this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Part 1: https://mander.xyz/post/13579080

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Science is a particular method of peer review...?

This thread prompted me to revisit what I think "science" means, and I've been through a number of different Wikipedia pages, dictionary definitions, etc. but that inquiry just reinforced that this "science == participation in the institutions/communities of science" idea just doesn't seem to hold up.

Where does this idea come from? I keep seeing this "science is this very particular thing, it's not just forming falsifiable hypotheses and then testing them," but then when I look it up, the sources I find say exactly the opposite.

EDIT: To respond, backwards, to the edit below, I guess...? That's not really a gotcha, and not really what I was saying, lol. Please read the whole thread.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think this theory of science is so prevalent in this thread because you have to adhere to it in order to dunk on Elon Musk.

I doubt most of these ardents would have taken this position in a random thread about sea cucumbers or something.

I like dunking on Musk as much as the next guy, but the amount of double-think people are willing to commit to to do it is always pretty off-putting to me.

It's like every ArsTechnica article on SpaceX has people come out of the woodwork to say that their accomplishments are trash and not even worth reporting because of Elon, which, like, you have to be delusional if you don't think SpaceX is absolutely killing it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Lol I think you're onto something. Maybe better off sticking to sea cucumber posts.

It did make me learn some things, though. The person who I was responding to told me to "See any textbook on the Philosophy of Science," so I did, and I learned about the Demarcation Problem, Logical Positivism, and some new Karl Popper ideas. So, it has not led to a collaborative discussion, but it was pretty interesting, and I'm much more confident now about what's reasonable to say about what "counts as Science." Time well spent, IMO.

(In case you were wondering: Any activity performed while wearing safety goggles or glasses is technically science.)

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

See any textbook on the Philosophy of Science.

For example, here is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Science is a complex epistemic and social practice that is organized in a large number of disciplines, employs a dazzling variety of methods, relies on heterogeneous conceptual and ontological resources, and pursues diverse goals of equally diverse research communities.”

Your desire to collapse all fact-finding into the concept of “science” is misguided. If everything is “science” then nothing is “science.”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh thanks for editing in an example-- that wasn't there when I wrote my reply, but what did you think of the other Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy links I provided?

That article that you linked (Scientific Pluralism) is an interesting read, but it's more about the importance of diversity in the scientific community... it doesn't really address the Demarcation Problem, and it doesn't discuss peer review or anything as far as I could tell.

Mentioning in passing that "science is social" (which is IMO uncontroversially true in a non-demarcation way, btw) is a few shades away from "any textbook will tell you that science is a particular process of peer review." I think the Science and Pseudo-Science entry that I linked is more germane.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I’m not sure what we are arguing about here. The concept of “science” is fairly new and most people we would think of as “scientists” throughout history, such as Newton, actually considered themselves natural philosophers, hence the P in PhD. The modern concept of science arose as a kind of description of something humans do together. “Science” doesn’t mean figuring out the truth. That wouldn’t make any sense, because philosophy, logic, mathematics, etc, are all concerned with figuring out the truth as well. Science is an institution, a social endeavor (except when it isn’t — need counter examples). The Royal Academy of Sciences was created for that reason, funny enough — because Francis Bacon had pointed out that “science requires an intellectual community” (let’s be honest, humans are fairly dumb on their own — standing on the shoulders of giants and all that).

Anyway, in the mid 1950s there was a now famous work by Thomas Kuhn called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions which added an extra layer to the debate when he pointed out aspects of “science” that seem to be… not about finding the truth at all. But I’m guessing you already know that. Human beings are driven by many motivations, after all, and finding the truth is rarely one of them.

Anyway, the demarcation problem, yes: it’s very difficult to come up with a definition that perfectly picks out legitimate science without also applying to pseudo nonsense (see Pigliucci‘s Nonsense on Stilts). That said, we know what is and isn’t science. We are just having trouble coming up with a perfect definition that works every time.

Incidentally, having trouble defining science is literally my position. Science is something we do that isn’t as tidy and uncomplicated as “figuring out the truth.” It clearly involves some sort of methodology and it clearly involves people checking each other’s work and so on and so forth, and it’s different from math and different from astrology. You tell me how you want to define it, but it sure as shit isn’t “doing stuff in one’s garage alone without writing it down or reproducing the results,“ which is what Elon Musk seems to think.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Your desire to collapse all fact-finding into the concept of “science”

Well that's a reach. I had to buy a new laptop charger and find facts about what voltage, etc. I needed... I certainly don't consider that fact-finding exercise to be science, and I don't think I said anything to suggest that.

But okay, I don't have a textbook handy, but let's see what we can find out about the Philosophy of Science:

Philosophy of Science - Wikipedia

Seems to pretty clearly indicate "lots of interesting and useful ideas, no consensus." Peer review mentioned 0 times. The "Defining Science" section links to a page for the demarcation problem, so let's go look at that.

Demarcation Problem - Wikipedia

"The debate continues after more than two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields."

And the article basically continues to that effect, IMO: Demarcation is difficult, unclear, and there is no consensus. Peer review mentioned 0 times.

Maybe it's just Wikipedia that has this misconception. Let's check some other sources.

The Philosophy of Science - UC Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

"Despite this diversity of opinion, philosophers of science can largely agree on one thing: there is no single, simple way to define science!"

Re: Demarcation problem:

"Modern philosophers of science largely agree that there is no single, simple criterion that can be used to demarcate the boundaries of science."

