> A range of philosophers (Lakatos, Hacking, Putnam, etc) have poked holes
> in Feyerabend's thesis, and I think a lot of it is legitimate. For the
> purpose of our discussion though, the central question should remain the
> claim that initiated this debate: that progressives need to argue with
> folks over the validity of "science" by which is implied (in the
> following sentences) that this is equivalent to arguing that truth is
> not relative and science obtains it over something else. The questions I
> raised in response are aimed at figuring out what exactly is claimed
> here in the name of science, access to and discovery of objective truth,
> and how this relates to progressive action.
Aha, now this is something concrete.
To put it simply, I think Progressives have to be on the side of skepticism and that is the side of science. I know that science is perceived as something unskeptical, but I think that this is untrue and provably untrue. The forces of capitalism and the right wing are the forces of which claim access to and discovery of objective truth. Anyone who claims access to and discovery of objective truth is not a scientist. Scientists (and I quoted a number in an early post) agree with the realist position that our perception and reality are not going to be the same and therefore there is an eternal need for skepticism.
The Right, as personifiied by Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents, would love to marry religious certainty with science, but this is not possible. Try as they might, the fundamental proposition of science - that Nature is as it is and science is just how we talk about it given our view of it through a clouded lens.
Truth, in my view, is a dangerous right-wing idea. I know that that's too strong, but I'll let it stand.
> Good. However here science, by which is meant the various activities
> within laboratories, is employed as a tool. The central argument, it
> seems to me, is not scientific at all. Say evolution is a better story
> in terms of its lack of inconsistencies, correspondence to what even
> non-scientists will agree are valid observations, and its predictive
> value, than creationism. One might discover this through some tests and
> experiments -- though there is the valid criticism that the facts one
> finds in laboratories are theory laden. Now, the question at hand:
> should a community be forced to teach its children evolutionary theory?
> Can this question be decided in a scientific way? I believe not, and the
> key to my belief is that rationality is a larger tradition, science
> being only one of its users (and I think the argument, in favour of
> evolution, from "truth" is a much weaker argument than the argument from
> "utility").
Science tests propositions. It cannot decide. There is no such thing as a more or less "scientific" decision (although there are mathematicians who know something about decision theory who woudl quibble). Science has nothing to say about ethics although law does and is similar in the baked-in skepticism.
In making decisions you can ask "what does the best science predict will be the outcome here?" For most social questions, scientists (real scientists) will remain mute on that - the most scientific answer being "I don't know" or "insufficient data for an insufficiently well-defined proposition".
What scientists can talk about is the state of two arguments: Evolution and Creationism. Evolution has a great deal of positive evidence and has predicted and led to a great many results. Creationism, as such, has never led to any discoveries at all, although it has prompted a lot of important questions be asked. Creationism should be taught next to Evolution, just as Lamarck is taught next to Darwin - as an example of a bad and wrong-headed theory which has been wrong time and again. But nobody wants to be that rude.
Similarly for homosexuality: activists (at least a section
> of them) seem intent on demonstrating that the trait is inborn, but I
> believe this is a dangerous path to commit oneself to. The question of
> the acceptance of homosexuality is independent of the scientific
> characterization of it. But I am afraid I am not heeding Dwayne's
> warning, and letting this drift further and further away from the
> original intent of my questions.
The most important point here is that "the acceptance of homosexuality is independent of the scientific characterization of it." Again, science is not an ethical system (although the conduct of science can be ethical and unethical). That's a question of "what's best?" and science is meant to answer the question "what's likely to happen?"
> > But I think you have mashed that all together in suggesting that
> > people shouldn't cut down modern astrology (or other beliefs) because
> > it comforts decent, humble people and we're quite or at all uncertain
> > about it's validity anyway, plus people of power have used the phrase
> > "I'm right and you're not" as a means of unjust control when they were
> > plainly wrong, or even when they were right. These are all largely
> > separate issues.
>
>
> What of these do you consider separate issues and why? Here is my
> separated set of thoughts: (a) cutting down is an act of arrogance and
> is a dangerous tendency that needs opposition. At best, it occurs from
> confusing the profiteers with the people, (b) if the cutting down is
> done through claims to truth, then questioning such claims is one way to
> counter such arrogance
Right, but the arrogance here is shown by the snake-oil salesmen of Astrology, not by science. Astrology is the exchange of what is fundamentally nonsense for hard-earned coin. It's a con at worst, a fictional entertainment at best.
There's nothing at all arrogant about claiming that astrology is nonsense. Measure it against Nature and it fails. Is Nature arrogant?
, (c) as the [potentially mythical] Euler example
> (and Zeillberger's description of it as language fights) shows, the
> inability to prove someone wrong when they are cutting you down does not
> necessarily arise from once distance from truth or validity. Carrol
> claims [roughly] that even that which negates a scientific claim comes
> from science. But this is true only of most intra-scientific activity.
