mhardy6647
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Why Doubt Is Essential to Science - Sci. Am.
- Thread starter tuga
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Who discovered it?
Sorry, this is the same guy who suggested that TV news should be banned from having guests that present another side of "climate change" (including climate scientists). (For the folks that think that is a good thing, because it's real, realize that one the other side could exaggerate and make things up to any degree, because it would not be allowed to argue against it.) He is big on "the orthodoxy". Science never speaks with a unified voice, and you would just hear from whatever group has managed to get the upper hand. Tyson is my least favorite celebrity scientist, by far, he wants to be Feynman, but often just makes a big deal about mundane stuff. Sorry, but I've never been fascinated by anything he's talked on. Maybe it's hiding somewhere and I've missed it.
Anyway, I've figured out why the split over this idea of skepticism in this thread. Largely, the people who think the OP's premise is misguided are thinking about science in the large sense (such as things we've learned about our solar system, galaxy, universe). Those of us disagreeing are largely considering the usual business of science, which is focused research.
For instance, can people the difference between 48k sample rates and 192k. Say a team does research on it and the findings are touted as "96k wins" in stereophile. Someone here dares to look up the cited research paper, and sees that the 48k deck was an old non-oversampling device, and they say, "I question this outcome—I'm not so people could tell, if they had used a state of the art player". Or if the research had determined the opposite, concluding the results were random, therefor no one could tell. Is it wrong if someone who is not a scientist reads the paper, notes that the test subject where chosen randomly, and a large number of them were retired individuals, making for poor likelihood of skilled listeners with top notch hearing? Or should the research be accepted as is, and we don't move forward.
Amir, I don't think that's the kind of skepticism you're against, and I respect the point I think you are making. But I think it's closer to what the OP and the article he referenced had in mind.
I'm just using this article as a random example. I'm sure everyone "knows" how bad salt is for us, and how science established that for use decades ago. Not only that, it seems almost intuitive that salt would increase blood pressure, so it's almost like denying gravity to say otherwise (I can help a little irony, since what exactly gravity is is far from agreed upon, lol). I'm sure many can hear the words coming out of their doctor's mouth, about limiting salt intake.
Scientific American: It's Time to End the War on Salt
To be clear, I'm not telling anyone what they should think about salt. But I will say it's probably not in the best interest of mankind to make science unquestionable. Or questionable only by the scientists (whose livelihood is at stake, and often from government grants).
This is the kind of argument that makes audiophiles believe in magic. Why would you say that a Physicist's views on social policy or politics are a reflection on his knowledge or understanding of Science? Ever read Einstein's letters and writings about politics? His views were some of the most naive I've ever seen, yet he was one of the most brilliant scientific minds that have ever existed. It's like deciding that a medical doctor is no good to treat you because he thinks the electron flow is what carries the electric current in a wire. Not his field, and I would never expect him to have real knowledge or understanding outside of his field.
Open mind does not mean ignore science because it might just be all wrong and we don't yet know everything. That's the lay person's interpretation that leads to no understanding or moving knowledge forward, and indeed, moving it backward.
mhardy6647
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so... here's the way "science" works.
Just when one thinks one knows something, one discovers... one doesn't.
Hasn't failed yet (i.e., there are still scientists, and they're -- we're -- still making a living).
www.npr.org
Just when one thinks one knows something, one discovers... one doesn't.
Hasn't failed yet (i.e., there are still scientists, and they're -- we're -- still making a living).
What sound does a turtle make?
Some animals like birds and frogs are famous for the sounds they make. But have you ever heard a turtle? Most turtles were thought to not make sounds at all — until researchers went deep.
www.npr.org
Link please. I want to read/hear what he said.
The opposite of false information isn't a 'bothsides equal balance' of well-supported and poorly-supported claims. 'TV news' doesn't understand that. Tyson does. So does 'science'.
TV news thrives on controversy -- real and manufactured. That's where the money is.
You misunderstood. I'm sure his knowledge and understanding are good, it's his expertise. I'm not sure which part led you to that conclusion, but I'll break down what I said about him:
I said that he has called for limiting of freedom of speech around science (not in this video so much, but does imply similar), and I don't think that's a good idea.
I said that he's my least favorite celebrity scientist, explaining he wants to be Feynman—a fascinating story teller about physics who could speak to the average person—but I find his stories mundane. (Edit: But note that I did allow that I may have missed good stuff from him: "Maybe it's hiding somewhere and I've missed it.")
These two things are my opinions, and the main one in the comment is that I disagree with him that there should be controls on people talking publicly about science. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but that's terribly misguided.
I'll leave something from Feynman, on trees, for those who don't know why I mean. This is just a simple gem—you might try one of his lectures for something deeper.
