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The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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Understanding Science…Not Entirely
January 21st, 2009
So I saw a story about a new educational website run out of Berkeley called Understanding Science.
I’m very supportive of such things in general, and I like a lot of things on the site.
Unfortunately — you what is coming by now, don’t you? — there’s some politically correct biased rubbish in there as well that may or may not be fair. I think not, in general. Let’s look at the misconceptions page that lists items in a number of categories. I’ll add my commentary beside some of them in italics with some criticisms. I’ll hit bold too when I have a real issue with the “misconception.”
Misinterpretations of the scientific process
- Science is a collection of facts. Good one, not true.
- Science is complete. Good one, not true.
- There is a single Scientific Method that all scientists follow. A bit subtle, but ok.
- The process of science is purely analytic and does not involve creativity. A fine point to make.
- Experiments are a necessary part of the scientific process. Without an experiment, a study is not rigorous or scientific. Hmmm. Change this to experiment or observation and then it shouldn’t be here. Theory of various sorts is good science when it makes predictions that can be tested by experiment or observation, but otherwise is questionable as science. To wit, string theory.
- “Hard” sciences are more rigorous and scientific than “soft” sciences. I have to object to this one. There is a difference between “hard” and “soft” sciences that the labels suggest. I am not sure what the point of this “misconception” actually is. Anyone know? I can apply a lot of quantitative rigor to an issue in psychology and still have no clue about how it works, which is not generally true in astrophysics, for instance. The soft sciences are frakking hard and rigorous understanding is difficult to achieve, which is not nearly so true in the hard sciences. I can calculate when an asteroid will strike the Earth to the second given enough observations. I’m never going to be able to predict when a serial killer will strike even given a library of information and a lifetime to do calculations. This point seems politically motivated.
- Scientific ideas are absolute and unchanging.
- Because scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change, they can’t be trusted.
- Scientists’ observations directly tell them how things work (i.e., knowledge is “read off” nature, not built).
- Science proves ideas. A really good one to include. Biased conservatives insisting on ironclad “proof” of evolution or global warming are asking for the impossible, and they likely know it, the bastards.
- Science can only disprove ideas.
- If evidence supports a hypothesis, it is upgraded to a theory. If the theory then garners even more support, it may be upgraded to a law. This is a good misconception to combat. I’ve seen it out there a lot.
- Scientific ideas are judged democratically based on popularity. Another good one. Social scientists in the recent “culture wars” were totally sucked into this bogus notion. Experiment and observation trump popularity in the end.
- The job of a scientist is to find support for his or her hypotheses. I won’t bold this one, but having been around long enough to see how scientists work, some do seem to fall into this camp.
- Scientists are judged on the basis of how many correct hypotheses they propose (i.e., good scientists are the ones who are “right” most often). This misconception is only true for observers/experimenters to some extent, and not true at all for theorists who seem to be rewarded for coming up with the most clever ideas, right or wrong. Hubble was right about the expanding universe, and would be forgotten if he’d been wrong, unfortunately.
- Investigations that don’t reach a firm conclusion are useless and unpublishable. Well, sometimes they are, sometimes not. No bold.
- Scientists are completely objective in their evaluation of scientific ideas and evidence. Yeah. Right.
- Science is pure. Scientists work without considering the applications of their ideas. This led to about four months of depression for me. Not the applied issue so much as just the fact that scientists are motivated by power, money, fame, as well as the truth. I really wanted a pure ivory tower.
Misunderstandings of the limits of science
- Science contradicts the existence of God. This seems really stupid to bring in to me, at least without providing an appropriate scientific perspective. Science doesn’t address the supernatural, but it can certainly test some supernatural claims and has never found convincing evidence for the miracles espoused by leading world religions. A very sizable majority of the top scientists (National Academy of Scientists) are not religious. Religion is an irrational belief that is contrary to scientific thinking. Science simply doesn’t have anything to say about religion except when religion oversteps its claims, and then religion has been consistently been found wrong (e.g., age of the Earth, effectiveness of prayer, faith healing, etc.). This is bogus P.C. B.S. in my opinion and should be deleted from the page in this form. Science simply finds no support for God, and does contradict many claims of the ridiculous.
