Hell yea, folks! P.T. Anderson’s L. Ron Hubbard sort-of-biopic (As Orson Welles Citizen Kane was to William Hearst) has come out of its financial paralysis and is back on track. Philip Seymour Hoffman is still in the lead role, but it appears that Jeremy Renner, is going to be replaced with a returning-to-acting Joaquin Pheonix. If you recall, the project was stalled either for creative issues or financial, it was never clear. But it appears that things are moving forward. Now Anderson doesn’t exactly work fast these days, but the end films seem to be consistently worth the wait. I’ll try to have patience, and enjoy the fact that The Tree of Life is coming out next month.
Phew – thank goodness. While I was getting used to Inherent Vice being his next film, I’m still mighty curious about the potential of this particular project – and glad that we’ll be seeing it happen after all. *Knocks on wood*
Anderson going back to religious charlatanism doesn’t interest me, I think he did a lousy job of it in There Will Be Blood, and really, on the basis of that theme what is left to say? Scientific charlatanism, that I want to hear about.
Scientific charlatanism, that I want to hear about.
It doesn’t really exist.
Read Nassim N Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan’ for a healthy dose of reality. The biggest and most dangerous frauds in the world are done under the banner of science.
First off, that’s not even the point of the book, second, acting under the guise of science isn’t actually science, its straight charlatanism.
Isn’t Scientology the centre of the triangle of bad philosophy, bad religion and bad science? I’m keen on it, particularly the hubris of Mr. Hubbard’s own self-mythology. I’m quite stoked actually.
The point of book is to promote a rigorous skeptical empiricism towards the question of randomness as it is understood within many different fields, largely the social SCIENCES but also he goes through the history of science and shows the fallacies from Gallileo to modern medicine. One of his major points is about the ludic fallacy which is directly related to science. It is a devastating book and damns the whole academic preoccupation with platonic ideals that carries through everywhere.
This quote from the book sums up my feelings perfectly:
“I am most often irritated by those who attack the bishop but somehow fall for the securities analyst – those who exercise their skepticism against religion but not against economists, social scientists, and phony statisticians. Using the confirmation bias, these people will tell you that religion was horrible for mankind by counting deaths from the Inquisition and various religious wars. But they will not show you how many people were killed by nationalism, social science, and political theory under Stalinism or during the Vietnam War. Even priests don’t go to bishops when they feel ill: their first stop is the doctor’s. But we stop by the offices of many pseudo-scientists and “experts” without alternative. We no longer believe in papal infallibility; we seem to believe in the infallibility of the Nobel”
Risk-modeling is culpable to the errors Taleb talks about, and virtually all application of scientific investigation relies on risk-modelling, so to say that science can somehow wipe its hands clean of any misuse is absurd. Of course there is admirable work in science, but the division between it and pseudo-science is blurred, not nearly as clear-cut as we like to think. And besides, whatever you think of ‘social sciences’ they are accepted by the our socio-political systems as credible sources for governance, for health, for predictions. They are treated as if they are science. And that, to me, is the charlatanism that ought to be highlighted, far more than religion.
I have read a fair bit in my time, I have spent a lot of time with philosophical ideas, and occasionally there comes this book that changes everything, there really are only a handful in my life: Douglas Hofstader’s Godel, Escher, Bach: The Golden Braid, Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals and The Use and Abuse of History, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Dostoevsky’s Karamazov Brothers, and now, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan. In a way, The Black Swan is a culmination of feelings and ideas I have had at one point or another enlarged upon and enriched and defended in a way that clarifies them, gives them a context and forges a new way to live and experience the world. The best part is that it is immensely readable. It has weighty things to say but unlike any philosopher I have ever read he is able to make them clear and entertaining and, I suspect, appeal to a wide audience… exactly what this books needs to do. No hyperbole is good enough, this truly is a book that could change the world were its exposure wide enough. It identifies the intellectual hubris of modern civilization and gives us a framework by which we could readjust.
I say this and I still have another 100 pages left, but it is so dense with ideas and possibilities that the last 100 pages could be complete excrement and it wouldn’t matter.
Back to Anderson, making a film about Scientology in an age when the most damaging charlatanism is happening on Wall Street and the government seems like such a waste of energy. What is the most insight that can provide? Scientology is a fraud that plays off the gullibility of people, well, duh. Why not document the fraud that has the audience as the suckers?
I think the credit sequence for THE OTHER GUYS covered that well. We’ve got our top men on it. TOP. MEN.
But Mike, as Matt said above, don’t confuse science and the scientific method with those who misuse it. The massive fraud that Andrew Wakefield committed regarding vaccines and autism was indeed done “under the banner of science”, but it was Wakefield’s fault. And those who followed him did not apply rigorous methods against his findings, they just bought into it. When science is actually applied to his “findings”, though, it actually helps to reveal that there is nothing there. And that he’s a douchebag.
