Reposted from the Manhattan Contrarian
Back at the beginning of the Trump administration in January 2017, it was all the rage for media on the left to accuse Trump and his people of being “anti-science.” I compiled a collection of such accusations in a post on January 27 of that year, using the title “Who Again Is ‘Anti-Science’?” Among those I cited as making the accusation was the venerable magazine Scientific American, which had published a piece on January 18, 2017 with the title “Trump’s 5 Most Anti-Science Moves.”
If you look at that 2017 Scientific American piece, or the other articles that I cited in my post, you will see that those commenters are conceiving of “science” not as a special methodology, but rather as something more like: “science is what people who call themselves scientists do.” The basic complaint of the commenters was that Trump was “anti-science” because he was listening to or appointing people who disagreed with — or worse, sought to de-fund — functionaries in the government who called themselves scientists.
I have a different definition of the term “science.” Here’s my definition: “Science is a process for understanding reality through using experiment or data to attempt to falsify falsifiable hypotheses.” Those are my words, but I have tried there to capture the gist of the classic conception of the scientific method articulated by philosopher Karl Popper. For a somewhat longer articulation of the same thing, here is an excerpt discussing Popper’s principles from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Popper’s falsificationist methodology holds that scientific theories are characterized by entailing predictions that future observations might reveal to be false. When theories are falsified by such observations, scientists can respond by revising the theory, or by rejecting the theory in favor of a rival . . . In either case, however, this process must aim at the production of new, falsifiable predictions. . . . [Popper] holds that scientific practice is characterized by its continual effort to test theories against experience and make revisions based on the outcomes of these tests. By contrast, theories that are permanently immunized from falsification by the introduction of untestable ad hoc hypotheses can no longer be classified as scientific.
Astute readers of this passage will immediately recognize that today’s political environment is full of theories that claim the mantle of science — indeed, claim to be scientifically-established truth — but at the same time are “permanently immunized from falsification.” Exhibit A is the religion going under the name of “climate science.” Or consider Exhibit B, in the field of social science, the hypothesis that “systemic racism” is the cause of all economic underperformance by African Americans. There are plenty more such examples.
In recent years Scientific American has somehow gotten itself into the position of defending the truth of many such non-falsifiable claims, but most notably in its strenuous advocacy of climate change alarmism. How to reconcile such advocacy with the use of the term “Scientific” in its title? If you are wondering how that could even be attempted, check out the piece in the current issue by a guy named Mano Singham, with the title and sub-title, “The Idea That a Scientific Theory Can Be ‘Falsified’ Is a Myth; It’s time we abandoned the notion.” Singham is identified as a member of the American Physical Society, and is apparently a retired professor from Case Western Reserve University.
Singham begins by acknowledging that “[E]ver since the seminal work of philosopher of science Karl Popper, for a scientific theory to be worthy of its name, it has to be falsifiable by experiments or observations.” However, Singham now understands that that whole approach has become passé. Apparently, there is a new field, going by the name “science studies,” that “compris[es] the history, philosophy and sociology of science.” People in this new field have now demonstrated that “falsification cannot work even in principle.” Here’s the explanation:
[A] theoretical prediction is never the product of a single theory but also requires using many other theories. When a “theoretical” prediction disagrees with “experimental” data, what this tells us is that that there is a disagreement between two sets of theories, so we cannot say that any particular theory is falsified.
Got that? And now that we’ve deep-sixed falsifiability as having anything to do with science, what’s the replacement?
Science studies . . . show[] that the strength of scientific conclusions arises because credible experts use comprehensive bodies of evidence to arrive at consensus judgments about whether a theory should be retained or rejected in favor of a new one. . . . It is the preponderance of evidence that is relevant in making such judgments, not one or even a few results.
Well, Mano, let’s consider my hypothesis that the thing that causes the sun to come up every morning is my going to sleep the night before. I formulated this hypothesis a year ago based on some ten thousand consecutive nights where I had gone to sleep and the sun therefore arose the next morning. I then tested the hypothesis for a full year of going to sleep every night and observing that sure enough, the sun arose every succeeding morning, 365 consecutive times. Surely my hypothesis has been established as true.
A friend points out that one time back in college I pulled an all-nighter, and the sun still came up. So what? Under Singham’s “science studies” principles, that’s just putting “one result” up against “the preponderance of the evidence.” That one conflicting observation does not tell us that my hypothesis has been falsified, but rather only that “there is a disagreement between two sets of theories.” (Another thing that it might be telling us is that Singham is not very bright.)
Anyway, there is an obvious purpose for Singham’s piece appearing at this time in Scientific American, which is to attempt to defend the climate “science” scam against attacks that it is not real science because it lacks falsifiable hypotheses. Singham:
[The] knowledge [of science studies] equips people to better argue against anti-science forces that use the same strategy over and over again, whether it is about the dangers of tobacco, climate change, vaccinations or evolution. Their goal is to exploit the slivers of doubt and discrepant results that always exist in science in order to challenge the consensus views of scientific experts.