- Science and technology can solve all our problems. Well, I’m a technological optimist. I think there’s a certain class of problem that science/technology can always solve, or improve. The example of HIV is a poor one, I think. It’s so narrowly defined that I have no doubt future tech can solve it, if only in a brute force way with tailored nanotech that is on the horizon now. Problems like “What is the purpose of life?” or “Why is there evil in the world?” are perhaps problems science can’t solve. But appeals to the supernatural have failed also, in my opinion, so let’s not run there.
Misleading stereotypes of scientists
- Science is a solitary pursuit. True. Good to point out.
- Science is done by “old, white men.” Depends on the field, to be honest. If you include Asians and Indians, well, it’s almost all men in Physics. Not happy about it, but there it is. No bold.
- Scientists are atheists. Well, leading scientists do reject god. Be honest about it. This response is sugar-coating things to make the irrational majority content.
Vocabulary mix-ups Good to have here.
Roadblocks to learning science
Overall I am happy there are things like this out there and will likely link to this and similar sites when I teach non-majors introductory astronomy or physics. I just hate to see someone’s political correctness or biases twist things to appease the irrational and make things a little too ideal. Personally I’d axe or edit the items I commented on in bold, and be a bit more honest about a couple of others. We could use more diversity in the scientific endeavor, but we also shouldn’t lie about things. Intelligent design and astrology are irrational beliefs, not science, and science doesn’t have much patience for them. Most conventional religion isn’t far from these at their roots, and aren’t in perfect harmony with science. I have no problem with people who have reasonable ethical systems and like the community and benefits of faith, but the miraculous apparitions, the end times, resurrections, and heavenly visions are really not happening by any objective measure. If you can’t measure it, it isn’t science and no one else should take it seriously.
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“Hard†sciences are more rigorous and scientific than “soft†sciences. I have to object to this one.
Have you read Jared Diamond’s Soft sciences are often harder than hard sciences?
(Discover, Vol.8, August 1987: 34-38)
That said, I’d still be happy to see a bit more rigour applied in some of the softer fields (says the boy with the spectacularly soft-looking qualifications in Psych and the History & Philosophy of Science; hypocrisy alert… ;> ).
Empirical data is a good thing; sometimes this point seems to be lost. Creative theorising is all well and good, but I get annoyed by theories that are applied rather than tested.
I haven’t…that article came out quite a while ago!
If by “harder” he means “more difficult” I agree with him completely. If he’s taking a dig at some sloppy work in the hard sciences, I can accept that too in specific instances.
There are fields like biology that have become much more rigorous in the last 20 years (think Human Genome Project and related activities).
A lot of sophisticated statistics are used in fields like psychology, but the conclusions still don’t tend to be rigorous because it’s so hard to quantify things about human behavior in a rigorous, unambiguous way. And as for application, we still have people undergoing years of slow, rarely effective Freudean psychotherapy don’t we?
A lot of sophisticated statistics are used in fields like psychology, but the conclusions still don’t tend to be rigorous because it’s so hard to quantify things about human behavior in a rigorous, unambiguous way.
Tell me about it. A large portion of my undergrad time was spent suppressing the urge to scream “just naming your test the fairy-meter doesn’t constitute proof that fairies exist!”.
And as for application, we still have people undergoing years of slow, rarely effective Freudean psychotherapy don’t we?
That’s more to do with the moral cowardice of the APA [1] rather than having anything to do with scientific psychology, modern or otherwise. The inexplicable popularity of Freudian theory [2] set evidence-based psychology back 50 years, but that was about the only connection Freud ever had with science.
As is obvious, Freud and co. are an early example of exactly what I was whinging about. Adventurous theories are fine, so long as they stay within academia as conjectures to be tested (thankyou Mr Popper…). But if they escape into the wild, it’s a whole different deal.
Arguing for an unproven and speculative theory; fine. Charging $200/hour for an unproven treatment based on a prima facie ridiculous theory? Not so fine. People went to prison based on the court testimony of Freudian theorists, for fuck’s sake. The only reason I would visit Freud’s grave would be to put a stake through the bastard’s heart.
