic research is treated as a self-managing organization, you will get unproductive basic research. If you were previously unaware that there was any such thing, I'm sorry to have to break it.
Most managers are easy for a scientist to scam, in precisely the manner described above. It's a case of what economists call "asymmetrical information," and the result is that your research program is simply producing status and credibility for the scientist, who is in the business of demonstrating his intelligence, as if he was in the sixth grade. It takes a really talented manager - General Groves is the all-time great example - to get an organization of super-smart people to work together on a real problem. (It is worth noting that the Manhattan Project's personnel were veterans not of Federal science, but of course of prewar science, a system under which the profession of "grantwriter" was, I believe, unknown.)
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Originally posted by whag View PostI'm not sure what author means by science is religion. He uses extreme examples of Dawkins, when all he had to do was look at Francis Collins or any other theistic evolutionist.
The author didn't take down anything but specific, easily assailable targets like the new atheists, which is fine but has been done to death. And Neal Degrasse Tyson doesn't think science is "magic." He uses that metaphor to help you see that science isn't boring guesswork but exciting as magic. The epistemology inherent in science gives you permission to accept exciting, wild findings because that information is reliable. That you typed your anti-science OP on a slab of circuitry should hammer that point home. Are you only for the science that heals you and provides you comfort and entertainment?
This point is laughable:
"Modern science is one of the most important inventions of human civilization. But the reason it took us so long to invent it and the reason we still haven't quite understood what it is 500 years later is it is very hard to be scientific. Not because science is "expensive" but because it requires a fundamental epistemic humility, and humility is the hardest thing to wring out of the bombastic animals we are."
Science made its vast gains because it's grounded in methodologies that enforce epistemic humility and reject "bombast.""Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
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Originally posted by Jesse View PostI think you are overlooking his general point. We as a society have become so far removed in understanding the scientific method, almost anything now can be labeled as "science" or "scientific". His problem with Tyson is stated well before his problem with the word "magic". For as much as Tyson wants to be seen as a scientist, his grasp of basic facts is appalling. And that is the major problem. Within the scientific community itself, it is becoming apparent that they are starting to play very loose with facts and the scientific method as a whole. He has a problem with that. Most people should.
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Originally posted by whag View PostWhen did society start misunderstanding the scientific method? I wasn't aware it had a grasp of it and then lost it at some point."Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
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Originally posted by Jesse View PostHeh. I will concede to your point that society now has very little understanding. But it wasn't always this scientifically illiterate. People really have gotten dumber. The problem is, now it is seeping into the scientific community, the community that should know better. That really is the crux of the problem.
I get the distinct impression you disagree with specific scientific conclusions. Please be clearer about what you disagree with and what society has to do with it. Is science's grasp of electromagnetism wrong? Is hydrology a tissue of lies?
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Originally posted by Jesse View PostHeh. I will concede to your point that society now has very little understanding.
But it wasn't always this scientifically illiterate.
People really have gotten dumber.
The problem is, now it is seeping into the scientific community, the community that should know better. That really is the crux of the problem.
I could have told you as much as this article did because I read people who say things like this:
Originally posted by Mencius MoldbugThe 21st-century American university is a pathologist's dream. But surely among its most revolting terminal diseases is a near-complete absence of any genuine intellectual hostility.
The T-cells are depleted. The bone marrow is exhausted. The mind's immune system is almost done. Exotic cancers and weird infections sprout like desert flowers. Gray berries hang from the liver; Spanish moss burgeons in the lungs. And people believe anything.
If we look at what academia is, rather than what it purports to be or what it once was, the cause of this immune degeneration is obvious. Academia is a guild of talented and ambitious professionals who, by demonstrating their large and dextrous brains - not to mention their impeccable networking skills, and their infinite patience with the brown product of the cow - extract money, power, and/or status from USG. Need more be said?
For obvious professional reasons, this structure precludes any genuinely adversarial peer review. Guild solidarity wins. Research empires may play at war, but it's always easy for both sides to agree that both approaches deserve funding. This is mock battle, like the clash of rutting stags. Nature green in tooth and claw. (Unless there's an actual interloper trying to horn in on the stream - in which case you'll see the real claws.)
So as soon as you arrive at grad school, you'll discover that no mileage whatsoever is to be attained by actually attacking the half-baked ideas of your peers. Proper career strategy is to build coalitions - not tear them down. Actual, rigorous, adversarial science still exists in a few nooks and crannies. The tradition is remembered. But it is by far the exception.
