this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Part 1: https://mander.xyz/post/13579080

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 10 months ago (6 children)

She's wrong though, everything following the scientific method is science. The fact that you didn't pay out of your ass to publicize your research doesn't matter. Of course it reaches less people, but that's a separate issue.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Yann LeCun is a dude

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

With all these "she" talk in this comment section, I was like when did LeCun change gender?

I don't even do anything remotely related to AI, but I know LeCun is a dude.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

The scientific method includes peer reviewing.

You don't have to post it on a commercial database, only free one will do. But it needs to be accessible by the world.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Does it require independent peer review though? How do you achieve that ~~with~~ without publication? The predatory publication system is a different point.

Edit: fix without

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Wouldn't this imply that science didn't exist before academic publication existed? Was zero science conducted before the ~1600s then?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Well you're not entirely incorrect with that assumption. What we call science today is actually the Scientific Method Which is a much more skeptical approach to science than the earlier methods, hence the credibility. I like many others agree that the fees built into the system is quiet absurd and the process is not perfect, but currently that is the only legit way to get others evaluate your research.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

The word "legit" there is doing alot of work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I ask with genuine curiosity, as I am not an academic and come from a software development mindset

Why is paid-for services the only "legit" way to get others to evaluate your research? Why is it not kosher to publicly publish your research, and simply invite peers to evaluate it? This idea is essentially the entire process behind Open Source Software, and is the backbone of most modern tools/programs/apps/software/linux development.

What does paying a publishing company provide you, as a researcher, that makes it worth it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I don't know what to tell you man, sometimes even I wonder if it's worth it at all. Publishing to a journal is such a difficult task. Before submitting your paper you need the approval of two other well-established individuals. Then you send in your paper to your selected journal and each one has some specific format and policies, which many are arbitrary and inthe end of the day depends on the person reviewing your paper. This can take weeks of back and forth.

However if you think you did something noteworthy, as far as I know, this is how you get it in front of the eyes of your peers. Even then there's a chance that your paper gets ignored lol.

So like many others in this thread, I'm not a fan of this process because even though it's strict, a lot of bs still passes through

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Fair point, I should specify "modern science". There's quite a gap of scientific quality between traditional medicine and modern science based medicine for example.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

No, peer reviewing can happen in many ways. But it needs to be public.

Sending letters also allows for peer reviewing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Was zero science conducted before the ~1600s then?

I mean, yes. The framework of studying things that we understand as science did not always exist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Every time someone thinks science and studying natural phenomena are the same thing Newton sheds a single tear from his non-poked eye.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Before the 20th century most famous physicists referred to themselves as “natural philosophers,” not scientists. The P in PhD is for philosophy. The word “science” refers to a modern social phenomenon, a sort of peer-review methodology that generates shared public knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Possibly. I can't come up with any major results that wasn't either logic, engineering or tradition. But it's an interesting question. What might count as science before then?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

not as a discipline. If you publish an experiment to the extent it can be reproduced, it is science, so its happened before but in a less intentional fashion

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There's no such thing as a scientific method

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

He probably means the idealized scientific method you learn at school is not what really happens in reality, in particular "soft" science fields may not be able to follow it strictly and still do good science.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Doesn't this difference make the scientific method not real?

Edit: I don't talk about bad science.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The scientific method varies from field to field. In medicine you usually need to proof it by taking a significant amount people. Then create a control group and a testing group. Then test your medicine on the group and give the other placebos.

When you can measure health improvement for one group over the other there is a reasonable amount of proof that the medicine works.

The scientific method has one major goal. Reduce human made errors in science. Humans do not work objectively. Humans always have an bias. Things like reproduceable tests and peer review try to reduce the bias.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Take 10 labs and you'll get 10 definitions of the scientific method. It's just a tradition that yields some results.

peer review try to reduce the bias.

Sounds like you haven't been peer reviewed enough

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

everything following the scientific method is science

I'm fairly certain "report conclusions" is a pretty big deal in the scientific method. Principle of verifiability and all that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

True a lot of science is done in industry and the corporate world and not published to keep it a trade secret. It is still science but not shared.