> The negation of Euler's proof of god (or that offered by other
> scientists) is not a scientific but a logical or rational one; nor does
> opposition to such theorizing gain impetus always from within the
> community (bullshit science, to borrow a word, has been called by
> non-scientists)
Euler doesn't prove the existence of God. He elides a "proof" of the existence of the unknown with a proposition of a totalizing theory. In the post-quantum-mechanical age, any realist would answer the question "Can there be a totalizing, complete theory of Nature?" by saying "Possible, but unlikely." No hypothesis which posits evidence for the existence of God has ever found any reproducible data. As a scientific matter, there is no evidence whatever that God, as proposed, exists.
(d) that you can cut someone down in this manner using
> the 'I am right, you are not' argument (as opposed to the 'If we both
> desire this result, I can show you by accepted reasoning that this works
> [better]' -- and no this is not a tactical issue), especially in light
> of the previous points, says something about this cutting down: unjust
> control, indeed. And isn't that what we as progressives/leftists are
> fighting against?
But Ravi, what scientist is using these methods of argumentation and with whom? I just think this is all wrong because it's just not what science does.
To give a personal story, my father's sister is a great believer in vitamins and herbs and such. My father had a heart attack and for a cardiologist he had a brainy and bloodless technocrat. At the time CoQ-10 was just getting to be known and there were a lot of hopes for it. After the cardiologist gave us his view, my Aunt said that she thought CoQ-10 would probably prove more effective than some of the medicines he had proposed. I thought it would become on awkward moment - a fight between New Age faith and cold science - but the cardiologist said simply: "Well, let's hope so." But of course he prescribed the medicines the data had, in his opinion (offered as opinion) confirmed as the best choices.
At that time there were a lot of substances he could have prescribed - from vitamins that failed to meet their promise to drugs in development which have since exceeded expectations - for which there was simply insufficient data. So he didn't prescribe them - not because of prejudice, but because it would not, in his judgment, have been a responsible use of science. Science is skeptical, but optimistic. But we were paying him for his scientific judgment, not his optimism.
> The fundamental conceit (which Jerry Monaco wrote beautifully about in
> his post, by which I do not mean to imply that he is talking about the
> exact same thing as I am) is that the decent, humble people (of which
> group we are of course never a part!) use some form of thinking that is
> devoid of reasoning or rationality. We all make mistakes in our
> reasoning, of course.
Most people - most scientists - do not have the discipline or the equanimity to think in purely scientific terms all the time. The whole method exists to keep even the most sophisticated thinkers humble
> > The "Lust for Certainty" (who coined that phrase?) in the 20th century
> > took/has taken/takes two forms. On the one hand the attitudes (of either
> > scientists or non-scientists) which can be labeled "scientism" in that
> > they hold that (their version of) science provides such certainty; on
> > the other hand those (like ravi) who, finding correctly that science
> > does not provide that religious certainty, argue that it doesn't provide
> > any certainty at all. The argument, for example, that astrology "might"
> > be true shows that religious dogmatism and religious scepticism have the
> > same source -- the conviction that unless a proposition is guaranteed by
> > the Word of God there is no reason to believe it.
> >
>
> You are again quite wrong in your characterisation of my point,
> restarted about 7 times over now, on this and previous threads. I do not
> believe that "science does not provide any certainty at all". I think
> there are very good reasons to believe in this or that thing. I just
> happen to believe that "truth" (as used, in a grand claim) is not one of
> them.
And any scientist worth the name would agree. But what evidence do you have that there is a way to get closer to the truth which is more consistent than science?
As for astrology, I started reading a bit about it, and it seems
> that indeed some of its claims may be true after all, since it seems to
> have predicted some of the results that are today considered part of
> astronomy.
No, some of its observations were useful. None of its claims were true at all because the fundamental theory of astronomy has been tested and found to be essentially useless. Where thoughts and speculations come from is not really important. It's how you test them.
> What is religious and dogmatic is the need for those under the influence
> of scientism to have some "one true certainty" that they can worship,
> and call to their defence, when rational argument seems to fail them. ;-)
This is just wrong. Show me a single claim of "one true certainty" in science. There jsut isn't one. The most fundamental propositions are questioned with regularity.
> Dwayne or AndyF suggested that I drop 'scientism' in favour of
> 'elitism', but I think that will not do at all.
Well, you should reconsider because the certainty you are talking about is just inconsistent with science.
> Joanna has a very interesting anecdote (from her life or perhaps a
> friend of hers -- I will assume below that it was her direct
> experience). While canvassing door to door in a poor neighbourhood,
> trying to get people to attend a [socialist?] gathering, she came across
> a man in a house that seemed to be falling apart. However, in response
> to her invitation, the man grew angry, "I am not a communist! I am a
> capitalist", at which point, surveying the house, she wondered "Well,
> where is your capital?".
