
Why philosophy is largely ignored by science - derleth
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=4799
======
kevinalexbrown
I do science. When I was younger, I devoured philosophy treatises, law
reviews, and political science books. I still find it fun, but I lost the
passion for it. However, I disagree strongly with this article in his
characterization of philosophers.

I haven't left philosophy because everyone in it is stupid, as this article
seems to suggest. I left philosophy because after all my reading, note-taking,
class-discussioning, and debate tournamenting, I never felt like I'd made any
progress, and that mattered to me personally. At the end of the day, the
questions that were hard to answer were still unsolved, and the gray ethical
areas were still gray. _This_ is why I don't do philosophy, and I why I found
the science bug. Not because philosophy lacks rigor or reasonable
investigators.

In philosophy, real answers are difficult to find and prove, but in math and
science, even though every answer brings 10 new questions, you can look back
and say: I proved that theorem, I empirically verified the acceleration of the
earth.

To quote my favorite xkcd T-shirt "Science, it works, bitches!". Most
scientists I know that disregard philosophy do so because science gives them a
feeling of getting somewhere, while philosophy, even at its most rigorous,
just seems to leave them more confused than when they started. It's more of a
personal preference for that kind of investigation than any rejection of the
intelligence of a large group of people.

~~~
derrida
I agree with all of the above. Except there are isolated cases of philosophy
actually pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge. Arguably Russell &
Whitehead did in the Principia Mathematica, which attempted to put the
foundation of mathematics in terms of logic. That system is the system where
Godel found a paradox, which lead to Godels theorems. I'm sure Turing had it
in the back of his mind that the Turing machine was a useful way of reasoning
about those propositions which are 'true and provable'. Russell/Whitehead -->
Godel --> Turing.

Another area where there have arguably been successes (even through failure),
is in the attempts to formalise natural languages into logic (Frege, Russell,
Wittgenstein). This is the tradition that informed Chomsky, whose theories of
grammar inform modern compiler design.

There are philosophers alive that I believe have advanced the frontier of
knowledge, but as with some areas of pure mathematics it's hard to say
practically what that means. I have in mind Kripke.

~~~
derleth
> Chomsky, whose theories of grammar inform modern compiler design

That's math, though, not philosophy.

The difference: Math is a symbol game that occasionally produces useful tools
for other fields, whereas philosophy is a discussion of human problems.

~~~
andrewcooke
it's more like philosophy is the dumping ground for stuff that we don't
understand well enough to formalize and place in its own little box. that
means that it changes with time.

so there was a point when foundational issues in maths and logic were
philosophy. the importance of frege, and then later peano, russel, etc, is
that they were the ones that found a way to attack that set of problems,
letting us isolate a chunk of knowledge as logic, set theory, etc.

a similar process is probably happening now with consciousness - we're
starting to develop the tools to answer questions that are currently
"philosophical".

~~~
chrisdevereux
Exactly. Claiming that Philosophy never answers anything makes one hell of a
selection bias. When Philosophy answers something, it ceases to be Philosophy.

------
_delirium
So, I'm a scientist. And I'm skeptical of the utility of a good portion of
philosophy for science. But this is a... really ignorant post. It's not even
wrong. Just... incoherent, and clearly unfamiliar with the subject it
discusses.

He seems to be attacking something called "philosophy", first of all, but the
targets are some kind of randomly thrown set of darts. Some analytic
philosophers discussing probability in a way he doesn't like. The famous Sokal
hoax, which trolled a French-influenced American social-theory journal (which
incidentally lived in literature departments more than philosophy departments,
and was intensely disliked by American philosophers). Just some general
rambling. Why is this interesting? It feels like something an undergrad would
cobble together off Wikipedia, an "understand and then denounce philosophy in
90 minutes" essay.

