Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
I also got a real buzz last Sunday when I relearnt a bunch of autocad to create the floor plan of our basement to show the builders. Hadn't really touched cad since the early to mid 2000s.
Science literacy: how confident are you?
- Thread starter Mation
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Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
I struggled with algebra because of the naming conventions. I might have been able to cope with an arbitrary name for a constant value or set of values, but the fact that a or b or x can assume any value (parameter?) not otherwise associated with the letters a, b or x totally flummoxes me.
I can code (granted, not proficiently) because I can give meaningful names to variables.
And yes, girasol, CS and philosophy are very related, in my mind. My BSc was a mixture of computer science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, experimental psychology, linguistics and anthropology; all trying to get at how the mind works.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
I can see that as being an issue. It's kinda the opposite for me in electronics and physics. Suddenly all the letters mean something and need to go in a particular order.
Did fine at GCSE but A Level physics was too much and I struggled wen I did an equivalent level unit of electronics.
Although I did do quite well with mathematics for engineers with is basically Level 3 maths but you use j not i for the square route of minus 1 as i is current.
Did fine at GCSE but A Level physics was too much and I struggled wen I did an equivalent level unit of electronics.
Although I did do quite well with mathematics for engineers with is basically Level 3 maths but you use j not i for the square route of minus 1 as i is current.
I'm just leaving this here...
edit: I've realised this really isn't aimed at anyone who is likely to watch it..
It’s a good video. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot this last year.
On top of the problems that scientism create in alienating the audience, I’d also say that the “yay science” crowd don’t understand that the positivist natural science epistemology is not the only way or even necessarily the best way to understand everything in the world. There is a place for inductive reasoning. There is certainly a place for recognising subjectivity. Saying that I know something requires a me to do the knowing as well as a thing to be understood, there is no reason to assume s as neutrality in that frame of reference.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Agree with the thrust, but it seems to me that most science is based on inductive reasoning.
That being a major difference between science and maths.
(maybe I just misread here)
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
Yes. I remember thinking of something along the same lines last time I was trapped in a k hole.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
The only time I had ketamine I was more like "WHOOOOAAAAHHHH!!! FUUUUCKINGG HEELLLLL!!!!".
Like being grabbed by the cuffs of your jeans and being slung through a Black Hole.
Scientists will apply inductive reasoning to form hypotheses but the scientific method itself is based on using deductive reasoning to test these hypothesis. Inductive reasoning is about generalising from specifics. Deductive reasoning is about producing predictions (eg syllogisms) which can then be tested. The problem with inductive reasoning is that if can produce false conclusions.
But the problem with deductive reasoning is that it is limited in its scope. The thing is that not everything is subject to producing testable hypotheses, at least right now. Human experience, for example, is way richer than we currently have ways to encapsulate in measurable data. You can measure and test tiny pieces of it and gain some insight that way but if you think that deductive reasoning is the only useful approach, you’ll end up thinking the forest is represented by its leaves.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
I think you need to watch that video again
You have lots of very firm pronouncements about fields that are not within your areas of expertise.
What would be wrong with saying that you're not sure or not aware of how well science might measure human experience, rather than repeating something from David Chalmers or John Searle that you agree with as though it's fact?
Don't ask me to produce evidence that human experience is in fact measurable, as I don't have time in my life to go down a rabbit hole to prove a point on the internet (I know; I'm doing it wrong.)
Just... We don't have to be all experty all the time, because most of us are not experts in most things. And that's ok. Certainty isn't a measure of competence. Of that, I am sure
So tell me how you’re measuring the subjective experience of love, then. Bearing in mind that it is an embodied experience that is understood through the way we make a meaning of it that is created through a context that derived from circumstances, cultural history and personal history.
I don’t need you talking down to me about what I am and am not an expert in, though, thanks. I’m happy enough not to throw out my personal readings of you.
I don’t need you talking down to me about what I am and am not an expert in, though, thanks. I’m happy enough not to throw out my personal readings of you.
Well I've got a PhD in mathematics* but that didn't make me scientifically literate at all but it meant I'm not intimidated by scientific papers and it makes a lot of things easier. But being able to look at things logically is only a small part of science and probably the easiest part. Logic is so often rationalisation of dubious beliefs, being able to honestly assess empirical data is a discipline.
Having the skills to look at claims sceptically comes from looking at how scientists work and criticise each others work. 15 years or so ago I started subscribing to New Scientist and looking up papers that I could access and that seemed interesting to me although in recent years I'm too lazy to look at anything in detail.
I've retained a lifelong interest in theoretical physics but that's not a area where there's any new exciting research. I dip into astronomy, medical science, earth science, evolutionary and developmental biology but all on a pretty superficial level.
*I hate talking about this, I feel I've wasted it and it intimidates some people. It wasn't a difficult thing to do and I was really complacent back then.
Having the skills to look at claims sceptically comes from looking at how scientists work and criticise each others work. 15 years or so ago I started subscribing to New Scientist and looking up papers that I could access and that seemed interesting to me although in recent years I'm too lazy to look at anything in detail.
