The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

[buckeyegrad]

Is perception or reality more important?

Or, more important, perception is reality.




(Not what I'm arguing)

 

[t_BuckeyeScott]

I admit, this is turning our Western understanding of objective-subjective on its head. However, in light of post-modern critiques of that objective-subjective duality, which they effectively argue, IMO, is an artificial creation, the question for me became what is the alternative? I can't get myself to the post-modern stance that everything is subjective and there are millions of individual truths about the external world. For me, transcendental phenomenology seems like the most likely compromise in that it still holds that there is a common phenomenological essence about the world around us.

Like I said above, I'm still working out in my own mind how this works out on a day-to-day basis. Your example is where I have to pause and see if the theory really works. A phenomonologist would argue, I think, that the question at hand is what is the common essence of the color we call blue. In order to get to this, rather than studying the nature of the color, you would study how various individuals perceive the color blue. You would then look for the common experiences and descriptions of the color to determine its most basic essence. If a colorblind person is reporting purple, while 20 non-colorblind people are reporting blue, it would tell us that the pigment itself is not the essence of the object, but there is something more to search for.

I'm wondering what post modern critiques you are referring to are. Maybe they are bogus. I don't have enough information.

 

[buckeyegrad]

I'm wondering what post modern critiques you are referring to are. Maybe they are bogus. I don't have enough information.

Here is a good place to start. Grenz didn't get me to Husserl or phenomenology, and I do find some of his conclusions problematic, but he was the first author to get me to take post-modernism seriously. (You would also appreciate that he writes from a Christian perspective.)

 

[MaxBuck]

I have to say, for a thread that purports to discuss "the science of why we don't believe in science," there's essentially no science here. A lot of Logic Theory, a lot of philosophy, but no science.

This is, of course, the Philosophical Musings forum, so muse away.

 

[t_BuckeyeScott]

Here is a good place to start. Grenz didn't get me to Husserl or phenomenology, and I do find some of his conclusions problematic, but he was the first author to get me to take post-modernism seriously. (You would also appreciate that he writes from a Christian perspective.)

I may read it. But honestly it all seems like dressed up subjectivism.

 

[buckeyegrad]

I have to say, for a thread that purports to discuss "the science of why we don't believe in science," there's essentially no science here. A lot of Logic Theory, a lot of philosophy, but no science.

This is, of course, the Philosophical Musings forum, so muse away.

I assume you never took a Philosophy of Science or a History of Science course.

 

[buckeyegrad]

I may read it. But honestly it all seems like dressed up subjectivism.

That's why it is a good book. Grenz takes a good three chapters to trace the historical development of modern empiricism and its critics. He also shows that the objective-subjective divide we take for granted is a historical development of Western philosophy and not necessarily the way it is.

 

[MaxBuck]

I assume you never took a Philosophy of Science or a History of Science course.

You would assume incorrectly.

 

[buckeyegrad]

You would assume incorrectly.

Then I think you would understand why these philosophical/epistemological discussions are so essential to the original question raised in the thread and why the discussion could go the direction it has.

First, science as we the original article uses the word is easily traced in its origins in Western philosophy; and second, if we are to trust what empirical/modern science tells us, which was the point of the article, it is essential to first understand the philosophical assumptions that it is built upon.

 

[Diego-Bucks]

I think you need to ease up on the generalizations of "the left" and "the right" and their beliefs. Specifically, you seem to be combining "the right" with beliefs held by Christians. That brush is far too broad to be accurate. For example, you combined issues that would make me right on some and left on the other.

You also seem to suggest that the levels of evidence supporting all arguments are equivalent. Sorry, but I'm not buying that one either. Perhaps you're a little too close to one of them to be objective about it?



Exactly.



Are you sure about that?

Its not my intention to turn it into a political right vs. political left argument. The original article was documenting how a lot of pre-conceived opinions about politically important ideas can influence the evidence that individuals accept, reject or counter-argue.

I try my best to consider a lot of evidence on something like climate-change ecology, because I recognize that I am now biased and I have a pre-forged opinion on the matter. The evidence I've encountered is from what I believe are credible sources such as NOAA, IPCC, and hundreds of publications from Nature, Ecology, Global Change Biology, Experimental Ecology etc. I have and still read skeptic articles on the mechanism (those that downplay the artificial sources of fossil fuel usage or the CO2 to temperature increase link) such as the article in Coastal Ecology on the lack of tidal indicators in sea level rise. I get frustrated when people look at articles and evidence that only agrees with what they want and their biases become evident to me. But I am not so entrenched in my beliefs that I don't acknowledge those arguments that counter my own (though I am often stubborn on issues).

