Comment on Finish him. đȘ
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
Seems like a very elitist and gatekeeping perspective, specially considering how closed off the academic world is for the rest of society in some places, never mind expensive to publish. Itâs also basically saying that if you, say, come up with a groundbreaking hypothesis, that thatâs not science until you get a research paper out, and that might require mastery that goes beyond the hypothesis.
Sure, this might stop most of the looney theories from being called Science, but it also prevents public access in favor of those with the means and capacity to sustain an ever more complex geocentric model of the times, from which any divergent theories must generally part from or involve renown in. You think the person who made that hypothesis will die bitter and forgotten? Is that the general view of people who are not Scientists by Scientists? They might know whatâs up, and might not want the gatekeeper to take all the credit, as is often the case in academic circles. Perhaps it is science itself that might stagnate by stalling until it itself is able to discover these hypothesis under the properly accepted emeritus when they are eventually able to get to it.
Mostly itâs just looney theories, but given Musk is involved, I imagine this discussion involves proprietary patents that do have a lot of research involved and under peer review of teams under non-disclosure agreements. Then again, itâs Musk, could be mostly looney theories too.
Science is a social activity that human beings engage in (emphasis on social). Science is not the same as fact-finding, or philosophizing, or being creative, or reasoning. Itâs a very specific social method of peer review that serves to generate shared public knowledge.
These are technical terms we have refined over hundreds of years.
Science is a particular method of peer review�
This thread prompted me to revisit what I think âscienceâ means, and Iâve been through a number of different Wikipedia pages, dictionary definitions, etc. but that inquiry just reinforced that this âscience == participation in the institutions/communities of scienceâ idea just doesnât seem to hold up.
Where does this idea come from? I keep seeing this âscience is this very particular thing, itâs not just forming falsifiable hypotheses and then testing them,â but then when I look it up, the sources I find say exactly the opposite.
I think this theory of science is so prevalent in this thread because you have to adhere to it in order to dunk on Elon Musk.
I doubt most of these ardents would have taken this position in a random thread about sea cucumbers or something.
I like dunking on Musk as much as the next guy, but the amount of double-think people are willing to commit to to do it is always pretty off-putting to me.
Itâs like every ArsTechnica article on SpaceX has people come out of the woodwork to say that their accomplishments are trash and not even worth reporting because of Elon, which, like, you have to be delusional if you donât think SpaceX is absolutely killing it.
See any textbook on the Philosophy of Science.
The irony of plebs arguing among themselves over the definition of science without any notion of the preceding centuries of debate is absolutely delicious, btw.
Oh thanks for editing in an example-- that wasnât there when I wrote my reply, but what did you think of the other Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy links I provided?
That article that you linked (Scientific Pluralism) is an interesting read, but itâs more about the importance of diversity in the scientific community⊠it doesnât really address the Demarcation Problem, and it doesnât discuss peer review or anything as far as I could tell.
Mentioning in passing that âscience is socialâ (which is IMO uncontroversially true in a non-demarcation way, btw) is a few shades away from âany textbook will tell you that science is a particular process of peer review.â I think the Science and Pseudo-Science entry that I linked is more germane.
Your desire to collapse all fact-finding into the concept of âscienceâ
Well thatâs a reach. I had to buy a new laptop charger and find facts about what voltage, etc. I needed⊠I certainly donât consider that fact-finding exercise to be science, and I donât think I said anything to suggest that.
But okay, I donât have a textbook handy, but letâs see what we can find out about the Philosophy of Science:
Seems to pretty clearly indicate âlots of interesting and useful ideas, no consensus.â Peer review mentioned 0 times. The âDefining Scienceâ section links to a page for the demarcation problem, so letâs go look at that.
âThe debate continues after more than two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields.â
And the article basically continues to that effect, IMO: Demarcation is difficult, unclear, and there is no consensus. Peer review mentioned 0 times.
Maybe itâs just Wikipedia that has this misconception. Letâs check some other sources.
âDespite this diversity of opinion, philosophers of science can largely agree on one thing: there is no single, simple way to define science!â
Re: Demarcation problem:
âModern philosophers of science largely agree that there is no single, simple criterion that can be used to demarcate the boundaries of science.â
Starting to sound familiar. Lots of opinions from Aristotle to Cartwright, none of whom highlight peer review or acceptance by the institutions as criteria. The page does talk about empiricism, parsimony, falsification, etc. though, consistent with other sources.
This one is simple:
Our knowledge of the natural world and the process through which that knowledge is built. The process of science relies on the testing of ideas with evidence gathered from the natural world. Science as a whole cannot be precisely defined but can be broadly described by a set of key characteristics. To learn more, visit A science checklist.
Letâs look at the checklist.
The page heading sounds pretty prescriptive, and thatâs about the closest I can find that claims âif itâs not peer reviewed, itâs not science.â The body (IMO rightfully) describes the importance of community involvement in science, but doesnât say anything like âitâs not science unless it involves the community.â
Take this excerpt about Gregor Mendel:
However, even in such cases [as Gregor Mendelâs], research must ultimately involve the scientific community if that work is to have any impact on the progress of science.
