
Science vs Reason - shawndumas
http://adam.heroku.com/past/2009/11/24/science_vs_reason/
======
hugh3
_For most of history, reason was the only known or accepted way to arrive at
truths about the world._

I disagree. Most knowledge has always come from "science". You know it's
raining outside because you looked and it was. You know there's a snake under
that rock because you looked under that rock and there was a snake there.
Moreover, all human skills and crafts from fire-making to cathedral-building
must have progressed through a process of trial and error, which is just a
non-formalized experiment.

This wasn't as prestigious as knowledge acquired through reason, though, since
it doesn't take a genius to figure things out just by looking at 'em. Only
when science became formalised and difficult to understand did it start to
gain prestige.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Observation isn't science. This is the fundamental difference between
Engineering and Science.

In Engineering, I want to solve this one challenge; I don't want to generalize
to a whole class of examples or the whole Universe.

In Science, I make a hypothesis, usually based on prior observations, I
conduct controlled experiments, not just observing the World around me, and
from the resulting data, I derive a theory.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"Observation isn't science."_

Fundamentally, science is simply this:

Observe. Theorize. Repeat.

Many of the observations in science take place in a controlled, repeatable
laboratory setting. Many do not; astronomers can't exactly drag other galaxies
into the lab.

~~~
brudgers
_Fundamentally, science is simply this: Observe. Theorize. Repeat._

Intervention via experiment is another fundamental part of science.

~~~
lotharbot
"experiment" is just a formal, controlled method for gathering observations.

~~~
brudgers
Consider an experiment which tests the effects of a chemical on mice.

The scientist purposely exposes the test group to the chemical and actively
controls the environment of both the test and control group.

Experiment is intervention even above the quantum scale.

------
pc
_"This is easily disproved by dropping a heavy object and a light object of
the same shape from a high place and seeing which hit the ground first. Yet it
took over a thousand years before anyone thought to try this experiment."_

Not to be too pedantic about it, but the reason the belief survived for so
long is precisely because it _isn't_ easily disproved. If you drop a heavy
object and a light object of the same size from a high place, the heavy one
will absolutely hit the ground first. (Try it!)

To see that this must be the case, imagine that they hit terminal velocity.
(Formula for this is at
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/2/2/2/222c90eb77c221a2c6b10...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/2/2/2/222c90eb77c221a2c6b103fd0f6b27cb.png))
All variables but m are the same in each case.

To get the "right" result, you have to be fairly thoughtful (e.g., put dense
balls on an inclined plane).

~~~
Avshalom
_All variables but m are the same in each case._

m and A.

