The Science Delusion, a talk banned by TED

[Mr.Samsa]

The usefulness of the scientific method can't be used to justify the scientific method, that's circular reasoning.

Excuse me? Science works. That is its justification. Where is the circularity in that?

It depends on how Samsa is using the word "justify". I suspect he is using it in a rather absolutist sense, as asserting an unassailable metaphysical position.

Not at all, I mean it in the most lenient and broad sense. Justification is just any attempt to support the claim being made, I'm not overly concerned about the strength or validity of the justification.

He thinks that scientists generally regard science in that light, and are therefore guilty of hubris at least, but he is largely attacking a straw man, a seldom-seen archetype of arrogant scientism...

I'm not attacking anything... I'm saying that claims require justification.

The majority of scientists have a much more pragmatic view, akin to your "It works" statement. If the process of science can continually generate models which have an increasing ability to predict events in the universe as they are refined, then it is a process worth doing. The only touch of possible hubris comes from a side-observation; no other human process has ever achieved the same predictive ability...

Agreed with the idea that that's how many scientists view it. Many also view it in much stronger terms as well, particularly the major science popularisers.

[Hermit]

The usefulness of the scientific method can't be used to justify the scientific method, that's circular reasoning.

Excuse me? Science works. That is its justification. Where is the circularity in that?

The pragmatic fallacy. Just because something is useful doesn't make it true. Also, "it works" isn't what Mr. Samsa said. "It works" is ambiguous. Do you mean it is internally consistent and matches observation, or that it is useful?

If it doesn't work it isn't very fucking useful, is it? The theory of gravity works because among other things it enables us to predict tides. Useful, don't you think? And I'm not particularly fussed about truth as such. Truth is always changing, even in scientific terms.

97 more minutes of Sheldrake? No thanks. I've sampled enough of his stuff already.

I wanted to see what sort of evidence he offers. Looks very flimsy to me, but he does talk a lot about experiments that have been independently replicated which verify some of his results and claims. It would take a lot of work to investigate his claims, and I'm just not that interested.

Cool. And thanks for the summary. That'll do me nicely. That said, I have never been particularly interested in speculations about the nature of mind (or consciousness for that matter) as such. Behaviourism is much more interesting. It does not care about questions about the nature of mind (or consciousness), but it works. It's useful.

[Mr.Samsa]

Behaviourism is much more interesting. It does not care about questions about the nature of mind (or consciousness), but it works. It's useful.

That would be methodological behaviorism but it turned out to be a little too simplistic to explain the results we were getting. That's why there was a shift towards radical behaviorism from the 30s onwards, as that specified that a science of psychology needs to study cognitive processes (and the mind) - it just does so in scientifically valid ways rather than airy fairy approaches.

[FBM]

The usefulness of the scientific method can't be used to justify the scientific method, that's circular reasoning.

Excuse me? Science works. That is its justification. Where is the circularity in that?

The pragmatic fallacy. Just because something is useful doesn't make it true. Also, "it works" isn't what Mr. Samsa said. "It works" is ambiguous. Do you mean it is internally consistent and matches observation, or that it is useful?

If it doesn't work it isn't very fucking useful, is it? The theory of gravity works because among other things it enables us to predict tides. Useful, don't you think? And I'm not particularly fussed about truth as such. Truth is always changing, even in scientific terms.

People were accurately predicting tides many centuries before we had a theory of gravity. The theory of gravity explains why we have tides; observation is how we predict them. I have a toaster oven that doesn't work, but it's useful as a place to stack dishes. Portfolio theory works, but is useless. As for truth, what are we trying to ascertain about Sheldrake's claims? Whether they're true or not.

[pErvinalia]

Mr Samsa wrote:

...Are you seriously trying to tell me that when scientists measure a constant or a law, they automatically assume that it only holds true for the moment they measured it?

On pragmatic grounds, mostly not, if they wish it to apply to regions of space-time that do not differ wildly from our own experience. And such a working assumption is perfectly reasonable; it does not require a dogmatic assertion of uniformitarianism applying on all scales, at all times...

Yep, as I also mentioned in an earlier reply. QM paints a totally different picture of the universe than Relativity does, yet we concurrently use both theories depending on scale (and therefore, location within the universe). On the issue of the temporal nature of laws, even that is questionable under some interpretations of QM. That is, the flow of time is an illusion. We might be existing at all times simultaneously.

[Hermit]

People were accurately predicting tides many centuries before we had a theory of gravity. The theory of gravity explains why we have tides; observation is how we predict them. I have a toaster oven that doesn't work, but it's useful as a place to stack dishes. Portfolio theory works, but is useless. As for truth, what are we trying to ascertain about Sheldrake's claims? Whether they're true or not.

Yes, and Chinese astronomers were able to predict solar eclipses at a time when the sun was thought to be dragged across the firmament by a chariot, and when it disappeared it was because a dragon was trying to eat it. The predictions were important because the Chinese knew that if they were ready with fireworks and any other means for making a lot of noise, the dragon could be chased away, and the sun would continue to gift the land with its life giving light. Fast forward a couple of millennia, and we have pretty accurate tables pinpointing where we'll see the known planets and a bunch of prominent stars and constellations at times in the future. They worked too, even though they were based on the geocentric theory. Be it eclipses, astronomical and planetary paths or tides, the theories were based on empirical observations, not some waffle by theologians and new-agers. Those theories turned out to be not true. Now, do you recall what I said about that? It was "I'm not particularly fussed about truth as such. Truth is always changing, even in scientific terms." You should. You just quoted this in your reply.

