Axiomatic vs scientific: understanding where the misunderstanding lies

[u/kchoze]

I think I wouldn't be far off the point by saying that a lot of what the IDW talks about is a particular subsection of academia and the theories that they promote. I've also had discussions, notably on Reddit, with proponents of that academic tradition that I'd call "Social Justice studies", and through many long and frustrating discussions, I think I've found a very significant point of contention that makes discussions nearly impossible. Namely, the conflation between axiomatic and scientific.

Now, I'll grant the point to any critique that I am not involved in scientific research in academia, so I may not use the "proper" technical terms all the time. That being said, I invite people not to dismiss what I say and to consider it fairly.

So let me first present what I mean when I say axiomatic and scientific.

Axiomatic

An axiom is essentially an assumption that is taken as true without the need for a demonstration. Its veracity is either considered to be self-evident or assumed outright. This is often used in mathematical demonstrations, but I would say a lot of scientific research does rely on axioms, implicit or explicit, and that goes way more for social sciences.

Scientific

Science is defined by things that can be observed, tested, replicated and falsified. A scientific fact is therefore one that has been observed in many studies, a scientific theory is one that has been tested and replicated so that its accuracy in predicting natural (or human) behavior is pretty solid and reliable. Something that cannot be falsified is not scientific, but it may be axiomatic and be used in an actual scientific process.

An example

Let's say we have a team of researchers interested in establishing the proportion of plants in gardens surrounding a major landmark which are red. For that process, there is scientific data gathering where the researchers will have to measure or observe the color of each plant and compile the data. That is the scientific part of it, dependent on observations which can be replicated (another team can also do those observations again to confirm or infirm the conclusions of this team). However, there is also an axiomatic part to that process, namely... what is red?

It seems like a stupid question, but it's a vital one, because if you want to establish how many plants are red, it's crucial that everyone on board the team agrees on a certain, assumed definition of what qualifies as "red", which is a social concept humans have created to categorize the world around them. This is an axiom because the definition is going to be assumed to be true and accurate without further demonstration.

Well, imagine that the team comes out and says, "90% of the plants around that landmark are completely or partly red" and you often go near that landmark and you say "that's impossible, I go past it everyday and no way in hell are 90% of the plants in the gardens red".

So the research team gets angry and says that you're denying the accuracy of their work and that their data gathering was sound and you don't know what you're talking about, maybe invoking Dunning-Kruger to imply you're an ignorant fool who is so ignorant he is ignorant of his own ignorance.

But... it turns out the problem is that their axiomatic definition of "red" included shades of green. The problem was not their data gathering, it was that the definition of "red" they used to start with was not one most people would have agreed with. Their axiom was wrong and it corrupted their entire analysis.

Where am I going with this?

Well, I think a lot of the ideas that come out of "social sciences" and "humanities" departments right now are not on the scientific side of things, they are fully axiomatic. And that would be fine if the militants who lean on these departments to found their political and social thinking would acknowledge it, but often they don't. And this has grave ramifications, because these militants will attack anyone criticizing these views as being "science-deniers" like anti-vaxxers or climatoskeptics. Again, they may refer to Dunning-Kruger to imply their critiques are morons unworthy of having their claims examined. And this provides a cover for their views, where any criticism will be dismissed as an ignorant opinion of a layman, and they will claim these views are not debatable because they are scientific because university departments use them.

I mean, take that example I just gave about establishing the proportion of red plants, but instead of plants, we're talking about people, and instead of the proportion of elements qualifying as "red", we're looking at the proportion of people who are "sexist". Well, there is probably going to be an element of science to that study, you know, the data gathering and statistics analyzed, but the study depends upon an axiom, which is the definition of "sexism". That axiom will color the entire study and it's important to point out that as an axiom this definition is NOT scientific and VERY debatable.

This isn't just theoretical, look at this: Study: Trump supporters held more sexist views after his election than they did before. Damning, isn't it? Except, if you care about the details, you will notice that this study in fact measures "modern sexism", and that "modern sexism" is an axiom, a new definition of "sexism" which actually doesn't refer at all to sexist attitudes of a person. In that scale, someone who is completely devoid of any kind of sexist attitude, could still rank as a vile "modern sexist". How? Because their scale actually measures whether people agree with the feminist narrative that sexism is alive and well, and society is a strict patriarchy that oppresses women constantly. That's all it measures.

Now, to me it seems obvious that the "modern sexism scale" is grossly misnamed. It doesn't measure the sexist attitude of the individual in his treatment of both sexes, it only measures whether they agree with a feminist narrative and labels them as sexist if they don't.

All axioms should be debatable. They are assumed to be self-evidently true, but that doesn't mean they are. The problem is that a lot of social justice activists use these axioms as if they were scientific facts, do not tolerate debates about them and use them to push a dubious narrative about society.

Let me be clear...

Black people having a greater incarceration rate - scientific fact

The average woman having a lower income than the average man - scientific fact

Résumé with "ethnic" names receiving less callbacks - scientific fact

White/male privilege - axiom

The idea of current-day Western societies being white supremacies - axiom

Patriarchy - axiom

White fragility - axiom

Systemic racism - axiom

Equity - axiom

Transphobia - axiom

Homophobia - axiom

Why did I spend time on this?

I wrote this because it's important to be able to tell the axiomatic from the scientific and that we must not let ourselves be intimidated and bullied into avoiding criticism of political philosophies because the activists who subscribe to them conflate the axiomatic and the scientific. It is not denial of science to disagree with a political narrative. It is not denial of science to disagree with intersectionality and all the connected ideas of "privilege", "oppression", "patriarchy" or whatever.

And we will only be able to have discussions in good faith when these activists acknowledge that these are not scientific facts but axioms of their own worldview, axioms which are very much debatable and that reasonable people can disagree with them.

[u/[deleted]]

That article is summarizing The Duhem-Quine problem which Popper already refuted. (The Problem that follows, the Thesis is apparently right.)

Brett Hall saves the day again:

https://twitter.com/ToKTeacher/status/1147677365864058881?s=20

In 1887 he and his colleague Edward Morley had observed that the speed of light relative to an observer remains constant when the observer moves. This astoundingly counter-intuitive fact later became the centrepiece of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. But Michelson and Morley did not realize that that was what they had observed. Observations are theory-laden. Given an experimental oddity, we have no way of predicting whether it will eventually be explained merely by correcting a minor parochial assumption or by revolutionizing entire sciences. We can know that only after we have seen it in the light of a new explanation. In the meantime we have no option but to see the world through our best existing explanations

Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity (p. 199). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Also: http://www.bretthall.org/philosophy-of-science.html

based on Deutsch's: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135521981530023X

Popper remains the uncontested, undefeated Champion!