As well, given two rocks of similar density but different mass (assuming m*g
>> F_d for both) it generally takes a pretty high place (that is: higher than
the couple stories that they had access to) for differences in acceleration or
V_t to matter enough that ancient Greeks would have actually noticed.

~~~
pc
A = projected area, which is the same if our objects are the "same shape".

As for the rocks, you're applying benefit of hindsight. Say I show you a
balloon filled with air and a balloon filled with water falling at obviously
different speeds. Now, you have to explain _that_ with this odd theory of
"everything falls at the same speed" -- not the other way around. In the real
world, it is evidently true that heavier objects fall slower, and any better
theory that disagrees must explain this (e.g., posit the existence of air
resistance) before its new predictions matter.

------
m3mb3r
I agree with his larger point that being purely scientific is impractical in
situations when there are too many unknowns and data is hard to collect. So,
sometimes one needs to go with their gut feeling or intuition.

I might be nitpicking here but intuitions are not always based on reasons.
Some of our intuitions are based on reasons (eg: past experiences) and some
are not (eg: preferences, prejudices.)

>> The measurements you choose (which will necessarily be >> somewhat
arbitrary) will shape what you make, and you >> will most likely end up making
the wrong thing.

Failure here is no more likely than failure after making a decision by
intuition because we are still juggling with the unknowns.

------
Dove
I think both science and logic (what the article calls Reason) are poor tools
for studying complex systems--things like software and people.

The guess-and-check methodology of science works great when one is studying
simple, consistent, statistically tractible behavior. Ask a scientist to
characterize gravity, and he does a great job. But ask a scientist to
characterize something complex--e.g., _MS Word_ \--something with a lot of
inputs and outputs, complex behavior which changes in subtle ways in different
circumstances--and he'll have a tough time with it. The reason is that the
models of science converge inexorably and certainly, but slowly; too slowly to
be really useful when studying complex things. The scientist may be able to
characterize a few simple features of something complex, but it'll be a long
time before he can totally describe the object's behavior.

In the case of complex systems, my preferred epistemic tool is revelation.
Read the source code. Ask the person what they're thinking. Peek under the
hood. Ask the designer what he was trying to accomplish.

Logic in particular serves an interesting purpose in complex systems. One
usually thinks of logic as a tool to go from secure axioms to secure
conclusions, but in the case of an unknown system, the axioms and models and
definitions are what we're trying to discover. Hence, my primary use of logic
when studying a complex system (e.g., while debugging software) is as a tool
to highlight paradox. That is, to go from clearly-impossible conclusions to
unstated false assumptions, or better definitions. Not, "The source code shows
nothing changing the value of this variable, hence something else must be
causing the bug," but "The source code shows nothing changing the value of
this variable, yet the value does change, hence my assumptions about what can
change a variable's value must be wrong."

Of course, when one is studying something opaque and complex, such as a market
or biological system, revelation is not available as a tool. But one should
still retain respect for the limitations of science as a methodology in that
situation, and respect the complexity of reality in contrast with the
simplicity of science's results.

~~~
Dove
While we're talking about unusual epistemic tools, emotion has a really bad
reputation, but what people are criticizing is not emotion as a properly used
tool, but its improper use.

The improper, oft-criticized use of emotion is saying, "I _feel_ X is true" or
"I _want_ X to be true", hence "I believe X." This is clearly unreliable.

But consider the role emotion does properly play. "This is surprising," "Huh,
that's funny," "I wonder why..." and "That can't be right." These positive and
negative reactions to data are _feelings_. Curiosity, fascination, frustration
at the impossible, the pain of unresolved paradox. Judging knowledge to be
either trivia essentially interesting--final value judgements. These are
emotions that push us to apply other epistemic tools to the right questions in
the right ways.

I once suffered a mental illness that made it difficult for me to feel certain
emotions. One of the most fascinating results of the experience was the degree
to which my ability to _reason_ degraded. Unable to distinguish the
interesting from the uninteresting, the fascinating from the trivial,
unmotivated to pursue and resolve impossibilities, I was unable to undertake
even simple logical tasks such as debugging.

There is a popular notion that a disinterested party will provide the most
accurate account of a phenomenon, the object being to avoid bias. I think this
is only part of the story. True, an interested party fall pray to phenomena
like confirmation bias. But a disinterested party will fall prey to analytical
apathy, happy with slapdash, second-rate models and explanations. I believe
the best work comes from a dialogue between people with diverse yet healthy
emotional attachments to a problem and a commitment to intellectual honesty.

~~~
ronin358
>I once suffered a mental illness that made it difficult for me to feel
certain emotions. One of the most fascinating results of the experience was
the degree to which my ability to reason degraded.

This helps reinforce a thought I've been playing around with since my 20's. It
seems quite ridiculous to me that reason is set in conflict with emotion (a
remnant, I believe, of the historical conflict of science contra religion in
the west). It is much more likely that the ability to reason is a subset of
emotion, i.e., reasoning is nothing more than the development of particular
emotions working in concert. This conception is more aligned with how
evolution actually operates (building upon the processes of before) rather
than having to explain a "magical" reason which just appears out of nowhere in
the human mind and dominates the animal nature.

Just a thought...I hope you were able to deal with your illness well.

------
Tichy
Is the definition of science really that narrow? Surely doing logical
deductions is also science? It doesn't mean you are correct because you can
never verify the basic assumptions, but it can still lead to valuable
insights.

How does a scientist build a house? Since apparently he can not calculate the
statical properties in advance, the only option seems to be to build a random
house and then measure if it crumbles down or not? That doesn't seem very
effective. In fact, several houses would have to be built to get statistical
significance. Then nobody would be allowed to move in for 10 years to be
reasonable sure it is stable. As soon as somebody moved in, the conditions of
the experiment would change and the house might still topple down. I can't see
a way for this to work. If science is like that, it is useless.

