Signs of the Times
kirstenhacker.wordpress.com
kirstenhacker.wordpress.com
The author is making it sound like the work is just p-hacking when it's /very clearly/ not.
This single paragraph in the Method section explains it best:
> "Reconstructing an image using bispectrum measurements is an ill-posed problem, and as such there are an infinite number of possible images that explain the data [28]. The challenge is to find an explanation that respects our prior assumptions about the “visual” universe while still satisfying the observed data."
This is literally all of physics! You can say that Newtonian physics is 'just curve fitting' just the same.
I don't know enough about the philosophy of science to make a further argument here but clearly the author does not either.
This is discussed in the Caltech talk which is embedded in the post. It seems the author cherrypicked all the quotes that sound bad and ignored the parts that disagree with her narrative.
I would paraphrase that "saying" about teaching as thus: "those who can't do, nitpick"
The TED talk was for a different algorithmic technique.
Couple that with assertions like "An image with a hole or without a hole looks the same in the amplitude domain." and I see that this article has as much credibility as climate deniers.
Same thing with the Ligo "naysayers" who tried to disprove the experiments without knowing the basics of signal processing using FFT, etc
The author formed a theory that the black hole image research was flawed, specifically that the researchers are filtering for images with the right shape and merging these to produce an image similar to predictions. The author then looks at various talks and presentations and filters for isolated statements that out-of-context support the idea of the research flaws.
The author has a flawed approach exactly analagous to the accused flaw in the black hole research.
Wonder if dark matter/energy will turn out to be the Aether of the 21st century.
If you think, as more cautiously-minded folks seem to, that they're just clever catchwords to describe troubling lacunae in our understanding of how the universe works, not so much. There really are observations that we have trouble explaining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_(string_theory)
But there I think most physicists think something like the solution to the Einstein field equations does obtain within most of the interior region of the objects we call black holes. They just believe that the region of the singularity may have some other physics so that it doesn't become singular.
I remember looking into this when it all came out and I don't think Prof Bouman's algorithm was actually used for that picture. Her TED talk was great, and I think that's why everyone latched onto it, but IIRC they ended up using a different reconstruction algorithm.
Some people were unreasonably concerned with who actually did what with that image, and I wouldn't normally care about it. It's just that this article is trying to cast doubt on the existence of black holes by attacking an algorithm that wasn't even used to generate the picture they're showing on the page.
Reading this article makes it seem like the work is a scientific version of my kids artwork. Interesting to the right audience, tells you a lot about who created it but bearing only a slight semblance to reality.
One of my favorite quips along those same lines is "X is Y years of progress being held back by Z years of tradition."
In science, there are no facts that are presented as being undeniably true. Rather, all scientific facts can be independently derived and understood to be true by any person. This emphasis on reproducibility means that no scientific lesson has to be taken on faith, eliminating any sense of dogma.
Furthermore, as our understanding of the world improves, we often challenge dated scientific ideas and prove them wrong using empirical evidence. If science was truly dogmatic this would never happen, because dogma requires facts to be presented as being undeniably true, forever.
If reproducibility was really that important then the scientific body would be more focused on replicating results rather racing to being the first group to publish an idea or securing funding.
Scientific foundations are seldom challenged or refuted. The last paradigm shift in physics or maths was over one hundred years ago. And as soon as someone challenges them (as the author does) the criticisms are refuted.
Say what you will, but science is mostly a social affair. Works of prominent groups are more likely to be accepted than works of groups with less status in the scientific community. Belief in scientific work may not rely on faith, but it is a far cry from pure scientific method.
I'm not trying to be cynical here and do think a good scientific body advances humanity, but the current state of the scientific community might be closer to religion than one hopes it should be.
You’ve responded to a rhetorical challenge against your position by essentially stating your position, which is circular thinking. It’s not a “fact” or even a forgone conclusion that religion is, by necessity, more dogmatic than any other human activity. Humans engage in political dogmatism every day, for example, perhaps even rivaling religion in certain regions and at certain points. Non-religious dogma has also fueled many recent wars.