Does he realize that Alan Sokal, who he seems to like, is actually _in favor_
of philosophy, but is against one particular current in philosophy, which his
intervention is intended to diminish? He seems to group Sokal in with both the
people Sokal opposes, and the people he supports! How does this make any sense
at all? Heck, Sokal likes more philosophers, too: Marx, for example, is on his
good list (Sokal is a leftist, fighting something of a civil war in favor of
'Old Left' economics/materialist-focused leftism, against cultural-
theory/identity leftism).

~~~
derleth
> Why is this interesting?

Because it's an opportunity to explain, in accessible terms in an accessible
forum (that is, as opposed to an article that costs five figures per year and
uses words like "hermeneutics" without defining them), what value philosophy
brings to science and understanding the real world.

------
FreakLegion
Where to start with this one?

I wouldn't expect philosophy of science to be of much practical value to
working scientists. Non-scientists, on the other hand, can benefit a great
deal from rigorous analysis of the tools, methods and procedures of the
sciences, if for no other reason than to dissolve some of the film of
invincibility that attaches to them.

Of course there are as many quacks doing philosophy of science as there are
doing science proper, so choice of texts is important. You can't condemn all
philosophy of science based on a handful of publications (note the selection
bias in the article) any more than you can condemn all science based on, say,
the MMR vaccine controversy[1].

1\. And while we're on the subject of hoaxes, let's just put the whole Sokal
affair to bed, shall we? _Social Text_ was an insignificant and unrefereed
journal, but even if Sokal had managed to place something in _The
Philosophical Review_ , that wouldn't have, as the author put it, "exposed the
astonishing intellectual fraud if [sic] postmodernism." Unless the significant
number of even more damaging hoaxes perpetrated on science journals have
exposed the astonishing intellectual fraud of science?

~~~
derleth
The difference with the Sokal Hoax is that it cuts to the core of what
philosophers do: Whereas science has practical, tangible results to show, such
as the polio vaccine, all philosophy has is thoughts and ideas, which the
Sokal Hoax assaults very directly.

~~~
msutherl
Philosophy most certainly does have tangible results to show, for instance:
modern democracy, the scientific establishment itself, the various
international bodies that enforce civil rights, and the modern field of
psychology. If you go far enough back, philosophy gave birth to all
intellectual forms of knowledge, which in turn greatly influence all aspects
of our society.

~~~
SeanLuke
This got me thinking: what tangible results have arisen from _current_
philosophy, that is, philosophy we've seen in the last, say, 20 years?

> philosophy gave birth to all intellectual forms of knowledge

I think this is an utterly unsupportable claim unless you're willing to simply
define philosophy as encompassing all other forms of intellectual pursuit.
Intellectual knowledge (whatever that means) existed long before the Rig Veda
and Socrates.

~~~
msutherl
I'm defining philosophy very broadly as written, systematic knowledge in the
West. All major branches of knowledge where once subsumed by the title
"philosophy". For instance, what we know of as science was previously called
"natural philosophy". What we now know as "political theory" was once
indistinguishable from "philosophy". And political science is a combination of
the latter forms of the two. It began with this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivium_(education)>

~~~
SeanLuke
Meh. By that definition, what we now know know as philosophy is not what used
to be philosophy. By the same tack, I could define "hot dogs" as all written,
systematic knowledge in the West, and thus claim that hot dogs predated all
intellectual pursuits.

------
bmcleod
Philosophy of Science is an extremely broad field. And like any academic field
it's easy enough to find crazy stuff at the edges.

I do think far more scientists would benefit from a bit more of a look at some
of the more established philosophers of the last century. It seems that most
gained some knowledge of Popper but nowhere near enough people are really
familiar with Kuhn's work(<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/>).
Taking the time to think critically about what you're doing and what it would
really take to change your views is critical to actually being open to broad
possibilities.

~~~
_delirium
I do think there's a bit of a glass-house problem: finding scientists doing
not-great philosophy is not hard. (It's perfectly fine, of course, for one to
be ignorant of the other if they aren't trying to _do_ the other one; nobody
can do everything.)

Theoretical physicists are particularly prone to lapsing, in later career,
into armchair philosophy without bothering to actually read anything in
philosophy of the past 100 years. That tends, unfortunately, to result in them
producing philosophy that has flashes of insight mixed with stuff that could
be a _lot_ better if only they had read some of the existing literature, and
addressed the obvious problems with some of the standard positions (which too
often they reinvent).

Of course, philosophers could understand more science too, but I actually
think there is more effort being made in that direction: philosophy of science
programs are increasingly requiring substantial amounts of technical
coursework, and it's a huge plus, for advancement, if you publish at least a
few articles in technical journals, too. But in the other direction, there
might actually be _less_ philosophy instruction in science programs than there
was 100 years ago now (surface-level understandings of Popperian
falsificationism seem to be about as far as anyone gets, including my own
formal education it must be said). This seems like a recent affliction, too:
the early-20th-c scientists (Einstein, Bohr, etc.) were actually quite well-
read in the relevant parts of philosophy. Heck, folks like Alan Turing
_published_ in peer-reviewed philosophy journals.

------
stcredzero
There is a meme going around groups aligned with the rationality movement,
asserting that there's a hierarchy of worth in academic disciplines.
Basically, the hard sciences are worth more, and the harder the science, the
more it's worth.

Philosophy is near the bottom of this hierarchy, though some of the products
of philosophy are deemed to be valuable. (Basically it's an evaluation of
Signal to Noise ratios, more than a declaration of absolute worth across the
discipline.)

------
goodside
By what mechanism did you conclude that random controlled trials are more
trustworthy than observational studies? Does that mechanism more closely
resemble an observational study or a random controlled trial?