~~~
hugh3
Exactly. Real knowledge is almost always derived from a combination of science
and reason.

A scientist building a house might use an experiment to find what kind of
mortar is best for holding one brick to another brick. He must, however, use
reason to deduce that a mortar that can hold two bricks together is also
capable of holding a thousand bricks together.

Then he can combine it with a bunch of other observations about the world...
for instance that mortar which works fine on a Sunday will also work fine on a
Monday. How do we know this? Well, because no other material has been observed
to change its properties depending on the day of the week, and because there
is no logical connection between physical properties of materials and the
arbitrary cycling of the calendar which is a human invention. On the other
hand, some materials _do_ have different properties in December vs July (eg
the water in the lake might completely change state depending on where you
live). Anyway, I seem to have gone off on a tangent but basically, observation
and reasoning are inextricably intertwined if you want to actually figure out
anything about the state of the world.

------
baddox
The author confuses science and observation. Science is the practice of
deriving knowledge from observation.

------
frossie
See, the real problem here is that the OP thinks that math and science are
distinct.

I certainly am of the opinion that they are not, which makes the whole
argument very weak, since reason -> logic -> mathematics -> science.

[Edit: Perhaps the downvoters have tried to teach quantum mechanics as a
subject distinct from mathematics and physics and succeeded, in which case I
am most interested in your arguments. Personally I have only managed it as two
sides of the same coin]

------
zb
This post was rubbish last time it appeared here too.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=960662>

------
javert
This article is wrong.

The author is conflating two philosophical schools of thought, _Rationalism_
and _Empiricism_ , with two other concepts (with a complex relationship),
_reason_ and _science_.

Point 1: The author is defining reason incorrectly. He states that reason is
"internally generated," that it starts with "your internal sense for what is
right and pure." The correct definition (taken from a dictionary) is: the
mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.
The difference is that the author claims that reason is basically
internal/introspection, whereas in actuallity, reasoning requires both
internal mental processes (such as recalling concepts you've formed
previously) _and extrospection_ (observing the world around you, learning from
it, etc.). The Rationalist school of philosophical thinkers (e.g. Descartes)
_argued_ that that extrospection is fundamentally flawed or not trustworthy,
so the definition the author uses is actually, basically, the rationalists'
position. (Later philosophers like Kant picked up with this and ran with it,
claiming that since reason is faulty, you must resort to _faith_. Indeed, the
rationalists were typically highly religious, although basically everyone was
at that time.) I, personally, disagree very strongly with that position, and I
suspect that many HN readers also disagree with it. So be careful not to
accidentally "accept" this position as a valid definition.

Point 2: Empiricism is a philosophical school that was formed in reaction to
the Rationalists. Empiricist philosophers pointed out that the Rationalists
were incapable of achieving true knowledge about the world by rejecting
perception, and insisted that we just go by experimentation. However, they
accepted some of the Rationalist viewpoints about the way reason works, and
thus were very skeptical of reasoning, prefering "hard data" and the like to
explain things. (This is ironic because validating a philosophical claim would
require reason, so you can't use philosophy to reject reason without
contradicting yourself, but I digress.)

Point 3: The actual relationship between science and reason is not "science
vs. reason" or "science OR reason", as the author states. It's "you need to
use reason to do science." Science is a kind of technical study of the way the
world works that uses certain techniques; that's all science means. There's
things you can do using reason that aren't _technical_ enough to be called
science (like paying your taxes or thinking about philosophy). But there's no
science you can do without using reason.

