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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

> I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I usually hear it used as a conversational bludgeon

This also goes up there with the "in this house we believe SCIENCE IS REAL" signs.

We're currently living through the replication crisis and are awash in fraudulent academic journals. I don't think people who say this stuff would actually engage with you in a conversation about proper p-values for given sample sizes. So it's really just shorthand for trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual class.

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> trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual class.

In general, it's filling the vacuum left by religion. One part of that is what you identified: people generally need something greater than themselves to identify with, and "intellectual" is a tempting option.

Another part of it is that people generally crave certainty and fear the unknown. Religion fills that need by providing crisp, clean answers that don't provide a lot of room for questions and "what if"s. In the absence of a traditional organized religion, people try to fill that void with what seems to be the new, popular replacement—science.

Unfortunately, science is by design all about uncertainty. As soon as it becomes a dogma it ceases to be science.

Completely agree.

If anyone "believes", "trusts", "follows", etc. science, then they are doing science wrong.

The most fundamental element to science is skepticism. Following the essays of a scientist is no different than following the teachings of a priest.

See this comment, especially the last paragraph:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38859965

"Believing", "trusting", "following" science means using information from an entity that presumably follows the scientific method to ascertain their information, and is otherwise fallible and subject to change pending new data.

This is in contrast to "believing" information from an entity that did not procure information via the scientific method, and is usually infallible and not subject to change pending new data.

> The most fundamental element to science is skepticism.

We probably agree on the right way to apply “skepticism” re science.

But the self-described “skeptics” I know often ignore evidence. Which is one way the word (Words! They suck!) can be validly interpreted.

I would say the fundamental element of science is “the evidence based search to continually improve our current understanding”.

I particularly like how “understanding” inoculates against the more static, subjective, bias friendly, identity and ideologically based, implications of “belief”.

A reasonable amount of skepticism is fundamental to science. But skepticism can be taken too far. The goal should be to maximize the number of true beliefs that we hold. If I choose not to believe in the mass of the proton or the structure of DNA because of my skepticism, then I have a false belief. The best strategy for maximizing true belief is to accept most of the claims of science at face value, while acknowledging that they might change in the future and that we should update our beliefs when new evidence comes to light.

Yes and no. Obviously, blind and religious faith is not reasonable when we are talking about science. However, a lot of structures in science are are about making "belief" or "trust" a bit more objective than what you could do as an individual. (Peer) reviews, academic journals and conferences and even things like SciHub are, in the end, to a large degree about trust.

What's the alternative? Following every single argument every researcher makes back to the beginning and replicate their work before you base any further work or thought on what they did or said? That's not really feasible in most domains.

And, personally, I'd rather call the basis of science curiosity and not (just) skepticism.

> Another part of it is that people generally crave certainty and fear the unknown... Unfortunately, science is by design all about uncertainty.

It's not a surprise that people put "science" up on a pedestal when science education is too often about getting the correct answer to questions. Instead of asking questions and understanding the limitations of any approach to answering them. Restraint and humility aren't exciting, but they're so important.

There are better signs [0]:

    I This House We Believe That
    Simplistic Platitudes 
    Trite Tautologies
    And Semantically Overloaded Aphorisms
    Are Poor Substitudes
    For Respectful And Rational Discussions
    About Complex Ideas

[0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrbrLEZXwAICrhW?format=jpg&name=...

The "in this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics" signs used to be kinda popular. I guess that's the dumbed-down version of them that gets accepted by the masses.

I wonder if whoever coined the phrase knew it was a joke deprecating whoever buys it. Like those movies where the point is "those monsters are horrible, aren't they? yeah, you are doing basically the same right now."

i don't think there is a connection. the first one is a joke for people that know about the laws of physics, rather like this sign: "Obey gravity! It's the law!"

I've noticed that as well.

'Science' isn't something to believe in, it's a testable thing instead. That's kinda the core idea.

You don't have to believe in science, if anything science says that you should be skeptical until you do the experiments yourself.

Those signs are usually accompanied by a few other slogans that should tip you off that they're a response to certain cultural force in the world that lauds ignorance and hate - they're not trying to say they're intellectuals, they just listen to their doctors and do their best to take a kind and informed approach.

It strikes me as a response to a trend callousness and deliberate ignorance.

If people aren’t logically consistent with their lawn signs, society has failed.

Those signs are just as guilty of pushing ignorance and hate as the cultural force you're alluding to—you perceive them to be different because their ignorance overlaps with yours and they hate the things you hate.

Signs like these take a strawman version of "the other side" and define the residents of the home in opposition to that strawman. It's evidence that the person who put it up views themselves as part of the culture war, not evidence that they strive to be kind to and understanding of people who are different than them.

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