I think you’re actually trying to say something along those lines – that we shouldn’t simply take at face value the words of people who claim to be scientists, because they can mislead just as well as anyone else. Sure. But when true scientific methods are used and peer review is conducted, etc. there is no better tool to get to the truth (though it may be very slow sometimes due to the many complexities of a specific model) than science. Things like statistics are useful tools, but they can be misapplied as well. Let’s say the weather network just told you it’ll be sunny 5 days from now – OK, that’s some information that should help you plan. But if you bet the farm on it with no backup, then that ain’t a great move…
As for the movie, I agree that I’m not overly keen on the subject matter, but I’m excited because it’s a P.T. Anderson film.
@Bob “don’t confuse science and the scientific method with those who misuse it. The massive fraud that Andrew Wakefield committed regarding vaccines and autism was indeed done “under the banner of science”, but it was Wakefield’s fault”
Sorry, Bob, but this is exactly the problem, the platonicizing of ideas and giving them far more significance than they actually have. There is no science without application, the best you can say is there is pure mathematics, but you have to at some point, to have science, APPLY it outside the box… and you cannot do that process without human beings getting their hands dirty (so to speak). You can say whenever people adhere wholly to the scientific method, only THAT is science, but that is as meaningless as saying the Christian way is sound because those times when good deeds are done in its name substantiates it – to weigh its value you need to see the bigger picture. The scientific method is an ideal that has to be used through the fallibility of human beings and, more on point, through a system of human beings and specializations that are inter-dependent (mathematics to science to engineering to risk-modelling statistics to public policy analysts to economic forecasts to consumer goods). Now trying to adhere to the scientific method has pragmatic benefit most of the time but the fallibility lies not only in individuals but in the presumption that such an ideal can be untarnished and exist independent of men. Hence the Plato aspect, denoting essences arbitrarily, and then deifying them. “The scientific method never fails” like it is a sentient being above the law. The justice system never fails, it is the fault of individuals, the economic system never fails, it is a few bad apples.
It is philosophically unsound reasoning, and I knew this, and read and thought a lot about it, but Taleb opens this wide open with the issue of randomness and how we create narratives like “the scientific method is beyond reproach” in order to blind ourselves of the holes that create Black Swan events, and the repeat occurrences with greater frequency has, in large part, to do with our resistance from the reality right in front of us.
It is not about pseudo-science, it is about a lack of philosophical rigor that underlies all scientific endeavors, it is just that fortunately, in some cases the pursuits have few externalities and greater benefits, and we praise science because of these cases, but without foresight of the problems infecting epistemological limits of knowing, without seeing the narrative and ludic fallacies inherent to the activity of science (science on the ground not in the air as a fanciful ideal) and without understanding risk (which has been buried by the flaws of the peer review system that is supposed to be so effective) we will fall for a charlatanism far greater than any religion could pull off.
Bob, I implore you, please, read this book.
Also:
“Of course there is admirable work in science, but the division between it and pseudo-science is blurred, not nearly as clear-cut as we like to think.”
Completely disagree on this MIke. Pseudo-science simply can’t be tested via the scientific method. It provides no predictive models, etc. It doesn’t mean it may not necessarily be true, just that it provides no way of providing repeatable processes. Again, don’t blame science for those who misuse it trying to give their beliefs (or what they want to believe) some kind of “proof”.
Posted that last comment before reading your last Reply…I haven’t read it all yet as it looks like I need to parse it somewhat.
I may very well read the book Mike – we may actually agree on numerous details. But the way you are talking about science in a general fashion and applying (as far as I understand what you are saying) human foibles to it is not sitting with me very well…But I may have to get a deeper understanding of what you are trying to say – I need to examine what you said, re-state it, confirm back to you what you said, change my understanding after receiving more information and go through several iterations…You know, like applying the scientific method to it all.
Bob, I am curious, have you read anything on the philosophy of science? The problem I find is a lot of that is pretty dry and domain-specific, and those who write it are kind of preaching to the choir. What is so great about Taleb’s book is it is so damn readable, and even though he broaches some pretty heady stuff, it is something someone with no philosophical background at all could understand. That, in itself, is an achievement.
“Completely disagree on this MIke. Pseudo-science simply can’t be tested via the scientific method.”
Ok we are lost in semantics here. Sure, I agree with this statement, what I am saying though is that the process of testing via the scientific method is susceptible to error, and that margin of error is substantially higher than which the scientific community tends to accept insofar as they adhere to risk-models along the lines of Gaussian bell-curves, and according to whatever narrative fallacies are en vogue. capital “S” Science is, in itself, a kind of pseudo-science, just one that has a better publicist.
