Kindly comments on Rationality Quotes December 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Salemicus 03 December 2014 10:33PM

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Comment author: ike 05 December 2014 02:50:19AM 5 points [-]

I haven't finished the document yet, but I noticed it keeps on using the word "unscientific", which sounds problematic as one of its aims is to define pseudoscience.

Comment author: 27chaos 05 December 2014 10:48:51AM 1 point [-]

which sounds problematic as one of its aims is to define pseudoscience.

?

They explicitly say that there is no rigid definition distinguishing pseudoscience from legitimate science. They claim that in order to distinguish between them it's necessary to point at specific instances of misleading behaviors, and they enumerate these behaviors at the very beginning of the paper.

Comment author: ike 05 December 2014 01:39:50PM 4 points [-]

But in that list of problems, they keep on saying "Unscientifically simplified, Unscientifically claimed, etc", which is a problem unless they define science. They clearly haven't learned how to taboo words like science, which shows here.

Comment author: 27chaos 12 December 2014 10:49:04PM 0 points [-]

Tabooing words is a tool, not a mandatory exercise. They weren't relying on the word "unscientifically" to do the work for them.

For example, here is the first instance of the word I spotted upon looking at the article again:

de Grey also casually rules out the contributions of non-oncogenic epimutation to aging through “guilt by association” misrepresentation. He groups together nDNA mutation and epimutation, provides grossly insufficient evidence to rule out nDNA mutation as important in aging, and then declares epimutation is ruled out as well without providing any supporting evidence [8, 35]. There is no logical or mechanistic reason for this. In fact, references are available that suggest that epimutation might be common and problematic with advancing age, possibly even more so than nDNA mutation (for example see [36-38]). Furthermore, other known molecular pathologies, such as unrepaired DNA damage in post-mitotic tissues, as well as largely uncharacterized and undiscovered damage and pathologies, are dismissed altogether as contributing to aging (for one example, see [39]). This is baseless and unscientific conjecture.

It seems clear that they're not relying on the word in an inappropriate way. Tabooing is useful sometimes, but requiring others to taboo any subject of conversation is not productive and adds an unnecessary mechanism for biases to influence us.

Comment author: ike 14 December 2014 01:01:18AM 0 points [-]

The particular use you quote looks justified. I was referring to this, from earlier:

Table 1. General Features of Pseudoscientific Plans for Extension of Human Life Span

The Problem of Aging

1.Unscientifically simplified; diffuse and undiscovered damage/pathologies excluded as causes of aging without compelling evidence

2.Unscientifically claimed to be curable to some degree by specific therapies

where it looked like anything they didn't like could be included under the unscientific category.

Comment author: 27chaos 14 December 2014 01:28:40AM 0 points [-]

simplified; diffuse and undiscovered damage/pathologies excluded as causes of aging without compelling evidence

This seems bad to me and unscientific sounds like a fair label for such practices. I don't know why you disagree.

Unscientifically claimed to be curable to some degree by specific therapies

Admittedly this usage is confusing. But judging from the arguments made elsewhere in the paper, they seem to be saying there's no good evidence suggesting these specific therapies will work. A lot of what he does seems to be highly speculative. Calling speculation unscientific seems fair to me, science is about going out and looking at the world, then creating ideas in response to what you observe.