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| Author | Topic: Misunderstanding Empiricism | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days)  Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
As this thread seems to have run out of steam, I'll provide a summary of my position.
The main thread of my argument is as follows: 1. Scientific knowledge is acquired by inductive reasoning from prior experience, and, therefore, like all inductive knowledge, is fallible. A scientific model can be falsified by a single instance of counter evidence. 2. We have confidence in scientific knowledge, not because the scientific method provides a special route to truth, but because: (a) it insists on rigorous testing of a model, by varying the conditions under which we make observations, thereby increasing our confidence that there's no counter evidence waiting to take us by surprise; (b) it insists on taking counter evidence seriously, even requiring a complete overhaul of the model where necessary. 3. Our confidence in a particualar field is therefore dependent on the following factors: (a) The complexity of the domain. The more complex the domain, the more difficult it is to ensure that you have excluded all the relevant counter evidence. (b) How easy it is to adjust the conditions under which we make our observations. If you can't do fine-grained experiments, e.g. for ethical reasons, or because the phenomena being studied are too remote or too rare, then again you can't be as confident that you've excluded the counter evidence. (c) Whether other factors (such as politics or money) constrain the freedom to change models. 4. Based on these criteria we can arrange scientific fields in order of 'hardness', where 'hardness' is a measure of the confidence we have in the scientific knowledge claimed by a field. A rough-and-ready table of scientific 'hardness' might look like this: PhysicsChemistry Biology Cosmology Medicine Experimental psychology Social sciences 5. Whenever we make a judgement we are limited by our personal experience. Even if we know about the scientific consensus in a particular field, that isn't immediate knowledge to us - we have to make a judgement about it. As far as I can see, there are three options we can take in such circumstances: (a) Trust the scientific consensus without question;(b) Distrust it without question (c) Use our previous experience (and our knowledge about the 'hardness' of the scientific field) to make a smart judgement about the consensus. 6. If you look at my league table of 'hardness', you will see that Medicine comes fairly low down in the rankings. I believe its position there is justified because: (a) Health is a much more complex domain than human biology; (b) The freedom to experiment is often limited for ethical reasons, in just those areas where you want fine-grained understanding; (c) Medicine (and particularly medical advice) is often influenced by non-scientific factors such as politics, availability of new technology and drugs, and even the simple need to give advice when there's no compelling scientifc evidence to support the advice. 7. In addition to having a lowly position in the 'hardness' table, the medical establishment has a record of giving out poor advice, and contradicting itself from decade to decade. I've already given an example (in a previous post) of incorrect advice during the BSE crisis in the UK. Now I'm going to provide two more examples: (a) Two weeks ago the UK medical establishment reversed its advice on eating of peanuts during pregnancy. Since 1998 pregant women have been advised not to eat peanuts, and to avoid feeding peanuts to children until they're 3 years old. Unfortunately, recent research has shown that, rather than reducing the number of peanut allergies as intended, this advice has actually caused an increase in allergies; (b) The percentage of children breast-fed in the UK is very small (< 50%) compared to figures in most continental countries (in Scandinavia rates tend to be > 90%). The cause of this anomaly can be traced back to advice given in the late 50s/early 60s that discouraged women from breast feeding, and encouraged them to use artificial milk instead (artificial milk was a sexy new technology at the time). Although the medical advice has since been reversed, it is proving hard to overturn 30-40 years of custom. 8. For myself (and I guess for Purpledawn too) such examples provide a reason to be cautious when assessing new medical advice. Percy and Nator, on the other hand, seem to be of the view that knowledge is either science or not-science, and if it's science, then it's to be trusted, regardless of the 'hardness' of the scientific field or our previous experience of pronouncements in that field. Note that I am approaching this subject as a 'hard' scientist, or at least someone trained in the hard sciences. From my perspective, medical science isn't very rigorous. Compared to 'hard' sciences like physics or chemistry, medical advice can often seem like woo-woo. (The two examples I've given here should make it clear how close to woo-woo medical science can sometimes be). Peroration (not aimed at Percy or Nator  ) My aim here isn't to attack science but to defend it from over-zealous advocates who, like crusading fundamentalists, seem to believe that empiricism and science provide a route to certain truth, a more successful alternative to religion. But nothing provides us with certain truth about the world. Nothing. That's the lesson of empiricism, that our only route to knowledge is this flawed, fallible, everyday process of observation and induction. And that, oddly, paradoxically, it is only when we understand this fact that we begin to have a chance to acquire real knowledge about the world. Edited by JavaMan, : typo Edited by JavaMan, : No reason given. Edited by JavaMan, : Edited to clarify the focus of the final two paragraphs 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
I definitely never said anything like this, it doesn't reflect what I believe, and I politely request that you stop repeating this mischaracterization of my views. If you want to explore my views with me that's one thing, but if you just want to repeatedly declare misrepresentations of my views that's quite another. I know what I believe, and telling me that I believe things I definitely do not is just absurd. Don't you think the tone of this sounds rather familiar? Maybe you should read back over some of Purpledawn's complaints . Didn't I tell you early in the thread that you were mischaracterizing my views? Hasn't Purpledawn told you repeatedly that you've been mischaracterizing her views? In those cases, didn't you think that your interpretation was correct, despite what we told you? So what's the difference here? All I've done is explained what your view in this thread seems to imply to me. I'm sure it isn't what you believe you're saying, but it seems that way to me, and probably to Purpledawn as well. Now we've got that out of the way, I'll try in my next post to explore what you really believe .