I never made the claim that religion is more dogmatic than other human activity, only that it is certainly more dogmatic than science. Nothing in science is presented as being incontrovertibly true, while religion existentially depends upon the undeniable existence of God. No proof is offered for the existence of this God, making religion dogmatic.
Second, re: the scientific community being closer to religion: I think you could analogize the replication crisis to religious movements like the Protestant reformation, where a large-ish group of Christians said "whoa, we're way off base here, we need to get back to the fundamentals." But when a religion does that, it's going back to scripture, or whatever. In the replication crisis, going back to fundamentals means basing our understanding on reproducible experiments - i.e. predicting based on a model, then testing to see if your prediction is right, thus potentially validating the model.
The fact that reproducibility is the first principle that causes a crisis in science leads me to believe that science is in a better place than religion to discover fundamental truths, at least about the physical world. So in this sense, the replication crisis is exactly what proves that science is not like religion.
(If you want to argue that religion is more useful than psychology or sociology when it comes to understanding people's motivations and ways to make them behave productively... I would sign up for your newsletter, but I wouldn't join your religion.)
Not quite correct. Science and math are full of axioms.
Overturned scientific models: Lyellian uniformitarianism, the pre-Agassiz model that the Earth was gradually cooling so Ice Ages couldn't have existed (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#History_of_research ), Newton's theory of gravitation, and classical statistical mechanics (the "ultraviolet catastrophe").
Plus, the wide-spread belief that "all models are wrong" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong - or the modified "all models are wrong, but some are useful".
Which doesn't match the dogmatism attributed to religion, does it?
That is, I fail to see what your comment adds to the topic of how dogmatism in science is equal to that of religion, causing scientists to be too afraid to go beyond their model.
I'll cherry pick some titles from the 9000+ results of a search for "a new model" on Goggle Scholar for the last year, at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2019&q=%22a+new+mo... :
> A new model for the biochemistry of pectin synthesis: GAUTs synthesize diverse HG glycans in structurally and functionally distinct plant cell wall polymers
> The needle model: A new model for the main hydration peak of alite
> Barriers to Hydraulic Fracture Height Growth: A New Model for Sliding Interfaces
> A new model for MR evaluation of liver function with gadoxetic acid, including both uptake and excretion
> A new model for esker formation sheds light on the processes within subglacial tunnels
> Theorizing Transgender Identity for Clinical Practice: A New Model for Understanding Gender
> Mutation of Murine Rpl5 reveals a New Model for Diamond Blackfan Anemia Characterized By Defective Erythropoiesis
How do I conclude that scientists are too afraid to go beyond their existing models?
I won't say science is as dogmatic as religion, but it's far far more dogmatic than most practicing scientists would like to admit, which itself is more so than the 'lay person' or policymaker realizes.
"And look at your random examples"
Okay, then to focus just on physics for the last 12 months: https://arxiv.org/search/advanced?advanced=&terms-0-operator...
> Bremsstrahlung emission of photons during nuclear reactions inside dense stellar medium is investigated in the paper. For that, a new model of nucleus is developed, where nuclear forces combine nucleons as bound system in dependence on deep location inside compact star.
> Therefore Monte Carlo generators, like the TAUOLA program, have to facilitate precision analysis as well as confront new models that constantly emerge with the availability of high statistics experimental data.
> Dust moments: towards a new modelling of the galactic dust emission for CMB B-modes analysis
> We introduce a new model for a pairwise repulsive interaction potential of vortices in a type-II superconductor, consisting of superimposed six- and 12-fold anisotropies.
You write "I won't say science is as dogmatic as religion"
But that's the argument that rafaelvasco made, and what I was objecting to.
> it's far far more dogmatic than most practicing scientists would like to admit
Can you present any evidence of that? Certainly there's the 1950 quote by Max Planck "This experience gave me also an opportunity to learn a fact - a remarkable one, in my opinion: A new scientific truth does not triumph, by convincing, its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." or the more succinct quip "Science progresses one funeral at a time" already brought up on this thread.
But the widespread reference to that idea suggests that many practicing scientists admit there is dogmatism.
And there are plenty of examples. One I learned in the 1990s was about H. pylori. Quoting https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-doctor-who-drank...