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sofrep811
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Everything is hypothesis. If you had the means to enter our galaxy I think you'd give up looking for any kind of life. The Earth is truly a needle in the haystack from an out observation. That said--we're just guessing at what all this is about --US, Universe, life, consciousness, etc.
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It's fascinating (and telling) that there is more actual information about how things really work, in a short talk by a brilliant scientist like Feynman, than there is in an entire "divinely inspired" Holy Book.
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The problem here is not whether your opinion is right or wrong, or whether your opinion is persuasive or not. The problem is that your opinion is completely irrelevant as a response to the Tyson video that you were responding to. He made a point about the misunderstanding of what having an open mind means in the context of scientific inquiry. the fact that he made a recommendation about social policy is irrelevant to that - and the fact that he's your "least favorite celebrity scientist" is even more irrelevant.
As any scientist including Tyson and (were he still alive) Feynman would be the first to tell you, how much or little of a personal "favorite" a scientist is of yours has precisely nothing to do with the validity (or lack thereof) of their ideas about the scientific method or the results they get when they conduct scientific experiments. The entire ethos of scientific inquiry is that appeals to authority are bull***t. All that matters is the validity of the data and repeatability of the results.
As for Tyson's point in the video you responded to, he's exactly right and it's a point that seems to be willingly ignored by way too many in this thread. The fact that anything is possible does not mean that anything is plausible or that everything is equally likely. Whether it's creationism, flat-eartherism, or certain articles of subjectivist audiophile faith, the common thread is that you have to ignore certain evidence and well-settled principles if you want to preserve the illusion that "we don't really know for sure." It could very well be that the earth is not exactly what we think it is and we will discover new things in the future. But that does not mean we will discover that it was flat all along. That's a very different thing.
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Narnian
Active Member
I have on multiple (maybe 7) occasions over the years. Most of the time I was correct in my suspicions. However I went and got a second opinion from another professional and did not depend on my own understanding.
Recently I had some hip pain which my doctor said was just arthritis. I had doubts and was told that one of my legs was now shorter than the other by a chiropractor and a podiatrist (the later to verify the former). I still had my doubts so I went to my former doctor, out of town, who was a geriatric specialist who said it was bursitis and sent me to an orthopedic surgeon.
The orthopedist did an x-ray of my legs and hips and said the length was fine and confirmed bursitis due to a weaker muscle on one side. He said the podiatrist recommendations (a heel insert) would have made things far worse. Several weeks of physical therapy and I am much better.
So doubt can be healthful in some cases. But I verified my skepticism with the aid of experts.
"The fact that anything is possible does not mean that anything is plausible or that everything is equally likely."
And here's the point you're missing. No one is arguing that "anything" is a reasonable argument.
At the other extreme, there are people calling for no argument. (Not here, specifically, but public figures and even scientists—and recognize that Tyson himself admitted climate science not being his expertise, yet he wants climate scientists to be silenced if they aren't on the right side of it.)
I'm not championing "any" argument, I'm speaking against "no" argument.
I agree with the OP, I think many missed an important point: his post started with "As a historian of science...". The history of science is littered with people and other scientists discounting dissenting ideas. The right one eventually comes out, but it's often slowed by decades due to champions of the "consensus" refusing and ridiculing what ultimately was proven to be right.
I've made all the points I care to make, it's just going in circles for me now, so enjoy the thread
I'm mainly here for the audio, there are better forums for general science and history.
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"The fact that anything is possible does not mean that anything is plausible or that everything is equally likely."
And here's the point you're missing. No one is arguing that "anything" is a reasonable argument.
At the other extreme, there are people calling for no argument. (Not here, specifically, but public figures and even scientists—and recognize that Tyson himself admitted climate science not being his expertise, yet he wants climate scientists to be silenced if they aren't on the right side of it.)
I'm not championing "any" argument, I'm speaking against "no" argument.
I agree with the OP, I think many missed an important point: his post started with "As a historian of science...". The history of science is littered with people and other scientists discounting dissenting ideas. The right one eventually comes out, but it's often slowed by decades due to champions of the "consensus" refusing and ridiculing what ultimately was proven to be right.