~~~
SudarshanP
There is a lot of extra rigor in a random controlled study than an
observational study because it is harder to "cook up data" to support the
scientists own beliefs. This may even happen unconsciously.

~~~
_delirium
I believe the point was a meta one: when arguing in favor of studies with
randomized controls, do you make the argument by _setting up a randomized
controlled study_ to test the superiority of randomized controlled studies? If
the only things worth paying attention to are the results of randomized
controlled studies, then that's the only possible way you could consistently
argue in favor of them.

Instead, it seems more common to establish the "ground rules" of science by
some other means, such as arguments about the pros/cons of various scientific
methodologies, or even what counts as "scientific methodology" at all (and at
this point, you're doing philosophy of science).

------
shalmanese
Many who choose to use Sokal to highlight their point seem to be unaware that
Science has had it's own reverse-Sokal with the Bogdanov affair:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair>

------
cwp
So basically, he dismissed philosophy as irrelevant, then happened across some
obscure papers by cranks at the margins of philosophic thought, and concluded
that he was right all along. Unenlightening.

------
msutherl
"It may be asked why it is even worth spending time on these remnants of the
utterly discredited postmodernist movement."

This is just so ignorant and backward that I have a hard time taking the
author of this article seriously. There is no "postmodernist movement". The
term refers to a hopelessly large field of practices. Most great so-called
"postmodernist" theorists typically have not referred to themselves as such.

If you want to discredit theorists who have been critical of scientific
practices, you need to put down the Sokal and actually engage with specific
works. You might be surprised to find that many of these "postmodernists" are
either trained scientists or actually know what they're talking about. Just a
few suggestions if you want to dip your toes in the water:

– Gilles Deleuze wrote powerfully on metaphysics, integrating many incites
from mathematics in the 60's and 70's:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deleuze#Metaphysics> Check out "Difference and
Repetition".

– Alain Badiou uses set theory in his ontology:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Badiou#Mathematics_as_ont...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Badiou#Mathematics_as_ontology)
– I find his ontology lacking though; he should learn something from the
failings of set theory in the early 20th century.

– Bruno Latour in a the domain of Science and Technology Studies has written
voluminously about scientific and technological practices from a more
anthropological point of view:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour#Biography>

– Isabelle Stengers has written something more along the lines of what's
critiqued in this article, a critique of the _authority_ of science in
society: [http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolitics-I-Posthumanities-
Isabell...](http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolitics-I-Posthumanities-Isabelle-
Stengers/dp/0816656878) – works like this question whether the privileging of
science over all other forms of knowledge is good for society. This particular
work argues that it is not.

– Mike Cooley argues powerfully that the deskilling of the engineering
industry caused by computer-aided design and manufacturing is a travesty:
[http://www.amazon.com/Architect-Bee-Human-Technology-
Relatio...](http://www.amazon.com/Architect-Bee-Human-Technology-
Relationship/dp/0896081311)

A general note about so-called "postmodernism". The Wikipedia definition
includes the following:

"Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific or
objective efforts to explain reality. In essence, it is based on the position
that reality is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but is rather
constructed as the mind tries to understand its own personal reality."

It's important to understand that "postmodernism" isn't critiquing the
effectiveness of science. It is merely claiming that, as it says, reality is
not mirrored in human understanding. The models we create to explain observed
phenomena are not direct reflections of reality, they are simply
characteristically human, linguistic models that correspond to our
observations. As Niels Bohr wrote:

"There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It
is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is.
Physics concerns what we can say about nature..."

The question is whether our habit of elevating scientific explanation to the
'one true truth' is (1) right and (2) a good thing. Most "postmodernists"
argue that other forms of knowledge are perfectly legitimate (for instance,
indigenous people who still live tribally lead perfectly happy lives without
science) and that the privileging of science over other forms of knowledge is
not a unilaterally good thing (for instance, it is reasonable to say there's a
decent change that we will extinguish ourselves as a species in the next
hundred years thanks to the exploits of scientifically advanced societies).

You may notice that both of those examples are anthropological. This hints at
something very important about "postmodernism". When people talk about
"postmodernism", they're often talking about "post-structuralism", which is
another hopelessly broad category referring to theory that in some way extends
"structuralism", which is in turn closely connected to the theories of Claude
Lévi-Strauss, the "father of modern anthropology". "Postmodernism" can be seen
in this sense to be a kind of anthropologically informed philosophy. Rather
than creating theoretically sound abstract models, they look at how those
models actually play out "in the field" and draw conclusions. Hence the
critique of science: despite the power of scientific explanation, it may not
necessarily result in a better society and indeed the _evidence_ shows that it
does not.

And one final point, the author is totally wrong to claim that scientists have
not been concerned with the philosophy of science. Many early twentieth
century scientists – the ones who create the theory of relatively and quantum
physics especially – even wrote books on the philosophy of science as well as
its role in society. Some examples:

– Schrödinger - "What is Life": [http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Life-
Autobiographical-Sketches...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Life-
Autobiographical-
Sketches/dp/0521427088/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339983525&sr=8-1&keywords=what+is+life+schrodinger)

– Herman Weyl ("His overall approach in physics was based on the
phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl, specifically Husserl's 1913
Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie"):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Weyl>

– Heisenberg - "Physics and Philosophy": [http://www.amazon.com/Physics-
Philosophy-Revolution-Modern-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Philosophy-
Revolution-Modern-
Science/dp/0061209198/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339983530&sr=8-1&keywords=heisenberg+philosophy)

– David Bohm - "Wholeness and the Implicate Order":
[http://www.amazon.com/Wholeness-Implicate-Order-David-
Bohm/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Wholeness-Implicate-Order-David-
Bohm/dp/0415289793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339983673&sr=1-1&keywords=david+bohm)

Here's a more modern book from an economist that references Deleuze and other
"post-structuralists":

– "The Blank Swan": [http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Swan-End-
Probability/dp/0470...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Swan-End-
Probability/dp/0470725222/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339984084&sr=8-1&keywords=the+blank+swan)