” need to examine what you said, re-state it, confirm back to you what you said, change my understanding after receiving more information and go through several iterations… You know, like applying the scientific method ”
Can you do that with no inputs? Is there such a thing as a scientific method that is not applying data? No. It is a fallacy to think so. The scientific method is like a car with no gas, and I am saying this “gas” is susceptible to a higher degree of error than is generally agreed upon (whether by using scientific method or naive intuition). The car doesn’t compensate for the defect in the gas (especially if it doesn’t have a console display for what it was not designed to observe), the gas needs to be refined better!
… and you refine through skeptical empiricism.
Your ‘scientific method’ is a great display car but it is meaningless when we are talking about the act of driving. The second you drive it, it is culpable, and not because human beings are stupid, but because ONLY human beings use it – scientific-method-in-use has no innate protection from deception, it can marginalize it to a degree, but, Taleb’s argument would be that degree is far from satisfactory and could be much better with applied skeptical empiricism a la the Black Swan theory.
People don’t do science the way the scientific method is thought to be done, anymore than people do their jobs according to the posted job descriptions. There are similarities, and a narrative fallacy can connect the dots and make it easier to accept, but if you are rigorous with the your skepticism you can see how quickly that falls away. Taleb has a great section on Peer-review and how papers gets cited (kind of the same way politicians get vetted, who you know, the culture, luck). See also, Michael Polanyi’s The Tacit Dimension for how the culture of science motivates its activities.
Ok, after all that, here is the quickest way to say it:
The scientific method is only as good as its inputs and the theories underlying the use of those inputs. It is a fallacy to think the method can weed out the errors that may exist unnoticed within these processed components to the task at hand. Each scientist would have to verify every step of every theory underlying the use of every piece of input, in order for the Scientific Method to be Scientific.
In actuality, people skim, and narratives prevail.
I am going to keep going here, Bob, whether or not you want to chime in, because you got my mind working
The scientific method works pretty well, and in a way it is like The American Constitution, on paper it is pretty good, but then in practice, shortcuts are made (amendments, or skimming fact checks), the culture around which the document or method exists changes, and informs behavior, mythology is built (the resting on your laurels idea, i.e. the Constitution or the scientific method will by virtue of itself work things out) and worse, the demarcation of use is blurred and perverted. The scientific method as an ideal process will not protect us from a significant blindness to Black Swan events because within the orthodox framework established through peer-review checking, Gaussian bell curve risk-modelling had been determined to be sound ground to work your interpretations upon. The scientific method isn’t going to correct you on that, because the consensus is wrong, and it upsets a lot of people in positions of power who do not want to be told that their views are invalid. Significant errors can accumulate for long periods of time under these pretenses.
Taleb’s views are getting its recognition outside of the scientific community, New York Times bestseller, and as a stock trader, philosophy circles, giving talks at economic conferences… he may have used something crudely like the scientific method to build his thesis, but he doesn’t appeal to it in the book. He is a critic from the outside of the institution of what underlies the scientific method, namely the dogmatic enthusiasm for Gaussian bell curves, ludic and narrative fallacies.
If the Black Swan theory is valid, and the scientific community did not itself make this discovery and correct the foundation of mountains of peer-reviewed conclusions, how above-reproach really is the scientific method?
Each scientist would have to verify every step of every theory underlying the use of every piece of input, in order for the Scientific Method to be Scientific.
Everything does have to be verified. Every step, mistake, spilled beaker or random event must be documented and verified during every single study. Then, if your results are outside expected results the study is then audited where the entire study is gone over step-by-step once again by a neutral third party, before being submitted for peer review.
Not knowing that shows a fundamental flaw in your knowledge of the subject and represents gross ignorance that you seemingly have no qualms about spreading.
But yeah, its like a car. A shiny car where people don’t use turn signals or change the oil or even turn it on. It must be true because you read it in a book, even if you misapplied what the book was actually stating.
If the Black Swan theory is valid, and the scientific community did not itself make this discovery and correct the foundation of mountains of peer-reviewed conclusions, how above-reproach really is the scientific method?
Even asking this means you have not even the most basic knowledge of how the scientific method is defined, works or let alone is applied while you make your argument. Thus illustrating your violation of the Platonic Fallacy. Mon congrats.
What’s probably only funny to philosophy majors is that the lucid fallacy that Mike holds so near and dear is actually just a rebranding of the Platonic Fallacy. Which was named after Plato, and has been applied to the scientific method for thousands of years. Which is basically a rule that you don’t define something if you don’t understand it, because you’ll inevitably end up looking like an idiot.
I’m just not sure where to go with this Mike (also, please don’t mistake my lack of response to mean anything more that the fact that I haven’t checked back on RowThree in 12 hours since I put my last comment…Whether I agree with you or not – and at this point I’m not – I’m still thinking about what you’re saying). I haven’t read the book, so I don’t even know what a Black Swan event is. But I’m having trouble getting past you essentially saying that the scientific method isn’t that great because people don’t follow it.