I've retained a lifelong interest in theoretical physics but that's not a area where there's any new exciting research. I dip into astronomy, medical science, earth science, evolutionary and developmental biology but all on a pretty superficial level.
*I hate talking about this, I feel I've wasted it and it intimidates some people. It wasn't a difficult thing to do and I was really complacent back then.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
You are not lazy. You have other priorities.
[Just another post in my campaign to eliminate the concept from our thinking
]Edited to change 'word' to 'concept'.
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Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
You're right. I don't know what you're an expert in. I just see what you post about (what anyone posts about), and will then see what I think about it depending on how much I (think I) know about the subject.
You have an accidental habit of making pronouncements in fields that I've studied formally and have 'done well' in, which (my belief about my own knowledge) leads me to view your points critically. I think, here's someone with a pop science view* (in very much the same way that I have about lots of stuff), who is stating their opinion as though they really know this stuff as backwards as is possible.
But it might just be that we disagree
* On what I think of as 'my' topics.
You are not lazy. You have other priorities.
[Just another post in my campaign to eliminate the concept from our thinking
Edited to change 'word' to 'concept'.
Thankyou
I’ve studied psychology formally, not at a “pop science” level. What I’m talking about is based on the contemporary work of a collection of social psychologists in a particular area, such as Professor Ian Burkitt. Not that you actually care, but sometimes your smugness is just a bit overwhelming.You're right. I don't know what you're an expert in. I just see what you post about (what anyone posts about), and will then see what I think about it depending on how much I (think I) know about the subject.
You have an accidental habit of making pronouncements in fields that I've studied formally and have 'done well' in, which (my belief about my own knowledge) leads me to view your points critically. I think, here's someone with a pop science view* (in very much the same way that I have about lots of stuff), who is stating their opinion as though they really know this stuff as backwards as is possible.
But it might just be that we disagree
* On what I think of as 'my' topics.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
No smugness on my part.
But it may well feel like it - apparently does feel like it - if you're (one is) not used to being doubted.
You’re not ”doubting” me. You’ve not presented any challenge whatsoever. You’ve not engaged with a single piece of it. You’ve just tried to throw the weight of your credentials around as a way of telling me to shut up. Ironically, you’re also doing exactly what that blogger cautioned against. You’re being the epitome of the paradigm that claims one particular epistemology as the single correct one.
Come on, you wanted to have this argument about positivism and the subjective, directed, relational nature of knowledge. Explain your critique, don’t just say I’m wrong because you measured the brain.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
... and all scientific evidence ie. conclusions drawn is inductive. It is based on what we have seen so far not contradicting a hypothesis (when many hypotheses could also account for the data as seen). As opposed to maths, where you can have 'proof'. The scientific method rests completely on inductive reasoning. Science could be done in a valid manner with inductive reasoning alone, in fact it often is.
That’s fair, and I tried but may have failed to clarify that I was referring to the scientific method (as proposed by Popper and adopted as the dominant paradigm for determining scientific “knowledge” on an objective, neutral-frame basis) rather than the general discipline of “science”, which includes the creative methods by which new ideas are synthesised.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Hell yeahI'm more of a Feyerabend man myself.
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
I was going to answer the OP but we seem to have traveled way into enemy territory now, so....
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
But, I will respond to spanglechick by saying that I used to think I didn’t like sci-fi for pretty much the same reasons you state, but then someone gave me a Penguin anthology of science fiction stories and it completely changed my mind.
Some of the most moving, memorable, meaningful and thought provoking things I’ve ever read have been sci-fi books and stories.
Some of the writing can be a bit clunky (Asimov and Arthur C Clarke beng prime examples of this) but their stories are fascinating, so worth reading. But there are also plenty of very good writers too (for eg as already said Ursula K le Guin).
Some of the most moving, memorable, meaningful and thought provoking things I’ve ever read have been sci-fi books and stories.
Some of the writing can be a bit clunky (Asimov and Arthur C Clarke beng prime examples of this) but their stories are fascinating, so worth reading. But there are also plenty of very good writers too (for eg as already said Ursula K le Guin).
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Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I'm more of a Feyerabend man myself.
Much of the debate on here is indistinguishable from voodoo.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
No, I really don't want to have the argument. And I'm not telling you to shut up. I am thinking of the several previous occasions on which you've stepped in authoritatively to explain something to someone, and it's happened that I know that you were either factually incorrect or that, on this occasion, your statements of fact are just opinions in a field with lots of other views that have equal weight.
My opinions are different to yours, but, again, I'm not telling you to shut up about yours. I guess it irritates me when you present them as fact.
Anyway. I took us in a rowy direction. I'll stop.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
Sorry!
Ok, tell you what. When you see me doing that, by all means tell me I’m factually wrong and point me to why. I love finding out where my understanding of something is limited — it’s what I live for, mostly. But please don’t come into a thread in which I am not doing that in order to attack my character out of nowhere. Because that isn’t just “rowy”, it just plain isn’t nice.
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