
The Limits of Science - silt
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-limits-of-science
======
throwaway_bad
I was really hoping this would be about "Philosophy of Science"[0]

For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises but
can't infer that there will be another. Likewise you can conduct a bajillion
controlled experiments and can't really tell if the result will generalize.
Worse yet is that the more conditions you control, the less likely it's to
generalize. Infamously, clinical trials wanted to control for the variations
caused by periods so they only tested on men and it turns out some drugs
affect women differently! In general, if you control for everything, you can't
say anything about the real world outside of those precise lab controlled
conditions.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science)

~~~
msla
> For example in "The Problem of Induction" you can see a bajillion sunrises
> but can't infer that there will be another.

Which is why scientists, like everyone else, uses statistical reasoning.

> In general, if you control for everything, you can't say anything about the
> real world outside of those precise lab controlled conditions.

This is one of those statements which is only true if you ignore all the times
it's false. It's like Zeno's Paradox: If this really troubles you, it's a sign
your model's incomplete, not that there's something irreconcilably wrong with
the universe. Some of what you're getting at can be fixed with better
experimental design, but the rest can only be fixed by, as I said, statistical
reasoning, which is universally used in practice.

It's possible to be _somewhat_ uncertain. Some people don't get that, or
refuse to acknowledge it so they can sow FUD.

~~~
ASalazarMX
This is a classic philosopher vs. pragmatic discussion.

Zeno: "How can movement exist? A flying arrow, at any point in its trajectory,
is static, but at the next moment, it-"

Pragmatic: "Hey, I shot ten arrows. They took 4 seconds average to reach the
target at 200 m, so they move at 50 m/s, therefore movement does exist. Can we
eat something? I'm hungry."

------
pjc50
I think the word the author is looking for is "scientism", per wikipedia:

> Scientism is the promotion of science as the best or only objective means by
> which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The
> term scientism is generally used critically, implying a cosmetic application
> of science in unwarranted situations considered not amenable to application
> of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.

The whole "true story of a middle-schooler whose mother wanted to arrange for
her son to get more time to take his math tests" has a big problem in it as
well. There's a real discussion to be had about disability labeling and
diagnosis, but that's not how this is framed - it's framed as the mother
wanting a benefit for her son that others would not have, the son not actually
having a disability, and the scheme to invent one for him failing because she
refused to role-play it.

A lot of people can tell the opposite story; they knew something was different
about them in ways that were disadvantageous, but other people kept
attributing it to a moral defect until they got a diagnosis. (This comes up a
lot in conversations about ADHD and to a lesser extent autism/aspergers.)

------
ameetgaitonde
There are three things that bother me:

1\. Using "true story," then telling a very general story without any
citation. That he did it twice was worrying.

2\. People like the writer who treat our current understanding of science as
if it were a religious text that is complete. Science is an ongoing process of
discovery and experimentation to try to further our understanding of the
world. The fact that it's wrong is kinda the point, because it motivates us to
challenge the assumptions underlying our theories.

3\. The story about his mother losing her job is likely true, but the way he
tells is seems like it purposely omits relevant information.

For example, he says his mother lost her job as a "social worker," but
according to this wedding announcement
([https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/style/alexandra-
roosevelt...](https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/style/alexandra-roosevelt-
wed-to-dr-ronald-w-dworkin.html?pagewanted=1)), she was the Director of Social
Services at Hillcrest Convalescent Hospital in Long Beach, CA.

I also checked the Federal Register for that date, and it seems that the
change also included an exception to the bachelors degree requirement,
provided the individual had two years experience. His claim in the article
that his mother had 20 years of experience should have been sufficient.

[http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/fedreg/fr054/fr054021/fr054021...](http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/fedreg/fr054/fr054021/fr054021.pdf)
Page 135

