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Eugine_Nier comments on Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (76)
Or worse: b) scientist begin passing off said group's ideology, including the parts that are BS, as "science" and c) it becomes increasingly obvious that the things being mostly loudly proclaimed as "science" are in fact B.S.
What I just notice is that quite a lot of high profile science like the one in cosmology or elementary particles looks like B.S. for the layman. And it may be not that far off. There is a lot of B.S. which forms and derives some inner logic. It's consistency may not be that much different from 'real' theories proposed for e.g. quantum gravity (judging from the differences of the QG theories).
Thus: Having too much 'high profile' science and too little 'real' results (like cancer cure type) may also hurt science in the public eye (and be exploited by demagogues).
I don't think this actually causes much of a problem. Having beliefs about things that happen far in the past that trip up the absurdity heuristic certainly hasn't hurt religion. The biggest problem is BS pronouncements about things that people can readily observe.
Do you believe that b) already happened? If not how high do you consider the likelihood that it will happen in the next 20 (40) years?
For many fields, yes. See here for an insider in one of these fields justifying knowingly passing off BS as science "for the greater good", i.e., to promote her ideology.
Vladimir_M give some good heuristics for determining which fields are corrupted here.
Specifically this part:
We have the Ethical injunction Sequence explaining some problems with this kind of reasoning. But the obvious consequence is that when you start doing this, and it becomes known (which probably happens soon enough -- but unless you succeeded in destroying the Science, it is destined to happen some day), you have done a great damage to the public image of Science as a side effect; which will cause many problems down the line.
As a trivial empathy pump, imagine how would you feel if your political opponents had this opportunity and would have no scruples abusing it. Of course, they would believe they are improving the world by doing it. And their beliefs might be wrong because of some other lies, which they would get from a trusted source. And the only institution for systematically finding the truth would be corrupted, for the supposed "greater good".
When scientists start doing this, Science is no longer seen as something that can determine whether the sky really is green or blue, but becomes merely another soldier on the Green side.
Also note, that of the two possible outcomes doing great damage to the public image of Science is actually the lesser evil, thus people who care about science should be pushing for this outcome. Unfortunately, since the harm to the reputation of science is more visible than the harm to science, there is a temptation and tendency to avoid exposing this stuff to preserve science's reputation.
This is a huge mistake, at best this will ultimately blow up in their faces, at worst the result will be science turning into a highly reputed religion whose pronouncements no longer correspond to reality.
Doing that and then defending that position publically on the internet under your own name seems extremely stupid.
I think determining whether ideology is behind questions isn't easy. One man's ideology is another man's common sense.
I don't mean the personal risk but the damage to the movement itself. It provides someone like Eugine Nier ammunition to talk down on feminism that he otherwise wouldn't have.
Using that in ammunition in a discussion like this isn't very damaging, but in the days of blogs it doesn't take that much to give that ammunition to a blogger who weaves it into a story.
Misunderstood your comment; my criticism didn't make sense with the correct interpretation. Sorry I didn't get to the post before you did.
Now that I've got it right, though, it seems to me that the behavior you're talking about might indeed be made sense of in terms of treating scientific integrity as a less sacred value than whatever you're trying to defend. "Screw inconclusive evidence; people are hurting" is exactly what I'd expect to see from an activist who'd absorbed a meme somewhere about the scientific process being just another frame for looking at the world, and that's unfortunately not an uncommon one in activist circles. I don't think there are all that many activists who would explicitly endorse this way of looking at the problem, but you don't need explicit endorsement to decide some scientific body is untrustworthy for ideological reasons.
More charitably, in the context of social science and medicine, there's quite a lot of stuff that's still under dispute or has only weak evidence pointing one way or another (including the linked post) and choosing to favor the interpretation you find more convenient for political reasons doesn't quite seem to qualify as lying. Particularly since everyone's got their halo effects coloring everything. JulianMorrison's comment is the first time I've ever seen someone coming out and saying it in public, though.
Not the optimal move, certainly, but I wouldn't call it extremely stupid.
To me it seems these memes are floating around quite frequently. In some circles, all you need to do to discredit science is to say that it was made mostly by white men (focus on ad-hominem and completely ignore the idea of the scientific method). This is a fully general counterargument against any scientific argument you dislike. Of course most of these people are not scientists. But sometimes one of them can decide to do science, for the sake of improving the world.
Changing your frame of looking at the world is like changing clothing.
You don't go slopply dressed in an environment where everyone wears suits to convince them to follow your political ideology.
I don't follow hardcore feminism but if I would move in an environment where everyone operates from that frame I wouldn't wear the scientific method frame. I rather speak about how they are pretty judgemental about people who disagree with them and that there are better methods of dealing with people than being judgemental.
If you think that your scientific frame is the only one there is, then that means that no sign of stupidity when you try to convince hardcore feminists with evidence. For someone on the other hand who comes from a background where they should be aware that there are different frames of looking at the world it's sloppy.
The problem is that not all frames are created equal. Some are actually useful for discovering the truth and/or improving the world, others are mostly only useful for signalling.
If your goal is to improve the world and the people with whom you are talking are a bunch of feminists getting them on the issue of them judging people is more likely to reach them then getting them on the issue of them not being in line with scientific evidence.
Also if you really believe that the frame of science is more useful for either of those goals where are your numbers. Where are the people that you studied who hold that belief that are more effective at discovering the truth and/or improving the world?
If you don't have those numbers because nobody really cares about using the scientific method to validate that belief, you have to choices:
You can't really argue that science is the best frame for improving the world and than hold that belief based on nonscientific reasoning that's backed up by zero data.
It should be possible to find a metric for whether someone uses science as his primary frame and possible to find a way to measure whether an individual improves the world. At least if you do believe in the scientific project than it should be possible to measure such things. If you don't think they are measurable, there goes your scientific method for finding out the truth.
And some clothes are actually useful for keeping you warm and dry and comfortable while others are mostly only useful for signalling, so what's your point? ;-)
Signalling is useful.
It does if you proceed to accuse opponents disputing that interpretation of being anti-science.