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Does anyone remember all the bogus studies that showed smoking was healthy?
Let’s also not forget that Scientists are also humans. Humans with their own beliefs and biases which do get transferred into studies. Peer review can help reduce that but since peers are also humans with their own biases, but also common biases shared amongst humans it’s not bulletproof either.
There will always be some level of bias which clouds judgement, or makes you see/think things that aren’t objectively true, sometimes it comes with good intention, others not so much. It’s always there though, and probably always will be. The key to good science is making it as minimal as possible.
Science doesn’t change just because some groups try to use it to forward an agenda.
ignoring the other examples you’ve been given: it absolutely does even when it goes well. The scientific method is literally based on “other people must change and refine this, one person’s work is not immutable nor should be taken as gospel”
Also what science is has changed. Science used to be natural philosophy and thus was combined with other non-scientific (to us) disciplines. Social sciences have only been around 200 years tops.
Some would debate that applied mathematics is science, others would say all sociology isn’t science.
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But it does. Cigarettes were healthy and climate change didn’t exist 50 years ago
There was never any science saying “cigarettes are healthy”.
Neither of those things were backed by science. Confusing convincing lobbying with science is a problem today was it was then.
I mean those things didn’t change, it was just about how research was manipulated by money and human biases.
Yes but science is a process, not a thing, and that process is corruptible.
There is a differentiation between the natural world for how it’s made and the human process that quantifies that knowledge.
Science has always changed, just like human culture did
The truth doesn’t change. Scientific consensus does. Scientific consensus has been wrong on countless things. After all, science is about getting things a little less wrong every time.
What it is vs how it’s (ab)used
Or “real science” versus “imaginary science”
Bonus round : “real science has never been tried”
One more to fill the bingo card
scientists are like gold prospectors dependent on assayers for their continuing in the mine
If you catch your friends using Science as a religion, tell them they’re not a skeptic, they’re a cunt.
Well look here buddy this was proven better than p>0.05 therefore it is scientifically accurate !
Am scientist (well, was, before career change), can confirm. Fuck dogmatic scientists, they’re worse than regular dogmatists because they’ve been given many opportunities to know better.
This is a clean example of an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
Statement B attempts to use Statement A to make an unrelated point that isn’t necessarily untrue, but it is still unrelated.
This could be done with any combination of…
“Under capitalism, <random thing> is…”
“Under <random ism>, science is…”They would all result in a statement that supports Speaker B, but is no longer relevant to what Speaker A stated, as the topic has changed. In this case, from science to capitalism.
I.e. It’s an anti-capitalism meme attempting to use science to appeal to a broader audience through relevance fallacy. Both statements may be true, but do not belong in the same picture.
Unless, of course, “that’s the joke” and I’m just that dumb.
Edit: I’m not a supporter of capitalism. But I am a supporter of science. And this is an interesting example of social science as it seems personal opinion is more paramount to some individuals rather than unbiased assessment of the statement as a whole. Call me boring and autistic, but that’s the theme of 95% of ths shit.
Any process unless specifically adjusted to compensate for it (and the adjustment itself is a distortion of it and has secondary effects) will be affected by the environment it is working in.
So specifically for Capitalism and the practice of Science under it, funding and the societal pressure on everybody including scientists to have more money - as wealth is a status symbol in that environment - are he main pathways via which Capitalism influences the practice of Science.
It’s incredibly Reductionist and even anti-Scientific to start from the axiom that environment does not at all influence the way Science is practiced (hence Capitalism is unrelated to Science) and then just make an entire argument on top of such a deeply flawed assumption
I think you’re reading statement B too literally. I’m pretty sure the idea behind it is related to critical theory and is an objection to the idea that rationality is trustworthy and that class conflict should be regarded as a higher truth. In that way statement B is relevant to statement A; it’s an implicit rejection of it.
It’s not literal; as the fallacy credits, neither is it necessarily wrong. But(!!!), they’re just not related.
The entire post itself—and your reply—is social science. But science is incapable of alignment to any -ism. All isms are human-made. If they are 100% true, they are not isms.
Edit: Sorry, I’m drunk af, so probably you are right…maybe… At least in my mind, I’m just reading Statement B as literally as Statement A and therefore can’t see correlation without social agenda—theyre just two very different things. Science and agenda; or agenda using “science”. It’s bias. That’s very unscientific.
Wow thanks! I’ve seen other instances of this fallacy but never knew its name (nor recognized that it is a common fallacy form).
Assuming this meme is some form of Marxist propaganda, it would be a self-defeating meme, since Marxism is rooted in dialectical materialism which is itself a scientific process. At least according to Marx.
I don’t want to deflate your assumption, but “Science is pure objectivity and truth”.
