Here's a spin on Eric's question about how is trusting a scientist different from trusting an authority or a scholar.
http://sometimesimwrong.typepad.com/wrong/2017/03/looking-under-the-hood.html concludes but, you might say, scientists *are *more trustworthy than used car > dealers! sure,****** but we are also supposed to be more committed to > transparency. indeed, transparency is a hallmark of science - it's > basically what makes science different from other ways of knowing (e.g., > authority, intuition, etc.). in other words, it's what makes us better > than used car dealers. The proposal is that authors of papers need to share more about the context of the paper so journals and readers get stuck with fewer lemons. -- rec -- On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 9:25 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky <[email protected]> wrote: > Eric, > > > > I doubt an idea before I ever apply for a grant. Then I deceptively claim > to be trying to replicate an authorities claims. But the devil within me > recalls that at least once maybe more often , I have noticed > > that the authority’s prediction failed. That knowledge is my group’s > secret until publication. Then it becomes everyone’s knowledge. > > > > I have in my memory a perfect “Black Swan” event. I suppose that I have > more faith in water birds than in statisticians. Perhaps we often hide > behind obscure math to shield our superstitious insights. > > Some times using the math first reveals an outcome that is used as a gloss > to hide the unknown. For instance the Griffith’s Crack Theory widely held > in Classic Mechanics. Exactly what is the use of a singularity zone > > when a crack propagates in wild directions? The material does not use it > but then at that scale the material uses Quantum Mechanics but the engineer > favours The Classic Mechanics. So indeed certain materials do emit light > > from crack tips. At the edges of any discipline anomalies will define > limits or boundaries for paradigms. Without doubt and secret devilish > memories Science would not evolve so quickly. > > > > At this point I am reminded of an eminent chemist , Polanyi? who received > the Nobel Prize and afterward became a philosopher who suspected something > like superstition, drives many scientists much like > > Isaac Newton. > > I think as civilized people we prefer to stick with conduct rules knowing > perfectly well how to violate them and the consequences of doing so. > > vib > > I guess we should never believe the whole of PR. > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Eric > Charles > *Sent:* March-02-17 1:04 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: > Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs > > > > Glen, > > To "Peirce-up" the discussion of doubt a touch. To doubt something is to > be unable to act as-if-it-were-true without reservation. So, for example, > you do not doubt Newtonian mechanics under a wide range of conditions (you > are willing to act as if it is true under many circumstances), however, > there are conditions under which you would be nervous acting as if they > were true. Your doubt is not absolute, and the "caveats" you refer to, > could be expressed as a description of the circumstances under which you > start to get nervous. > > > > Your description of replication is good, but non-typical (particularly > among the chemists, which are Peirce's favorite scientist). We now think of > replication as part of the falsification process, but that is actually a > weird way to think about (a symptom of the degenerate state of many current > fields). The most natural reasons to replicate a research report is a) > because the outcome is itself useful or b) because you intend to build upon > it. For example, if someone publishes a novel synthesis for artificial > rubber, I would probably try to replicate it because I need artificial > rubber, or because I intended to start with that artificial rubber and try > to synthesize something new. Under those conditions, anyone trying to > replicate would be very frustrated by a failure (given some tolerance for > first attempts). > > > > Nick, > > I think Glen is prodding, in his second part at an extremely important > point, and one that I have been wrestling with quite a bit lately. It is > quite unclear why "trusting the work of other scientists" - as currently > practiced - is not simply another deference to authority. The current > resurgence of assertions that people shouldn't argue with scientists (e.g., > that we should care what an astrophysicists thinks about vaccines, or what > a geneticist thinks about psychology) is bad, and "science-skeptics" are > not wrong when they attach a negative valence to such examples. Let us > ignore those flagrant examples, however. How do I determine how much weight > to give to a report in a "top journal" in psychology? Does it matter that I > know full well most articles in top journals turn out to have problems (as > flashy reports of unexpected results are prone to do)? And if I am > suspicious of that, what do I make of the opinion of a Harvard full > professor of psychology vs. a bartender who has been helping people with > their problem for 5 decades? Etc. etc. etc. I think there is a very deep > issue here, which I'm not sure I've ever seen explained well. I think, in > part, it is a challenge that was not as prevalent even 50 years ago, but > that may just be imagined nostalgia. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Supervisory Survey Statistician > > U.S. Marine Corps > > > > On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 4:13 PM, glen ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Heh, your lack of social salve has left me unclear on whether I should > respond or which parts to respond to. >8^D So, I'll just respond to what I > think is the most important point. > > > That implies that what you say below supports arguments from authority. > [NST==>I don’t think we can EVER escape arguments from authority. Science > is locked in a matrix of trust. Doubt in science is really important, but > it has to be relatively rare, or we would never know which of a million > doubts to take seriously. <==nst] > > I think you use "doubt" differently than I do. Even if we replace "doubt" > with "falsified", it's not a binary thing. When I doubt something an > authority says, I'm not refuting, denying, or rejecting it. I'm simply > expressing that the saying probably has caveats, some of which I might know > about, some of which I might not. The same is true of (critical > rationalist) falsification. Even though we know Newtonian physics isn't > end-all, be-all True with a capital T. It's satisficing in most > circumstances. To (When I) say it's been falsified simply means it has > caveats. > > And, in this sense of the two terms, doubt and falsification are _rampant_ > in science. When you try to replicate some other lab's experiment, you > must doubt, say, the methods section in their paper, usually because you > don't have the exact same equipment and the exact same people ... doubt is > what promotes reproducibility to replicability. ... at least in this > non-scientist's opinion. > > > I.e. we can't treat a lack of salve as an assertion of objectivity > without implicitly asserting that every statement without such salve is > fallacious. [NST==>Yep. All statements are more or less fallacious. So > does that render all statements the same? If I flip the coin once and it > comes up heads, what evidence do I have that the coin is biased. None. > If I flip it twice, a little. If I get a hundred heads, the probability > that the coin flips represent a population of fair coin-flips is finite, > but vanishingly small. I’ld bet on it, wouldn’t you? All statements of > certainly of that character. <==nst] > > No, not all fallacies are the same. Different statements are fallacious > in different ways. And the argument from authority fallacy, in my opinion, > is the worst one because it's opaque. You can't learn from it. At least > with, say, assuming the conclusion, it encourages us to understand the > relationship between premises and conclusion... it helps us grok deduction > as well as the host of concepts surrounding languages, formal systems, > algebras, etc. > > Your inductive argument, by the way, isn't obviously an argument from > authority (obvious to me, anyway -- see how annoying it is), particularly > with (as someone recently phrased it) interpersonally assessable things > like coin flipping. Anyone with the usual complement of sensorimotor > manifolds (!) can put in place the kernel and carry out the iteration. The > only authorities involved are whatever physical structures are required for > coin flipping and counting. > > But, more importantly, self-consistency (local coherence) is the governor > of induction. Can you imagine if "successor" were redefined at each > iteration? So, it helps make my larger point that it's irrelevant what you > or I believe or state with authority. What matters is whether the > method(s) hang(s) together. > > -- > ☣ glen > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
