Understand that science is a name given to both a method, and to a mostly self-consistent body of models that can be used to make useful predictions. Science doesn't get things wrong. Science gets iterated upon.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Good science doesn't get things wrong. Bad science gets things wrong all the time. No scientist is immune to implicit bias and implicit bias is frequently the cause of bad science.
eGFR estimation errors in African Americans is a prime example of that.
It's ironic to refute post-modern ideals with semantics.
I've taken to distinguishing between science(v), the method and science(n), the body of models and data. Science(v) is imperfect, but basically as close as we can get to objective truth. Science(n) can often stress conclusions further than their rigor justifies, but eventually regresses to the mean for the most part.
You can't really question science(v) beyond its intrinsic epistemology, and no other method can really do any better. You can often question science(n), heck I can't count the number of times "consensus" flip-flopped on red wine, coffee, fat, and so on. But eventually science(v) does bring science(n) to a stable empirical baseline.
There's also the "science" that is your policy choices (personal or public policy) based on the science(n) and your values, risk tolerance, and lifestyle. Since the latter factors can change a lot over time, these policies can also fluctuate wildly and give the impression that "science" fluctuates wildly.
And by Godel's Incompleteness theorems, that body of models can never be 100% correct.
This is false. Godels incompleteness theorems only prove that there will be things that are unprovable in that body of models.
Good news, Newtons flaming laser sword says that if something can’t be proven, it isn’t worth thinking about.
Imagine I said, “we live in a simulation but it is so perfect that we’ll never be able to find evidence of it”
Can you prove my statement? No.
In fact no matter what proof you try to use I can just claim it is part of the simulation. All models will be incomplete because I can always say you can’t prove me wrong. But, because there is never any evidence, the fact we live in a simulation must never be relevant/required for the explanation of things going on inside our models.
Are models are “incomplete” already, but it doesn’t matter and it won’t because anything that has an effect can be measured/catalogued and addded to a model, and anything that doesn’t have an effect doesn’t matter.
TL;DR: Science as a body of models will never be able to prove/disprove every possible statement/hypothesis, but that does not mean it can’t prove/disprove every hypothesis/statement that actually matters.
Godel is a mathematical result, not a scientific result. It only applies to science to the extent that it depends on mathematics.
we live in a simulation but it is so perfect that we’ll never be able to find evidence of it
This is not a mathematical statement and thus it's irrelevant to Godel's theorem.
Newtons flaming laser sword says that if something can’t be proven, it isn’t worth thinking about.
This is pseudo-science without mathematical or scientific basis.
Science as a body of models will never be able to prove/disprove every possible statement/hypothesis,
Yes, because science doesn't "prove" anything. There is no "proof" in science. Just experiments, evidence, etc.
that does not mean it can’t prove/disprove every hypothesis/statement that actually matters.
Yes, it does mean that science can't prove stuff because that's not how science works.
It's completely misleading to conflate mathematical proof with scientific evidence. Math/science education is truly terrible, especially in terms of epistemology. The system doesn't actually want people to question or think.
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We haven't yet been able to ressurect anything by recreating vital signs in a corpse so there's something we can't measure or detect of life so far.
I'd argue that we can't do a resurrection because that's really complex, not because we don't know how.
I'll also point out that there are people alive today who were declared medically dead that live normal lives because we made their heart beat again.
The brain is a hard drive with only one working flash of the system
Yes, and those are rare cases and so far apart from "corrolates with time" it is hard to impossible to know for sure when someone is outside that window.
I was also under the illusion that we'd done a lot of experiments trying to reelecrifiy frogs' brains we have failed to get anywhere beyond muscle spasms off of the data and measurements we've been able to make.
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I hate their stage names. Baby, Sporty, Posh? Why tf didn't they use actual spice names? Ginger was already there. Why others weren't called Cinnamon, Pepper, Clove, and Nutmeg? Fucking Brits. 😤😡🤬
Imagine the Brits actually using spice
Yeah! It's not like tikka masala exists or is the most popular British dish or anything.
Tikka masala being the best British dish will never be not funny
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Scary was the worst stage name. It really hasn't aged well
Americans eat old spice all the time, but Brits try some baby spice and suddenly they've got no taste.
Science isn't a belief, it's a method.
Eh, IMO it's more like four methods stacked on top of each other wearing a trench coat.
Still the best trench coat we currently have.
All the other methods are wearing Borat strings and slinging poop at each other.
It is a method! That method is predicated on European Enlightenment avowals of what constitutes an acceptable boundary of truth, an acceptable methodology, and the primacy of certain measurements. That's the subjective part.
2+2 does equal 4. That doesn't mean valuing 4 as an answer or valuing the act of valuing of the certainty of 2+2=4 is an objective position.
Look into Philosophy of Science - this is not a controversial perspective.
Um, actually, the scientific method as it is currently formulated is best traced back to Ibn Al-Haytham, with elements dating back throughout thousands of years, from the rationalism of Thales to the experimentalism of 墨子. Babylonians were using mathematical prediction algorithms to accurately state the date of the next solar eclipse in 600 BCE. It seems like YOU need to read up on the history of the philosophy of science, and if you claim that 2+2=4 is an "enlightenment" idea, I cannot hope to respond with a level of disdain sufficient to encapsulate your willfully-pompous idiocy.
You say that 2+2 DOES equal 4, and then make claims which suggest that it doesn't. Certainly, 2+2 can only be said to equal 4 because of the axioms of mathematics, which are, of course, purely postulates, since Cartesian solipsism demonstrates that we cannot truly know anything to be true except that we ourselves exist (oh, but wait, your disdain for enlightenment philosophy clearly removes this, the best refuge for your argument!)
