
The Fallacy of Gray - jonp
http://lesswrong.com/lw/mm/the_fallacy_of_gray/
======
viggity
This article is great, I've always felt the same way but this essay framed it
and worded it perfectly. Having my thoughts more organized on the subject will
come in handy while discussing politics with certain friends.

"You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-
color view"

I love it!

------
proemeth
Good article. A thought on the "Science is/isnt based on faith/ a religion" :
for people who don't have the capacity to falsify scientific theories, science
can be similar to a mysticism. Especially with complex theories, experts are
equivalent to augurs reading the sky for the common mortal. That is why it is
good to have down-to-earth experiments illustrating scientific principles,
like the double-slit experiment showing diffraction. The first time I saw it
was a shock because it is a counter-intuitive phenomenon. Epistemology and
history give a lot of meaning to science, that is why I think it should be an
integral part of the way science is taught.

------
DanielBMarkham
_Likewise the folly of those who say, "Every scientific paradigm imposes some
of its assumptions on how it interprets experiments," and then act like they'd
proven science to occupy the same level with witchdoctoring. Every worldview
imposes some of its structure on its observations, but the point is that there
are worldviews which try to minimize that imposition, and worldviews which
glory in it._

Er -- except no, you've missed the point entirely here, Eliezer.

The point isn't that you step inside the paradigm and judge one as being
somehow "better" than the other. Your choice isn't the false dichotomy of
everything either being all the same or there being shades of better or worse.
The entire point of paradigms is that, inside of each of them, they conform to
those values that create the paradigm. So everybody sitting inside a paradigm,
no matter how well educated, is going to be praising that paradigm. This is
why the word "science" is way too overloaded for discussions like this. Do you
mean reproducible, falsifiable model creation through abdcution, deduction,
and induction? Or are you referring to the much more common Bayesian best-
guess method of science? Seems like you're talking about the Bayesians, but
there's a big difference which you've glossed over.

And from the outside it doesn't look all the same, either. What we can observe
about various paradigms is measuring the extent of their vocabulary and
measuring the rate of paradigm change.

Epidemiology isn't witch-doctory because epidemiology has a vast system of
symbols, models, and data around how people get sick. We can pick up these
symbols, models, and data and do useful things with them. Witch-doctory has
but a few. Epidemiology has changed many times in the last two hundred years.
They pick up the same data, symbols, and models ad rework them into new
paradigms, increasing the richness of the field. Witch-doctory has not.

We can't look outside the paradigm, but we can certainly make subjective
observations about what's more or less _useful_ to the outside observer. I can
be a Zoroastrian and still pick up enough useful information from Physics to
walk on the moon -- no matter what the status of the Grand Unified Theory is.
At the end of the day, it's always going to be pragmatic distinction, not a
epistemological one.

~~~
nollidge
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. How is Bayes' theorem not
deductive?

Are you talking of the difference between theoretical and experimental
science? Because those both operate under the same paradigm: that the universe
is causal and consistent.

------
Tuna-Fish
I just lost 8 hours straight on lesswrong. Thank you.

------
jonny_noog
_The Sophisticate: "The world isn't black and white. No one does pure good or
pure bad. It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."_

I have often stated and thought that the world to me is not black and white
and that indeed no one does pure good or pure bad. But I can't say this view
has ever lead me to the conclusion that therefore, no one is better than
anyone else.

Turning this issue over in my head, I guess I always just assumed that things
being on a grey scale - the operative word being "scale" - that this would
surely mean that things existing at different points on that scale could not
be considered as all being the same. Interesting to read that apparently this
is not the view held by some.

In my personal experience, I find that those whose view is that the world is
black and white tend to also be those who wish to impose this view on others.
While those who see the world as grey (whether they fall into this trap of the
"Fallacy of Gray" or not) tend to be less concerned with converting others to
their viewpoint and if anything are more concerned with defending their
viewpoint from attacks by the black/white people. I'm not entirely sure what
conclusion to reach from this observation... Authoritarians tend to see black
and white, while libertarians tend to see grey and sometimes the "Fallacy of
Gray" possibly as a defensive overreaction?

------
torial
I thought the first part was great. Loved "You mock the simplicity of the two-
color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view".

Then it tanked. I couldn't help but feel that straw man arguments were used
for the examples of those who claim science is a faith. Sigh. Ok, how about a
few things that make _some_ scientists and especially the media seem like they
belong to a religious or evangelical movement rather than one of _discovering_
the truth: * believing in something no matter what the evidence and coming up
with bizarre explanations for things because the evidence contradicts the
theory. * saying the science is "settled". Seems like a dogmatic view if I
ever saw one. * reluctant to share data to someone who disagree * appeals to
experts ("Like most scientists agree") to replace the actual need to show that
data fits into a coherent theory

Global Warming scientists seems to fit into this camp more often than others.

But really, you look at different disciplines. In archaeology, some guy was
just claiming he might have found the _first_ spot that civilization started,
and it was from 12000 years ago (if I remember right). How does he know? Why
make claims for that? Why not just stick to "oldest known", rather than
sensationalize it?

Why also does every show have to talk about either evolution or global
warming? I watched a great Bobby McFarrin special on music, and all these
scientists involved kept talking about evolution, and "since we know evolution
is true then X" and the hilarious part was that all the scientists came to
contradictory conclusions. :-) Why not just leave the whole "evolution is
true" part out, and just follow the data where it leads?

