TimS comments on How to Not Lose an Argument - Less Wrong

109 Post author: Yvain 19 March 2009 01:07AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (409)
Tags: argument

Comments (409)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: TimS 13 December 2011 09:19:19PM *  2 points [-]

can science be separated from power and discourse?

No. Obviously not. (This is not the majority position in this community).

The post-modern question to science is not about whether or not science can predict reality. The question is whether or not science is produced scientifically.

I would hope that a scientist familiar with post-modern thought would agree that producing knowledge scientifically means nothing more and nothing less than getting better at predicting reality.

My take on Kuhn? The incommensurability of scientific theories (e.g. Aristotelian physics vs. Newtonian physics) is a real thing, but it does not imply scientific nihilism because there are phenomena. Thus, science is possible because there is "regularity" (not sure what the technical word is) when observing reality.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2011 09:28:50PM 0 points [-]

No. Obviously not. (This is not the majority position in this community).

interesting, can you explain your reasoning?

incommensurability of scientific theories

is that the thing where from one theory the other one looks bogus and you can't get from one to the other? Seems to me that it doesn't imply nihilism because using the full power of your current mind, one model looks better than the other. it might be the same as EYs take on the problem of induction here.

Comment author: TimS 13 December 2011 09:42:07PM *  0 points [-]

Yes, incommensurability is the problem of translating from one theory into a later theory.

Aristotelian physics, from the point of view of Newtonian physics, is absolutely stupid. It's like Aristotle wasn't looking at the same reality. Overstating slightly to make a point, Newtonian physics, from the point of view of relativistic physics, is manifestly false. It's like Newton wasn't looking at the same reality. How many times must the circle repeat before the Bayesian conclusion is that the different scientists were not looking at the same reality? By the principle of incommensurability, you can't say that the earlier theory can be massaged into a more simplistic version of the later theory.

If different scientists are looking at a different reality, how on earth did we keep making better predictions? Thus the appeal to the regularity of phenomena, which rescues the concept of scientific progress even if we think that our model is likely to be considered utter nonsense a generation or so into the future.

ETA: The social position of science is an expansion of the halo effect point I made.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit