This relates to the scientism issue: what you "believe in" (faith) is different in kind from what you assent to as true (belief). Do you agree?

[Soandso]

I can point you to them but will fist have to dig a bit.

My initial thoughts would be that, even if this were true, in the long run peer review would turn out the truth. The journals doing such things would degrade in their standing in the scientific community since they would be publishing weaker theories that continuously get picked apart

The proof does seem to be in the pudding

 

[Audie]

I think this is a good take! I'd like to maybe make an unrelated clarification on this part here



Those things certainly do happen. As you say, people are people. While there is nothing to prevent that from happening initially, peer review is a check and balance that strongly mitigates how much of that gets out and actually effects real science, and it also presents a deterrent for anyone who wants to "cheat the system" and publish out and out lies clothed in scientific garb. Everything is picked apart and scrutinized

Not saying you aren't already aware, but I figured clarification is good for the other lurkers out there such as myself

Careful now someone will say you
are a type of fundie, worshipping them
High priests of science.

 

[Audie]

I used to think so too but in fact the journals in which results are reported out have been corrupted by being for profit and qualified peers have time constraints that prevent them from doing much more than rubber stamp work of those they respect and decline to review work from groups they’re less sure of. In an ideal world peer review would count for something. Alas that isn’t the one we live on. There are sources.

That is an extremist view such as I'd call
" lying with the truth". Or truth, but far far far from
the whole truth.

 

[Whateverist]

My initial thoughts would be that, even if this were true, in the long run peer review would turn out the truth. The journals doing such things would degrade in their standing in the scientific community since they would be publishing weaker theories that continuously get picked apart

The proof does seem to be in the pudding

Okay here is the discussion of some of the problems. Being new to using my Kindle I had to take a picture of the footnotes mentioned herein.
First the discussion which comes from Iain McGilchrist's 2021 book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, specifically from his chapter 13, Institutional science and truth Reason & truth:

A problem for the general public is that the heavy-hitting articles with catchy titles make headlines in the popular press, while the more measured responses, that create a more nuanced picture, do not. So the public is served up two competing fantasies: that anything that comes from science is irreproachable, and that most of it is irredeemably flawed. This kind of polarisation makes rational debate about the true (therefore limited) value of science very difficult indeed.

Marcus Munafò, a biological psychologist, and Jonathan Flint, a prominent geneticist, warn that genetic ‘breakthroughs’ in medicine are often nothing of the sort. The discovery of genes for depression or schizophrenia – or for happiness – get good press coverage, usually based on publication in a respected scientific journal such as Science or Nature. Less prestigious journals often subsequently publish reports that contradict the original claim, some suggesting that the findings are quite compatible with chance. These reports, usually with larger samples, are rarely newsworthy.47 On the face of it unexpectedly, the authors found that studies published in journals such as Nature or Science with a high ‘impact factor’ (IF), a measure of the frequency with which the average paper in a journal is cited in a year (typically taken to indicate higher prestige or quality), are less likely to give an accurate estimate of effect size than those published in journals with a lower impact factor.48

To the credit of science, one of the most cited papers in the last decade of science publishing is by a professor of medicine and statistics at Stanford called John Ioannidis.49 Its title, ‘Why most published research findings are false’, gives an inkling of its conclusion. Its point is that much – apparently most – research is not adequately designed to prove what it claims to show. Many studies in the area of neuroscience, for example, will miss genuine effects, and ‘find’ false effects, because of low statistical power. This is partly a result of the huge expense involved in carrying out scanning studies on a large scale.50 Yet, of course, spending less (but a still not inconsiderable amount) on producing invalid data is a waste of time, money and human effort.

Ioannidis casts light on the see-sawing of research findings that we have observed. ‘The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true’, he warns:

​

With many teams working on the same field and with massive experimental data being produced, timing is of the essence in beating competition. Thus, each team may prioritise pursuing and disseminating its most impressive ‘positive’ results. ‘Negative’ results may become attractive for dissemination only if some other team has found a ‘positive’ association on the same question. In that case, it may be attractive to refute a claim made in some prestigious journal. The term Proteus phenomenon has been coined [by Ioannidis himself] to describe this phenomenon of rapidly alternating extreme research claims and extremely opposite refutations.51​

​

Ioannidis continues, with a further point that is ethically more troubling, but will hardly surprise anyone who understands human nature: ‘the greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field the less likely the research findings are to be true’. He continues: Many otherwise seemingly independent, university-based studies may be conducted for no other reason than to give physicians and researchers qualifications for promotion or tenure. Such non-financial conflicts may also lead to distorted reported results and interpretations. 52