The assumption you introduced just added another layer on by bringing Marxism into it. And here’s the thing with that fallacy; you may be very right! But, it’s got nothing to do with the original statement anymore. It’s just going down tangents of a tangent that should be explored under their own initiative, not the blanket of “science”.
ITT it’s still the 1920s I guess.
Political theory has moved on since those days, you know.
Granted, there are people who quote Marx like he’s a religious figure but those people are wrong and stupid.
Woah woah woah, I’m not a Marxist, but you’re going to have to back up your claims on how “political theory has moved on” and why that ties into Marxism not being based on dialectical materialism.
Please list all the recommended political theory you’ve read from the 1920s to now that disproves whatever you’re claiming is purely 1920s political theory.
Heh, you’re a leftist? Name every leftism.
Look up critical theory if you want to.
Buddy this is critical theory.
I think I somehow replied to the wrong comment, it was meant to be a reply to the guy who randomly started talking about Marxism
Unfortunately that’s not how communism works in practice
Thank you. Something about me was rubbing me the wrong way, but I couldn’t articulate it.
You’re dead on. Science is a process. I can science the shit out of baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano, and I don’t need government funding to do it. What you science is effected by capitalism, but capitalism is just a scare word. No matter what you want to do, if it requires a significant amount of power or work to create your materials, a cost is accrued somewhere, and someone has to pay it, whether it costs dollars or beaver pelts.
This is reductive to the extreme.
Clearly if all you want to do is to build a baking soda volcano you can go ahead.
It’s also pretty clear that baking soda volcanoes aren’t the kind of science the meme is talking about.
Capitalism isn’t just about “things need funding” the point of the meme is that capitalists determine what gets funding. A socialist state might put economic force behind other scientific endeavors, ones driven by capital are intended to create profit. The profit motive drives innovation instead of the pure ideological pursuit of truth or any other driver.
Based
True but people also use this as an excuse to dismiss any research they disagree with which is idiotic.
Most research is legit. It just might not be interpreted correctly, or it might not be the whole picture. But it shouldn’t be ignored because you don’t like it.
People are especially prone to this with Econ research in my experience.
For sure, but it’s important to keep in mind in fields with large financial interests.
Medicine especially. Most studies claiming Cealiac disease (gluten allergy) was not real before it was conclusively proven to be legitimate were funded by bread companies. You won’t believe the number of studies funded by insurance companies trying to show that certain diseases aren’t really disabling, (even though they really are).
And sugar probably kills as many people as smoking, but… yup.
Then again, we all are okay with killing children too, so long as it is with a gun and unwillingly rather than safely in a doctor’s office and medically necessary or at least expedient.
That seems like a crazy low estimate for deaths caused by sugar…
Sugar or HFCS? I’m actually asking because I don’t know, not to be snotty.
Both, but the studies were literally prevented from happening or those that were done anyway then the results shared with Americans - the USA threatened to boycott the WHO iirc if it did not remove language to the effect that sugar could be dangerous, in excess.
HFCS lowers your metabolism, so makes every additional calorie count for a greater effect.
Stores sell what they want to sell, in part based on what people will purchase (e.g. fast food companies like McDonald’s tried offering healthier options such as salads - people wouldn’t buy them), and things with higher shelf life. They aim for profits, not service for its own sake.
The entire thing is an edgy strawman. Honest practitioners obviously take seriously the need to understand and articulate the limits of empiricism, and are hostile towards those who abuse the public trust placed in scientific authority. It would honestlt be great if we could do the same with our critiques of capitalism.
Isn’t there a replication crisis. I am not sure you can really claim “most” research is legit.
I wouldn’t call it a broad crisis, and it isn’t universal. More theoretical sciences or social sciences are more prone to it because the experiments are more expensive and you can’t really control the environment the way you can with e.g. mice or specific chemicals. But most biology, chemistry, etc that isn’t bleeding edge or incredibly niche will be validated dozens to hundreds of times as people build on the work and true retractions are rare
Critical theory, my beloved
This statement is
on the verge of beinga strawman argument. The first compares science to other systems of knowledge, while the second criticizes the subjects of scientific study under a capitalist influence.These two statements do not refer to the same thing in context.
Edit: clarity
I would beg to differ. There is a THOU MUST PUBLISH OR STARVE ethos in modern research, which is directly incentivized on both sides by capitalism – researchers want to eat and pay rent and institutions want to be fancy so rich people bribe them to let their kids in. This has led to it becoming common place to do a study and THEN form your hypothesis, which is just not science. That’s how you get so many “chocolate cures ass cancer!” headlines. Somone is researching if chocolate blocks a protein you never heard of, it doesn’t, but through the magic of random sampling, this set of subjects had a low rate of cancer in five years so, we’re publishing that even though that’s NOT how science works. You’re identifying quirks of sample sets, not challenging hypotheses because of the direct intervention of capitalist incentives.