> The medical elite thought they knew what caused ulcers and stomach cancer. But they were wrong—and didn't want to hear otherwise.
Again, these stories go around, so I don't agree with your exaggerated "far far more dogmatic" statement.
(BTW, I do dislike your use of the reified term "Science". That's a mythical pedestal which nobody can stand on.)
You write "Of course it's not the absolute norm for all Scientific Community but it's abundant".
You then also mean that dogma is also not the absolute norm for religions, but it's abundant, right?
Which leads us to a quagmire, since dogma, formally speaking, "is an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion." (Quoting Wikipedia.)
Though you mean something more like "it is applied to some strong belief whose adherents are not willing to discuss it rationally." (Same Wikipedia entry.)
I gave a list of several scientific principles which were thought to be correct, then demonstrated to be incorrect, and where there are now few adherents. I could easily list more.
What are the equivalents in religion to, say, the Planck's introduction of quantum mechanics to solve the ultraviolet catastrophe problem?
Well, you're overthinking, really. I understand. People tend to to that a lot this days. Terms, meanings etc, so many things. I only said in my original post that the resistance to change and thinking outside of the norm is as prevalent in science as is in religion. I'm not attacking or defending anything really. They're human, institutions, and so they're fallible;
I was calling you out for your both-siderism. I still am.
Two switch out of having only two camps, I pose this variants:
Is resistance to change and thinking outside of the norm as prevalent in physics as it is in phrenology?
I think empirical evidence shows that phrenology - "measuring the contour of the skull can predict personality traits" to quote Wikipedia - is pure bunkum. Therefore, I think that anyone who holds that opinion does so from dogmatic faith.
But your both-siderism suggests that phrenologists are no more dogmatic than physicists. Which I disagree with - see my earlier examples where physicists rejected earlier widely-held views given evidence to the contrary.
My conclusion is that different institutions have different levels of dogmatism, so a claim of equivalence cannot easily be made without some sort of basis for the claim.
As another example, I think that as an institution evolutionary psychology has a higher level of dogmatism than solid state physics, and as evidence I can point to articles like "Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?" by Subrena E. Smith, doi:10.1007/s13752-019-00336-4 and the lack of corresponding articles for solid state physics.
To be fair, working on computational methods, not experimental laboratory science.
To be clear, nothing in this thread nor in the linked-to essay was specifically about laboratory science.
Your ad hominem argument is noted, and giggled at.
You present you opinions without basis. I present my opinions with a bit of evidence. You ignore the evidence. Who is being dogmatic?
Your true statements about Newtonian gravity is aptly described by the last quote I gave - "All models are wrong, but some are useful".
'scientific progress' is a paradox. There is no absolute way of measuring the velocity at which science advances. You can't translate this into a value on a speed-o-meter and then make assertions based on what the dial says.
The entire point of science is the discovery of new knowledge and insights about reality. It's the pursuit of trying to know the unknown. Inherently, it's not possible to know up front (a) how long it will take to validate your thesis and (b) whether validating your thesis will yield the result you hoped to find (i.e. a cure for cancer)
Looking back at science in the past and then comparing that to today's state of affairs is hindsight bias.
"But, it used to be that scientists got more funding to do research. Think about the Race to the Moon!"
But then you forget that science isn't practiced in a vacuum. Never has. Scientists happen to work in earnest on particular questions because the external circumstances are aligned in a way that enables - or disenfranchises - them to work on those questions.
Older research always predicates current research. For example, there would have been little point to assume that machine learning could have been a thing in the late 1800's as neither Von Neumann nor Turing had come around to set the stage. Science begets science, and you can't rush that retroactively.
Then there's politics and economics. Full time science comes at a premium. Science happens where there's money. Either through public grants, in academic institutions or large institutions with a sizable R&D section. As such, the type of science that dominates an era depends largely on the zeitgeist.
Reducing science to pure quantitative research or the empirical method is intellectual dishonest as well. Any research is based on a foundation of need, curiosity and imagination.
As such, the number of papers published or conferences attended are very much skewed reflection of the generated value.
In more *systemic terms, a cabal of researchers focused effort (and more importantly, limited funding) to only one aspect of alzheimers research: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21911225