The Limits of Science

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-limits-of-science

by silt • 7 years ago

35 55 7 years ago

roenxi5• 7 years ago

Science is all about gathering data. Theorise all you like; but if the theory can't be tied back to data at some point in time then it is at best maths or philosophy.

Experiments and dispassionate language are about gathering clear data and representing it accurately. Claiming that science is all about "clarity and economy" is ironically unscientific - if nature is unclear and uneconomical then good science has to represent that too. That part of science isn't taught as much because it takes longer to communicate. Ignoring data, such as from your senses, is also not a good scientific idea.

Being unscientific is ignoring data. There are different standards and a bit of judgement about what quality of data and how relevant it is, but ultimately the person with the most relevant and comprehensive data on a subject is the 'truest' scientist in a very meaningful way.

username904• 7 years ago

Creating theories helps guide us towards collecting the right data. For example nobody would have checked Mercury's precession unless Einstein had suggested the theory of general relativity. That is what good science is, first you predict and then verify, not first get data and then make models to fit said data.

roenxi5• 7 years ago

Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached.

There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they needed to gather then did a curve fit doesn't somehow make the laws invalid or the process particularly unscientific. If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. What is the alternative - claim they figured out universal truths in the wrong way and ignore them until someone else figures it out?

If all the data fits the model then science has happened. Everything else is quibbling how robust the data is (which is still important).

sgt1013• 7 years ago

I agree, but there are two problems.

First; a point made in the article - the breadth of data available in many domains (economics, business, medicine, psychology, linguistics, biology, and more) is vast and unmanageable. An a-priori selection made by the attention of the investigator misdirects us. Additionally some data is not captured due to process problems, a classic is missed opportunity in business. You advocate focus on new business opportunities, I advocate focus on our old markets - I show that by treating our current customers differently a 5% reduction in cost is possible. You claim a 50% revenue opportunity, but how do you know? I can claim a causal link, you are claiming hypotheticals. I win the argument and then a year later we examine the data - I have achieved the cost saving, and there is no record of all the business that we didn't get. The opportunity loss is not on the spreadsheet. Conversely if you win and we look a year later I can show that our customers still cost us what they did, and I can show (if you were successful) that my initiative would have saved 7.5% of the spend one year ago (+50% thanks to you).

Problem two; outside physics and chemistry not many things are comparable in the sense that statistics expects them to be. This is closely related to the scope of data problem, but hides it. Widgets made by machines or seeds carefully selected and screened can be made to share (approximately) an identity so that they can be statistically reasoned about in bulk. Other things can't and medicine is really running up against this now. Pain killers work differently on people with different genetics and different genders (also different ages, contexts...) Cancer evolves differently from case to case. The assumption of similarity and category membership is often broken and we often do not notice before doing a t-test.

paganel• 7 years ago

Experiments and dispassionate language are about gathering clear data and representing it accurately

And then you get into a philosophical discussion about what represents "clear data" (not to mention the "representing it accurately" part, which imho it's an issue we've been trying to solve for at least 2500 years and haven't progressed too much in doing it).

naringas• 7 years ago

Science is all about gathering data.

isn't it about the replication of experiments?

you can gather all the data you want, but if you can't repeat an experiment to get the same data, then I don't think all your data qualifies as science.

tempguy99992• 7 years ago

I don't like this kind of writing. Even the first para falls apart at the first poking.

In the modern world, science has become the ultimate guide for describing reality.

I'm an atheist but I recognise that religion does exactly that function for the religious.

and with such an appearance of impartiality, that we feel satisfied with its answers and seek nothing more

So climate change is fully agreed upon by everyone and anti-vaxxers don't exist. Sure.

AstralStorm2• 7 years ago

Exactly the main problem for some is that science almost never fully explains anything - it's a process.

People like to have solid explanations or at least excuses, and crackpots go further in this need than others.

As usual, if you have better method than experiment, measurement and observation, describe it in detail. Science is not just numbers and words are quantifiable too, if not accurately. The condition is that the results have to be attempting objectivity.

