If I had my act together, I would have had my final installment of “It Ain’t Heavy, It’s Science” ready for today, as we’re having the #ScienceMarch. But I don’t, so in lieu of that I will turn things over to Carl Phillips and Nicolas Bourbaki, who share their thoughts on the event.
As someone who studies science (not just does science), I have to say that #marchforscience slogans are incredibly naive at SO many levels.
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
(and I mean the ones that are meant to be serious, not the intentional jokes)
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
Might as well make this one of those "thread" things:
The biggest problem that comes through is the notion of "science-based" policy…— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
4/ …rather than "informed by science". Obviously it is legit to object to politics that simply denies what the science shows. But…
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
5/ The #marchforscience types are usually suggesting that the science DETERMINES what the right policy is. Obviously not true.
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
6/ Not just because politics might decide otherwise ("species are disappearing" does not answ ethical/political q about whether to stop it)
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
7/ But there is also the missing step of policy analysis. Often #marchforscience do not seem to realize that step even exists.
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
8/ So we get idiocy like "smoking bad, so every anti-smoking policy good" or "global warming, so subsidizing industrial wind turbines good".
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
9/ Then there is the entirely different point of naive faith in the scientific record. Lots of "Correct Established Knowledge" has changed.
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
10/ Pushing back against know-nothing anti-science nihilism should not mean adopting a religious embrace that all we "know" now is right.
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
11/ Yet the infallibility of current best assessments is the vibe #marchforscience is giving. I keep seeing the joke chant: …
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
13/ …this vers of peer review does little/nothing to ensure the accuracy of science. Of course, they want others to believe it's magic
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
14/ In sum, there is an undeserved arrogance about #marchforscience that looks quite like that of elite politicos which resulted in Trump.
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
15/15 Not saying funding cuts or ignoring info is wise, of course. But, geez, #marchforscience, must you be a parody of why that happens?
— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 22, 2017
The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.
-Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson #ScienceMarch— Michael Franti (@michaelfranti) April 22, 2017
—
This is — not to put too fine a point on it — at best very naive and at worst totally wrong. https://t.co/H4QGY86lJz
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
First, we need to get clear on what "science" means here. There are at least two things it could mean.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Second, it could mean "a body of facts, theories, and discoveries about physical reality reached on the basis of scientific inquiry."
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
(The word "theory" here is being used in its technical sense.)
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Now, what happens if Tyson means "science" in the first sense? Then he has made a pretty sophomoric category mistake.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
This is something Tyson would in fact know /if/ he ever read any phil of science or philosophy more generally. But, alas.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Now, what happens if he means it in the second sense? This is a little better, since at least now he's not making a category mistake.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Because theories which say "the world works in thus-and-such a way" can be true or false; specific discoveries turn out to be bogus, &c.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
But of course that has a huge problem of its own: there's a good chunk of science that /we know/ is either incomplete or inconsistent.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
A good example is classical mechanics. Strictly speaking, classical mechanics, as a theory, is false. We know this.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
That is, as a theory of how the world works /in a general manner/, it's false. Now, this isn't a super big problem for various reasons.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
For instance, we can recover classical mechanics as an arbitrarily good approximation in the low-velocity limit of special relativity.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
We can also (sort of) recover it FAPP in the limit of very large quantum numbers, or in a very low-energy limit. That's not a problem.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
But of course science classes EVERYWHERE teach classical mechanics, even though it's technically wrong. Why is this?
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Because, in the classical regimes (large quantum numbers, low velocity, weak gravity), it is very, very, VERY successful.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Seriously. Using only a /little/ bit of GR + orbital mechanics (usually in the Lagrangian formulation) we can do really remarkable stuff.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
I mean, REALLY REMARKABLE. As in get a probe to Uranus /within a few meters of error/. That is outstanding.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
But — and here's the kicker — /that part of science is not, strictly speaking, true/. And (I hope) Tyson knows this. So what gives?
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Now, if I were to try and give a charitable gloss on his words, I'd say something like "well, maybe he means facts are true whether…" etc.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Which I'd agree with! But he's not doing that. He's saying /science/ is true whether or not you believe in it or not. That's not even wrong.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
(And that's even without going into a discussion of ppl like Bas van Fraassen or instrumentalists/constructive empiricists more generally.)
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
So, the upshot: you should not take meta-statements that Tyson makes serious. Ever. Localized statements abt particular facts? Sure.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
But not about anything at a higher level than "this is what this particular physical theory says." Never ever ever.