Attention @vulcanlogician - more McGilchrist

 

[Soandso]

Okay here is the discussion of some of the problems. Being new to using my Kindle I had to take a picture of the footnotes mentioned herein.
First the discussion which comes from Iain McGilchrist's 2021 book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, specifically from his chapter 13, Institutional science and truth Reason & truth:



Now lets see if my photo of the footnotes will print:

Thanks! I'll look into this

 

[Audie]

Okay here is the discussion of some of the problems. Being new to using my Kindle I had to take a picture of the footnotes mentioned herein.
First the discussion which comes from Iain McGilchrist's 2021 book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, specifically from his chapter 13, Institutional science and truth Reason & truth:

Medical research is notorious for
poor quality.

It wouldn't do to generalize about all
of science

 

[Whateverist]

Medical research is notorious for
poor quality.

It wouldn't do to generalize about all
of science

Biological science more generally but especially anything related to psychology is bad but the problems are systemic and effect every area of science. But it gets even worse and it is the corruption of money in the publishing game along with the pressure to publish or perish that is largely to blame. More grist for your mill, @Soandso:

And sometimes it’s not even a matter of laziness – more like desperation. With disarming honesty, one of the authors of a paper on melanism in fish included the remark, ‘Should we cite the crappy Gabor paper here?’, a comment which slipped undetected into the published article.68

A whole new level of unreliability has been reached through a process whereby authors pay to have their work published. This is well-intentioned, in that it puts the burden on (the institution of) the researcher rather than the reader, enabling the journal to become ‘open access’. But since publishing a paper makes money for the journal, whereas declining it neglects an opportunity, it is clearly open to corruption. Some journals take papers for no better reason than because the authors pay to have them published: in China it is even possible to arrange to have your name put on someone else’s paper, or to have prestigious authors attached to your own, for a fee.69

In 2014, Peter Vamplew, an Australian computer scientist, submitted a paper to the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology after receiving dozens of unsolicited emails from the publication, and from other journals of dubious moral standards. The paper, entitled ‘Get Me Off Your F*cking Mailing List’, consisted simply of the seven words of the title repeated over and over again for several pages. Nothing else. He even added a helpful diagram: Fig. 33. ‘Flow diagram’ from spoof paper sent to International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology by Peter Vamplew, 2014 He expected that the journal’s editors would ‘read it, ignore it, and at best take me off their mailing list’. Weeks later, he received good news. It was accepted for publication: ‘I pretty much fell off my chair.’ In line with the highest academic standards, ‘Get Me Off Your F*cking Mailing List’ had reportedly been subjected to rigorous, anonymous peer review. ‘They told me to add some more recent references and do a bit of reformatting’.

Foot notes:

67 Simkin & Roychowdhury 2003.
68 Culumber, Bautista-Hernández, Monks et al 2014.
69 Seife 2014.


Attention @vulcanlogician - still more McGilchrist

 

[gnostic]

Science is the gold standard for determining what is factually true empirically. But what you count on in human affairs is rarely amenable to being determined with science. "Belief that" is about knowledge while "belief in" is about faith- which need not be about theism, though it can be and traditionally has been. So when you say what you count on in life as a human being, it isn't about science even though science can often contribute in some minor way even in life choices. But one doesn't "believe in science" and life demands that we cope with many social choices and matters of conscience whether we are religious or not (and I'm not). I think Iain McGilchrist expressed this much more thoroughly than I could in his first big book, The Master and His Emissary:

this is absurd.

For the science to be “factually true empirically” that would require some physical evidence or experiments to support whatever scientific theory has been tested.

it has nothing to do what you believe or don’t believe in, or what like or don’t like. The whole personal beliefs or personal preferences are subjective and biased.

the evidence are supposed to mitigate such biases.

when you are testing the DNA of humans and DNA of chimpanzees, as to how closely related they are, the comparisons are based on the all the similarities between the two, and the percentages that computers spit out, without human prejudices tainting the results.

Likewise, when you use those same DNAs to find out when the divergence occurs, it is based on the molecular clock, the calculation are done by computers, and not because you like the results or not.

Such testing have been done all around the world, by independent biologists. The test results are not doctored.

it isn’t scientism, when you accept the test results of DNA testing. But it is fear and ignorance to reject something simply because you don’t like it or don’t believe in it because of whatever religions you believe in.

 

[Audie]

this is absurd.

For the science to be “factually true empirically” that would require some physical evidence or experiments to support whatever scientific theory has been tested.

it has nothing to do what you believe or don’t believe in, or what like or don’t like. The whole personal beliefs or personal preferences are subjective and biased.

the evidence are supposed to mitigate such biases.

when you are testing the DNA of humans and DNA of chimpanzees, as to how closely related they are, the comparisons are based on the all the similarities between the two, and the percentages that computers spit out, without human prejudices tainting the results.

Likewise, when you use those same DNAs to find out when the divergence occurs, it is based on the molecular clock, the calculation are done by computers, and not because you like the results or not.

Such testing have been done all around the world, by independent biologists. The test results are not doctored.

it isn’t scientism, when you accept the test results of DNA testing. But it is fear and ignorance to reject something simply because you don’t like it or don’t believe in it because of whatever religions you believe in.

Those who know science not are so
eager to explain all about it to those who do.

 

[Whateverist]

this is absurd.

For the science to be “factually true empirically” that would require some physical evidence or experiments to support whatever scientific theory has been tested.

it has nothing to do what you believe or don’t believe in, or what like or don’t like. The whole personal beliefs or personal preferences are subjective and biased.

the evidence are supposed to mitigate such biases.

when you are testing the DNA of humans and DNA of chimpanzees, as to how closely related they are, the comparisons are based on the all the similarities between the two, and the percentages that computers spit out, without human prejudices tainting the results.

Likewise, when you use those same DNAs to find out when the divergence occurs, it is based on the molecular clock, the calculation are done by computers, and not because you like the results or not.

Such testing have been done all around the world, by independent biologists. The test results are not doctored.

it isn’t scientism, when you accept the test results of DNA testing. But it is fear and ignorance to reject something simply because you don’t like it or don’t believe in it because of whatever religions you believe in.

This is incoherent in relationship to what I've said and I have no opinion (or interest in) what you've said. If you want a response from me try harder to make sense.

 

[viole]

Science is the gold standard for determining what is factually true empirically. But what you count on in human affairs is rarely amenable to being determined with science.

Even if true, status today, the question is what is more amenable to determined that.

Any viable candidate, apart from reding tea leaves, and playing tarots, or invoke religious beliefs that fall in the same category?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Whateverist]

Even if true, status today, the question is what is more amenable to determined that.

Any viable candidate, apart from reding tea leaves, and playing tarots, or invoke religious beliefs that fall in the same category?

Ciao

- viole

I’d say lived experience and the shared experience of others. The buyer must always beware. But I would never turn to science regarding matters of love, meaning or the sacred.

 

[vulcanlogician]

A lot of people who are attacking @FaithNotBelief 's position are not aware of his position. I know this dude. He's an atheist. He 99% agrees with scientism. But he's focusing on this 1% of things that either science can't tell us or (even if it can tell us) we don't need science in order to know these things. He's just saying there's a chink in the armor.

The think is, a lot of folks who point out that there is a chink in the armor, immediately bust out the snake oil and try to commence sales. OP is not such a person.

If I understand FnB correctly, he isn't trying to sell any snake oil to anyone. I think his end goal is to suggest that we be more tolerant of the faithful. And by "more tolerant," I think he wants a deep, genuine tolerance.

As the philosopher William James put it:

"But if we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp, then it seems a piece of idle fatalistically to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell. Indeed we may wait if we will,—I hope you do not think that I am denying that,—but if we do so, we do so at our peril as much as if we believed. In either case we act, taking our life in our hands. No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another's mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, and which is empiricism's glory; then only shall we live and let live, in speculative as well as in practical things."

 

[Audie]

A lot of people who are attacking @FaithNotBelief 's position are not aware of his position. I know this dude. He's an atheist. He 99% agrees with scientism. But he's focusing on this 1% of things that either science can't tell us or (even if it can tell us) we don't need science in order to know these things. He's just saying there's a chink in the armor.

The think is, a lot of folks who point out that there is a chink in the armor, immediately bust out the snake oil and try to commence sales. OP is not such a person.

If I understand FnB correctly, he isn't trying to sell any snake oil to anyone. I think his end goal is to suggest that we be more tolerant of the faithful. And by "more tolerant," I think he wants a deep, genuine tolerance.

As the philosopher William James put it:

"But if we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp, then it seems a piece of idle fatalistically to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell. Indeed we may wait if we will,—I hope you do not think that I am denying that,—but if we do so, we do so at our peril as much as if we believed. In either case we act, taking our life in our hands. No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another's mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, and which is empiricism's glory; then only shall we live and let live, in speculative as well as in practical things."

Anyone who "agrees with scientism"
is a deeply insensible person whose views
I'd disregard as being without a chance of merit.

