Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Scientism

Just looking at these first few comments, it seems like there are a lot of smart people who can see that this trite sound bite has problems.

Don't miss the forest for the trees. Widespread scientific illiteracy has many people feeling that decades of scientific research resulting in consensus establishes only an opinion that is just as valid as the opinion of any uninformed person who cares to speak up in dissent.

Yes, his statement is over-reaching and generalized, but the message is still meaningful.

Here's an article that gives some more detail about this phenomenon: http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

It used to be that the divide was between people who think that science and religion are incompatible and people who think that they are compatible.

Now, I'm beginning to see a surge in people who are just as dismissive about the value of philosophy in general as they are about religion.

My hope is that most of them simply misperceive what philosophy actually is, and dismiss their straw-man version of philosophy, rather than truly understand what philosophy is and dismiss it anyway.

> The good thing about Science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.

There is a sort of anti-religion and anti-pseudoscience zeitgeist in American society, and scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins make up the figureheads of this movement. The perception is that the rationalist scientific project is under attack by people who try to sell scientifically false statements. Off the top of my head I can name climate change deniers, anti-vaccination activists and creationists as members of a perceived cabal of enemies of scientific progress.

It can be debated whether or not such a cabal really exists or whether its perception is a result of the recent expansion of the reach of ideas and messages made possible by the internet and social networking: perhaps people with wildly differing views are suddenly in contact with one another and are surprised by the variety of opinion out there.

This tweet is not meant to be a philosophically consistent statement concerning the merits of science, but rather a sort of "preaching to the choir" message meant to rally the base against this perceived enemy.

I think the kernel of legitimate concern here is that we partisans of an enlightenment world view must be careful not to stoop to the level of the ancient worldviews we compete with.

Too many people "believe in" science the same exact way that others believe in superstition. They accept the results because of authority, without ever internalizing the process.

Schools are complicit in this problem. Learning that the earth goes around the sun without studying the evidence for how we know that is deeply misguided. Yet we quiz kids on the findings, not on whether they can explain and defend the findings.

There are plenty of people walking around who know what's on the periodic table, without having the slightest ability to explain where it came from or why we know it's true. It might as well be holy scripture.

Science can't be known to be true because of solipsism. Empiricists and scientists can say "yes, but let's assume reality exists" and that is fine, but the best argument against solipsism I've ever heard was by Russell who essentially said that it is boring.

Fine. But don't go around thinking that the big bang creating the universe is true in an absolute sense. You have no proof that there even is a universe, and realistically, even if I assume that reality exists, I'm still left with the simulation argument, which makes it even more likely that we're just sims in a complex economics experiment.

edit: Now excuse me while I go on a nice bike ride :)

In this statement, Tyson is referring to science as an objective reality. Science in human terms, as he often admits, has flaws that need to be explored and solved. However, in this quote, I understood him to be describing the pursuit of the objective truth, which is the primary mission of science in the first place. Scientists believe in an objective reality that can be described by thorough investigation and experimentation. Over the long-term, human science asymptotically approaches the truth, and to that truth, Tyson's statement refers.

Science has two unique properties:

• It eventually converges on the correct answer, no matter the starting point.

• It is universal, and not subject to the biases of the scientists (once the correct answer is found).

Any two intelligent rational species will eventually converge on the same scientific answer, no matter how far separated they are by space or genetics or history. The same can not be said of philosophy, art, or any of the other fields mentioned by the author (except history, which is just applied science when done right).

His phrasing might be improved, but whether or not you believe that water will freeze at a certain temperature has no affect on subsequent tests. Not trying to troll, but isn't that unique to science?

The nice thing about the calculated predictions of propositions that have been carefully tested using a wide variety of real world measurements, is that they tend to provide accurate figures with well defined areas of uncertainty, whether you believe in them or not.

This post was killed by user flags.

What a strange blog post. Contrarian for the sake of being so.

Matt's first sentence sets the tone: he clearly harbors disdain for Tyson's "followers". I will admit that the recent aggression in the "science is truer than religion and any other study" argument is becoming obnoxious, and many who take it up aren't as enlightened as the company they attempt to put themselves in. That doesn't mean you can argue that scientific fact is not true. That is a faulty position to take.

This post reads like an argument over one's favorite music. "Lady GaGa sucks, because I'm into prog rock!"

Science does not hold any less grey than does Philosophy. It is every generation's folly to believe that our facts are the facts.

The greatest thing about science doesn't have anything to do with truth. Science constantly improves your quality of life, sometimes even for free, and you never even have to ask, show gratitude, or return the favor.

I think maybe NdGT was trying to distill that down to a sound bite, but didn't quite hit the mark.

I conceive of science as being a methodology or a process. Can a process be "true"? Depends on what you mean by "true." I say no, and that Tyson's quoted statement is incoherent, also for the reasons in the article.

> Don't miss the forest for the trees.

And I agree with what phren0logy is saying, too.

Troll bait. Missing the point.