Here endeth the rant.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
—-
Also, another (hopefully more brief) rant:
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
I said this:https://t.co/vrKNSvT33n
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Ed Note: Link is to the earlier tweet stating “First, it could mean ‘the scientific method’ (whatever that is, but more on this later).
To which someone said "LOL wut everyone knows what the scientific method is and learns it in 5th grade."
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
This is true, in that there's this thing that people learn in 5th grade that is called "the scientific method". That much is accurate.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
The problem is, much like almost literally every other piece of science you learn in the 5th grade, this is a huge oversimplification.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
General notion is (IIRC):
(1) Make observation.
(2) Formulate hypothesis
(3) Experimentally test hypothesis
(4) Repeat as necessary.— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
General notion is (IIRC):
(1) Make observation.
(2) Formulate hypothesis
(3) Experimentally test hypothesis
(4) Repeat as necessary.— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Which is great!
Just one problem. The history of science is riddled with examples of (very good) science being done wildly differently.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Moreover, you have ppl in the fundamental physics community who are on the point of saying that experiment isn't always necessary.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
So, to conclude: much like everything else you learned in 5th grade science, things are not that simple.
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
Addendum: if you /really/ want a good time w/ this, go read Pierre Duhem's "The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory".
— N. Bourbaki (@d08890) April 22, 2017
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Probably one of the more intelligent twitter rants I’ve ever read.
Agreed this is good solid twittering. Makes a lot of sense. And the Marches are good things if they generate energy to role back the nonsensical ( not to be judgmental or anything) cuts to science funding and focus on how we can use science to inform our decision making.
It is this particular notion of science (henceforth: SCIENCE!) that allows for a fairly well-trained Young Earth Creationist to dismantle an advocate of SCIENCE! in front of a crowd.
At the end of the day, deferring to The Elders That You Trust With These Things is a tribal behavior. Whether they’re wearing black robes or white coats.
Oh god YEC’s. Yeah they could be well trained, i used to argue with them on the old discovery channel boards. They could be trained to repeat arguments and some did it well. The deeper truth came out when their training failed them and their arguments were shredded. They didn’t really understand and were only repeating scripts. There are probably YEC’s who are better, but i’m not sure i ever talked to one.
Yes, but that’s also true of many/most IFLS types. They believe all the proper things (i.e. the ones consistent with their ideology), and memorize a few talking points, but they don’t actually understand the underlying issues, and can’t effectively argue against someone who does at least somewhat, even if that person is wrong.
I like these specific twitter arguments, but then I’m part of the choir to which they are preaching.
I am someone who is technically a scientist (botanist and ecologist) and I find the SCIENCE!!! crowd a little embarrassing. It does feel rather like a new religion, with things that are Not Questioned and with the catechisms and everything.
Two phrases I wish I never had to see again:
“Science: it works, b*tches” and “Let’s do a Science!” The first, because science sometimes gets things wrong (the whole POINT of it is that newer discoveries supplant older knowledge sometimes) and also that there are things science doesn’t really address. (We might be able to clone a human, but SHOULD we?). The second, because it’s just STUPID and ungrammatical. “Doing a science” for some reason makes me think of a three year old saying “go poo-poo in the potty!” Yes, I’m being a crank about it, but I hate it when stuff I have been doing for 20+ years gets co-opted by some “cool crowd” that doesn’t totally understand it.
So yeah, I find that tweetstream a lot more nuanced about the Science March than most of the people I know who were talking about it. (Confession: I temporarily muted most terms having to do with it for the day of the march, just to avoid my feed filling up with it)
Should we clone humans? Of course we should, and on a massive scale so science and genetic engineering can advance at a faster pace. At present, we’re forced to rely on studies of genetically random twins, and we don’t even allow scientists to freely dissect them or see what their physical and mental limits are.
This refusal to do science, due to Obama’s inane assertion that we won’t allow human cloning because it is “wrong”, holds back the knowledge we need to build lab-grown genetically-modified super soldiers, which will be the greatest scientific achievement since the invention of the hydrogen bomb.
All models are wrong. Some models are useful (for making accurate predictions about the real world). Complexity of the model is neither here nor there — does it make accurate predictions?
Back in the 1970s, there were lots of long-term economic models. The Club of Rome’s “limits to growth” model was one of the simpler ones. Over 40 years, it has tracked reality as well as any of them. The next decade is when the model will prove its utility (or not) — this is about the time the model said things would get interesting.