ETA: "be"

[FBM]

OK, Hermit.

[Hermit]

OK, Hermit.

I take it you disagree. Feel free to expand on that. I am genuinely interested.

[FBM]

No, thank you. I'm fine.

[pErvinalia]

FIGHT!!

[FBM]

Nope. I just don't have any interest in that line of thought. I'm busy elsewhere.

[pErvinalia]

POOFTA!!

[Hermit]

I'm not interested in a fight either, but being faced with a choice between either delving further into Sheldake's mind outside matter hypothesis or the stork theory of procreation, I have decided to prattle on some more about my view of science.

As I mentioned a couple of times already, I am not at all concerned about the truth of scientific theories. The celestial chariot theory was probably and quite rightfully regarded as profoundly untrue by geocentristsm and geocentrism in turn was demonstrated to be fundamentally untrue by heliocentrist theory, but each theory was based on empirical observation, and each theory furnished sufficient predictive power for its time. Heliocentrism, though, managed to formulate a scheme that was both simpler and more accurate.

Scientific advances did not stop there. Newton's apocryphal apple added depth and simplicity. Then the theory of relativity, while acknowledging that the theory of gravity works for many intents and purposes, revealed it to be an adequate approximation of what is happening only in somewhat limited circumstances. Quantum theory came along and kind of threw the spanner in the works.

Now every scientist with the requisite skills and interest is looking for the grand unifying theory. I think it may be found one day and it will be formulated in such an elegant and concise way that it can easily printed out on a t-shirt. It will also be THE NEW TRUTH. Future generations will look at Newton's and Einstein's generation with the kind of benevolent amusement with which we look at scientists that came up with chariots, dragons and the centrality of planet earth.

But like all previous theories, whatever the grand unifying theory may turn out to be, it will throw up new question, and eventually someone will pick holes in it. As usual, more problems and inconsistencies will need to be solved. Problems and inconsistencies we cannot possibly anticipate now. Whatever they are, they will make it pretty obvious that the new truth is as provisional as all previous ones. We cannot even say we are getting closer to the truth. The best we can do is to be mightily pleased that it predicts a much greater range of events over a larger scale and scope with greater accuracy than previous ones.

Perhaps we will reach the point one day where we can predict, at least in principle, every event and action in the universe down to the movement of the tiniest possible Planck unit or whatever even tinier unit we may have discovered by then, but even if we do, all we can say is that those phenomena are in accord with our theory, and that's the limit of scientific truth. We also have no way of knowing if we have reached the point of what has elsewhere been called "perfect knowledge" even if we have actually reached it.

And that's the truth.

PS: My idea of truth

PPS: which is subject to change

[JimC]

However provisional the idea of "truth" may be in the context of the scientific method, the question remains; is there an alternative method of discerning how the world around us works?

If we had a clear alternative strategy; perhaps it could be called the "metaphysical intuition method", and we put it up in contrast to the predictive abilities that the current array of scientific models possess, how would it go?

The reality is, there is no such clear alternative, only a veneer of wooly concepts, and a lot of hand waving. But, if the some collective of the non-scientific visions of the universe was (laughably) put in a direct contest with science, under the specific conditions of making accurate predictions of the physical world, it would be a a total and complete win for science. No question, no arguments, simply done and dusted.

That, of course, is a narrow interpretation of what is worthwhile. However, it has the virtue of being unambiguous, and not the product of personal, subjective bias. No one needs to regard predictive models of objective reality as the only worthwhile human activity, but, within that specified domain, science (correctly applied) is simply the only game in town. Challengers should line up at the desk, and present their detailed predictions of measurable reality.

[Mr.Samsa]

However provisional the idea of "truth" may be in the context of the scientific method, the question remains; is there an alternative method of discerning how the world around us works?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that there is a better method than science for understanding the observable world.

If we had a clear alternative strategy; perhaps it could be called the "metaphysical intuition method", and we put it up in contrast to the predictive abilities that the current array of scientific models possess, how would it go?

Huh? How could we possibly compare metaphysics to science? They are completely different fields, investigating vastly different subject matter, using different methods. It's apples and oranges. Metaphysics is shit at explaining the observable world (because it's not what it's designed to do) and science is shit at explaining reality (because it's not what it's designed to do).

The reality is, there is no such clear alternative, only a veneer of wooly concepts, and a lot of hand waving. But, if the some collective of the non-scientific visions of the universe was (laughably) put in a direct contest with science, under the specific conditions of making accurate predictions of the physical world, it would be a a total and complete win for science. No question, no arguments, simply done and dusted.

Again, I don't think anyone would actually suggest that there is a better alternative to science in answering those questions though.

That, of course, is a narrow interpretation of what is worthwhile. However, it has the virtue of being unambiguous, and not the product of personal, subjective bias.

How does that differ from other fields, like metaphysics?

No one needs to regard predictive models of objective reality as the only worthwhile human activity, but, within that specified domain, science (correctly applied) is simply the only game in town. Challengers should line up at the desk, and present their detailed predictions of measurable reality.

Agreed, and I'd be surprised if you could find anyone who disagreed. I think even Sheldrake agrees with that!