"In § 483.15(g), we are requiring that social services be provided by a
qualified individual defined as an individual with a bachelors degree in
social work or two years experience in a health care setting working directly
with patients or clients, or similar professional qualifications."

~~~
sgt101
For 1 and 3 I think that the question is do these examples (assuming that they
are real and true) support the argument made, and can we , do we, agree that
it is plausible and reasonable to assume that these are real and true. If you
doubt the notion that a social worker could be dismissed by this kind of data
driven change of policy then I would concede that damages the argument. This
is not a physics observation though (kinda the point here!) if you say that
there is one example where a social worker wasn't dismissed in this way then I
do not agree that is sufficient to derail the argument. On the other hand if
you show me one example of a situation where an atom decays differently and
produces behaviour not accounted for by the standard model I will happily
declare that the standard model is bust.

For 2; this is not about the contingent knowledge that science produces, it's
about the applicability of the process that produces that knowledge so
effectively in some domains. There are domains where it is not appropriate or
useful to think exclusively and uncritically in a scientific way, medicine and
economics being just two examples of domains in which uncritical application
of the scientific method and mindset have done significant harm to a
significant number of people.

~~~
admax88q
> if you say that there is one example where a social worker wasn't dismissed
> in this way then I do not agree that is sufficient to derail the argument.

Isn't that kind of ridiculous? If you say "Thing A happens! Here's an example
of when thing A happened," but it turns out that your example did not actually
happen, well it sure seems like your argument is likely not true, or that
thing A happens with such low frequency that I don't need to worry about it.

The argument is not how you phrased it "here's one time this thing didn't
happen," it's the fact that the example you provided did not happen. You have
every incentive to find real examples to support your case.

------
roenxi
Science is all about gathering data. Theorise all you like; but if the theory
can't be tied back to data at some point in time then it is at best maths or
philosophy.

Experiments and dispassionate language are about gathering clear data and
representing it accurately. Claiming that science is all about "clarity and
economy" is ironically unscientific - if nature is unclear and uneconomical
then good science has to represent that too. That part of science isn't taught
as much because it takes longer to communicate. Ignoring data, such as from
your senses, is also not a good scientific idea.

Being unscientific is ignoring data. There are different standards and a bit
of judgement about what quality of data and how relevant it is, but ultimately
the person with the most relevant and comprehensive data on a subject is the
'truest' scientist in a very meaningful way.

~~~
username90
Creating theories helps guide us towards collecting the right data. For
example nobody would have checked Mercury's precession unless Einstein had
suggested the theory of general relativity. That is what good science is,
first you predict and then verify, not first get data and then make models to
fit said data.

~~~
roenxi
Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out
truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon
studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are
approached.

There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse
predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by
guessing what data they needed to gather then did a curve fit doesn't somehow
make the laws invalid or the process particularly unscientific. If someone had
just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the
laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. What is
the alternative - claim they figured out universal truths in the wrong way and
ignore them until someone else figures it out?

If all the data fits the model then science has happened. Everything else is
quibbling how robust the data is (which is still important).

~~~
diffeomorphism
> someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing
> science.

No, the point is that is the wrong way around. Given any big amount of data
you are going to find something that fits, e.g
[https://www.xkcd.com/882/](https://www.xkcd.com/882/) . You are not
"predicting" anything if you come up with your fit afterwards.

You can however use the fit you got to try to predict the outcome of future
experiments. Checking that those experiments fit is science.

~~~
dariosalvi78
> Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits

Exactly, and that's the main problem at the base of all "data mining": it is
probable that you will find a model that will only work with your data. Take a
step outside and everything falls. You are basically giving a formula to
noise.

But often discoveries happen also by chance, so we shouldn't stop looking at
unexpected patterns. However, once you find one, you should create a theory to
explain it and setup a new experiment to confirm your theory. If you can....

------
GTP
This is the first time I see temperature defined as "an emergent property of
molecular motion". I agree that this definition is vague, but I've always seen
the temperature of an object defined as the medium kinetic energy of the
particles that form that object, and I don't see this definition as a vague
one at all. Now we should see if and how this medium kinetic energy can affect
a person's health, but this is a different problem (and one that has been
already studied and afaik produced not too vague results).

~~~
nighthawk648
Well I think it’s vague because it’s not accurately representing what is going
on. Is that average kinetic energy even distributed throughout the system or
can it be isolated to specific moving points of the system? Ie some particles
in the north most part of the system have this energy and are moving around
the system. Or even only the particles in the north have the energy.

Feynman said it best that with each question you keep going back and back and
back trying to exemplify through allusion?

Words will always fail to accurately describe the totality of the system and
even worse the math formulas don’t do any better especially when considering
statistics.

The average grades in my class is 80 but that doesn’t mean Ryan sitting in the
front row got a 100 and Andrew in the middle row got a 62. Maybe everyone did
get an 80, so then how can I describe not only in words but in function the
distinction between these two environments; ie the 100&62 and the all 80s
class?

