The cult of science - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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User avatar
By Hindsite
#14965803
Rancid wrote:You've been pulling the same dishonest bullshit diarrhea from the start.

It appears that there is no meeting of the minds here.
What is clear to me is that those calling themselves scientist want to be taken seriously.
User avatar
By Rancid
#14965824
Hindsite wrote:It appears that there is no meeting of the minds here.


Yes

Hindsite wrote:What is clear to me is that those calling themselves scientist want to be taken seriously.


Well, just about anyone on the planet wants to be taken seriously.
User avatar
By Hindsite
#14965879
Rancid wrote:Well, just about anyone on the planet wants to be taken seriously.

Perhaps it would be better if they were not so full of themselves.
Praise the Lord.
User avatar
By Rancid
#14965882
Hindsite wrote:Perhaps it would be better if they were not so full of themselves.
Praise the Lord.


Well, most of us on this planet are full of ourselves. :)

If your Lord is Jesus then Praise be! Otherwise, you can burn in hell.
User avatar
By Godstud
#14965888
Scientists, if they are worthy of the name, are not "full of themselves". They present science, and facts, that are verifiable and repeatable.

The people who are "full of themselves" are the ones dismissing actual science, for political agendas or in favour of religious dogma.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14965907
Godstud wrote:Scientists, if they are worthy of the name, are not "full of themselves". They present science, and facts, that are verifiable and repeatable.

The people who are "full of themselves" are the ones dismissing actual science, for political agendas or in favour of religious dogma.


Why would you think your profession makes you less prone to human frailty? We are individuals and your classifications into groups that are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is a disservice to our basic equality. Groups are imaginary. Individuals are real. Allow for the fact that someone, you disagree with everything they say, can still be more honest than yourself.
User avatar
By Godstud
#14965911
Whether you make mistakes(frailty?) and are human is irrelevant. if you make mistakes, then others trying to repeat your work will have different results, and your science will be flawed, or invalid.

Science is neither good nor bad. Science is presenting facts. What we do with that information after the science is confirmed, is when it can be good, or bad.

One Degree wrote:Allow for the fact that someone, you disagree with everything they say, can still be more honest than yourself.
Science doesn't give a shit about someone's opinion, or whether they agree or not. It's either science, or it's not.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14965913
Godstud wrote:Whether you make mistakes(frailty?) and are human is irrelevant. if you make mistakes, then others trying to repeat your work will have different results, and your science will be flawed, or invalid.

Science is neither good nor bad. Science is presenting facts. What we do with that information after the science is confirmed, is when it can be good, or bad.

Science doesn't give a shit about someone's opinion, or whether they agree or not. It's either science, or it's not.


Your reasoning is flawed by thinking of science as producing ‘facts’. It does not attempt to do any such thing.
User avatar
By Godstud
#14965922
One Degree wrote:Your reasoning is flawed by thinking of science as producing ‘facts’. It does not attempt to do any such thing.
WTF are you talking about? Science is based on scientific method, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. It ONLY deals in facts, and not in fiction.

FFS, if you don't know what science is, at least say so.

Science
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

It's not based on opinion or other such bullshit. Science isn't about doing something so that someone agrees with you. it's about discovering/learning something that other people can confirm and validate.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14965924
Godstud wrote:WTF are you talking about? Science is based on scientific method, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. It ONLY deals in facts, and not in fiction.

FFS, if you don't know what science is, at least say so.

Science
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

It's not based on opinion or other such bullshit. Science isn't about doing something so that someone agrees with you. it's about discovering/learning something that other people can confirm and validate.


If you look st your own definition, you will see science is a process and not a result. Do you see anything about ‘facts’ in your definition?
User avatar
By Rancid
#14965936
One Degree wrote:Your reasoning is flawed by thinking of science as producing ‘facts’. It does not attempt to do any such thing.


What does science attempt to do?
#14965939
Rancid wrote:What does science attempt to do?

Investigate. It produces ‘current findings’. If it’s goal was to find ‘facts’, it would have stopped investigating long ago. It wants to disprove ‘current findings’ as much as justifying them. They don’t care which it is.
User avatar
By Rancid
#14965940
One Degree wrote:Investigate. It produces ‘current findings’. If it’s goal was to find ‘facts’, it would have stopped investigating long ago. It wants to disprove ‘current findings’ as much as justifying them. They don’t care which it is.


Fair enough, but I think when people say "facts" in the context of science, they likely mean it as "current findings". It's not a stretch to say that a current finding is effectively a fact, until it's disproved.

Edit: but yes, saying current findings would be a more accurate statement.
#14965942
Rancid wrote:Fair enough, but I think when people say "facts" in the context of science, they likely mean it as "current findings". It's not a stretch to say that a current finding is effectively a fact, until it's disproved.