Of course humans make mistakes and generalize and use stats wrong and make assumptions and take things out of context and use someone’s opinion as fact for their own purposes, etc. That’s separate from the specifics of the scientific method – Matt is right above when he states that everything indeed does need to be verified and independent review needs to be conducted, etc. That’s how theories are built upon and reinforced and updated and strengthened. Do people screw that up or purposely misuse it? Yes they do. So should I not believe everything that is said to be “scientific” and perhaps be skeptical of initial studies or those that have been bell-curved, etc. Yeah sure. But with every application of the method – with every additional test and tweek and new peer review, the theory becomes stronger (or gets corrected or perhaps gets demolished).
I can’t help it that some “scientists” skim or want to make their own narratives…But those guys aren’t scientists. I can’t help it if politicians take early studies and proclaim them as fact before they have gone through numerous iterations.
The difference between science and pseudo-science is important and shouldn’t be brushed off as semantics. if someone brings in a narrative to the testing or the theory, well, then you pretty much have pseudo-science.
It’s late and I don’t think I addressed what I wanted to here…But it’s a start…
Alright, good. I will start with Gamble.
First off, you are not understanding the first quote of mine, clearly, because that is NOT how science is done. Science would hit a brick wall if the kind of verification I am talking about took place… there is only a finite amount of time for each scientist to work with NOT JUST the data but the underlying interpretations of the data in every facet of the task at hand. I can’t actually believe we would have this argument, because it boggles my mind how someone could even claim people do that. There comes a fairly arbitrary point depending on the scientist where the granularity of information is skimmed and accepted. Do you verify and cross reference various interpretations of Bernoulli’s principle if it is an indirect piece of the puzzle of the data you are presently working on, or do you just accept the greatness of science and let it pass, and let those people focusing on Bernoulli’s principle solely to work it out? Science is compartmentalized, the assumption is verifications are being done somewhere else by someone else.
Do you grasp that, Gamble? Can we move on?
Next let me clarify what I mean by the scientific method, because I think I have been using two uses interchangeably when they shouldn’t be. There is the more general idea of scientific method, a set of steps that essentially Bob mentioned awhile ago, and let’s say it is a general tool, and on the last step when you retest you can do it yourself.. kind of the independent thinker approach I guess. In that respect, Taleb used something like a scientific method, and I am sure even pseudo-scientists can concoct whatever they want through that method and get bad results. Why? Because the method itself cannot prevent any and all misinterpretation and reliance on skimmed information. It is like saying if you have the right tool you won’t make a mistake.
Now what I am mostly talking about is The Scientific Method, which, Gamble, bravo, you actually caught that I am platonicizing this concept, and am doing so because it is Bob’s premise that this thing exists… I am playing along to see the inherent fallacies of it… it is called skepticism, you should try it. I think mostly we are all talking about this use of the term, wherein the final step of retesting is audited by peers with scientific credentials, so you have some protection from personal bias in the findings.
Now follow me here, because this may blow your mind:
Again, playing along, because Gamble insists Science is demarcated from pseudo-science, and that psuedo-science includes the icky social science so seems fair to say then that the aforementioned peers are NOT going to be from this category, or shouldn’t be for fear of contamination (this would include N. N. Taleb keep in mind). In the history of science there have been many paradigm shifts, and while most of them have been accidental discoveries long disregarded by the system that is supposed to be impartial, I give them their due, progress has been made, the system does work to a degree.
Bob and Gamble want to separate the wheat from the chaff, acknowledge the benefits and marginalize the externalities. Can we agree there is no Scientific Method without people, and more to the point people interpreting data? So let’s accept this ‘marginal’ fallibility in the method… the question remains: is it possible that errors can persist in this ecosystem without being uncovered, not just for a year or two, but decades or centuries? I am guessing you would both say yes, or there is some SERIOUS positivism going on here. I am guessing the response would be “sure there are errors here and there and sometimes they are not seen for a long time, but they are exceptions and marginally insignificant because the same peer-reviewed risk-modelling techniques that people have won Nobel prizes for assure us of this”. The integrity is sound by a statistical regress argument, and more so, a positivist regress argument.
Taleb: “We need data to discover a probability distribution. How do we know if we have enough? From the probability distribution. If it is Gaussian, then a few points will suffice. How do we know it is Gaussian? From the data.”