~~~
ytinas
Great post. For some people science is absolutely a religion. These folks
don't know enough to try and falsify the theory they believe but they have no
issue trashing people who aren't as convinced.

~~~
nollidge
> people who aren't as convinced

...but who somehow feel that they _do_ know enough to try and falsify a
theory?

> for some people science is absolutely a religion

Quoth the OP: _If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the
sick and reveals the secrets of the stars. It would make sense to say, "The
priests of science can blatantly, publicly, verifiably walk on the Moon as a
faith-based miracle, and your priests' faith can't do the same." Are you sure
you wish to go there, oh faithist? Perhaps, on further reflection, you would
prefer to retract this whole business of "Science is a religion too!"_

~~~
enthalpyx
If science gets credit for healing the sick, does it also take the blame for
deaths caused by nuclear weapons? Blatant, public, and verifiable. Praise
worthy? Not in my book.

~~~
nollidge
> does it also take the blame for deaths caused by nuclear weapons?

In my view, yes, it does, and science needs to learn from that (and countless
other mistakes). It's certainly not universally praise-worthy. But it does
provide a way for ethical people to reliably improve the human condition.

------
csallen
This analogy assumes you have a linear scale from black to white, and thus any
two values can be objectively compared to each other. You have to be careful,
however: Many discrepancies and disagreements cannot be likened to simple
shades of gray. I'll take an example from the article:

 _The Sophisticate: "The world isn't black and white. No one does pure good or
pure bad. It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."_

Assuming they're talking about moral relativism, it can be argued this is a
purely subjective matter. When it comes to morality, it's likely people will
disagree on whether ActionX is a darker or lighter shade of gray than ActionY.
Although his reasoning is faulty, the Sophisticate's conclusion is correct.

Instead of: "It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."

It should be: "No one can definitively claim one shade of gray is darker than
another. Therefore, ..."

~~~
ekiru
I don't quite agree. While in some cases, there is certainly subjectivity in
morality, almost everyone would agree that certain things are definitively a
darker gray than others. Almost no one would argue that murdering random
people is morally superior to nursing an injured bird back to health. It is
true that some people might, but I think that the vast majority is sometimes
right in judging comparisons like that.

~~~
csallen
_> > almost everyone would agree that certain things are definitively a darker
gray than others_

Yes, but we must ask ourselves: Does widespread agreement on an opinion turn
that opinion into a fact? If 100% of humanity were to suddenly believe that
red is better than blue, would that make it _objectively_ true? I think the
answer is no. The difference between fact and opinion is not reliant on the
number of people who believe one way or the other.

~~~
ekiru
"If 100% of humanity were to suddenly believe that red is better than blue,
would that make it objectively true?"

No, but it does make it subjectively true for 100% of humanity.

In addition, as a sibling comment pointed out: it is possible to objectively
decide which of two actions is better than another for any specific definition
of better. For example, one definition of moral "betterness" is the quality of
being conducive toward the survival of a given society.

~~~
csallen
I'm suspicious of this vague terminology. Instead of saying something is
"better", why not just say "it's more conducive toward the survival of a given
society"?

------
AndrewDucker
He's exactly right. The answer is to stop looking for certainties and instead
look for models - theories that produce results that are as right as you can
get them. We don't ever expect to reach perfection, we just expect them to
asymptotically approach it.

------
aristus
It's the fallacy or relativism, which is a special case of believing too much
in syllogism.

------
AndrewO
I was interested at first, but it seemed more and more that the author was
referring to a context that he thought was shared but was actually obscure.
When using examples from novels I've read or exchanges between bloggers, I
find some light introduction (e.g. who's the "they" in this "Player of Games"
book?) or footnotes is the best way to avoid the "scary homeless person that
yells at me when I get off the subway" vibe.

~~~
gwern
The context is shared on LessWrong, but it's a very large context, touching on
multiple subfields of philosophy, mathematics, and biology (to name just the
big ones). There's currently no better introduction than reading the major LW
posts/essays.

~~~
MikeCapone
> There's currently no better introduction than reading the major LW
> posts/essays.

At the present time, that's correct. Eliezer is working on at least one book
(maybe more.. I'm not sure anymore) that should stand on its own better.

------
username3
It's gray because you don't know where the line is.