Science includes the requirement of replication. A scientific model accepted after a period of replication of the experiments/observations supporting it would never be considered falsified by "a single instance of counter evidence." If, for example, a human fossil were found in the Permian, then a) the tests verifying this would have to be replicated; and b) more instances would have to be identified. The mountains and mountains of scientific research that support theories that hold this to be impossible could not be overturned by a single piece of evidence, no matter how inexplicable. That's just detail, Percy. The principle still stands: it doesn't matter how much evidence a model has going for it, a single counter instance, e.g. firm evidence of humans existing in the Permian, falsifies the model. Then you have to change the model so that it covers all the positive evidence you've accrued so far, plus the new evidence that falsified the old model. 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
What do you mean by "we"? PurpleDawn was alone. Your prior participation in this thread ended at Message 98, more than two weeks ago. Yes. Unfortunately, much as I'd like to spend more time here debating, I have a job to do, and two small children to look after. I have to keep forcing myself to stay away from the site so I don't get sacked, or taken to court for neglect . The "we" wasn't intended to suggest that we were working as a team - it was just referring back to the separate complaints of mischaracterization mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Good luck finding someplace where I said or implied that "knowledge is either science or not-science", or that only scientific knowledge can be trusted. What I am saying and have been saying all along is that anecdotal approaches to gathering knowledge are far inferior to scientific ones, and that in any area appropriate for scientific study the scientific approach will yield far better answers a vast majority of the time. Both anecdotal and scientific approaches employ empiricism, but science raises empiricism to a fine art. The issue is very simple. Can you envisage any circumstance in which you would ignore the scientific consensus because you didn't trust it? If you answer, yes, than I accept that my description of your position was a misrepresentation.
I understand what you're saying in principle. You and I can agree on the principle while disagreeing on how best to express it, but PurpleDawn and LindaLou have only a cloudy notion of this principle, and so when you say that it takes just a "a single instance of counter evidence" to overturn a theory, PurpleDawn looks at McGarey's 92 cases and LindaLou looks at her scads of anecdotal data and they then conclude that there's plenty enough evidence to indicate that castor oil packs work or to overturn any studies indicating that vaccines and antidepressants are safe. I know what you're saying. It is sometimes difficult to know how to pitch a line without misleading people. This thread was actually aimed at a couple of posters in a previous thread who made the two claims I mentioned in the opening post. I wanted them to understand the irony of using the term "empiricism" to decry knowledge based on personal experience. I've encouraged Purpledawn because I believe that her intuition about medical science is right and that she's correct to question it. I wouldn't necessarily agree with all her judgements, but then, who's perfect? 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
JavaMan writes: Didn't I tell you early in the thread that you were mischaracterizing my views?Percy writes: Uh, no. We disagreed about whether tentativity had its origins in empiricism. The mischaracterization I complained about was this one from earlier in the thread. (Note that I'm not repeating the complaint, just clarifying matters ).
The simple point is that there are certain questions that are appropriate for scientific investigation, and without doubt the relationship between vaccines and autism is one of them. There's no attempt to portray personal observation as worthless. The point is that if on the one hand you have a collection of personal observations, what we usually call anecdotes, and on the other you have scientific studies, then scientific studies win out because they are far more reliable, rigorous, precise, accurate, etc. The scientific method is the best way we have, by far, for giving ourselves confidence about what we know of the real world. Why this point isn't clear to PD and LL and JM and NJ and others is beyond me, but the prevalence of people of such an inclination makes it clear why it is so difficult to convince anyone concerning issues like creation/evolution, 911 conspiracies, UFOs, ESP, faith healing and all the rest. 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2349 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
Your question is couched in somewhat absolute terms. How about if you instead asked if I might ever be skeptical of the scientific consensus. In that case the answer is yes, of course. That sounds fair enough. I accept that my description of your position was a misrepresentation. Oh dear, that means we don't have anything left to debate. I'll go and give my children their breakfast instead  . 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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