~~~
atomack
I agree with GTP, the author's definition is vague. As GTP alludes to,
temperature is defined perfectly clearly in statistical mechanics, through the
sensitivity of the entropy to changes in the internal energy of a system
(though there are several, equivalent ways to express it). The author really
is incorrect to claim temperature is not a clearly understood concept

~~~
phkahler
>> The author really is incorrect to claim temperature is not a clearly
understood concept

Temperature is a very inexact model of the dynamics of a system. It does not
tell you anything about the energy of any individual atom. It's an aggregate
number.

Thermodynamics was an eye opening course for me. Its impressive how much real
engineering can be done with lumped parameter models. The author wants to
convey the limitations of that approach.

~~~
Konnstann
The limitations of that approach don't line up with the example. Someone
running a fever is running a fever because of an immune response to illness a
lot of the time, which is an aggregate response. The body has trillions of
cells, in the case of temperature you don't need a reading of each one.
Researchers sometimes do, and medical testing of methods, drugs, or devices is
a lot more scrutinized before doctors ever get access.

------
djokkataja
If we consider ourselves as computational systems, I think there's a
fundamental limit on our ability to understand ourselves. With an extremely
accurate model of our bodies, we could simulate ourselves and see what our
mental state would be like in the next moment. But that wouldn't be any use
from inside of a computational system, ie as a system of thinking, because the
total amount of state space needed to perform such a computation would by
necessity be greater than the amount of state space we have available for
thinking in any given moment. (We'd have to include the total state of what
we're already thinking about _plus_ all additional information describing our
current physical state.)

This gets exacerbated in two "softer" ways: our brains are nonlinear systems,
so trying to understand ourselves with just general principles can still
result in significant deviations from predictions (for example, a single
neuron could significantly affect our entire mental state in an un-accounted-
for way). Secondly, this doesn't even try to account for the rest of the
universe...

On the plus side, I think this implies some fundamental limits for any
artificial intelligence...?

------
_Nat_
The core argument seems to be that, since scientific analysis isn't a perfect
tool, we ought to hedge our bets by also acting based on emotional reasoning.

> The time has come to pause the second phase of the scientific revolution —
> to recover a more humble and skeptical approach to what the scientific
> method can achieve, to unite the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual
> dimensions of life, and to find our way back to our humanity.

~~~
mattigames
The number of red flags when people mention "spiritual" in any given argument
is about as bad as someone talking about the Earth being flat or vaccines
causing autism.

~~~
DrAwdeOccarim
I know, completely agree. But one thing that struck me the other day, I read a
tweet from some random person that got retweeted a bunch. It went something
like this, "Don't shame me for looking to natural remedies/my doctor rolls my
eyes when I tell him what my chiropractor suggests/my naturopath has never
rolled their eyes at something my doctor has said." It made me sad also
because so many people jumped in and said basically the same thing, how
"western medicine" has failed us".

~~~
vinceguidry
It's not a bad thing to point out the failures of modern medicine or to choose
to put your health in the hands of naturopaths. It is, indeed, effectively how
the human race got along until modern medicine.

The problem is in forcing your choices on others.

~~~
lostmsu
Forcing here is entirely via verbal induction of cognitive dissonance.

~~~
vinceguidry
Then it's not really forcing. Cognitive dissonance != coercion.

------
Merrill
Science is about developing models of reality that allow us to make better
than random predictions. A model that says that unkempt hair in elderly female
patients is a signal of distress is a scientific model. It is a probabilistic
model based on some series of past observations. With enough pictures and
medical histories, you could probably train an AI to make the prediction as
well as the doctor.

~~~
phkahler
>> With enough pictures and medical histories, you could probably train an AI
to make the prediction as well as the doctor.

The only way to train the AI would be to give it the same human experience -
to make an artificial human to walk around and interact with people in similar
situations. Even then, not everyone will make the same discoveries about hair
and wellness.

The patient making a general statement about not feeling well is something
that may not even come out with an AI. That kind of comment seems more likely
to be made in a "real" conversation between two people.