Now you’re just arguing the strawman
It’s almost like they didn’t get your point
“Almost”
Why is it a strawman? Are you saying that doesn’t happen? I’ve read a fair number of respectable sources saying it does. If not, where do the “study shows coffee causes cancer” and “study shows coffee cures cancer” articles come from? Are you just being contrarian, because Science™ is now a blue MAGA v original flavor MAGA political thing? What’s the angle here?
Bro, what point are you actually arguing against? The person you replied to never made a point about research bureaucracy.
Google ignoratio elenchi
I’m not trying to take a side in some weird internet flat earther thing, I’m just saying like Thomas Kuhn has a point in Structure of Scientific Revolutions… I’m not a Lacannian, but based on the one Slavoj Zizek talk I saw in grad school about his triad of reality, my understanding is he also had pretty good points about the inherent unreliability of second order reality, which is inherently run by some manner of corruptible authority, that addresses the same concern that research can be institutionally tainted and biased by the structures within which they exist… Capitalism is provably directly producing unscientific research at research institutions, especially in health contexts that have the most direct impact on people materially… Just look at the Perdue Oxycontin studies.
Capitalism is provably directly producing unscientific research at research institutions,
So you agree the second statement is not really about science.
The fact that you are this thorny about besmirching the name of Science in vain is sooooo telling.
Yes, I agree, it is not Science as per The Enlightenment, what I as a pedant, call inductive reasoning, but when Neil goes out there telling you to wear a mask, is that backed by Science™, unless he’s taking Science’s name in vain (he was)? Science is inductively reasoned truth to what extent it is truth, and the very people who want to lecture us about Science™ want to throw things at the wall intuitively like shamen to calm us, and dictate what we should know for fear of our behavior, like an unordained Sangha using effective means to guide children
Edit disclaimer: I’m in no way antivax, I had em all you should too, and especially kids, but those are legit 95% certainty PROPER science as per claimed efficacy
I very clearly explained the strawman.
Just because I pointed out that your argument is flawed doesn’t make me Maga or some kind of Trump supporter. It just means you made a bad argument.
In what regard? Is this trolling? I am legitimately confused, which leads me to think you’re one of the abusive Cheney Dems on this platform, but I am open to other interpretations if you provide me room for that…
I have no horse in this race, topically speaking, but your continual return to name-calling (“Cheney Dems”, “Blue MAGA”) belies your attempt to come across as a good-faith participant in this discussion. There are people out there that think differently than you, and there always will be. Using pejoratives, reducing people you don’t know to mere “thought-terminating cliches”, is not conducive to civil discussion or persuasive dialectics.
If you’re going to ignore everything, I’ve already said, I see no reason to continue. You’re obviously arguing in bad faith, and I’m not going to enable that compulsion.
I am legit confused about this outrage, ELI5, please… I am legit not arguing in bad faith and am seriously confused, but I did not google your thing because I am lazy and don’t care if this meme is some cancelled thing I was arguing the underlying point that as per Kuhn, Scientific stuff is within a cultural/economic/geographical, yada yada like all human activity
Source (of drawing)?
Took like maybe 5 minutes of searching, but the artist is Bro Aniki
Science is the process of getting things a little less wrong.
Science is a method of empiricism and inductive logic.
science is science. it can be (sometimes necessarily) prioritized via societal influence, culture and monetary means.
socialist countries have different types scientific spend but I don’t see femboys taking things in the ass for them I guess.
Look, the only thing in the world which hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism is OP’s brain, which happens to be in a jar, on a shelf, owned by an evil demon, who lives in a hole at the bottom of the sea. Just be thankful that the capitalists have not figured out how to harness this phenomenological power yet.
Oh, we’re totally going to do brains in vats
And under socialism in the 20th century, science was an institution that only funds research that advances whatever narrative the hermetic powers-that-be decided to push and strengthen their grip on power, their obsession with secretiveness and projecting an image of infallibility.
Take the Soviet Union.
T.D. Lysenko and his crackpot food engineering ideas is one such glaring example. But boy oh boy could he talk a “toe the party line” game and suck up to Stalin.
Or how about how the kremlin rendered nearly one quarter of Kazakhstan uninhabitable due to their relentless nuclear testing. And they nearly did that for all of western Europe with Chernobyl.In the name of workers and science, we shall poison your land. Science for the workers’ paradise, rejoice, comrades!
Okay, you have one point of data, the USSR, can you list a second point of data, otherwise this is not a trend of socialism but of a single country.
The entire eastern block adopted Lysenkoism.
The USSR also abused medical science to imprison dissidents in mental institutions based on false diagnoses.
Science is easily corruptible, but of most relevance to us is how it is being corrupted here