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Originally posted by whag View PostSociety never had a quantifiable grasp of science and certainly was never "scientifically literate" at any point.
I get the distinct impression you disagree with specific scientific conclusions. Please be clearer about what you disagree with and what society has to do with it. Is science's grasp of electromagnetism wrong? Is hydrology a tissue of lies?
I am not sure why you think I am disagreeing with a particular scientific field or theory. I am however, talking about the amount of fraud going in the peer review process. Those are the things the author and I are alluding too.
You might not see this as a problem like some of us do. But if science is to be trusted, it needs to get back to a higher standard than what we are getting from pop science "celebrities"."Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
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Originally posted by Epoetker View PostWhat society? Which parts? Where is your control and experimental group?
What variables have changed? How have they changed?
Which people have gotten dumber? Which race, culture, ethnicity, and tradition have they came from? What social movements did they follow? Were they in positions of power before? Did you test their IQs when they signed up, or did you just test their adherence to atheist/leftist philosophy like an kid deciding who got to be in the Kool Kidz Klub?
That which is unsayable eventually becomes unthinkable. Did you really think that you could toss a bunch of low-IQ Third World people into America, browbeat the common people into accepting them Because Diversity Is Our Strength, and then not expect Holy Science to regress to the mean the way everything else did?
I could have told you as much as this article did because I read people who say things like this:
2009, long before your guy worked up the courage to say a neutered version of that in a public setting. And my guy actually gets to the root of the problem. And don't thank me all at once for linking this guy in probably one out of every three of my posts, you're already welcome for taking the first step towards (dark) enlightenment.Last edited by Jesse; 09-20-2014, 10:49 PM."Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
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Prepare for all the adversarial science you can handle
Originally posted by Jesse View PostNeither one of "our" guys were the first to bring this up.
1. Science has gotten so terrible that people are finally listening.
2. Science has gotten so irrelevant that people have stopped listening to what scientists are actually saying, and you can therefore be brave with little expectation of professional consequence.
Nor does it matter who said what first.
It just now needs to be said more than ever before. Which "people" have gotten dumber? How about almost everyone in modern culture?
I know you want to start dividing this down ethnic lines (seems to be your default position on everything), but scientific illiteracy doesn't seem to care much about the color of your skin or where you were born.
So, Jesse, are you going to actually engage with the question, or have you about reached the limit of your intellectual capacity to engage in proper adversarial science already?
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Originally posted by Epoetker View PostPrepare for all the adversarial science you can handle
That's because neither one of your guys valued the public understanding of science more than they valued the public content of their resume, therefore they bring up these issues only when they feel it is safe to do so, ie:
1. Science has gotten so terrible that people are finally listening.
2. Science has gotten so irrelevant that people have stopped listening to what scientists are actually saying, and you can therefore be brave with little expectation of professional consequence.
It most certainly does matter who said it first and loudest, especially when dealing with public opinion and public understanding, not to mention one's personal judgment on whether these thinkers and writers are worth following or whether they'll flake at the first sign of trouble. If they suffer from any delusion that they were the first people to say this, that's a very large black mark against them, for they who will not educate themselves on both the scientific findings of times past and the social attitudes that made those findings possible are going to be unable to lead us into the future, by definition.
Did you come here to describe reality in the most scientific and rigorous way your particular intelligence is capable of, or are you just wasting my time? Do you have actual data to back it up? What publicly available data would you point to to support that assertion? I know what I'd link, but what would you link? Would you use the term "dysgenic", "dyscultural", or "dysfunctional" to explain the majority of the change?
Utter nonsense, of course, since it really, really, does, if this map of scientific collaborations is anything to go by.
So, Jesse, are you going to actually engage with the question, or have you about reached the limit of your intellectual capacity to engage in proper adversarial science already?
I don't really care who says it. As long as someone with some seriousness and substance recognizes it.
Well, I did make this entire post just to waste your time Epoetker. But then I thought maybe I should drag it out a bit longer and give you a link of what I am talking about. Genetically we are all getting weaker and dumber. Proof of this is your post claiming "adversarial science" without you using any actual science. And as with the rest of humanity, it seems to be ramping up.
I really try not to engage with you because, well, it's just not worth it unless I am as bored as I am right now. Give yourself a pat on the back for being able to entertain me for a while."Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
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