Blinded by Scientism | Hacker News Reader

Blinded by Scientism

thepublicdiscourse.com

11 pointsaww_dang23 comments

If you don't want to bother clicking on the article, here is a summary: Author builds a strawman called "Scientism" because he hates Richard Dawkins. Author proceeds to disassemble this strawman of his own making. The end.

The problem with this kind of stupidity is that it sounds erudite and learned, and quotes Hayek in a way that is meant to stifle all criticism of anything, ever, about religion or his branch of conservatism that thrives on wilful ignorance.

It's little more than the author saying he doesn't care his belief system and his tribe are irrational and you make him feel bad by pointing out that his irrationality is a dead end, potentially dangerous, seductive mode of thought that allows him to ignore all the experts in any field, on any topic, any time he chooses if it goes against his belief system.

He is doggedly anti-science despite using all the technology that scientists gave him.

Your comment would be more interesting if you could provide supporting arguments instead of mere accusations, imagined motives and insults.

Just trying to fit in with the style of the piece itself. e.g. the following quote

'faith” is often pitted against “science” (even by those friendly to the former) as if “science” were synonymous with “reason.”'

Lots of scare quotes around science and reason, an unfounded accusation without supporting evidence (faith is often pitted against science? By whom? When are they doing this or did the author just decide it's so true he doesn't have to back up his argument?

As for inferring motive, he provides that himself: 'How are we to reconcile this commonsense “manifest image” of the world with the quantitative “scientific image” (to borrow philosopher Wilfrid Sellars’ famous distinction)? The answer is that they cannot be reconciled.'

He has rejected objective measurement of the world because it can't be reconciled with his "manifest image" - his lived experience which you can infer involves religion of some sort.

This guy is an associate professor? I pity his students.

> 'How are we to reconcile this commonsense “manifest image” of the world with the quantitative “scientific image” (to borrow philosopher Wilfrid Sellars’ famous distinction)? The answer is that they cannot be reconciled.'

This was the point I lost interest. Why is that the answer? What evidence do you have that that is the answer? I think a large number of neuroscientists would consider themselves as working on reconciling these two images - so dismissing all their work as impossible or futile seems premature, if not arrogant.

No, we already know our senses aren't sufficient to document and understand our universe. We need instruments to do the things we can't do ourselves. To somehow elevate our limited experience gathering capabilities because they don't give the same answers as the scientific method is a flawed dead end.

I think the author was more heading the other way - that mere science cannot possibly explain or even comprehend the world of meaning that we actually experience. Which is probably not true, as we come to understand our brains better.

But you're also right.

The article is written in a convoluted way, but the main points it makes are valid in my opinion. The first being that science alone can never legitimate itself as being the only true way of doing something. This legitimization must come from somewhere else like philosophy and can never be part of science itself.

The second point is that there is will always be a gap between science, reality, human understanding and application of science. Even the scientific process itself involves subjective decisions not derivable from science, e.g. what hypotheses to test.

I think the author wants to convey that doing everything "the rational way" is not objectively superior than doing everything according to some other set of principles.

But science is objectively better than any alternative we have found so far.

Science works very well for things like not getting sick, understanding physical phenomena or getting to the moon. But for some goals like being happy, finding meaning in life or cooking a tasty meal science is only of limited use.

Also I don't think the author necessarily proposes to replace science, but rather being aware of the limits of science. There is no one scientific or rational way of coming up with scientific hypotheses or determining how to apply scientific discoveries best to the real world. There is always a gap between the ideal world of science and reality.

You appear to believe science can't be used to analyze subjective experiences such as happiness or a tasty meal? Consider this - science explains why cilantro tastes like soap to some people. A genetic test could determine if you're going to experience cilantro tasting like soap and therefore not like it. We're just starting to scratch the surface. We may very well be able to do a genetic test and accurately predict/prescribe your favorite meal. I imagine we'll make a lot of progress in this area over the next 100 years.

Science can be used to analyze subjective experiences, but analyzing something and being the one and only all-knowing oracle is a big difference. Science is always constrained to an ideal world, but reality is messy. There is no one correct way to pull out a piece of egg shell that got into the pan by mistake while cooking.

Also I believe predicting things like favorite meals is possible to a high degree of certainty, but there is always a gap between the nice theoretical world and the real world. Maybe it's your favorite meal because your grandmother always cooked it for you. How do you define a meal? How much egg can you add or remove before it becomes a different meal?

If my arguments seem too hand wavy, consider the incompleteness theorem. There are truths in mathematics that cannot be shown to be true. Why should messy real life give you stronger guarantees than the clean world of mathematics? Why should there always be one correct way of doing things that we can deduce?

Or let's say I bet that a certain Turing machine doesn't halt. What does science say about this? Is this rational? Should I have bet that it does halt?

Science is one of the best tools available, but it will not solve all of humanity's problems.