If you have a beef with using statistics for particular cases, say so and propose a better approach. (Many people feel they're special or above average. Wobegon effect also known as illusory superiority or inferiority.)

tempguy99992• 7 years ago

You misread my post. I agree with you completely (excepting the snide Wobegone effect comment, which I had to look up but at least I learnt something today).

akavel2• 7 years ago

I believe the article is dangerously drawing incorrect conclusions. In particular, from the cases shown, I'd say it's rather that there's a lot in the world that we currently are unable to measure (esp. in human behaviors and mind). That's where science indeed and emphatically has limits, and that's why medicine doctors must not rely purely on science. And why anyone who tries to ignore people's descriptions of how they feel is not a great doctor, I think. Although it's super hard to practice good medicine outside what can be measured... especially compared to how where science really works it's so much easier... it may have spoiled some doctors... And it doesn't help that there seems to be a "science crisis", with high profile journals eagerly accepting crappy papers that are falsely "proving" various stuff, and otherwise scientists falsifying their findings, tempted by wrongly aligned incentives. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater by saying "all science is crap" through some romantic argument that "it's distant from the people" is just leading us all straight back to charlatanerie :( bloodletting and all such stuff... :(

AstralStorm2• 7 years ago

Yes, the article does not propose a credible way of achieving comparable or better results.

sgt1013• 7 years ago

I don't think the article is saying "all science is crap" it is saying "we need to think critically about what we are doing and how we are doing it because we can see flaws in the current way of working"

akavel2• 7 years ago

Hm, sorry, I overreacted somewhat. I do agree with the conclusion that the article presents, that scientific method brings great value, but that it's not enough, because there are many places we are not able to apply it. I'm however afraid of some arguments and claims the author uses to support their thesis, such as: "[person X] was a victim of the scientific method". They were not a victim of the scientific method, but of people who abused the scientific method. The conclusion is correct that the output of the scientific method as is practiced in our imperfect world, by imperfect people, cannot be zealously believed without scrutiny. (Scrutiny is in fact one of the pillars of the method!) But saying: "a victim of the scientific method" instead of: "a victim of errors in application of the scientific method" is reverse, misleading and dangerous.

In other words: if someone doesn't follow, say, fire prevention guidelines, and starts a fire, it is misleading and socially dangerous to say that a person burnt by the fire was a victim of the fire prevention guidelines!

Konnstann2• 7 years ago

The final conclusion of the article is that we can use science to look at planets but not people because people are complicated. This coming from a doctor, who in my experience has little to no idea how much science goes into tools they take for granted. Even the example about the elderly patient ends with the doctor generating a hypothesis (something is wrong with the patient) and then testing it (using imaging) using a model generated by the modality.

ameetgaitonde• 7 years ago

There are three things that bother me:

1. Using "true story," then telling a very general story without any citation. That he did it twice was worrying.

2. People like the writer who treat our current understanding of science as if it were a religious text that is complete. Science is an ongoing process of discovery and experimentation to try to further our understanding of the world. The fact that it's wrong is kinda the point, because it motivates us to challenge the assumptions underlying our theories.

3. The story about his mother losing her job is likely true, but the way he tells is seems like it purposely omits relevant information.

For example, he says his mother lost her job as a "social worker," but according to this wedding announcement (https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/style/alexandra-roosevelt...), she was the Director of Social Services at Hillcrest Convalescent Hospital in Long Beach, CA.

I also checked the Federal Register for that date, and it seems that the change also included an exception to the bachelors degree requirement, provided the individual had two years experience. His claim in the article that his mother had 20 years of experience should have been sufficient.

http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/fedreg/fr054/fr054021/fr054021... Page 135

"In § 483.15(g), we are requiring that social services be provided by a qualified individual defined as an individual with a bachelors degree in social work or two years experience in a health care setting working directly with patients or clients, or similar professional qualifications."

sgt1013• 7 years ago

For 1 and 3 I think that the question is do these examples (assuming that they are real and true) support the argument made, and can we , do we, agree that it is plausible and reasonable to assume that these are real and true. If you doubt the notion that a social worker could be dismissed by this kind of data driven change of policy then I would concede that damages the argument. This is not a physics observation though (kinda the point here!) if you say that there is one example where a social worker wasn't dismissed in this way then I do not agree that is sufficient to derail the argument. On the other hand if you show me one example of a situation where an atom decays differently and produces behaviour not accounted for by the standard model I will happily declare that the standard model is bust.

For 2; this is not about the contingent knowledge that science produces, it's about the applicability of the process that produces that knowledge so effectively in some domains. There are domains where it is not appropriate or useful to think exclusively and uncritically in a scientific way, medicine and economics being just two examples of domains in which uncritical application of the scientific method and mindset have done significant harm to a significant number of people.

admax88q• 7 years ago

if you say that there is one example where a social worker wasn't dismissed in this way then I do not agree that is sufficient to derail the argument.