Okay, Ravi, compare the progress of knowledge about the world created by science and that created by other systems. Science is a mansion and the others are mud huts.
> Picking up on one of my posts, Joanna stressed how the attitude and
> reasoning that I question is indeed found more among non-scientists than
> scientists. Her anecdote I think offers a good analogy.
>
> I do not think scientists as a group are elitist, and isn't it an
> accepted mantra among the orthodox left, anyway, that power is not about
> persons but about the system? My questions are therefore not about
> scientists. Rather, they are addressed to the equivalent of Joanna's
> capitalist: a [hypothetical] [and typically] non-scientist who, it
> seems, sees such things as both a competition and an issue of prestige,
> and would rather be on the winning side.
I'd rather be on the skeptical side than the dogmatic.
> In the early 20th century, at the peak of mathematical discovery and
> knowledge, as Hilbert posed his mighty questions, while Frege and
> Russell laid the firm foundations, there was an obscure, non-academic
> clerk (no, not Einstein ;-)) who sent a bunch of crazy claims to the
> mathematician G.H.Hardy. This man became what Hardy claimed a few years
> later, jokingly, as the only romantic episode in his life. The amazing
> results (not all of them correct), claimed Ramanujan, appeared to him in
> his dreams, as the Goddess Namagiri recited them out to him. Given this
> certain a source, he probably found Hardy's attempts to prove the
> results a strange hobby. It was fortunate that Hardy knew to distinguish
> the insight from the process of proving it.
Seriously, this is rubbish. Ramanujan's PROOFS are things of tremendous elegance, creating new insights from first principles - well, nearly first principles. There is simply no evidence whatever that the Goddess Namagiri even exists. Ramanujan did not rely on the goddess, but constant work in his brain and on his chalkboard. Possibly because he used the chalkboard, he tended to start his proofs nearer the end than the beginning, but that is a perfectly valid way of working, as is working in a team, which Hardy and Ramanujan became. And they were a solid, scientific team, perfectly able to meet the rigorous requirements of the discipline.
> Surprisingly, as repeated many times over, what Kuhn might call
> breakthrough or revolutionary science often involves asking the unlikely
> (and seemingly absurd questions). We spoke of Riemann before.
> Non-euclidian geometry arose from Lobachevsky, Gauss and Riemann
> considering the seemingly absurd what-if: what if Euclid's fifth axiom
> (postulate) were false? That one could draw more than one line through a
> point, parallel to another line? Which Gauss pondered as the sum of the
> internal angles of a triangle being less than 180 degrees.
>
> The technique of reductio ad absurdum, typically used in confirming
> one's certainties and current belief system, turned the tables on the
> mathematicians, for the negation of the 5th postulate did not produce
> inconsistencies. In fact, it yielded non-Euclidean geometries that are
> quite fruitful for certain analyses. And this is not a solitary episode
> in mathematics. (I have already responded to Carrol's idea that even if
> true, such are internal developments in science).
>
> In school however, we teach the children that the sum of the angles is
> 180 degrees -- this is "true", we tell them. We demonstrate the great
> utility of this fact, we derive powerful new theorems based on it, which
> we apply to great benefit, all of which in turn convinces us of the
> certainty of the truth of it. But we have to be cautious that whenever
> we claim things to be "true", for the sake of expediency, we do not
> ourselves become believers.
But look at this last sentence. "Truth" is an expediency and skepticism is the discipline.
> There is nothing to stop us from applying this method or approach at
> higher planes. That, I will claim, *is* the responsibility of
> intellectuals. As the quoted text from PKF suggests, the problem with
> astrology is/was calcification (though 'evolve or die' is occasionally
> not necessary, for creatures successfully occupy evolutionary niches).
> Science, in the best sense of that term (the beast of evolution of
> ideas), is not the scepticism that just doubts everything, but also one
> that looks at the most improbable 'what-if's (and is thus parallel to
> progressivism in considering the underdog). Scientism is the ignorance
> of one's own condition in the quest for the absolute certainty of one's
> faith. Similar to the state of Joanna's capitalist.
No this is wrong. Science is the acceptance that one's condition stops one from seeing reality clearly and therefore skepticism is the only answer.
> Now it would be utter hypocrisy for me not to consider the what-if --
> what if Joanna's fellow is right after all? Perhaps socialism will leave
> him poorer? Examining the question would be a worthwhile exercise.
The question of whether or not to be scientific has been asked and answered many, many times and will be and should be asked and answered again. Aristotle, the Bible, Gods and Goddesses, teleological and ontological systems have all been tested and failed when compared to skepticism in all but Nature and math. And yet, even now, there are physicists hard at work on a Theory Of Everything, thus seeking to test even the Realist hypothesis which is the basis of scientific skepticism.
Science is skeptical, but optimistic.
Boddi