I don’t know how Singham chose his examples of arguments used by what he calls “anti-science forces,” but a look at those examples demonstrates what his exercise is really about, which is exempting climate “science” from the requirement of falsifiable hypotheses. The hypothesis that cigarette smoking is a significant factor in causing lung cancer could definitely be falsified by a study of thousands of randomly-selected non-smokers who developed lung cancer at the same rates as smokers. The hypothesis that life forms change over time through a process of evolution could be falsified by discovery of “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian,” in a famous formulation of J.B.S. Haldane that is actually quoted by Singham in his piece. And vaccinations are subjected to double-blind clinical trials, which are explicit attempts to falsify the hypothesis that they are effective. So the only one of the four examples selected by Singham that actually lacks falsifiable hypotheses, and that seeks to be “permanently immunized from falsification,” is climate change.
Overall, this is a thoroughly embarrassing performance, not just by Dr. Singham, but by Scientific American. It is beyond explanation how the editors of this once-prestigious publication, with the term “Scientific” in its name, could have so completely lost track of what makes science science. And then to top it off, they call the people who actually understand what science is “anti-science.”
My message to the editors is this: The proponents of climate change alarmism, if they want to make any kind of legitimate claim to the mantle of “science,” need to specify the falsifiable hypothesis that they claim has been established, and also the evidence which, if it emerged, they would agree had falsified the hypothesis. Until they do that, their assertions have no more claim to the label of “established science” than does my hypothesis that my going to bed is what causes the sun to come up the next morning. Those of us who understand what the scientific method is are onto the climate scammers. As for Scientific American, your reputation at this point is beyond rehabilitation.
Agreed. Falsifiability is at the core of traditional scientific methods and climate change science must be assessed on this basis. At present it’s “global warmers” practise more pseudoscience than science. The sceptics are following the traditional approach.
However there are some areas of science where falsifiability becomes difficult but not impossible. I am thinking theoretical physics here…. I am not at all opposed to deep thinking in areas where very few have developed the expertise to formulate and test outcomes through, for sake of a better word, thought experiments. The key point is that these endeavours do not have a massive societal cost. Indeed, there appears to be little downside and much upside. The opposite of course is the case for climate change.
It’s important to understand that Singham‘s statement is a corollary to the fundamental principle of Postmodernism: there is no such thing as absolute truth. The scientific principle is based on the assumption that there is an absolute truth, the universe as it is, and that while we can never reach it this side of heaven, we can get as close to it as we can afford (rather like the speed of light).
Postmodernism holds that there is no such thing as truth, that everything depends on your internal state (feelings) and that anyone can and will have a version of the truth that is as valid as anyone else’s. What matters ultimately is how much power you have to enforce your version of “truth”.
Thus, for Singham, no theory can be falsified because all theories are true by definition. What matters is who holds the research purse strings.
http://www.stephenhicks.org/explaining-postmodernism/
Or the dial on the machine.
‘How many fingers, Winston?’
The propagation of this error may be threatening the continuance of civilization, not just the usefulness of research.
Astutely put.
See my comment on transcendental idealism where a far more useful and I suspect accurate picture is described, that there is a truth, but we can never arrive at it, but that does not mean that any nonsense will do.
To borrow from was it Rumsfeld? The truth is an ‘known unknowable’
It makes sense to assume its there, to account for all the stuff we cant do anything about, but the fact that we can engage in so much competing nonsense that cannot be proven to be correct when trying to understand it is a sure sign that its forever beyond our reach.
Just like measurements. Regardless of precision, there will always be uncertainty. Until we evolve to be omniscient, that is.
“And vaccinations are subjected to double-blind clinical trials, which are explicit attempts to falsify the hypothesis that they are effective”
no
In the mid seventies there was sufficient scientific consensus that we were on the verge of another ice age. Not in a a few thousand years; immanent. Tactics were already being considered to insure the survival of humanity. True, there were those slivers of doubt… And it is probable that the earth will become warmer since we are not yet as warm as it has become in past interglacials. But we could have a mini ice age in the meantime. We are now confronted by a small but strident group of apocalyptic AGW religious fanatics dogmatically insisting that man controls the climate – certain of their doctrinal truth, validated because it cannot be disproven. They will not debate it because there is no validity to debating doctrinal truth (Biden: “We accept truth over facts”); debate could only introduce heretical thoughts and ideas into the all too fertile minds of the ignorant (remember what Gruber said) populace. AGW religion? Take note of their reaction to those who disagree, their demonization of apostates.
imminent!=immanent
🙂
If that is your truth, then imminent can equal immanent.