So yes, sharing his findings with the world was why it was able to have an impact, but I donât think itâs reasonable to interpret that he wasnât doing science while he was working in isolation, or that it only became science retroactively after it was a) shared, and b) accepted.
Letâs take a look at another textbook and see what it says:
This chapter suggests that you can take two approaches to demarcation:
For theories - Theyâre clear that there are no clear universal demarcation criteria, but offer these suggestions:
For changes - This pertains specifically to whether a change to âa scientific mosaicâ is scientific or not, which necessarily pertains to a scientific community. But Iâd argue that this analysis seems pretty clearly downstream of a priori participation in a scientific community, not attempting to define science as such.
Didnât read the whole textbook, so I might still be missing something, but the focus in the chapter is still definitely on the properties of the inquiry, not on the scientific institutions surrounding it.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Also looked at the entries for Scientific Method and Pseudo-science, which seem to be consistent with the other sources
So Iâm still getting a really strong signal that:
So⊠Do I still seem misguided? Are Wikipedia and UC Berkeley and this textbook called âIntroduction to History and Philosophy of Scienceâ and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy all also misguided? Or am I just interpreting them wrong?
Like I started this investigation feeling 100% ready to learn that my concept of âwhat Science isâ was misguided⊠But idk, I did a bunch of reading based on your suggestion, and I gotta say I feel pretty guided right now.
If you wanna throw something else to read my way though, Iâll happily have a look at it.
Everyone is always a fan of going over to a dictionary and making only one definition of a word âthe true oneâ because it falls in line with their particular argument of the moment.
We can use any sound or collection of letters to describe any phenomenon you like, and Iâm not against using âscienceâ to mean âempirical inquiryâ or whatever. Just keep in mind youâll be referring to something different than philosophers of science who use the word. This is why jargon exists, and perhaps âscienceâ is a bit too colloquial for technical definitions.
Itâs free to publish.
This is why the machine learning community will go through ArXiv for pretty much everything. We value open and honest communication and abhor knowledge being locked down. This is why he views things this way. Because heâs involved in a community that values real science.
ArXiv is free and all modern science should be open. There were reasons for publications in the past, since knowledge dissemination was hard, and they facilitated it. Now the publications just gatekeep.
ArXiv, bioRxiv and cyberleninka.
never mind expensive to publish.
Academic world is very not happy about it either. Academic world hates publishing corporations.
See lawsuits against ResearchGate, lawsuits against Sci-Hub and lawsuits against many students and academics that shared scientific papers.
absentbird@lemm.ee âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
It doesnât need to be published in a scientific journal. Publication in journals is the most streamlined way to go through the process, ur you could publish your hypothesis and methodology to a blog and get the same benefits.
Even patents need to be published. Publication is how discoveries are shared and verified.
Kwakigra@beehaw.org âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
I often fantasize about guerilla science done by serious people outside of official channels. While there are plenty of crackpots who desire this for political reasons, I would really like to see an open-source âjournalâ by and for those scientists who are in it purely for science and have become disenchanted with the current model which is compromised in some ways that prevents progress on certain concepts.
howrar@lemmy.ca âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
Thatâs how things work in the AI community. Publications all go through various conferences and journals that are free to submit to. In many of these avenues, if you submit something, the cost is to get a certain number of papers reviewed (not necessarily doing it yourself, but you have to find someone capable of doing it). The publications are then made freely available for anyone to read. Everything is organized by the research community for the benefit of that same community.
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
To be fair, it would probably be full of crackpot theories, which would make anything released on it a crackpot theory by association. Unless it involves a heavy but fair dose of educated moderation.
Kwakigra@beehaw.org âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
Not necessarily. Just because my theoretical journal wouldnât be subject to the existing academic establishment it does not mean it would accept everything. This journal would be more rigorous because it would be composed exclusively by fidelity to the scientific process. I am not anti-academia, only acknowledging that the existing structures are so large and composed of so many egos that there is necessarily over-focus on some areas and under-focus on other areas as a consequence of the structure. My pretend journal wouldnât be for everyone rejected from those institutions for explicit reasons of incompetence, it would be for those scientists who want to pool resources to do work that would not be easy to support on the current academic model.
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee âš5â© âšweeksâ© ago
You would still need to be recognized before someone more recognizable takes it and sticks their name on it the moment they see any validity in it. Plagiarism isnât a myth, and good luck getting recognition even just for a hypothesis without a master and just as a hobbyist.
Academics want a well prepared research paper without evidencing crude freshman mistakes, and by its nature yours might be far cruder than academic standards. Even if you do end up releasing it and if it does by some miracle get acknowledged, it will by its nature take longer and run more risks from a lack of peer review that might discard it due to simple but correctable mistakes while running the risk of getting it plagiarized by someone capable of fixing it up, and no one is going to take a random blog as the proof of a preexisting theory over a research paper with a name with some masters to it that claims the idea was entirely theirs shortly thereafter. And if all you care about is the study of reality and science, why risk the heartbreak of getting personally involved?
Patents donât need to be a full comprehensive research pieces, they just have to be enough to define and identify particular intellectual property.