So back to this hypothetical defense, one could say the errors are marginal because on a bell curve, the majority is sound and the deviations are a minority and less significant. THIS IS THE ERROR. What is not appreciated, what Taleb shows, what changes fucking everything, is the standard by which risk-modeling on a curve is a ludic fallacy (not lucid Gamble), it is like talking about a game of dice and trying to apply it to the real world which plays by different rules. Depending on the error, some are marginal and insignificant, but some are not, some are “scalable” and it is the scalability of the error that causes a Black Swan, it is the scalability that displaces the Gaussian bell curve, it is the scalability that undermines ANY scientific study (peer-reviewed up the ass) that hinges upon, directly or indirectly risk-modeling of this kind. It is not a minor problem, because, for example look at the defense for the integrity of The Scientific Method, which if Taleb is right, undermines your argument that the benefits outweigh and overwhelm the marginal decimal point adjustment errors. Einstein changed Newtonian Physics, Taleb is changing the narrative about what lies beneath the banner of scientific credibility… and even better he did so OUTSIDE OF THE PEER-REVIEW SYSTEM. That, in itself, shows its weakness. The Scientific Method, however you want to manicure it is a political system (by virtue of the peer-review mechanism, by citation numbers, by Nobel prizes jockeying). It is no more a representation of the reality of science than the Constitution is of the United States. People cheat, cliques are created (you cite me, I cite you), pressure is created to silence evidence (Taleb talks about Henri Poincare who actually came up with a lot of the Black Swan ideas, but depending on the politics of that given time, his influence was marginalized) and the enthusiasm for clarity over randomness, for justification for whole areas of study (economics for example) won out. If that was because of the integrity of the system, that it should be easy to refute what Taleb wrote. I only mentioned like three fallacies, there are about nine or ten he looks at, if they don’t make complete and utter sense, then I guess you can sleep well knowing the system is just. Are you skimming, or did you verify everything?
and Bob, the aggressive tone is directed to Gamble, naturally. It is the reason I specified that YOU should read Black Swan, because I think you have the capacity to change your mind.
Incidentally, I am curious if statistics are considered a pseudo-science by Gamble’s reasoning? Probability theory and chaos theory are challenged by Taleb’s findings. How effectively can Science operate without these?
As someone who works professionally in the scientific research field (albeit the commercial/corporate/patent side, not peer-reviewed/publishing-paper-side of academia) EVERYTHING Mike is getting at there is pretty spot on. And besides, much of the great social policies derived from science go through so many lay-filters as to render the initial science unintelligibly.
And META-Study (the amalgamation of many scientific studies to make a point) is often far more ‘witch-craft’ than science.
As with religion, I believe the ‘people and power and influence’ factors too often trump the ‘facts’ and trample any for of ideal to be gathered from the system.
All that being said, I’d rather go for observation and repeatability and a motivation to keep questioning than certainty of belief and faith. It is built into the core of science that nothing is absolute. No model is perfect, but some models are useful. Most faith based stuff comes at things from the other angle, absolutes. Furthermore, any good scientist should always be questioning, not be certain. Modes of thinking should be flexible. Again the opposite of most religion/faith systems.
Science as with democracy fall into the old Churchill Quote. “It ain’t perfect, but it is the best we got.”
Lastly, science seems to be be able to function independent of morality, whereas religion/faith/belief seems to always want to hijack it.
and I say who is in charge of the nuclear weapons? Sure there are some with religious absolutes, but the far majority are people with flawed certainties in the scientific integrity that underlies their decisions. That is the real danger. Science is too cozy with politics, and like a fattened monarch, able to swat the flies of doubt from those outside the box, able to rail against all other ideologies without noticeable hypocrisy, able to satisfy the human need for clarity, and be the soothsayers of the modern world… and I ask: Who Watches the Watchmen?
Philosophers. Who have their own academic bullshit to contend with, but that strand of dedicated skeptical empiricists like Taleb are about the only hope we got of stoking the flames of doubt.
also, the implication by Matt above, much like my fattened monarch illustration, was to swat at “philosophy” and those who use it, but I want to emphasize Taleb loathes philosophers about as much as he loathes social scientists… this is not your typical “I am cleverly using language to run circles around you” kind of philosophical text. It has an awesome rhetorical style, but it is pragmatic skepticism (he even takes swipes at my beloved Wittgenstein, a hallowed figure of philosophy if ever there was one). He wants to show you the error in a way that makes it obvious, that cuts through the bullshit on both sides, and I think any rational person who read it would be converted. He tells a great story a la Malcolm Gladwell but he also knows what he is talking about (being a long-term practitioner of the reality underlying the theories scientists and mathematicians may tunnel vision to acclaim).
one last jab: the narrative of Scientific Integrity hinges upon the ‘history of the victors’… the silent counter-evidence exists and can be looked at to contextualize the truth, but more often than not, like with history, the narrative is retroactively told by those in a position of power to tell it. The myth outweighs the reality. Taleb exposes this in several cases.
“Bob and Gamble want to separate the wheat from the chaff, acknowledge the benefits and marginalize the externalities.”