I’m confident that SciAm (which we always had in my house as a kid) used to be a very good periodical, especially if there were either scientists, kids, or both, in the household.
This new direction concerns me, but there is some inspiration there as well.
I’ve come up with a “litmus-test” of sorts for folks who worry daily about climate catastrophe.
I ask them this:
“OK, let’s assume your worries are completely justified, what you are afraid of will definitely happen within the next 50 to 100 years, and it will be really horrible for everyone if the whole world doesn’t toe the line.”
“OK…”
“Now, let’s also assume that there was a way to comprehensively thwart this catastrophe, guaranteed.”
“Yes!” Says the catastrophe-fan.
“Now, what would you say your politics are? Left, right, libertarian, tell me.”
“Center Left.” is the usual answer.
“Okay, what if the only, actual, effective solution to this problem could only be realized if the entire world adopted what, in your opinion, is the worst possible political regime you can imagine?”
“Would that still be okay, if it was guaranteed to solve climate-change once and for all, forever?”
And then I wait for the answer, or the fireworks. Sometimes I make some popcorn, or crack a beer.
“Your politics won’t solve the problem!” is the general answer.
“Can you tell me what my politics actually are? Are they different to yours?”
(Their answer, unless they know me well, is generally pretty far off)
It generally gets even more heated from their side after that.
But it’s a good test. And it’s falsifiable!
a retired professor from Case Western Reverse University.
There, FIFY
To the editors at SA:
https://youtu.be/oAKG-kbKeIo
What a ridiculous article. This guy needs to go talk to a Flat Earther and then come and defend that BS of an article. Because by his proposals (not even going to try to call it a postulation), after careful examination of the Flat Earth Society, the Earth is flat by consensus.
There are too numerous examples of fringe to discount this horse manure of what he just proposed. And yet by his own admission, those fringe “theories” must be reality because it has consensus.
This article is nothing more than 1 person who does not understand what science actually is telling the rest of the world his expertise on it.
If the climate alarmists want to be taken seriously in the scientific community, produce the dang null hypothesis for crying out loud. How long has it been since they decided they didn’t “need” to produce it because their model is correct? 20? 30? 40? years now? A simple sentence and yet all this pomp and circumstance to avoid actually producing it. What a waste of time, money, and resources.
This is incredible. Are we sure we’re not being plunked? Was SA hijacked by the Onion or Babylon Bee?
IIRC, the brightest minds in the USSR were attracted to engineering or hard sciences. Those fields could not be easily influenced because by politics.
Leave it American ingenuity to succeed the Soviets failed. American Marxists redefined science and math. Even basic arithmetic is corrupted. Correct answers, such as adding 2 + 2 and getting 4 are now racist. Objective truth is a tool of the white patriarchy.
Meanwhile, the Chinese, Russians, North Koreans and Iranians keep advancing their technology and weapons using the “white man’s” old ways. Perhaps these hostile countries are supporting and the corrupt useful idiots in the media, academia and the swamp.
From the article: “Those of us who understand what the scientific method is are onto the climate scammers.”
Yes, we are! 🙂
Very good article. I liked the “going to bed and the sun comes up” example.
I lost faith in Scientific American over the Human-caused Climate Change issue.
In the 1970’s, when climate scientists were speculating that the Earth was about to enter a new ice age, there appeared articles in Scientific American claiming that human activity was the cause of the cold temperatures.
At the time I was fascinated by the concept and did not reject it out of hand. Instead, I waited to see what developed from these claims and what evidence they had to back up their claims.
And I waited, and waited and waited and waited for those promoting Human-caused Global Cooling to present the evidence they used to reach these conclusions, and they *never* did, to my utter frustration.
It was all assumptions and assertions and not one bit of evidence. In fact, it is now known that if *all* human emissions claimed to cause global cooling had been released in just one year (the equivalent of one volcanic eruption), it would have lowered the Earth’s temperature by about 0.5C for about two years or less.
So all of humanity’s historic emssions released at one time would barely make a blip on the temperatures of the Earth. And of course, human annual emissions don’t even come close to this level. Human-caused Global Cooling is a myth.
If only I had had the internet to use to complain back then! I would have worn them out with complaints about them presenting claims as evidence.
Then around 1980 the temperatures started warming and then Human-caused Global Warming became vogue. And the same thing that took place with Human-caused Global Cooling, assertions presented as evidence, also took place with Human-caused Global Warming.
And I finally got sick of it and cancelled my subscription to Scientific American.
Everytime I would look at a Scientific American cover and would see another article about Human-caused Global Warming I would get angry because I knew what I would find if I read the article and I would not like it. So I decided not to get angry on a monthly basis anymore over Scientific American and their distortions of reality and cancelled them.