Starting to sound familiar. Lots of opinions from Aristotle to Cartwright, none of whom highlight peer review or acceptance by the institutions as criteria. The page does talk about empiricism, parsimony, falsification, etc. though, consistent with other sources.

Glossary - "science" - UC Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

This one is simple:

Our knowledge of the natural world and the process through which that knowledge is built. The process of science relies on the testing of ideas with evidence gathered from the natural world. Science as a whole cannot be precisely defined but can be broadly described by a set of key characteristics. To learn more, visit A science checklist.

Let's look at the checklist.

Science is embedded in the scientific community - UC Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

The page heading sounds pretty prescriptive, and that's about the closest I can find that claims "if it's not peer reviewed, it's not science." The body (IMO rightfully) describes the importance of community involvement in science, but doesn't say anything like "it's not science unless it involves the community."

Take this excerpt about Gregor Mendel:

However, even in such cases [as Gregor Mendel's], research must ultimately involve the scientific community if that work is to have any impact on the progress of science.

So yes, sharing his findings with the world was why it was able to have an impact, but I don't think it's reasonable to interpret that he wasn't doing science while he was working in isolation, or that it only became science retroactively after it was a) shared, and b) accepted.

Let's take a look at another textbook and see what it says:

1.6: Science and Non-Science - Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science

This chapter suggests that you can take two approaches to demarcation:

  • What makes a theory scientific or non-scientific?
  • What makes a "change in a scientific mosaic" scientific?

For theories - They're clear that there are no clear universal demarcation criteria, but offer these suggestions:

  • Suggestion 1: An empirical theory is scientific if it is based on experience.
  • Suggestion 2: An empirical theory is considered scientific if it explains all the known facts of its domain.
  • Suggestion 3: An empirical theory is scientific if it explains, by and large, the known facts of its domain.

For changes - This pertains specifically to whether a change to "a scientific mosaic" is scientific or not, which necessarily pertains to a scientific community. But I'd argue that this analysis seems pretty clearly downstream of a priori participation in a scientific community, not attempting to define science as such.

Didn't read the whole textbook, so I might still be missing something, but the focus in the chapter is still definitely on the properties of the inquiry, not on the scientific institutions surrounding it.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Also looked at the entries for Scientific Method and Pseudo-science, which seem to be consistent with the other sources

TL;DR/Conclusion

So I'm still getting a really strong signal that:

  • Science/non-science doesn't have a clear demarcation line, and that problem is called the Demarcation Problem. It has a special name because it's still a big deal.
  • Ideas about what is science vs. non-science focus mostly on the properties of the inquiry: Is it a testable, falsifiable hypothesis that can be investigated with empirical observations?
  • Scientific communities are still super important, and you can make statements about how scientific activity should interact with communities, but community involvement is not usually a factor in demarcation
  • Peer review is useful and stuff, but has little interaction with the science/non-science demarcation question... I don't think it came up in any of the sources I looked at

So... Do I still seem misguided? Are Wikipedia and UC Berkeley and this textbook called "Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science" and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy all also misguided? Or am I just interpreting them wrong?

Like I started this investigation feeling 100% ready to learn that my concept of "what Science is" was misguided... But idk, I did a bunch of reading based on your suggestion, and I gotta say I feel pretty guided right now.

If you wanna throw something else to read my way though, I'll happily have a look at it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I did follow your link to UC Berkeley (the first one I clicked), and wouldn’t you know it, as I expected, they claim the following:

Huh, look at that. Apparently involving “the scientific community” is part of science.

Again, this is from your link, which you didn’t read, I assume because your patron saint, Dunning-Kruger, frowns on reading.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

That's not like a big gotcha, lol... I actually said "Let's go look at that checklist," and had a link to it (in a quote). Those checklist items correspond directly to section headings, and I quoted and responded to the even-more-strongly-worded section heading directly.

In fact, I included it as the best evidence I found for your point: That if I read any textbook on the philosopy of science, it will spell out how "science" is "a particular method of peer review." Well... I found some evidence that kind of points that way, and a whole boatload that suggests that that isn't really thought of as part of the Demarcation Problem. I wasn't going in trying to "be right," that's just what I found.

Like I put quite a bit of work in good faith to try to understand where you're coming from, but I don't feel like you're trying to meet me half way.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Look, here’s my point more concisely: can you name one scientist, just one, whose work isn’t subject to peer review? I can’t think of any. Given that science is ostensibly just the activity that scientists engage in, and all of them do peer review, that’s probably important, right?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

When I look around my University I see people doing something, let’s call it “science.” I’d like to define this activity to distinguish it from other, similar activities. The fact that my efforts encounter a Demarcation Problem means the definition is more convoluted than simply “empirical investigation” or “fact finding”. If science could be captured with such broad strokes, there wouldn’t be a demarcation problem!

Elon Musk seems to “think” (and I use this word loosely) that science is when people do experiments or try to figure out the truth, apparently without reproducibility or peer review. But if that were the case, there would be no debate, no demarcation problem, no counter examples.

What we need to do is describe what scientists do that non-scientists don’t do with sufficient rigor to distinguish the two groups. As I said, peer review seems to be an indispensable feature of science. Do you have your own definition or suggestions?

P.S. just for future discussions, please don’t use Wikipedia for philosophy or mathematics. It’s a good resource of dates and names but that’s about it. For philosophy you can use textbooks or the Stanford Encyclopedia.