I can’t speak for Matt here (though I think he would agree with me), but that’s not at all what I want to do. Not at all. We’re having a fundamental disconnect in some of the conversation here. Part of it is certainly due to me not having read the book and wondering why you keep coming back to Gaussian distributions, but at the root of it is me talking about the scientific method and you talking about how the scientific method can be screwed up by people. And yes, you’re right, we do indeed need people to move the method forward and that brings in their foibles and errors, etc. But the beauty of the scientific method is that over time (and sometimes that’s a LOT of time), after many iterations, the models created get better and better. You mentioned a few times the “final step” of the method, but there is no final step…The testing feeds back to the beginning where you bring those new results in and regenerate your theory – sometimes with a major change, sometimes with tweaks and sometimes with nary a change – which should make a stronger model. Every piece of evidence or data contributes towards that. Every time I drop an apple it adds to the weight, so to speak, of the Theory of Gravity. At this stage, though an apple could fall up the next time I let go of it, I’m pretty damn sure it won’t. The model is so strong that it’s predictive powers are essentially facts.
But let me step back for a second…Because I don’t think you’re talking about theories and models, etc. Again, it would help if I read the book to better understand some specific examples, but I’m guessing that an example you’re talking about might be a new drug that a pharmaceutical company may release. Through testing and trials and previous research, they’ve developed a new pill to prevent ‘X’ from happening in, let’s say, middle aged balding men (hey, I have to speak about what I know, right?). They run more tests and trials and at some point – and I think this is where you bring in the last step and the decision based on stats – they think it is ready and safe and that they have peer reviewed feedback supporting this. And so they release it to the public (with their standard warnings, etc.). But then over time, with a much larger sample audience, they realize that even though ‘X’ has been reduced in that audience by a significant percentage, a higher percentage of the subjects now have ‘Y’. Whoops.
I’ll totally agree that many times companies have created products based on ongoing research and scientific findings and released them to the public without really knowing the full implications. They may use stats to developed risk models and then either consider the risk small enough or, if larger, might hedge their bets by figuring out the economics of worst case scenarios and accepting them because they could still make a profit. It goes without saying the latter is bad, but I think you are also saying that even if they mean well and think the risk is insignificant, they may be basing those risks on incomplete or erroneous data. And yes, I agree. But that’s their bad decision making and also, likely, their need and desire to turn a profit sooner rather than later (“Don’t we have enough evidence that this is reasonably safe? We need to go to market…”). And they may even do this with the best of intentions (“we thought the science was solid…”). I get that and it sure would be nice if companies didn’t misapply scientific findings towards consumer products. And I gather that what you’re saying is that the flaw in the method is that at some point in that theoretically endless loop of theory, experiment, observe, change theory, experiment again, etc. that a human needs to make a decision to stop the testing and do something with the findings…
But that drug company releasing their product into the public that prevents ‘X’, but also causes ‘Y’ in the larger population? That event is actually just another part of the method – it’s more testing of the theory via an implementation. The method doesn’t actually care whether or not people die as a result – science is amoral after all – it just feeds it back into the loop. Which will strengthen the theory (or possibly demolish it). The method doesn’t care about the consequences you’ve created via your last experiment (we see that drug as the culmination of the science, but the method just sees it as yet another experiment).
So the problem is a misunderstanding of what science is. It’s an ongoing search for knowledge which uses the method as one of its tools to add to that bank of knowledge. What we choose to do with that knowledge is up to us. Pure science doesn’t care. People think (or at least want to think) that science always returns definitive answers to their questions or problems. That’s not how it works.
The method itself (in its pure form – and I think that’s where we’re stumbling here) is NOT political. It is completely apolitical. If we as humans decide to make it political, well, we’re just stupid. And science couldn’t care less.
Well said, but how is that not what you quoted me saying? If I may paraphrase, you are saying yes, bad things can come of science, of the methodology of science, but the cumulative effect is more positive than negative? It is refining upwards is the way I read your take on science (i.e. “making a stronger model”). I will get to your point about the apolitical method, but on this I just want to be clear, your description of how it works is like separating the wheat from the chaff (not in a derogatory way but as the analogy goes, the positive is privileged over the negative)
“So the problem is a misunderstanding of what science is. It’s an ongoing search for knowledge which uses the method as one of its tools to add to that bank of knowledge.”
And I am saying it is an ideal never achieved, and that you are in the act of myth-making something that happens differently (it is similar, sure, but in one key aspect significantly different). And this isn’t just a useless philosophical parlor game trick. Underlying the concept of science, which informs how we approach it, is the science-doing and from that can be abstracted this model, this scientific method. Let me put it this way: I 100% agree that the Scientific Method you are talking about, this apolitical concept, this ideal, is apolitical and ideal and infallible (and it is a display car with no engine). But it is infallible because it is an ideal, science is done in the minds of people, in the physical tweaking of laser trajectories, in the interpretations of phenomena into theories and the continual retesting (the method cannot save us from those errors in waiting).