~~~
quadhome
_If you want to discredit theorists who have been critical of scientific
practices, you need to put down the Sokal and actually engage with specific
works._

NB: I'm completely ignorant in this realm.

I thought one of the key points of "Impostures Intellectuelles" was that it
defined the group of criticized "postmodernists" and referenced specific
essays and papers?

~~~
msutherl
I've read at least an article that they wrote and all they did was take some
quotes out of context and show how they were scientifically inaccurate when
they seemed to me to be metaphorical from the start. I can't speak for the
book, however.

------
dmfdmf
Modern philosophy is largely ignored by science and scientists because it has
nothing to offer but endless questions and debates, unresolveable paradoxes
and pointless inquiry into the modern day equivalent of how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. Who needs it?

Unfortunately, science needs a rational philosophy now more than ever. Under
the influence of Kant and his derivatives like Popper that dominate the modern
universities, the fundamentals of science such as identity, causality,
knowledge, logic and proof are being undercut and destroyed by the very
sciences that use and need these concepts. Tragically, the scientists are
distainful of modern philosophy (for good reason) but make the mistake of
reject _all_ philosophy, and are thus throwing the baby out with the bath
water.

For anyone with a serious interest in these issues I recommend that you read
Ayn Rand's "Philosophy: Who Needs It" and her "Introduction to Objectivist
Epistemology". In the former book, her answer is that everyone needs a
philosophy because it is the science of fundamentals that apply to everyone
and all sciences.

~~~
zenogais
Oh jesus. Someone who clearly hasn't read any modern philosophy but Ayn Rand.

~~~
nosse
Could you at least point out some good modern philosophy? Otherwise your
comment is not worth much.

~~~
chris_wot
For myself, I can't really say. What I can say was that reading The
Fountainhead was a truly dreadful experience. I hope that I never live in a
world where people live their lives like Howard Roark does.