This desire to quickly move to "train an AI" seems to miss the entire point of
the article.

------
hoseja
Oh, it's a _doctor_.

~~~
olooney
It's worse than that:

> Ronald W. Dworkin is a physician _AND_ political scientist. (emphasis mine.)

He's also written an essay entitled "Where Science Ends and Religion Begins"
and a self-published book called "How Karl Marx Can Save American Capitalism."

If I was writing a novel and wanted to make it absolutely clear a given
character should not be taken seriously, I would have tone it down a little to
make it believable.

------
akavel
I believe the article is dangerously drawing incorrect conclusions. In
particular, from the cases shown, I'd say it's rather that there's a lot in
the world that we currently are unable to measure (esp. in human behaviors and
mind). That's where science indeed and emphatically _has_ limits, and that's
why medicine doctors _must not_ rely _purely_ on science. And why anyone who
tries to ignore people's descriptions of how they feel is not a great doctor,
I think. Although it's super hard to practice good medicine outside what can
be measured... especially compared to how where science really works it's so
much easier... it may have spoiled some doctors... And it doesn't help that
there seems to be a "science crisis", with high profile journals eagerly
accepting crappy papers that are falsely "proving" various stuff, and
otherwise scientists falsifying their findings, tempted by wrongly aligned
incentives. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater by saying "all
science is crap" through some romantic argument that "it's distant from the
people" is just leading us all straight back to charlatanerie :( bloodletting
and all such stuff... :(

~~~
sgt101
I don't think the article is saying "all science is crap" it is saying "we
need to think critically about what we are doing and how we are doing it
because we can see flaws in the current way of working"

~~~
akavel
Hm, sorry, I overreacted somewhat. I do agree with the conclusion that the
article presents, that scientific method brings great value, but that it's not
enough, because there are many places we are not able to apply it. I'm however
afraid of some arguments and claims the author uses to support their thesis,
such as: _" [person X] was a victim of the scientific method"._ They were not
a victim of the scientific method, but of people who abused the scientific
method. The conclusion is correct that the output of the scientific method as
is practiced in our imperfect world, by imperfect people, cannot be zealously
believed without scrutiny. (Scrutiny is in fact one of the pillars of the
method!) But saying: _" a victim of the scientific method"_ instead of: _" a
victim of_ errors in application _of the scientific method "_ is reverse,
misleading and dangerous.

In other words: if someone doesn't follow, say, fire prevention guidelines,
and starts a fire, it is misleading and socially dangerous to say that a
person burnt by the fire was a victim of the fire prevention guidelines!

~~~
atomack
I agree with you completely. I agree with the conclusion, but the way the
author gets there just looks wrong to me. I feel the scientific method is
mischaracterised throughout, for example when the author says it's one of
"intentional ignorance" where scientists only look at certain facts an leave
out others, the point is they aim to include as many as they need to capture
the phenomena they're looking at.

Elsewhere, the article's just wrong. It claims "the concept of temperature
lacks clear meaning" amongst scientists. This isn't true: temperature has a
perfectly clear meaning through statistical mechanics.

I came away with the feeling the author doesn't really understand the science
under discussion, which is frustrating because I share the conclusion and I
think it's an interesting question

------
tempguy9999
I don't like this kind of writing. Even the first para falls apart at the
first poking.

> In the modern world, science has become the ultimate guide for describing
> reality.

I'm an atheist but I recognise that religion does exactly that function for
the religious.

> and with such an appearance of impartiality, that we feel satisfied with its
> answers and seek nothing more

So climate change is fully agreed upon by everyone and anti-vaxxers don't
exist. Sure.

~~~
AstralStorm
Exactly the main problem for some is that science almost never fully explains
anything - it's a process.

People like to have solid explanations or at least excuses, and crackpots go
further in this need than others.

As usual, if you have better method than experiment, measurement and
observation, describe it in detail. Science is not just numbers and words are
quantifiable too, if not accurately. The condition is that the results have to
be attempting objectivity.

If you have a beef with using statistics for particular cases, say so and
propose a better approach. (Many people feel they're special or above average.
Wobegon effect also known as illusory superiority or inferiority.)

~~~
tempguy9999
You misread my post. I agree with you completely (excepting the snide Wobegone
effect comment, which I had to look up but at least I learnt something today).