So it's not my point to turn this into a left vs. right issue, more of an issue of those that denounce, nullify and vilify the scientific evidence that would disagree with their stance on things politically oriented (and frequently counter with evidence that is not scientifically based at all) vs. those that take new evidence into account and modify their beliefs to compromise with what the new evidence has to say on the subject. Both polarized view-points of the "left" and the "right" have their issues that they are less scientific accepting of and more emotional about and I don't care for those views in general.

Should all scientific studies be blindly accepted? No. The term "peer-reviewed publication" doesn't mean that it is correct. Just that it passes certain statistical or methodological criteria to the reviewers of that journal. And not all journals are created equal. But science builds on itself over time and has the best capability of any other "philosophy" or thought-process of making accurate and precise future predictions.

Certainly not all evidence is equivalent, nor are all arguments truly valid. Those that disagree that climate change is happening are out of the stratosphere on reality. Those that disagree of the mechanisms, or the causes to climate change have valid points and understandable skepticism. And the vaccine-autism issue is blatantly egregious in how politicized, emotional and anti-scientific it is based upon.

 

[Diego-Bucks]

Then I think you would understand why these philosophical/epistemological discussions are so essential to the original question raised in the thread and why the discussion could go the direction it has.

First, science as we the original article uses the word is easily traced in its origins in Western philosophy; and second, if we are to trust what empirical/modern science tells us, which was the point of the article, it is essential to first understand the philosophical assumptions that it is built upon.

Have you read Hawking and Mladinow's book "The Grand Design" and its idea of a model-dependent reality?

[Model-dependent realism] is based on the idea that our brains interpret the input from our sensory organs by making a model of the world. When such a model is successful at explaining events, we tend to attribute to it, and to the elements and concepts that constitute it, the quality of reality or absolute truth.

A way they compare it is if a fish in a fish bowl views the curvature/distortion of the bowl but still correctly predicts the movement of the planets or moons from his perspective, we could not (those of us outside the fish bowl) discount his model of the universe though we do not encounter the curvature/distortion ourselves. If a model correctly predicts observations, it is just as correct as another model that would also predict the same set of observations. Of course, this also requires that one mostly abandon those models (or in this case world viewpoints) that do not correctly predict things (such as Aristotle's view on gravity and the organization of the universe).

According to model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation. If there are two models that both agree with observation ... then one cannot say that one is more real than another. One can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration.

 

[MaxBuck]

... these philosophical/epistemological discussions are so essential ...

Neither philosophy nor epistemology have FA to do with science.

I don't claim that it's fruitless to philosophize on the nature of science, nor to discuss the sociology of science, politics of science, theology of science, whatever. But the title of the thread relates to the "science of why we don't believe science," and philosophizing has nothing to do with the science of anything. It's worth doing, but again - not science.

 

[buckeyegrad]

Neither philosophy nor epistemology have FA to do with science.

I don't claim that it's fruitless to philosophize on the nature of science, nor to discuss the sociology of science, politics of science, theology of science, whatever. But the title of the thread relates to the "science of why we don't believe science," and philosophizing has nothing to do with the science of anything. It's worth doing, but again - not science.

You have a very limited view of what science is. Not surprising, as most people restrict their understanding of science to those defined by the philosophical assumptions of empiricism. Oh, well. Sounds as though I'm not likely to broaden your definition, but I'll keep trying with others.

 

[buckeyegrad]

Have you read Hawking and Mladinow's book "The Grand Design" and its idea of a model-dependent reality?

A way they compare it is if a fish in a fish bowl views the curvature/distortion of the bowl but still correctly predicts the movement of the planets or moons from his perspective, we could not (those of us outside the fish bowl) discount his model of the universe though we do not encounter the curvature/distortion ourselves. If a model correctly predicts observations, it is just as correct as another model that would also predict the same set of observations. Of course, this also requires that one mostly abandon those models (or in this case world viewpoints) that do not correctly predict things (such as Aristotle's view on gravity and the organization of the universe).

Not familiar with the book. Will have to check it out.

"Model-dependent reality" certainly makes sense to me as as you describe it; and it reflects how I view empirical science in that it doesn't provide much on describing reality, but it does a superb job in creating predictive models that allow us to interact with reality as evidenced by the fields medicine and engineering.

 

[MaxBuck]

You have a very limited view of what science is. Not surprising, as most people restrict their understanding of science to those defined by the philosophical assumptions of empiricism. Oh, well. Sounds as though I'm not likely to broaden your definition, but I'll keep trying with others.

This is the place I come from, when it comes to "science."

science (sī'əns) n. The investigation of natural phenomena through observation, theoretical explanation, and experimentation, or the knowledge produced by such investigation. Science makes use of the scientific method, which includes the careful observation of natural phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis, the conducting of one or more experiments to test the hypothesis, and the drawing of a conclusion that confirms or modifies the hypothesis.
The American Heritage? Science Dictionary
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