------
stiff
There are at least a few cases where philosophy influenced science in a major
way, so while I understand some of the reasons scientists might get tired of
philosophy, I don't think it's valid to dismiss its contributions entirely.
For an example, here is Einstein in a letter on his discovery of relativity
(<http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2149/>):

 _Your exposition is also quite right that positivism suggested relativity
theory, without requiring it. Also you have correctly seen that this line of
thought was of great influence on my efforts and indeed E. Mach and still much
more Hume, whose treatise on understanding I studied with eagerness and
admiration shortly before finding relativity theory._

------
reader5000
Not really sure a guy whose exposure to "philosophy" apparently consists of
awareness of a single writer is prepared to weigh in on the legitimacy of a
field as old as civilization. But admittedly I haven't done a RCT to confirm
this.

~~~
derleth
This sounds like the Courtier's Reply. How is it different from it?

<http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_Reply>

~~~
wpietri
If you're going to condemn a whole field, I think you have to be able to
demonstrate that you have a reasonably broad understanding of the field.

If somebody says they hate vegetables but their experience is limited to one
attempt to eat creamed spinach in 1985, it's not a fallacy to say they don't
know what they're talking about.

~~~
chris_wot
I know where you are going, but your example isn't particularly useful. If
someone says that they hate vegetables, then they hate vegetables, regardless
of whether their vegetable-eating experience is limited.

~~~
wpietri
Not quite. They hate their idea of vegetables. They don't have any idea
whether they actually hate actually eating actual vegetables, because they've
never really done it.

Similarly, this guy is welcome to hate his impoverished notion of philosophy,
but it shouldn't be mistaken for somebody actually hating philosophy.

~~~
chris_wot
Hate is a subjective term and describes a _feeling_ , not an objective fact.
You are correct in that the author is wrong in that scientists should ignore
philosophy based on his limited and ignorant article, but you are incorrect
that his feelings towards philosophy is not one of hatred.

Put it this way: I can hate that which I have never experienced. I've never
been raped, but I definitely hate it!

~~~
wpietri
The feeling is indeed subjective. I'm not denying the hatred. I'm saying that
they misunderstand the object of their hatred, confusing their cartoon notion
of vegetables with the actual world of experiences that you have eating
vegetables.

The may be speaking the truth when they say "I hate vegetables", but the
implication that they won't like eating them doesn't logically follow because
they don't actually know.

Spend time around small children and you see this pattern all the time. "I
hate it!" "You haven't tried it. Here, try this." "That's good! Can I have
more?"

~~~
chris_wot
I have two small children of my own, so I know the behaviour :-) None of what
you say negates the fact that at the point in time that the child says that
they hate the thing they hate, they really do. As I say, hatred is a
subjective emotion not necessarily informed by objective reason.

~~~
wpietri
I'm not denying the emotion or the words. I'm just saying they're wrong about
what they hate, because what they hate isn't what they're saying.

If I say I hate you and your lying ways, the hate is real whether or not
you've lied. But if you've never lied, then I'm not actually hating anything
real, just my false idea of a real thing. I literally don't know what I'm
talking about.

And now I think we've demonstrated why people hate philosophers.

------
joelmichael
Are we to regard Ethics as irrelevant? Logic? Aesthetics? Epistemology?
Metaphysics? These are the five branches of philosophy.

I majored in Computer Science and have a minor in Philosophy. I consider
philosophy the most important element of my life, and the lives of everyone
else, often unknowingly. I see philosophy all the time on Hacker News and
elsewhere. What do you call debates over law, for instance? Are those
scientific? No, those are philosophy. So much of what humans do is philosophy
that to suggest they do not participate in it because they aren't talking in
"academic" terms is simply inaccurate.

~~~
derleth
> Ethics as irrelevant?

Having it or arguing about it?

> Logic?

Depends on what kind of logic you mean. There are multiple different entities
covered by that word, some of which are not philosophy.

And for the rest: Arguments that never end produce what?

~~~
joelmichael
They produce our civilization. Right now you are speaking philosophically. Why
bother?

------
xenophanes
So he says at the start he dismissed the best philosopher in the field, Karl
Popper, without reading him.

Maybe most scientists ignore Popper's philosophy of science (the only
worthwhile one) because they are ignorant and judge which philosophy to read
by inaccurate reputation rather than merit.

Though bear in mind, quite a few scientists, big and small, did not ignore
Popper and actually liked his ideas and found them helpful. E.g. Richard
Feynman, David Deutsch, and Albert Einstein.

~~~
da-bacon
Popper's great. Your reference to Feynman, however, reminded me of this
classic qip: “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as
ornithology is to birds.” ― Richard P. Feynman

~~~
xenophanes
If you're interested in Popper, please let me invite you to the best Popperian
discussion group on the internet:

<http://beginningofinfinity.com/discussion>

I'm aware of that Feynman quote. But he apparently had in mind typical
philosophers as he did read and understand Popper.

