Universeintheflesh t1_j3wom4t wrote
I took a philosophy course called science and pseudoscience and it was basically learning about our own mental biases and trying to overcome them. That seemed more about the pursuit of truth because they are something everyone always has (even if you think you don’t) and so it is something you can always be working on to come closer to truth.
TAMiiNATOR t1_j3xdp2i wrote
Can you recommend good readings from that class?
Experiunce t1_j40czde wrote
Here are some examples on Philosophy of Science tangentially related to biases and world view:
- Richard Rudner argues that it is impossible to separate science from human/personal biases because scientists are human. Their biases impact their entire point of view. https://www.jstor.org/stable/185617
- Thomas Kuhn talks about how science evolves and how the things that we, as a society, consider facts change and evolve. Famous phrase: Paradigm Shift. https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf
- Paul Feyerabend speaks on Scientism, which is "the belief that science has the answer to all meaningful questions" (source). I can't find a PDF online but the book is, "The Tyranny of Science".I want to add that despite the connotation that philosophy is fighting against science when discussing scientism, it only focuses on the OVER-reliance of science. Not simply just the use of science as being bad.
There are excellent philosophy of science intro books that are relatively short and jump around to introduce cool ideas and explain how science has evolved.
Here is one: Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction by Samir Okashhttps://philpapers.org/rec/OKAPOS
Science used to be called 'Natural Philosophy'. It was born from Philosophy. It is very thorough in its processes, similar to science, but mainly deals with conceptual/abstract issues. I would argue that Philosophy is a vital part of any academic category as it helps expand perspective and still maintains a high bar of accuracy to be taken seriously.
Suntzie t1_j42p0lb wrote
Another great one is Bruno Laytour: We Have Never Been Modern, argues that the concept of what it means to modern has always been contingent on the time. And that scientific objects are insperable from human nature
Universeintheflesh t1_j3yw3h1 wrote
I’m sorry, it was many years ago that I took it and I don’t have the material anymore. Now that I am thinking about it again though I am kind of interested in pursuing that information again. One thing I do remember is that it was taught by someone who was a minor celebrity (might be the wrong term for semi famous in the field) named Peter Boghossian. Looking up about him now I see that he kinda got forced out of the university a couple years ago by being too controversial. I am currently reading through his interview about it: https://dartreview.com/an-interview-with-peter-boghossian/
monsantobreath t1_j3z6725 wrote
I got as far as him saying antifa was destroying Portland to remember that just because you're a philosopher doesn't mean you know Jack shit about politics or in this case the facts of what actually happened.
He's the guy who taught how to overcome one's biases?
Experiunce t1_j40d82r wrote
Yea one of the most famous sad boi philosophers was famously a piece of shit irl. There's a story about him pushing a lady down a flight of stairs.
Our boy Arthur Schopenhauer
Universeintheflesh t1_j3zanxx wrote
I mainly remember learning about it in the class and him putting on some kind of show lol.
monsantobreath t1_j3zfu1v wrote
He sounds showy from his interview.
Mustelafan t1_j428haa wrote
Maybe he's right and you're actually the one that's biased? No, no, that couldn't be it 🤔
monsantobreath t1_j42bw8m wrote
Given the facts around what happened in Portland he's the biased one.
_VibeKilla_ t1_j3yjdiu wrote
This almost seems like it should be required learning. Baked into the curriculum from an early age. I’m also interested in recommended readings from the class.
rdrigrail t1_j3zp8c6 wrote
Yeah, I always consider that to be critical thinking skills. Not much room for it these days in our educational system. We value memory of distilled historical events and call it learning as opposed to problem solving, creative thinking and critical thinking skills. What box should be the question asked about positive educational outcomes.