Your position appears to be that it can save us well enough, that there is a pragmatism to it that transcends individual use or patterns or corruption. There is only pragmatism if it can spot the corruptions occurring to it outside of the box. My point is there is a significant blindspot this “Science” cannot see. Nobody investigates “Science” except pseudo-scientists! It is a conceptual idea, not the act of doing. You need to apply the scientific method to science itself to resolve the blight I am talking about. But scientists with the same attitude of Gamble won’t do that because there are demarcations of what is true science and what is gobbly-gook, and this is a barrier on knowledge, presumably for the sake of the integrity of the cumulative knowledge base.
In the act of preserving a kind of knowledge you cut off the ability to analyze the integrity of the method you use.
Now from your last comment, Bob, I get the idea you are more lenient about what can be pooled in with this idea of the Scientific Method, that economists, insurance analysts, statisticians, philosophers, can be included so long as they use this technique, and somehow the peer-bases feed off of one another (?) . I have been arguing more against Gamble’s opinion of a group of people using the method the ‘right’ way vs the pseudos (because after all, the methodology can be used exactly the same way irrespective of the inputs, this is my confusion with you saying The Scientific Method, without the details of the specific group of scientists, it is merely the same method used by fringe groups, the method can support or disprove some crazy shit, what matters is the peer-system it is attached to).
Ingrained in the methodology is the need of peer-reviewing, and so this notion that you can speak of the pure form of it without the political, is wrong. You cannot have a group of people judging the integrity of one another’s reason without it being political. That, again, is an ideal not based in reality – it removes human behavior from the equation. The corruption is endemic to the process, and my whole thing about Black Swan theory is the corruption is far greater and more damaging than the anointed have been able to acknowledge.
Now maybe you are saying the introduction of Black Swan theory is a part of this “Scientific Method” success story, they (human beings) got it wrong but over time, they get it more right. OK. That is not attributed to science (concept or the doers). That is attributed to the human race. With that wide a net you can excuse almost any short-sightedness that soon after a calamity, finds an answer.
My target is the Scientific Community (of which the Method is a tool) insofar as we pretend such a thing can be demarcated.
“if we as humans decide to make [the scientific method] political, well, we’re just stupid. And science couldn’t care less.”
Science can’t care because you have removed the human from the equation.
Now, Rot is talking about JUDGEMENT. It seems rather a whole different subject, and borders on the political.
What would you prefer Socrates–er–Rot, or are you just trying to point out the obvious that folks ain’t perfect?
Whether it is religion or science (which you appear to be folding into the same subset) or something else, people need a way of deciding (i.e Judging), here are a few methods
Single Dictator (Passive) – One Judge of what is good or bad (i.e. GOD)
Single Dictator (Active) – Holy Elite / Monarchy – GOD by proxy, either in Pope or King.
Peer Group – Experts who have undergone formal training in the subject and self-police their area of expertise.
‘Gut Committee’ – Court of public opinion which anyone regardless of training or expertise.
In the end, the peer group seems the most moderate approach with ‘one’ and ‘everyone’ on the extremes.
The fundamental difference between Spiritual Belief and Science (I know this is not exactly what you are arguing, but its in the ballpark, methinks) is that Faith is certain of things we don’t know and Science is uncertain of things we don’t know. One is locked down, the other is open to questions. Always.
Sure we are bound to stumble along the way regardless of the approach, but what rational being would take the former over the latter. I guess that sentence is loaded, because of how the two systems work.
What did religion get us? — 10,000 years of fear and death and strife
What did Science get us? — Bigger ways to make death, but it also got us on the moon and a heck of a lot better standard of living. We continue to fight over power and faith. Science doesn’t seems more of a means/vessel than a point of attack.
best choice: peer group that acknowledges skeptical empiricism of the whole and its parts, and can integrate that specialized knowledge into its hallowed area of specialty. Essentially, a philosophically-instructed scientific community, that does its specialized work in compartments and cross-references them with a REAL outside third party.
Taleb is all for scientific endeavor, he just doesn’t want it leading us blindly towards a Black Swan, to factor in the reality of them, so that we may offset the dangers that come from them. Stop playing the safe game of “science” and acknowledge the role of randomness in reality that is not easy to comprehend, inconvenient intellectually, inconvenient to a lot of positions of power, but if you are really rational you would see is sound.