Edit: but yes, saying current findings would be a more accurate statement.


Yes, but that subtle difference is what results in people like Godstud viewing science as something more than it really is. This should be discouraged as it can indeed be viewed as ‘religious belief’.
By Sivad
#14965975
Rancid wrote: It's not a stretch to say that a current finding is effectively a fact, until it's disproved.


:knife: It's a huge stretch, especially given that science only deals in probabilities and not facts.
By Sivad
#14965976
"One thing that never gets emphasised enough in science, or in schools, or anywhere else, is that no matter how fancy-schmancy your statistical technique, the output is always a probability level (a P-value), the "significance" of which is left for you to judge – based on nothing more concrete or substantive than a feeling, based on the imponderables of personal or shared experience. Statistics, and therefore science, can only advise on probability – they cannot determine The Truth. And Truth, with a capital T, is forever just beyond one's grasp."

Misunderstandings of p-values are common in scientific research and scientific education. P-values are often used or interpreted incorrectly; the American Statistical Association states that P-values can indicate how incompatible the data are with a specified statistical model.[1] From a Neyman–Pearson hypothesis testing approach to statistical inferences, the data obtained by comparing the p-value to a significance level will yield one of two results: either the null hypothesis is rejected (which however does not prove that the null hypothesis is false), or the null hypothesis cannot be rejected at that significance level (which however does not prove that the null hypothesis is true).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging

starts @ 3:40
User avatar
By Rancid
#14966051
One Degree wrote:Yes, but that subtle difference is what results in people like Godstud viewing science as something more than it really is. This should be discouraged as it can indeed be viewed as ‘religious belief’.


We really don't know what's going on in Godstud's mind, but yes, having this inaccuracy (calling current findings as facts) could lead to people believing that scientific findings are indisputable fact. Technically speaking.....

That said, if the findings on some random thing being studied is 99%. From a practical standpoint, it's as good as a fact to me (until something better comes along). Arguing over 1% can be very insignificant and a waste of time. For example, since I work in computer architecture performance. What happens is, we propose some sort of architectural change. We make the change, and then test it by running a million different workloads to test the impact of this change on the workloads. If the results come back that this architectural change resulted in 20% performance increases 99% of the time on this specific class of workloads, and in the 1% there's no different on this specific class of workloads. Then the claim that this architectural change is a benefit to performance on these workloads is as good as a fact to me.

Ultimately, I think you're just saying we should stop using the word facts in science discussion. Cause technically, everything is disputable in science. That's fine, and I think most reasonable scientists that arne't working in fields which are heavily politicized understand this anyway. I don't' really see an issue here, or something to cry about from you. The only places this becomes a problem is when shit gets political, like climate science.

I do have to say, all the papers I've read never really declare anything as true facts anyway.
User avatar
By One Degree
#14966058
Rancid wrote:We really don't know what's going on in Godstud's mind, but yes, having this inaccuracy (calling current findings as facts) could lead to people believing that scientific findings are indisputable fact. Technically speaking.....

That said, if the findings on some random thing being studied is 99%. From a practical standpoint, it's as good as a fact to me (until something better comes along). Arguing over 1% can be very insignificant and a waste of time. For example, since I work in computer architecture performance. What happens is, we propose some sort of architectural change. We make the change, and then test it by running a million different workloads to test the impact of this change on the workloads. If the results come back that this architectural change resulted in 20% performance increases 99% of the time on this specific class of workloads, and in the 1% there's no different on this specific class of workloads. Then the claim that this architectural change is a benefit to performance on these workloads is as good as a fact to me.

Ultimately, I think you're just saying we should stop using the word facts in science discussion. Cause technically, everything is disputable in science. That's fine, and I think most reasonable scientists that arne't working in fields which are heavily politicized understand this anyway. I don't' really see an issue here, or something to cry about from you. The only places this becomes a problem is when shit gets political, like climate science.

I do have to say, all the papers I've read never really declare anything as true facts anyway.

I am not ‘crying about it’. I am just pointing out why this argument of science being a ‘religion’ might exist is because of the misunderstanding of ‘facts’. If you recall, I was mostly on your side in this discussion. :)
User avatar
By Rancid
#14966063
One Degree wrote:I am not ‘crying about it’. I am just pointing out why this argument of science being a ‘religion’ might exist is because of the misunderstanding of ‘facts’. If you recall, I was mostly on your side in this discussion. :)


Sorry, and when I said "you" I didn't mean YOU specifically. More the universal "you".

Another thing I agree on is if scientist are presenting data in an area that is considered politically charged, then they need to be very clear and specific with how they present their data. Since it can have massive impact on people's opinions, legislation, etc. etc. Anything less would be unethical.
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