cesiumatom t1_j3yn0by wrote
It's important to make a distinction between subjective experience and objective reality when discussing science, pseudoscience, and mental bias because they are often confused with one another. The scientific method often involves using subjective experience as a starting point, such as a field of personal interest, a pursuit of an idea, or following the inspiration from a dream someone once had, etc. In fact, many scientific discoveries of great importance today were reported to have "come" to the scientist through what might be considered pseudoscientific means. There are too many to list, but if anyone is interested, I would be glad to share some stories. Is this related to a certain bias the scientist had? Most definitely so, but that doesn't mean the bias was not useful and fruitful in its essence, nor did the scientist necessarily have to be aware of their own biases to have made strides in their pursuit. While subjective experience can serve as a starting point for discovery, the test against objective reality is what takes the pseudoscientific into the scientific. The statement "meditation enhances your DNA" may sound pseudoscientific. However, if 60 days of consistent meditation clearly show the elongation of telomeres in test subjects under controlled conditions, and if the data can be replicated using other measuring instruments through other groups of scientists in the common framework of objective reality, then it can be said that the phenomenon is real relative to objective reality, hence scientific. The key is the convergence of minds upon singular nodes, their interactions, and the process of verification. Unfortunately, what is labeled as pseudoscientific is quickly dismissed by the materialist scientist, despite its historically documented usefulness in producing innovation across mutiple scientific fields time and time again. I would caution against vague dichotomies and attempts to diminish the significance of consciousness relative to the material world, and recommend being open and accepting of the fact that we just do not know yet how the material world works in relation to cognition. Today, the "observer" extends their hand towards Quantum mechanics, and who knows what dances we have yet to witness between the science and truth.
MoiMagnus t1_j40n3z0 wrote
Yes, the scientific method often get "initialised" by non-scientific means. What I see in my domains is often issues about "aesthetics", like searching for a theory that is pleasing to the mind.
However, while it is widely accepted that while those biais are useful for innovation and finding research directions, as long as you don't manage to distance yourself from those biais you should not expect other scientists to believe you.
The high standard of "objectivity" is a standard about creating a scientific consensus. If a scientist believe that something is right while another believe that something is wrong, and all they have are subjective experiences, then you're in a deadlock and none of them will change their mind.
Additionally, given the very wild and numerous beliefs that many individuals (even scientists) have, you can't afford the time to have unfructuous debates with all of them.
That's why the scientific community agreed that it was a better use of everyone time to dismiss ideas that are only backed by subjective experiences from the scientific consensus, but that doesn't mean it is banning individual research groups from following them (they're called "conjectures"). It's just that only recognising them when they reach a point where objective data is obtained.
And I have plenty of examples on my community of researchers that have some bug conjectures that are "crazy", and those conjectures are dismissed by the community if you're talking about "scientific consensus", but still accepted if you're seeing them as a "research project that might or might not eventually give some major results".
It's just that from the outside, peoples only see the "scientific consensus". And obviously the scientific consensus will dismiss wild claims because that's not where wild claims belongs: they belong in "conjectures" and "research projects".
cesiumatom t1_j40sa3x wrote
I agree with all your points. The line between passion and insanity is thin, particularly in the scientific domains as people do tend to dedicate their lives to proving or disproving a set of details that could potentially change the whole direction of the field, at least in their minds.
That being said, I often see plenty of dismissive narratives spun by scientists about research worthy fields, and funding rarely goes where it is needed, if what is needed is well-being without commercial interest. You can see the results of lockdown on physical and mental health as an example.
Though scientific evidence for the efficacy of lockdowns in preventing the spread of infectious disease is poor, it was implemented by scientist consensus because Amazon and the like needed to scale their businesses, and cash was on the table. Did it help to prevent infection? No. Did it decrease the spread? No. Did it reinforce the introduction of variants? Probably, based on recent research.
All I'm saying is that in the name of being scientific, disasters have occurred time and time again, all signed off on by leading scientists in their fields pursuing the scientific method, while turning a blind eye towards the biases that may have introduced caution as opposed to panic and prevented them from making things worse. It might be worthwhile to actively seek out alternative points of view rather than to put blind faith in a single method that has no ethical framework, does its best not to consider ethics at all, and tries its hardest to avoid ethical "obstacles" in the name of progress.
MoiMagnus t1_j412pmv wrote
I'm sadly not working in the medical domain, so I don't know anything past my 5min internet search (which yield results such as https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/library/pedia/effectiveness-of-lockdowns) it seems that the core issue was not one of diagnosis (they were right in determining that a severe reduction of contacts between humans would reduce the spread) but one of failure in policy-making (medical experts failed to consider that voluntary confinement would be enough to reduce the spread, and that government mandates would not significantly improve the situation while having some severe drawbacks on non-medical subjects). Which, all being said, is not surprising: most medical experts don't have ALSO an expertise in policy-making, and like most peoples, scientists tend to overestimate their skill in domain they're not expert in.
Though, even if they were experts in both, I'm even cautious about calling "following the experts" as being "following the scientific consensus", as one of the prerequisite for the scientific consensus to work as intended is time, which is lacking in urgent situations like a worldwide pandemic.
[And I won't comment on the effects of funding methods in science, as while I understand that the peoples spending money want to ensure that the money they invest is going to bring them even more money, it has many perverted effects on scientists' ethics.]
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