“Science is uncertain of things we don’t know. One is locked down, the other is open to questions. Always.”
it is open to questions that satisfy a particular bias, albeit a fairly practical one. But in spite of its practicality, it doesn’t mean it is “Always” open to questioning. It doesn’t have the mechanism in place to analyze its methodology, it has to willingly outsource that analysis and willingly integrate it back in (because we are talking about meta-concepts not phenomena). It relies on a different kind of thinking, integrating those messy attributes of intuition, emotion, ethics, radical skepticism. The machine doesn’t maintain itself, no matter how crystalline perfect its logic appears from the inside (it demarcates a kind of knowledge to the disposal of another).
The good thing is it is NOT a machine. It is human beings, and they can be appealed to, but the ideology that pervades the scientific community in the pursuit of efficiency blinds it of this… it can’t see the Black Swan theory, not because it is a fringe idea, not because it isn’t intellectually sound, but because it is inconvenient to the ideology and institutions built upon it. And The Black Swan Theory is just one example, there is a history of silent evidence of ideas that were not efficient enough to be used, but for virtues other than efficiency, could have helped human beings live better.
As for religion or science, I am anti-ideology. But I expect that faith can do things that no amount of science can satisfy, and so what underlies religion appears cautiously better. I would rather die believing something hopeful and happy than have full knowledge of my every move predicted.
Has Rot ever actually defined a BLACK SWAN? Perhaps I should look that up. Damn Jargon.
I have told you to read the book. I thought it was common knowledge what a Black Swan is, sorry. It is a seemingly unpredictable, high impact event. Taleb wrote the book in 2007, 2008 was the financial crisis, thereafter the Icelandic volcano, DeepHorizon oil spill, and now Fukushima nuclear plant…. people have started to take notice of him considering the acceleration of these “anomalies”.
it comes from the story that until the discovery of Australia, how however long it was common knowledge that swans were white, and all of that accumulated knowledge was disproved on the discovery of the first black swan. It is the philosophical problem of induction that “Science” just ignores, because hey, we are getting results!
I want to clear up something I wrote above:
the scientific method itself is only as good as the peer-review system it adopts, and by that I mean the parameters. If you only want to have findings that can be reproduced and verified empirically as close to phenomena as you can get, and the peer-system devoutly adheres to this than the likelihood is there will be relatively sound means of refining a particular kind of knowledge.
I think Matt, Kurt, and Bob are thinking of Science as that. And I would agree with it. But there are two important points to be made, which I think is the crux of the dispute: that is not “the scientific method” that is a specific compartmental use of it, the obvious use, the one I think we would generally agree is associated with the higher concept “Science”.
Theoretically you could use the same steps of the scientific method, change the parameters, so that it is not empirical, but within a certain realm of logic that is ascribed, have a peer-system on the same page and churning out refined product along those lines. That was my point above about fringe people being able to use the method and the value not inherent to it. The value is value added by the particular set we think of as scientists.
So are we on the same page with that, Bob? It is the method including the parameters, in that case scientists could be automatons in service of these parameters (but they really aren’t). The inclusion of a power system and by the very nature of people, no matter the crystalline beauty of the methodology, it will inevitably fail, and by virtue of Taleb’s findings, potentially fail in ways that by itself, Science cannot predict because it is looking at a PARTICULAR KIND of knowledge (in this case, empirical).
Is all knowledge empirical? No. How well does the scientific community consult knowledge outside the realm of empiricism? Are there degrees of integrity they are willing to integrate with? And if so, if they will absorb findings that are not empirical, conceptual frameworks, philosophical ideas, why then is there a circling of the wagons to assert the empirical integrity of science? The demarcation is either blurred or it isn’t.
Matt and Bob seem to be saying there is no blur, it is empiricism and faulty empiricism that one day will be refined empiricism.
In which case, if this is true, I say this kind of Science is a dinosaur that causes Black Swans to occur, because had we the ability to temper it with other modes of knowledge, and share in the soothsaying, a healthy dose of untethered skepticism can offset the damages and better help the system as a whole.
If the response is “Science does this already” then I say it is not as demarcated as originally stated. It is already in bed with pseudo-science so get over the presumption of superiority.
my personal opinion is the demarcation IS blurred, but that the way science is done is like a high-functioning autistic. Kind of the way the Catholic Church has to get with the times, whether it likes it or not, there is top-down inspirations from outside of the demarcation to be relevant. The selecting of Nobel winners, perhaps, or just a free-floating narrative that infiltrates, the community integrates into its theories conceptual frameworks, from philosophy, from economics, from statistics and that is how the ‘high-functioning’ aspect occurs, otherwise it would be utterly hopeless. These free-floating meta-narratives are not scientific, not empirical, but intuited. And they can fail (I mean by scientific standards as well as higher magnitude). Failure can come from not enough input from outside of the box, or the ideological bent of the input by way of power bias.
It is not just that the act of science refines useful knowledge, it can blind us of the dangers in the process. Look hard enough at the single point on the horizon and you are liable to walk off a cliff.