Here's a quote from David Deutsch (correcting someone who claimed that Feynman
had never heard of Popper):

> For what it's worth, I happened to mention Popper in the one conversation I
> had with Feynman, sometime in the 80s, and he did not say "who's that?" but
> replied meaningfully to the point.

I know Deutsch and have heard the full story. Feynman showed substantial
understanding of Popper. Plus avoided all the usual epistemological errors.

Feynman may have been introduced to Popper by Wheeler. Here is Deutsch on
Wheeler:

> Wheeler ... (my boss and Feynman's thesis advisor and subsequently his
> collaborator), knew a lot about Popper and was honoured and delighted when
> Popper quoted one of Wheeler's aphorisms as a chapter epigraph. Wheeler and
> I discussed Popper in detail on several occasions and I tried to persuade
> him to become a Popperian -- ultimately without success, because he
> preferred Polanyi (!). Nevertheless there were specific aspects of Popperian
> philosophy of science that he very much agreed with, especially that
> scientific theories are not derived from anywhere, that they are conjectural
> and full of errors, and that science makes progress by correcting these
> errors.

------
richardjordan
What an incredibly uninformed comments thread. Firstly to the main post, of
course philosophy isn't ignored by science. Science is an offshoot of
philosophy and happily so. It's a ridiculous premise not born out by the
article itself.

Secondly, it sounds like several commenters have studied little or no
philosophy in an academic setting, and as a result are posting garbage
comments based on straw men of their own creation.

Is it hard to take on modern philosophers on their own ground? Is the language
they use sometimes confusing to the layman? Is that sometimes frustrating?
Sure it is. But that's because they have to shortcut a few thousand years of
philosophical reasoning to make the points so that we don't end up in the
weeds with every discussion. It's no different (as a trained Physicist myself)
to the manner modern Physicists talk about our discipline in ways which are
confusing to the layman, because we use cutting edge math to short cut a few
thousand years of philosophical reasoning to make their point.

Study any subject to the edge of current thinking and you get to incredible
levels of specialism because we've been at academia, as a global civilization,
for an awfully long time. Not everything can be boiled down to an elevator
pitch.

It may be hot to say people don't need to go to university, and further
education is meaningless in the context of startups, but it's not meaningless
if you actually want to understand the most advanced thought in areas of
academic interest. It might not be the best avenue for most people for most
career paths, but if you want to discuss philosophy and science (or as it used
to be called Natural Philosophy) then it's probably best done with some kind
of solid education in those fields.

------
Vlaix
I doubt being well versed in philosophy is relevant to most scientists
nowadays, at least from a practical standpoint. As I heard Michel Serres put
it a couple years ago : « Today's society produces ignorant technicians and
cultivated [put any word describing someone that can't count up to two] »
(roughly translated from the original French). And they do fine by it,
apparently. But it is damageable to ignore some fundamentals, from Pythagoras
to Descartes (regarding science).

As I think about it, it comes to me that whether philosophy is or isn't
necessary isn't relevant. Empirical necessity doesn't sums up human
aspirations, and music or poetry play in the same field. Philosophy is a way
or structuring certain angles of thinking, and that's pretty cool. As a
developer I have absolutely no use of Heidegger or saint Thomas in my
activity, but I'm glad they exist.

------
David_Colquhoun
A lot of people must read Hacker News. My hit rate went up ten-fold and most
seem to have come from here, so thanks derleth

I certainly didn't want to offend philosophers. I was merely pointing out that
most scientists don't find their ideas very useful in practice. The piece
arose as a postscript to a piece "In praise of randomisation". It was in the
course of writing that that I discovered the a small (I hope) number of
philosophers denied this idea. That does active harm. . A twitter user,
@shanemuk, sent this today. Sums it up nicely.

"What you need to know about #Science, #Philosophy and #Sausages
@david_colquhoun - answersingenes.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/show-m…

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b1daly
This thread made me think of this New Yorker article on the "Decline Effect"
which is describes a tendency for the results of scientific experiments (in
particular those based on statistical methods) to weaken as experiments are
repeated.

As a person with a generally skeptical/pro science bent it truly shocked me.

It highlights the need for understanding the sociology of science, which has
huge impacts on its effectiveness.

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suprememoocow
From the introduction to The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking & Leonard
Mlodinow: "Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is
dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science,
particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of
discovery in our quest for knowledge"

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chris_wot
The title is misleading. It really should be "Why postmodernism is largely
ignored by science (and mostly everyone else)."