I've made all the points I care to make, it's just going in circles for me now, so enjoy the thread
"At the other extreme, there are people calling for no argument" - Sorry, no sale on that one. You're engaging in whataboutism and false equivalency. As you yourself note, no one here calls for "no argument," and being "against 'no' argument" is just a way of forever refusing to admit to the knowledge that *does* exist in science. The theory of evolution is not "just a theory": the theory part is not a hypothesis that evolution is a real thing. Rather, the theory part is a hypothesis about *how* evolution works - what the mechanism is. The *fact* of evolution is precisely that - a fact. Analogously, much of what passes for the "open to debate" position in hi-fi audio is a willful refusal to acknowledge basic facts. For example, many claims about higher sample rates, timing accuracy, and so on are provably false - not because of "we don't really know yet for sure" claims about how human hearing works, but rather because of basic mathematical logic, which is easily confirmable through both math and experimental observation, and has long ago passed the repeatability test a thousand (or in the case of mathematical calculations made in the course of transmitting digital audio in hi-fi, cell phones, etc, literally trillions or more) times over.
The key issue here is not, "How much do we know." The issue is, "how do we feel confident we know what we know, and by what method might we learn something new or different?" The answer is that we learn new or different things the same way we learned the existing or old things: the scientific method. In the case of digital or hi-fi audio - and the shape of the earth, and biological evolution - we can, and have, run numerous experiments and none has ever disproven the basic precepts of digital sampling theory, evolutionary theory, or the fact that the earth is not flat. A staggering array of mathematical and experimental methods, from a variety of perspectives, approaches, fields and subfields, has provided repeated, overlapping, reinforcing evidence in support of all three of these theories and observations.
If someone has a doubt, it's not on them to conduct their own experiment (unless they're a practicing scientist with access to the required resources) - but it IS on them to propose some kind of experimental design, or hypothesize some kind of factor or mechanism, that has not already been ruled out by prior experiments or existing mathematical proofs.
This last bit - the question of plausibility - is where 99.9% of arguments like yours fall apart.
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This comment is an admirably concise expression of what is wrong with this discussion. Hypotheses can be tested. The fact that experimental confirmation of hypotheses leads to very high levels of confidence rather than absolute certainty does not change the fact that we are not in fact "just guessing at what all this is about." A hypothesis is a "weak thesis" - it is weak and without sufficient support only until it is tested. So no, everything is not in fact a hypothesis.
There is much we do not know and perhaps will never know. But that does not mean that we know nothing and are always just guessing. It's just nonsense to say that - to keep insisting that is to paint an inaccurate picture of what we do know.
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It really is an amazing point of view: since we don't know some things, it follows that we'll never know anything. Of course, this flies in the face of everything that we do know that enables us to fly to distant planets, explore billions of galaxies outside our own, create ubiquitous computing and communication devices and design and build audio equipment capable of faithfully recording and reproducing sound. Never mind these facts. We'll never know anything because everything must always remain in doubt.
Suffolkhifinut
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Got some growths on my nose went to the doctor and he prescribed antibiotics asked him what the growths were he turned away. Another one arrived saw a different doctor and he said on no account take antibiotics until they burst, if they didn’t there might be problematic. Adding taking antibiotics before they burst may stop it happening.
Covid arrived and medical services here disappeared, went to see the doctor a few months ago and he got concerned and referred me to a specialist. Had an operation to remove cancerous growths and a lot of my nose was cut away. Saw an Oncologist today and was told if any more was taken away it would leave me needing reconstruction surgery. Start radio therapy next week to burn away what’s left of the growths.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Doubt is only useful as long as it doesn't turn into denial.
You got a second opinion from another professional. You did not substitute your own lay intuition of what is wrong with you. This is what is happening in audio day in, and day out. Entire body of audio science and engineering is thrown out and one's own opinion inserted as not only the truth, but universal law of audio. Everything now requires break in for example. Why? Because your old cars needed it so it must mean that your cables do too. Folks are not going to another person who really understands the audio field for that opinion.
So, no, your situation has nothing to do with the point I raised in my post. I was asking the poster if he was just as incredulous and "open minded" about the professional opinion of his doctor relative to his. That is precisely what he has done in the past, saying Dr. Toole's knowledge of this field is wrong and his opinion is more correct. And he doesn't just keep the opinion to himself. He posts about it and searches for any lifeline to validate his opinion over not only professionals but luminaries in our field.
Mind you, nothing wrong with challenging the opinion of experts. You just have to show you know more than they do. For example, I have challenged Dr. Toole on subject of non-linear compression audibility and how trained and untrailed listeners are not born equally there. That is my domain of expertise much more than it has been that of Dr. Toole. But OP? And sound reproduction in a room? You must be kidding....
So please don't come to his defense. There is no defense there that makes sense. We all rely incredibly on opinion of professional in our life and don't demand personal knowledge of the same as a substitute. But somehow audio is special and what decades of audio research and engineering has taught us is fit to be discarded. And replaced with "what my ears tell me" and "I have been an audiophile for X number of years so I know." No, they don't know.
Wow! You've been busy! Keep up the good fight...