Clinical psych is essentially in the 19th century, comparatively speaking. The only talking therapy that has any convincing evidence of effectiveness is CBT, and that’s really only in the case of phobias. We’re a bit further along on the drug side of things, but even there we have a lot of marginally-effective rubbish being pushed (I’m looking at you, Prozac…). Even the things that do work often have mysterious mechanisms of action and horrific side effects.
Psych is a broad church, however, and things are getting a bit more interesting on the neuro side of the field. We can already mechanically read an imagined image straight out of a human visual cortex, using non-invasive techniques; give it 20 years and that sort of thing is going to be consumer-level tech.
Think of what it will do for art when anyone can make an image or a video of literally anything they can imagine.
On the other hand, think of what it will do for interrogations when the Shrub’s grandson ascends to the Presidency and they start combining fMRI based visual decoding tech with the pink elephant problem (“don’t think about the…”).
We’re getting a better handle on things down at the cellular level, too. Neural plasticity, long-term potentiation of synapses, the ever-proliferating collection of neurotransmitter receptor sites, the increasing role of the glia, etc. etc. It’s slow, but we’re getting there.
I’m a couple of weeks away from enrolling in a Psychopharmacology PhD at the moment, looking at environmental influences on the neurotoxicity of recreational drugs. Neurotransmitters and neurons are seriously funky things.
[1] As well as continuing to actively support therapeutic techniques shown to be ineffective, the APA is an organisation which, a couple of months ago, once it became obvious that Obama was going to win, finally got around to saying that it wasn’t okay for APA members to be involved in torture. It took years of publicity and campaigning to get this to happen.
[2] The fundamental structure of the human mind just coincidentally happens to be patterned on the sexual hang-ups of the 19th century Viennese middle class? Yeah, right…
Would you like me to email you a copy of the Diamond thing, btw? He’s mostly pushing the “soft sciences are difficult” angle, but the article is inspired by the Huntington/Lang kerfuffle in the US National Academy of Sciences at the time.
Behold the power of google, Craig:
http://bama.ua.edu/~sprenti/607%20Diamond%201987.htm
Thanks for pointing out the article. It seems like all you have to know about these days is the existence of something to find it. Anyway, it is an interesting read and reflects a lot of my thoughts, although a caution should be added about the soft sciences. Because they are so hard (difficult), and it is possible to provide labels that are potentially misleading about any given study or result, expertise and bias should be screened for when evaluating any results.
And unfortunately I agree with you about Freud and his legacy, which continues to this day. There are plenty of places that still teach Freud in such a way that many swallow his ideas and propagate them, without a lot of supporting evidence. We definitely need the softer sciences to get as hard as possible (god, this terminology sucks!) in order to avoid problems with cults of personality and to make more easily recognized advances.
Just been reading a lot about string theory, which seems to be one of these popular speculative ideas run amok without empirical tests to hold it in check. Seems to have some parallels with Freud.
Because they are so hard (difficult), and it is possible to provide labels that are potentially misleading about any given study or result, expertise and bias should be screened for when evaluating any results.
True; but it isn’t a bad idea to initially treat reported results in any field as arguments rather than facts. Numbers can be arranged in all sorts of ways.
There are plenty of places that still teach Freud in such a way that many swallow his ideas and propagate them, without a lot of supporting evidence.
At my schools Freud has largely been taught as an historical curiosity (although they maintain one lonely true believer on the faculty of my current place, possibly for a similar reason…). Wandering onto the net psych discussion groups and realising just how many students in the USA still took psychoanalytic theory seriously was something of a shock.
Your neuroscience people are fairly impressive, though.
We definitely need the softer sciences to get as hard as possible (god, this terminology sucks!)
I don’t think Diamond’s idea of renaming hard/soft science to easy/hard science is going to take off, though. Shame; it’d be fun to see the physics labs spontaneously implode…
Just been reading a lot about string theory, which seems to be one of these popular speculative ideas run amok without empirical tests to hold it in check. Seems to have some parallels with Freud.
http://xkcd.com/171/
&
http://xkcd.com/397/
The xkcd comics are pretty funny, as usual. I should put a link on the sidebar as I’ve never not had at least a smirk following a link there.
And I feel like Freud was likely an L. Ron Hubbard type who just believed his own “science fiction.”