However, to accept as a matter of course that 2+2=4 and then suggest that it is only through subjective perception that we privilege 4 over any other number in that equality is not only a clear argument in bad faith, meant only to make others feel stupid, but is also patently ridiculous, since you are reneging on your own given precept.
So, if you're planning on gatekeeping knowledge,
- Do better than "2+2=4, but also 2+2=5 because eurocentrism bad"
- Fuck. Right. Off.
Oof sorry to see that landed so hard - I was genuinely trying to add to the conversation and truly was not expecting this to be so controversial.
I didn't say maths was from Europe, and I didn't say Europeans invented 2+2=4 and I certainly didn't say 2+2 could or should equal 5.
Also, honestly sincere genuine question - what am I gatekeeping and where's the disdain for Enlightenment ideals? Please quote me!
An honest and sincere question deserves an honest and sincere answer:
Gatekeeping: Simply suggesting that others need to read more, or that they need to "look into" one of the largest and most controversial philosophical topics in history is a haughty and disdainful way of saying "I'm right, I'm not going to cite my sources, and anyone who disagrees with me must carry the burden of proof". Don't leave the justification for your argument as an "exercise for the reader" involving the entire canon of published thought, since that insinuates that they are simply too uneducated to understand how correct you are. THAT is gatekeeping knowledge.
I didn't say maths was from Europe: Not directly, but you supported your argument for the statement
"[The scientific] method is predicated on European Enlightenment avowals of what constitutes an acceptable boundary of truth... [etc.]"
with nothing but the statements
"2+2 does equal 4. That doesn't mean valuing 4 as an answer or valuing the act of valuing of the certainty of 2+2=4 is an objective position."
as exemplary evidence. You are, quite literally, stating that the "valuing" of 4 as an answer to 2+2 is a question of science (otherwise it's a non-sequitur), and that this is an example of how the scientific method privileges European Enlightenment ideals over others. That is saying that the precepts of mathematics are based on European enlightenment ideals, Q.E.D.
"Where's the disdain": I believe that a reasonable person would read this argument and conclude that the disdain is implied, given that you clearly seem to be complaining that the European enlightenment ideals have somehow "privileged" certain perspectives. Now, I happen to agree with that statement, but clearly in a very different way than you do:
It seems to me that, until the likes of Karl Popper's contribution of the principle of falsifiability as the chief hallmark of scientific practice, the entrenched belief in strict empiricism was being privileged as a leftover of European Enlightenment traditionalism. Perhaps another will come along soon who similarly unseats Popper. To claim, however, that the scientific method itself is somehow predicated on enlightenment ideals appears, to me, to miss the entire point of this original post: that science changes, just as much as how we do science, because science is all about constantly holding ourselves, and our ideas, to ever-higher standards. Most of the principles of the modern scientific method have been around for more than a thousand years, slowly building on one another. The idea of a strict "scientific method" is as much an illusion as the entirety of reality may be, but that's just because we are always developing new ways of knowing.
*Edited for readability and clarity.
So you agree but you felt the way I wrote it was disdainful, and you thought I didn't choose a good example.
Perhaps I should have said something along the lines of 'modern scientific cultural norms are influenced by the European Enlightenment.'
I specifically didn't mention falsfiabilty and logical positivism etc as I wanted to keep the comment light and accessible.
I was suggesting they read more because it's generally a good idea to read more about things you're interested in.
Serious question: are you high?
No.
The producer of this track.
This is true. We might think that science and tech advanced slowly and steadily, and while that is technically true in some sense, as a general rule science advanced in exponential levels. Like the 2nd industrial revolution of the late 19th century saw such a massive explosion in tech that it created a change that could only be compared to the agricultural revolution.
And let's not get started on the 20th century. Going from first heavier than air flight to landing on the moon in 66 years? Yeah that cannot be overstated.
Still fucks with me that someone could have written an essay about the impossibility of heavier than air flight at the age of 20, and lived to see the moon landing. That's like growing up believing the earth to be the center of the universe, and then living to see the discovery of other galaxies. It would be like growing up a hunter-gatherer and buying a pizza in a grocery store
You know, before Trump and the rise of neo-nazism into the mainstream I used to be huge into interwar media (early talkies, silent films, radio, etc) and one thing I found was a sci-fi radio show (I am not sure if it was Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon or something else) that seemed to treat the very concept of making into space in the 20th century as an impossible feat.
But a little over 20 years after that broadcast Sputnik happened. So many listeners and writers of the time absolutely were eating their own words afterward.
To be fair, Newton was suggesting the feasibility of using chemical propellants to create stable ballistic orbits in space as far back as the 1600s with his cannonball example.
funny thing is that there are a pretty decent amount of hunter-gatherers who wear tshirts and shit, honestly seems like an amazing lifestyle.
So long as you don't use it to spout off some bullshit like electric universe is some pseudo-philisophical bullshit masquerading as science I agree. Sorry of the madness I was watching professor Dave and my mind is mush.
All science is influenced by the current academic landscape and researchers' funding sources. Now let's discuss my new theory that gravity isn't real. First, we have to understand that 1x1=2...
I mean, how technical do you want to get? Because gravity isn't a real force, assuming Einstein is to be believed.
The second spice girl looks like her pants were drawn using brush tool or something.
I thought they just wanted to Zig-a-zig ha
If you think you have a better method then scientists would love to adopt it. If not, you don't qualify to be my friend or lover, I don't even associate with anti-science types.
Science is heavily resistant to partiality and the negative aspects of societal contexts.
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