Good riddance to bad science.
We do have to live with two definitions of “science.”
The first is the specific, well-known method of hypothesis testing.
The second is the social endeavors to utilize science.
Once you have a scientific test that provides information about what causes what in the natural world, a few things need to happen in order for this to be of any value.
I will make a simple example. “We” “know” that light traveling through a denser, or less dense, body gets “bent.” And, that this bend is different for different frequencies of the visible spectrum. Hence the Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” album cover.
Imagine one person conducting a series of tests to map out this phenomenon. Great!
But now he or she has to share it with the world. Why?
We “scientists” value sharing info partly for the sake of sharing, and partly because we know such discoveries will lead to some benefit somewhere.
In this example, camera lenses can be improved, and we can use this knowledge to guesstimate the chemical composition of the sun. Etc.
Someone else can come along and ponder the degree that this phenomena holds across non-visible spectrum, etc.
Someone else builds this into a “science” curriculum.
All of this socially-borne consequence stuff is the “community of science.”
The problem is this: while science, in the narrow definition, is a tool to rule out biases, misinterpretation, misrepresentation, and such, **we do not have any such tool for ruling out these errors in the socially sustained world of “science.”**
Feyerabend’s book, “Against Method,” is really good at highlighting the fact that science is inherently a social phenomenon, and we have to figure out how to work with this, versus try to get out from under it.
When science goes social, it is subject to the range of social influences that anything else is subject to.
We can do things to improve this, but most efforts are liable to backfire. If we set up some priesthood of who can be the Top Scientists, that becomes a weapon to use against any dissenters. The tight, restrictive “CAGW” panel of experts is a great example.
I would encourage people to think this way: there are two meanings of the word “science.” One is the hypothesis-testing method for discerning truths about our observable world of matter and forces, and the other is the social structures and processes to promote and share the efforts to carry out these tests.
With this, you can train people to be able to assess good and lousy hypothesis-testing methodology – such as poor measurement, significance-fishing, etc., and also train people and develop processes and customs to avoid obvious problems from the social practice of science. Pal review, not sharing data, etc.
Feyerabend’s book is called “Against Method” because he saw how, in different areas of science, specific culturally-defined ways of doing things became dogma, and that can have a negative influence in a few ways, such as constricting who can rise through grad school and post-doc training, etc. So, he in his judgment decided to be “against method,” against prescribing and proscribing any specific dogma about methods for practicing science.
This leaves the question of: “how to we carry out this social enterprise?” I would not say Feyerabend has the clear answer, but I believe pointing out the problem helps us all.
Most so-called scientists do not have the vaguest idea of what science really is. They are taught by mentors to do as they are told, believe as they are told to, and what they can and cannot question. This does not yet apply to all fields, but to many and maybe most fields taught in Universities today. The Church of Climantology is a perfect example. “Thou Shalt Not Question!” is their daily prayer.
Psychology and Social Science are jokes. These people go on to “prove” whatever it is they already believe. It’s more akin to shamanism than science – there are some real “tricks” and useful procedures, but it’s all glued together by a belief system that cannot be tested – at least not morally.
African Americans do quite well if they extract themselves from the victim culture many are raised within. It is the victim-culture that is holding many back – preventing some from succeeding as well as other human sub-groups (I hate the belief that skin color defines a “race” and reject it). I you are brought up believing that all failure is someone else’s fault then you have no reason to adapt your behavior – you just learn to resent others who are successful. Being reliable, respectful, honest, and hard-working apply to all people and these are the people who eventually are successful. The other problem is that it takes time…my family took nearly 200 years to rise to the current level of success (college educated middle class), but “victims” just want to be handed everything – they do not understand building for the future, their kids and descendants. This applies to people of “victim belief” of any skin color or population group.
Socialist extremists is a entirely different beast. They convince the “masses” to tear everything down and only offer bankrupt notions of what to replace it with. Once the wealth of the former system is exhausted, the socialist system decays into a death spiral of poverty, starvation, and tyranny. You see it again and again in history, and yet no one seems to pay any attention to it. There will always be differences in wealth and power – the question is do you want to be starving in poverty or well fed in with the opportunity to improve?
So Climate Science is false, since it makes predictions that are nearly always wrong, yet at the same time is not falsifiable.
In theory, no – the science is settled (which is fundamentally the charlatan Singham’s claim). Obviously, being based on some interpretation of evidence, it is in fact falsifiable. Closing off alternative interpretations is not merely a struggle for the domination of prejudice. It is also a full-bodied attack on free speech, the bedrock of our social order.
What we really have is a difference in epistemology.
As Keynes put when questioned as to why he had changed his mind
he replied “When the facts change, I change my mind, What do you do sir?”
Well if you are a climate scientist, when the facts change you change the data!