Science, BTW does not have "armour" nor yet
" chinks" ( watch you lingo, pal) in said nonexistent
armour.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Science, BTW does not have "armour" nor yet
" chinks" ( watch you lingo, pal) in said nonexistent
armour.

Wow. Are you saying my "armor" is nothing more than a metaphor that I employed as a rhetorical device? And that it doesn't have a real physical existence? If so, then yeah. I think I have to agree with you. Science doesn't really have armor. I hereby redact all my armor-related claims concerning science.

Anyone who "agrees with scientism"
is a deeply insensible person whose views
I'd disregard as being without a chance of merit.

Even though I am not personally a proponent of "scientism," I think that it is a very sensible view that has a lot of merit.

The only objections I have is to its (supposed) assumption that there isn't any knowledge apart from empirically verifiable knowledge. Remove that one assumption and I 100% agree with scientism.

 

[Audie]

Wow. Are you saying my "armor" is nothing more than a metaphor that I employed as a rhetorical device? And that it doesn't have a real physical existence? If so, then yeah. I think I have to agree with you. Science doesn't really have armor. I hereby redact all my armor-related claims concerning science.



Even though I am not personally a proponent of "scientism," I think that it is a very sensible view that has a lot of merit.

The only objections I have is to its (supposed) assumption that there isn't any knowledge apart from empirically verifiable knowledge. Remove that one assumption and I 100% agree with scientism.

As if I don't recognize a metaphor.
Or you could identify a " chink" metaphorical
OR otherwise.

The view that science has all the answers is
idiotic.

Or do you have your own definition
for said otherwise invidious appeltion?

 

[vulcanlogician]

As if I don't recognize a metaphor.

Hey. You came out swinging. And you really did imply that my "armor" wasn't really real.

"It's a metaphor, silly," seemed like the most appropriate response to your post. I found your post amusing and appreciated how you tossed down the gauntlet. I just thought the best reply to it was to toss down a gauntlet of my own.

The view that science has all the answers is
idiotic.

I disagree that scientism is idiotic. Sure, it incorrect. But scientism is pretty much the antithesis of idiotic.

All sorts of people are wrong about all sorts of things all the time. That doesn't make them idiots. That makes them "wrong sometimes." I think proponents of scientism are typically smart cookies. At least in my personal opinion/experience.

A proponent of scientism isn't necessarily wrong. She recognizes that empirically verifiable knowledge is better than other types of knowledge. I agree with her. It is. The point of difference happens when we start to claim things like "without verification, there is no knowledge." Like it or not, people know things that are not (and sometimes cannot be) empirically verified.

To me, if someone has a justified true belief-- that counts as knowledge. Verification helps us be more confident in our knowledge. But it doesn't constitute knowledge itself.

 

[viole]

But I would never turn to science regarding matters of love, meaning or the sacred.

Why not? For instance, the fact that we tend to ascribe importance to long lasting love is mainly because of our biology. It is nothing but an evolved characteristics that leverage joined efforts of man and woman when raising offsprings who take so long to become independent.

If our kids were independent after one day, maybe we would laugh at the idea of "til death set us apart".

Ciao

- viole

 

[danieldemol]

If our kids were independent after one day, maybe we would laugh at the idea of "til death set us apart".

Ciao

- viole

Maybe, but if you look at humans many of them grow old together long after the kids matured in my view.

 

[Audie]

Hey. You came out swinging. And you really did imply that my "armor" wasn't really real.

"It's a metaphor, silly," seemed like the most appropriate response to your post. I found your post amusing and appreciated how you tossed down the gauntlet. I just thought the best reply to it was to toss down a gauntlet of my own.



I disagree that scientism is idiotic. Sure, it incorrect. But scientism is pretty much the antithesis of idiotic.

All sorts of people are wrong about all sorts of things all the time. That doesn't make them idiots. That makes them "wrong sometimes." I think proponents of scientism are typically smart cookies. At least in my personal opinion/experience.

A proponent of scientism isn't necessarily wrong. She recognizes that empirically verifiable knowledge is better than other types of knowledge. I agree with her. It is. The point of difference happens when we start to claim things like "without verification, there is no knowledge." Like it or not, people know things that are not (and sometimes cannot be) empirically verified.

To me, if someone has a justified true belief-- that counts as knowledge. Verification helps us be more confident in our knowledge. But it doesn't constitute knowledge itself.

Ok...whatevs

Maybe, but if you look at humans many of them grow old together long after the kids matured in my view.

If you scientically looked at the effect of hormones
on teenage romance you'd be cautious about it.