I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends.
Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science.
For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over.
And it happens for this that are much less certain, too.
I think scientism is best summed up as the fallacious idea that science is a priesthood rather than a process. Some people really struggle separating the politically neutral idea of using the scientific method to inform policy with the politically charged idea that a scientific technocracy is a desirable state of affairs in my opinion, a problem that's only got worse in recent years.
Science is a powerful contributor to the sum of human knowledge, but it's absolutely not the only pillar of human knowledge and there's a lot of people who think that scientific advancement means we can just do away with philosophy, politics, and other fields like that altogether, as though one day with the right equations all of ethics or culture is just going to pop out of physics. These people don't just throw the baby but the whole nursery out with the bathwater in my opinion!
Thank you for answering. I agree that "scientific consensus" is an elusive thing in practice: interpretations change, new data comes in, sometimes it turns out data was held back or falsified. On top of that, what is consensus and what isn't is often distorted in the public view. There is no established quorum process (which is a good thing).
> For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity
There is no scientific consensus on the mechanism that is causing gravity, at least not on the level you suggest. There is consensus on how gravity behaves, in regimes we can currently observe.
The problem with suggesting "some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism" is that you can generate arbitrary many such mechanisms, because there aren't good options yet for experimental corroboration. We all have favorite ideas for how gravity might work behind the scenes, and it absolutely is fun to speculate. But if your goal is to actually make a contribution, your need to come up with an idea that can be falsified.
In my opinion you are completely within your rights to make claims that contradict empirical findings or theoretical frameworks. There often are holes in our knowledge, and continuously re-examining established science is absolutely part of the process. Of course, the burden of proof is on you in that case. But science is absolutely meant to be a living process.
> Some people believe in science. [...] This is actually the opposite of science.
Adding to this, belief in science actually means believing in the _process_ of scientific discovery, i.e. believing that _eventually_ the "truth" will be discovered.
As you correctly point out, questioning the current consensus is a fundamental part of the process, but not all challenges to scientific knowledge are legitimate. Many (most?) concerns you hear in the mainstream media are not legitimate but based on logical fallacies, strawmen, ad hominem attacks, etc. I found this list [1] quite useful to guard against such unfounded attacks.
I don't think science is about "the truth", as the scientific process shouldn't allow definitive claims. Rather, there should always be an understanding that whatever is being said comes with a probability of being true. We can make a prediction and assign a likelihood the prediction will be accurate, but we can never say "this is the truth" using the scientific method. There are going to be things that are so close to true that they can be taken at face value, but science doesn't determine what that level is, that's a personal decision. It's up to the individual to determine what they accept as truth given the data they have, including nonscientific sources of information, such as expert opinion. Science has to reject expert opinion as a source of information, and yet the individual ( including scientists when not performing science) must accept expert opinion in order to live their lives.
Since is not about finding "the truth" as you put it, but it is about finding the current, most fitting truth. As circumstances change "the truth" also changes, as such science will never be able to find anything but "the current best bet".
The idea that science is about finding the "less wrong", rather than the absolute truth, is actually fairly recent, only really becoming mainstream during the 20th century.
Sure. I just don't think it's accurate to think science comes to a definitive conclusion. It is a process of constant discovery and coming closer and closer to the truth, but will never arrived at a final answer.
> They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus".
Doubt based on what? This is the classic “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”. The scientific consensus absolutely can be wrong on something, but people that read a few Facebook articles and think they’re argument holds any weight whatsoever deserve to be shamed. You want to question the scientific consensus? Conduct a study or get in a lab, have it peer reviewed. If you want to say “I think the major experts and accumulated understanding in this field are wrong ” then you are going to have to bring more to the table than some random doubts and suggestions.
> For instance, the Theory of Gravity.
Wonderful example. As almost every physicist has stories of people that send them their pet theories about theoretical physics models. Have they done mathematical models? Of course not. But they are sure their theory is going to crack this unifying theory wide open. Maybe ask yourself “if I disagree with all the experts, have they all misunderstood what I am seeing or do I not understand the subject as much as I think I do?” Shame is the cousin to humility.
A law in science isn't used the same as how you are using the word. A law isn't a really good theory. Laws are mathematical predictions based on data collected.
Often it's just an equation that fits some data for a range of values.
Almost all laws are found in the physical sciences. Some examples are: Ohm's Law, Universal Gravitation, Coulomb's law, and Kirchhoff's laws. None of these are perfect descriptions of reality.
"theory" and "law" are synonyms in science. the difference is that a law is a simple one line general statement (F=gMm/r^2) and a theory is fleshed out model with details.
"Theory" does NOT mean "unproven". That's "conjecture".
Gotta ask: is this gravity example real? You really have friends who have some sort of mystical commitment to the idea that gravity is somehow entirely epistemologically self-grounded?
Almost literally every physicist since Newton has believed that there is some sort of underlying theory which explains gravity. Its hard to imagine how anyone could get the idea that the matter was somehow settled.
Most people think we understand gravity better than we actually do.
To compare it to an actual hot-button issue, we know more about the mechanisms of evolution than we do about the mechanisms of gravity.
We know kind of how it behaves at various scales, but we don't know why it does. We don't know what makes gravity. Why do denser objects have more of it. Why is it weaker than other forces, yet felt on larger scales? Does it actually exist or is it an emergent property kind of like the centripetal force (or is it centrifugal, I keep getting those flopped)?
>For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over.
What a strange example. Has this ever happened to you? Additionally, does General Relativity count as "an underlying mechanism for gravity"?
We have pretty reasonable models for how gravity might work.
A suggestion that there may be a yet undiscovered mechanism for gravity isn't useful to science. It's imaginative perhaps, but without a piece of math, or a suggestion for an experiment by which to test it, it's just science fiction. Ideas are cheap.
Anecdotally, I've seen this too. I think people look for something to believe in, and they take almost everything a celebrity scientist they agree with tweet or share as gospel without much scrutiny of the research. It's ridiculous
Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science.
For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over.
And it happens for this that are much less certain, too.