Henosis Sage
2021-07-24 07:38:47 UTC
‘Trust the science’ is the mantra of the Covid crisis – but what about human fallibility?
Margaret Simons
Science is the only method we have of understanding the world, making predictions, and rationally adapting our own behaviour
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/24/trust-the-science-is-the-mantra-of-the-covid-crisis-but-what-about-human-fallibility
I quite like this summary, sounds reasonable.... quoting a bit, but read it all if interested.
QUOTE
Hume concluded that it was impossible to draw any general laws on the basis of past experience and irrational to make predictions about the future based on the assumption it will resemble the past.
And yet, we do. We all do. It is human to make such assumptions.
Twentieth century philosopher Karl Popper claimed to have solved the problem of induction, and to have rescued human beings’ claim to be rational creatures.
Popper recast our understanding of what it is that scientists do. Far from trying to prove their theories true, he said, they were trying to falsify them.
Hypotheses might come from observation. They might come in a dream. It didn’t matter, said Popper. The key was to have a “bold conjecture” to test it against reality and abandon it and construct another if it didn’t match the observable facts.
This was the progress of scientific knowledge, said Popper. Not a matter of certainty or absolute truth, but of what “worked” in the real world.
Popper famously wrote: “Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.”
In other words – and I think this is a key insight – you can be rational without being certain.
But there is a problem. Philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn explored how scientists actually behaved, and found that they did not meet Popper’s ideal of rational behaviour. They clung to their theories long after anomalies and problems had emerged.
The knowledge that disease was spread through germs was resisted for decades, despite the evidence.
The ancients believed that all celestial objects revolved around the earth in circular orbits. When it became clear that this theory did not explain all the observations of the night sky, astronomers produced ever more complex charts to try to fit the heavens to their beliefs.
Kuhn concluded that science is broken up into three distinct stages. First, there is mere observation – pre-science, with no theory or paradigm. Then comes “normal science” which proceeds within an accepted theory, with knowledge within that framework being gradually enlarged.
Eventually, problems emerge – phenomenon that don’t fit the theory. Usually, these will at first be dismissed as mistakes on the part of the researchers. Gradually the tensions increase to a point of crisis. Then, there will be revolutionary science, and a new theory will replace the old.
An analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office found $4.6bn in jobkeeper flowed to businesses whose turnover actually increased
Businesses that had no downturn from Covid crisis received $12.5bn jobkeeper windfall
Read more
This is the “paradigm shift” – a term that entered the language thanks to Kuhn’s work.
There has been a paradigm shift during the Covid-19 epidemic, around the issue of airborne transmission of the virus.
----
I also think the same kind of approach ideas apply to climate change and historical research such as religions etc.
Margaret Simons
Science is the only method we have of understanding the world, making predictions, and rationally adapting our own behaviour
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/24/trust-the-science-is-the-mantra-of-the-covid-crisis-but-what-about-human-fallibility
I quite like this summary, sounds reasonable.... quoting a bit, but read it all if interested.
QUOTE
Hume concluded that it was impossible to draw any general laws on the basis of past experience and irrational to make predictions about the future based on the assumption it will resemble the past.
And yet, we do. We all do. It is human to make such assumptions.
Twentieth century philosopher Karl Popper claimed to have solved the problem of induction, and to have rescued human beings’ claim to be rational creatures.
Popper recast our understanding of what it is that scientists do. Far from trying to prove their theories true, he said, they were trying to falsify them.
Hypotheses might come from observation. They might come in a dream. It didn’t matter, said Popper. The key was to have a “bold conjecture” to test it against reality and abandon it and construct another if it didn’t match the observable facts.
This was the progress of scientific knowledge, said Popper. Not a matter of certainty or absolute truth, but of what “worked” in the real world.
Popper famously wrote: “Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.”
In other words – and I think this is a key insight – you can be rational without being certain.
But there is a problem. Philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn explored how scientists actually behaved, and found that they did not meet Popper’s ideal of rational behaviour. They clung to their theories long after anomalies and problems had emerged.
The knowledge that disease was spread through germs was resisted for decades, despite the evidence.
The ancients believed that all celestial objects revolved around the earth in circular orbits. When it became clear that this theory did not explain all the observations of the night sky, astronomers produced ever more complex charts to try to fit the heavens to their beliefs.
Kuhn concluded that science is broken up into three distinct stages. First, there is mere observation – pre-science, with no theory or paradigm. Then comes “normal science” which proceeds within an accepted theory, with knowledge within that framework being gradually enlarged.
Eventually, problems emerge – phenomenon that don’t fit the theory. Usually, these will at first be dismissed as mistakes on the part of the researchers. Gradually the tensions increase to a point of crisis. Then, there will be revolutionary science, and a new theory will replace the old.
An analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office found $4.6bn in jobkeeper flowed to businesses whose turnover actually increased
Businesses that had no downturn from Covid crisis received $12.5bn jobkeeper windfall
Read more
This is the “paradigm shift” – a term that entered the language thanks to Kuhn’s work.
There has been a paradigm shift during the Covid-19 epidemic, around the issue of airborne transmission of the virus.
----
I also think the same kind of approach ideas apply to climate change and historical research such as religions etc.