Isn't that kind of ridiculous? If you say "Thing A happens! Here's an example of when thing A happened," but it turns out that your example did not actually happen, well it sure seems like your argument is likely not true, or that thing A happens with such low frequency that I don't need to worry about it.

The argument is not how you phrased it "here's one time this thing didn't happen," it's the fact that the example you provided did not happen. You have every incentive to find real examples to support your case.

pjc502• 7 years ago

This is kind of an inappropriately intensely personal level of scrutiny to apply to a newspaper opinion piece, isn't it?

gameswithgo• 7 years ago

its an article about science so we are gonna do science

throwaway_bad• 7 years ago

I was really hoping this would be about "Philosophy of Science"[0]

For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises but can't infer that there will be another. Likewise you can conduct a bajillion controlled experiments and can't really tell if the result will generalize. Worse yet is that the more conditions you control, the less likely it's to generalize. Infamously, clinical trials wanted to control for the variations caused by periods so they only tested on men and it turns out some drugs affect women differently! In general, if you control for everything, you can't say anything about the real world outside of those precise lab controlled conditions.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

msla• 7 years ago

For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises but can't infer that there will be another.

Which is why scientists, like everyone else, uses statistical reasoning.

In general, if you control for everything, you can't say anything about the real world outside of those precise lab controlled conditions.

This is one of those statements which is only true if you ignore all the times it's false. It's like Zeno's Paradox: If this really troubles you, it's a sign your model's incomplete, not that there's something irreconcilably wrong with the universe. Some of what you're getting at can be fixed with better experimental design, but the rest can only be fixed by, as I said, statistical reasoning, which is universally used in practice.

It's possible to be somewhat uncertain. Some people don't get that, or refuse to acknowledge it so they can sow FUD.

ddingus• 7 years ago

Another way to express that is degrees of confidence.

Nature is the authority, and we have understanding that is incomplete.

ASalazarMX• 7 years ago

This is a classic philosopher vs. pragmatic discussion.

Zeno: "How can movement exist? A flying arrow, at any point in its trajectory, is static, but at the next moment, it-"

Pragmatic: "Hey, I shot ten arrows. They took 4 seconds average to reach the target at 200 m, so they move at 50 m/s, therefore movement does exist. Can we eat something? I'm hungry."

_Nat_• 7 years ago

The core argument seems to be that, since scientific analysis isn't a perfect tool, we ought to hedge our bets by also acting based on emotional reasoning.

The time has come to pause the second phase of the scientific revolution — to recover a more humble and skeptical approach to what the scientific method can achieve, to unite the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions of life, and to find our way back to our humanity.

mattigames• 7 years ago

The number of red flags when people mention "spiritual" in any given argument is about as bad as someone talking about the Earth being flat or vaccines causing autism.

DrAwdeOccarim• 7 years ago

I know, completely agree. But one thing that struck me the other day, I read a tweet from some random person that got retweeted a bunch. It went something like this, "Don't shame me for looking to natural remedies/my doctor rolls my eyes when I tell him what my chiropractor suggests/my naturopath has never rolled their eyes at something my doctor has said." It made me sad also because so many people jumped in and said basically the same thing, how "western medicine" has failed us".

fipar• 7 years ago

I agree, but my problem is the word, not the idea. The word is loaded, like 'mystical', or other words. I'll still use those words when speaking to the right audience, because I know they won't misinterpret me. That's why I can safely say "That live music show last night was a religious experience", for example.

The point is, we're not rational beings, at least not exclusively. We're emotional beings, and even if, ultimately, emotions are accounted for by physical factors, there needs to be a way to reconcile our rational side (which includes science) with our emotional one. This include realizing that unbiased, fully-rational science is just impossible. Our biases, as part of our phenotype, are there because whatever caused them to emerge either helped enough ancestors survive, or at least did not get them killed before reproducing, so they're always going to be there.

I'm sorry I'm ranting and again, I get what you're saying. I've been through enough experiences of accepting "spiritual" and other words in conversations with people I don't know well, where the other party shortly starts talking about alien abductions and astral traveling, that I know what you mean. But I've also been through enough conversations with people who think science is infallible and will eventually find a solution to everything and an answer to every question.

BaronSamedi• 7 years ago

In my view, at least part of the reason science has been so successful is precisely because it distanced itself from the emotional and spiritual. For those areas of life we have art and philosophy.

