I mean, in practice most of the people making use of the work scientists have done aren't really testing the scientists' work for themselves (they're kinda doing it implicitly by making use of that work, but the whole point is that they are confident it's not going to fail).
First, I think the "implicitly" part is very important. That glowing gizmo with melted-sand innards in front of me works. By working it verifies, very directly, a whole lot of science.
And "working in practice" is what leads to confidence, not vice versa. When a sailor took the first GPS unit on a cruise, he didn't say "Oh, science says it's going to work, so that's all going to be fine". He took it as a secondary or, probably, a tertiary navigation device. Now, after years of working in practice sailors take the GPS as a primary device and most often, a second GPS as a secondary.
Note, by the way, that we want useful science and useful science leads to practical technologies that we test and use all the time.
Calibration (in the sense we're talking about here) isn't of much relevance to Alice when she's doing the primary research.
Oh, good, we agree.
But Bob's opinion ... is an altogether slipperier thing; and the opinion to which he and Beth and the others converge is slipperier still.
Sure, that's fine. Bob and Beth are not scientists and are not doing science. Allow me to quote myself: "Calibration is good for guesstimates, it's not particularly valuable for actual research." Bob and Bill and Beth and Bert are not doing actual research. They are trying to use published results to form some opinions, some guesstimates and, as I agree, their calibration matters for the quality of their guesstimates. But, again, that's not science.
Bob and Beth are not scientists and are not doing science.
Bob and Beth are scientists (didn't I make it clear enough in my gedankenexperiment that they are intended to be journo-oncologists just as much as Alice et al, it's just that we're considering them in a different role here?). And they are forming their opinions in the course of their professional activities. Doing science is not only about doing experiments and working out knotty theoretical problems; when two scientists discuss their work, they are doing science; when a scientist attends a conf...
Cross-posted from my blog here.
One of the greatest successes of mankind over the last few centuries has been the enormous amount of wealth that has been created. Once upon a time virtually everyone lived in grinding poverty; now, thanks to the forces of science, capitalism and total factor productivity, we produce enough to support a much larger population at a much higher standard of living.
EAs being a highly intellectual lot, our preferred form of ritual celebration is charts. The ordained chart for celebrating this triumph of our people is the Declining Share of People Living in Extreme Poverty Chart.
(Source)
However, as a heretic, I think this chart is a mistake. What is so great about reducing the share? We could achieve that by killing all the poor people, but that would not be a good thing! Life is good, and poverty is not death; it is simply better for it to be rich.
As such, I think this is a much better chart. Here we show the world population. Those in extreme poverty are in purple – not red, for their existence is not bad. Those who the wheels of progress have lifted into wealth unbeknownst to our ancestors, on the other hand, are depicted in blue, rising triumphantly.
Long may their rise continue.