It's not unreasonable to assume that some of humanity's problems are NP-hard and so while science won't be able to solve those problems, neither will anything else. However, that's if we're looking for exact solutions, for we can get far with statistical modeling - we might even be able to get to good enough. I have a sneaky suspicion you would find such good enough solutions highly unsatisfying because I suspect you're after Truth, which may not be knowable, even in principle.

> science alone can never legitimate itself

Nether anything else, religion is based on faith and dogma. It can never be legitimised by facts as it will not be based on faith anymore.

So what's the point of your statement then?

> scientific process itself involves subjective decisions

Yes, you can use imagination, try/fail approaches but those are then put to the test. And if my magical stone that keeps away tigers was found not to work, then its just a stone. Thats where the non-tangible and mistic claims come to die, or live (ie placebo effect, we don't understand it yet, but we know it exists).

> I think the author wants to convey that doing everything "the rational way" is not objectively superior than doing everything according to some other set of principles.

In my opinion the author desperately flails their arms in an attempt to obscure the murky argument. And it feels like convoluted god of gaps argument without mentioning god.

> > science alone can never legitimate itself

> Nether anything else, religion is based on faith and dogma. It can never be legitimised by facts as it will not be based on faith anymore.

> So what's the point of your statement then?

That the author of the article uses this argument to show that science alone is not enough. In comparison, like you mentioned, religion can legitimize itself through dogma. Science needs another system that promotes values and goals that can be achieved through science.

> > scientific process itself involves subjective decisions

> Yes, you can use imagination, try/fail approaches but those are then put to the test. And if my magical stone that keeps away tigers was found not to work, then its just a stone. Thats where the non-tangible and mistic claims come to die, or live (ie placebo effect, we don't understand it yet, but we know it exists).

I completely agree with you on this. Given enough time you get more and more knowledge. The interesting cases in my opinion are where there is conflicting evidence from different studies or sources and maybe not enough time to do further studies.

For example you have stomach cancer due to a genetic defect. Your doctor recommends you a medication which works for stomach cancer, but it has strong side effects. In all available studies there was no distinction made between patients with that defect and without. You reduce your survival chances if you take the medication and it doesn't work, but you also reduce your chances when you don't take it and it does work. So whats the rational thing to do?

> In my opinion the author desperately flails their arms in an attempt to obscure the murky argument. And it feels like convoluted god of gaps argument without mentioning god.

The author does not present a very coherent argument, but I still think he makes some good points.

> science alone can never legitimate itself

What does this even mean?

Have you read the second part?

Oh yeah, the first paragraph is an absolute doozy:

'As I argued in part I, scientism—the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge—is either self-refuting or trivial. Moreover, consistently pursued, it leads to the “eliminative materialist” position that the human mind itself is a fiction—that there are no such things as thinking, perceiving, willing, desiring, and so forth. This position is not only incoherent, but undermines the very possibility of science itself—the very thing scientism claims to champion.'

It makes absolutely no logical sense that consistently pursuing scientific thought would only ever describe the human mind as a fiction. The author is a bizarre fantasist who not only doesn't understand science, he doesn't understand science itself or is deliberately mis-representing science as some kind of philosophy or religion that purports to offer "truth". i.e. quoting again:

'Hypnotized by the unparalleled predictive and technological successes of modern science, contemporary intellectuals infer that scientism must be true'

It's nonsense. Who are these contemporary intellectuals? Despite all these conservative think-tankers trying to conflate science with philosophy or religious pursuits, nobody expects science to deliver the truth, they expect it to deliver results. He can pray for some I guess.

Ok, let's go to the about page:

"Public Discourse is the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute, a 501(c)3 research center located in Princeton, New Jersey. We seek to enhance public understanding of the moral foundations of free societies by making the scholarship of our fellows and affiliated scholars available and accessible to a general audience."

Interesting. Let's check the Witherspoon Institute's about page now:

"Located in Princeton, New Jersey, the Institute promotes the application of fundamental principles of republican government and ordered liberty to contemporary problems through a variety of academic and other educational ventures."

That's a big nope for me. Thanks but no thanks.

It's true that existentialism and nihilism is met with a feeling of emptiness, but it's freeing more than anything else.

I loathe when people try to find a meaning to their life, a goal, happiness, or harmony.

I always look at human and social sciences with a hefty dose of skepticism. The only things measured are words and normed perceptions.

Even the notion of good or evil doesn't click anymore.

I believe that meaning is something we create ourselves. It can't be found.

Most people assign meaning to helping others, or the advancement of knowledge.

https://blog.vinneycavallo.com/posts/2019/12/05/optimistic-n...

As an agnostic atheist person there is one thing that freaks me out more than anything, when someone who is religious asks me, "If you don't believe in god, what stops you from just going around and killing people?"

My answer is typically, "Is your belief in god the only thing that prevents you from just murdering people? That is disturbing."

The author did not think through their argument very well. Mathematics is non-scientific (science requires maths!) and epistemic, so the existence of people who use science and maths for their epistemology is a counterexample to their entire framing.

Could we get a (2010) in the title?

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