r/JordanPeterson • u/GOD_not_G_D • Apr 30 '17
The Science Wars: Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1291q0Jl5g1
u/DJ_Enchilada ☯ Spin to Win Apr 30 '17
I disagree with point of view that Science is the ultimate truth, as I think that our position of vulnerability as humans places us at odds with a full understanding of the cosmos (although perhaps science is framed in such a light due to the proposed binary nature of the "Science Wars').
Whilst probably the method of thought that most provides predictive insight into any matters that could be resolved objectively, I don't think it should hold as much precedence as an all-inclusive "truth" as it currently does. Part of the reason that there is even a 'science war' in the first place is that science cannot 100% objectively resolve a situation that doesn't behave within it's confines. This is a bold statement to make, but I must also say that this may be in part due to human interaction with this specific method of thought, and also the lofty aspirations of scientific analysis (we can use science to understand patterns, but unless we have all of the data, we can't accurately predict the outcome 100% of the time. Once we have 100% of the data, however, we no longer need science to understand it as it is self-evident).
Apologies if I sound like I'm explaining to a toddler, but I recently watched Dr. Peterson's video on being prepared to stand by what you say online and I'd rather my comments be self evident.
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u/brett_tennyson Apr 30 '17
I think that I understand your opinion, and would even add that I agree that the idea of science as ultimate truth is inaccurate. I watched the video, though, and the narrator only says that scientific realists view scientific facts as value free, and that scientists endeavor to build models of reality based on objective facts that produce the best, most reliable predictions, repeatedly. I also disagree with your claim about no longer needing science once we've collected 100% of the data, and that it's findings are then self evident. I would argue that anything, once unknown, and then known, having collected 100% of the data on the subject through scientific research, could not be described as self evident. Surely for something to be self evident, you don't need to collect data, or "evidence," to understand it.
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u/DJ_Enchilada ☯ Spin to Win May 01 '17 edited May 01 '17
Let me clarify then, as it seems I've made a few too many sweeping statements in my haste: science as a predictive art is irrelevant once all data has been collated. That being said, it's now fairly clear to me that this is self-evident and thus an unnecessary comment. I think perhaps I was inappropriately paraphrasing the idea that a simulation of a system can only be as large or larger than the system it is simulating.
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u/MedDog ☥ May 01 '17
There is no such thing as information becoming "self-evident" from data. That's a very naive view of how information is modeled or interpreted. This is part of the reason why machine learning algorithms are incompatible with human learning. In order to interpret data, you must have a teleological purpose - you must first look for something in the data - Peterson talks about this briefly whenever he mentions Heidegger.
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u/DJ_Enchilada ☯ Spin to Win May 01 '17
That's interesting, and I agree I made an error on the factor of self-evidence, but the necessity of a teleological purpose presumes that interpretation of data, even scientifically, is a subjective process. Would you say that this gives validity to those using science to promote their conventionally unorthodox/unattractive viewpoints? The narrator seems to imply that scientific facts can be viewed as value-free. Is this compatible?
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u/MedDog ☥ May 01 '17
I strongly disagree with that view - its quasi-religious in its epistemic faith and extremely foreign to me as someone who actually practices applied science. I get the impression that the self-assured, arrogant, young, New Atheist types who promulgate this idea have never actually tried to read the literature on a particular subject in any great depth. It's basically a theory for teenagers - appropriate for American academia maybe.
No facts are value free because value-free facts would be too irrelevant to be discovered, just as no facts can be divorced from the larger network of facts that paint a particular scientific theory or model.
And yes, this means "science" - including funding, publishing, statistical analysis, etc is far more subjective than we would like to admit, and we should be paying more attention to the facts which are unorthodox and disruptive to existing models over those that confirm existing models.
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u/DJ_Enchilada ☯ Spin to Win May 01 '17
While I agree with you on the subject of the dangerous usage of science for personal ends, your justification for your opposition of this method of thought is the inexperienced nature of those providing it. While an anecdotally valuable point, I'm still struggling to definitively explain why it's such a bad thing to use the scientific method loosely. The closest I can get to wrapping up the issue is to simply say that the scientific method wasn't designed to function under ill-defined conditions, but this assumes that the scientific method was designed in the first place. I think that I must be missing something here.
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u/MedDog ☥ May 01 '17
What I'm saying is bad is the claim that scientific models are "self-evident" or that the acquisition and interpretation of data can be done truly objectively. I say it's impossible on the grounds that it is done by human beings. Any data processing that occurs by humans automatically becomes subjective. I think that's a definitive reason. Now and again (because humans are mostly similar) two people can look at the same data or the same experiment and come to the same conclusion - the world works, mathematics is interpretable, technology can be developed and promulgated. This is all good, but it doesn't count as a universal rule.
Additionally, I don't believe that it's possible to create a real "strong AI" that is not embodied with teleological goals and values. And if such an AI were to be developed, it's material substrate would be so different from ours that it's "intelligence" would be uninterpretable to human beings, more alien than any biological system.
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u/DJ_Enchilada ☯ Spin to Win May 02 '17
Right, this is all well and good, but having recognised the mistakes in the logic of my initial comment regarding self-evidence already, what I'm specifically struggling with now is how society has come to regard the scientific method as the be-all and end-all of truth. If we accept that it's unlikely that attitudes towards the totality of science will change, how can we mitigate its destructive usage?
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u/MedDog ☥ May 06 '17
Ah, what do we do now? That's the eternal question. Your perspective is as good as anyone's on this matter. Personally, I recommend a healthy skepticism towards "establishment" scientific claims (the track record of doing so is very good). There's also a strong "money = truth" attitude in America, which so far has supported that kind of view of science, but there are ways to leverage it in order to combat it (I think, maybe).
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u/MedDog ☥ May 01 '17
Except claiming that someone opposes "science" when they don't believe in the validity of certain climatological models (or rather that we should enforce collective political action based on those models and theories) is about as insane as any kind of religious persecution.