GTP• 7 years ago

This is the first time I see temperature defined as "an emergent property of molecular motion". I agree that this definition is vague, but I've always seen the temperature of an object defined as the medium kinetic energy of the particles that form that object, and I don't see this definition as a vague one at all. Now we should see if and how this medium kinetic energy can affect a person's health, but this is a different problem (and one that has been already studied and afaik produced not too vague results).

nighthawk6483• 7 years ago

Well I think it’s vague because it’s not accurately representing what is going on. Is that average kinetic energy even distributed throughout the system or can it be isolated to specific moving points of the system? Ie some particles in the north most part of the system have this energy and are moving around the system. Or even only the particles in the north have the energy.

Feynman said it best that with each question you keep going back and back and back trying to exemplify through allusion?

Words will always fail to accurately describe the totality of the system and even worse the math formulas don’t do any better especially when considering statistics.

The average grades in my class is 80 but that doesn’t mean Ryan sitting in the front row got a 100 and Andrew in the middle row got a 62. Maybe everyone did get an 80, so then how can I describe not only in words but in function the distinction between these two environments; ie the 100&62 and the all 80s class?

atomack2• 7 years ago

I agree with GTP, the author's definition is vague. As GTP alludes to, temperature is defined perfectly clearly in statistical mechanics, through the sensitivity of the entropy to changes in the internal energy of a system (though there are several, equivalent ways to express it). The author really is incorrect to claim temperature is not a clearly understood concept

pjc502• 7 years ago

I think the word the author is looking for is "scientism", per wikipedia:

Scientism is the promotion of science as the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, implying a cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations considered not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.

The whole "true story of a middle-schooler whose mother wanted to arrange for her son to get more time to take his math tests" has a big problem in it as well. There's a real discussion to be had about disability labeling and diagnosis, but that's not how this is framed - it's framed as the mother wanting a benefit for her son that others would not have, the son not actually having a disability, and the scheme to invent one for him failing because she refused to role-play it.

A lot of people can tell the opposite story; they knew something was different about them in ways that were disadvantageous, but other people kept attributing it to a moral defect until they got a diagnosis. (This comes up a lot in conversations about ADHD and to a lesser extent autism/aspergers.)

hoseja• 7 years ago

Oh, it's a doctor.

olooney• 7 years ago

It's worse than that:

Ronald W. Dworkin is a physician AND political scientist. (emphasis mine.)

He's also written an essay entitled "Where Science Ends and Religion Begins" and a self-published book called "How Karl Marx Can Save American Capitalism."

If I was writing a novel and wanted to make it absolutely clear a given character should not be taken seriously, I would have tone it down a little to make it believable.

Merrill• 7 years ago

Science is about developing models of reality that allow us to make better than random predictions. A model that says that unkempt hair in elderly female patients is a signal of distress is a scientific model. It is a probabilistic model based on some series of past observations. With enough pictures and medical histories, you could probably train an AI to make the prediction as well as the doctor.

phkahler2• 7 years ago

> With enough pictures and medical histories, you could probably train an AI to make the prediction as well as the doctor.

The only way to train the AI would be to give it the same human experience - to make an artificial human to walk around and interact with people in similar situations. Even then, not everyone will make the same discoveries about hair and wellness.

The patient making a general statement about not feeling well is something that may not even come out with an AI. That kind of comment seems more likely to be made in a "real" conversation between two people.

This desire to quickly move to "train an AI" seems to miss the entire point of the article.

djokkataja• 7 years ago

If we consider ourselves as computational systems, I think there's a fundamental limit on our ability to understand ourselves. With an extremely accurate model of our bodies, we could simulate ourselves and see what our mental state would be like in the next moment. But that wouldn't be any use from inside of a computational system, ie as a system of thinking, because the total amount of state space needed to perform such a computation would by necessity be greater than the amount of state space we have available for thinking in any given moment. (We'd have to include the total state of what we're already thinking about plus all additional information describing our current physical state.)

This gets exacerbated in two "softer" ways: our brains are nonlinear systems, so trying to understand ourselves with just general principles can still result in significant deviations from predictions (for example, a single neuron could significantly affect our entire mental state in an un-accounted-for way). Secondly, this doesn't even try to account for the rest of the universe...

On the plus side, I think this implies some fundamental limits for any artificial intelligence...?

The Limits of Science

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