Conclusion: The claim that reason and reality are fundamentally divided is the
root premise of the author's blog post. This was Kant's position. Kant's main
goal was to state that reason isn't really useful, so we all have to go on
faith; he was trying to uphold "God, faith, and immortality" (to cite his most
famous quotation). That gives me the creeps. I strongly disagree with Kant.

~~~
brudgers
Since the author uses Kant as an example, the rationalist/empiricist
distinction doesn't really apply.

Synthetic a priori knowledge of mathematics and geometry is the starting point
for Kant's reconciliation of the two schools carried out in Critique of Pure
Reason.

Kant did not advocate taking anything on faith in the sense you are using the
term.

What Kant did was point out that all empirical knowledge is mediated by the
conditions of human experience (i.e. space and time), and that we should not
confuse empirical facts with the ding an sich (thing in itself).

Kant's most famous quote is along the lines of "So act that your principle of
action might safely be made a law for the whole world."

It usually leads to people justifying situational ethics by mentioning Nazis.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"Kant did not advocate taking anything on faith in the sense you are using
> the term."_

Exactly right. The sense in which the parent uses the term _"faith"_ is a
fairly modern invention. It's only over the last hundred years or so that
"faith" has been thought of as the opposite of reason.

In ancient Jewish and Christian writings, "faith" is typically used to mean
"acting on something you know to be true", especially in the face of difficult
circumstances. It's typically contrasted with _forgetfulness_ or _fickleness_.
In this usage, "faith" is the triumph of reason, memory/history, and will over
the emotions and difficulties that come with temporary adversity.

In Kant's usage, "faith" is sort of an extension of reason that also includes
elements of willpower and morality. It's pretty close to the ancient
definition, though it also played an important part in the shift from the
ancient definition to the modern one.

~~~
javert
> In ancient Jewish and Christian writings, "faith" is typically used to mean
> "acting on something you know to be true", especially in the face of
> difficult circumstances.

You're talking about ancient _religious_ writings. Religious people have a
marked tendency of incorrectly conflating faith and reason. Clearly, whatever
they meant by "faith," it had a strong _mystical_ (i.e. otherworldy, not based
in this reality) slant.

The exact same point goes for Kant. You call his "reason" the following:
"reason that also includes elements of _willpower_ and _morality_ " (which
does hint at Nazi ideology). I call Kant's "reason" the following: a flawed,
mistaken, weakoned account of reason, plus some mystical aspects to
compensate.

~~~
lotharbot
> "Clearly, whatever they meant by "faith," it had a strong mystical (i.e.
> otherworldy, not based in this reality) slant."

A small but vocal subset of religious people _within the last 100 years_
(particularly fundamentalist evangelicals) have a marked tendency of treating
faith as a strongly mystical thing which is opposed to, and better than,
reason. But within most of the rest of Judeo-Christian history and tradition
(including most modern Jewish and Christian intellectuals), faith has been
thought of in the way I described it: the triumph of reason and experience and
willpower, in opposition to fickleness and forgetfulness and emotion.

The only ancient _mysticism_ I know of surrounding Jewish or Christian ideas
of faith is the idea that a person might have a supernaturally strong will,
and therefore may be able to continue acting according to reason through
remarkably dire circumstances. The concept of faith itself, within those
traditions, is not mystical or supernatural.

Kant's _morality_ has mystical aspects, and therefore, by association, so does
his _faith_ \-- as I said, it was a step toward the modern definition (and it
may very well be flawed.) Ayn Rand's definition is particularly 20th-century
influenced: _"blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance
induced by feeling in the absence of evidence or proof."_ You will not find
this mystical, blind conception of faith prior to about a hundred years ago;
it is not what was meant by Kant, Augustine, Paul, or Moses.

