Is saying "...so I know how science works." likely to convince people?
January 30, 2019 at 3:50 am
Quite often, when I debate something on the Internet forums, whether it be atheism, vegetarianism or even libertarianism, I get nonsensical comments about how science works. You know, the likes of:
However, many people on the Internet forums seem to have this idea of the hierarchy of sciences and that linguistics and other social sciences are "soft sciences" or somehow not real sciences. The logic is that, if you study natural sciences (the "hard sciences"), it's relatively easy to know if you are wrong, since you can see whether the predictions you've made are right very soon. And that, if you study social sciences, it's very easy get something wrong and end up never knowing that, because it's very hard or impossible to do controlled experiments and/or systematic observation.
If you ask me that notion is very problematic, if not outright self-contradictory. So, when you talk about things that are harder to properly study, you have, by that logic, less credibility. And the hierarchy of sciences is the hardest thing to properly study (Saying "You are more likely to be wrong about linguistics and not ending up knowing that than about physics." is a way less-formally-defined claim than, for example, the Grimm's Law in linguistics is.), therefore, when you make a statement about it, you have no credibility. Perhaps it made sense to say something like that when Auguste Comte made such a statement back in the early 1800s, when social sciences didn't quite exist (apart from Adam Smith in economics and William Jones in linguistics) while natural sciences did, but now it's just an incredibly arrogant and a practically unfalsifiable assertion ("I know enough of all the fields of all sciences to tell how credible they are compared to each other!").
Nevertheless, many people not only believe that, but also insist on that.
So, what do you think, is saying "I've published three papers about linguistics in peer-reviewed journals (about...), so I can safely tell you that's not how science works." more likely to be productive or counter-productive?
Quote:Jesus's resurrection is a historical fact! Doubting it is unscientific!or
Quote:It's unscientific to assume animals have feelings!or
Quote:I don't care about all the studies you cite! There is a science that tells us we need to eat meat to be healthy, it's called nutritional science!or
Quote:I agree with you that the current government is bad. However, there could be a government based on science that implements only the policies that are scientifically proven to be effective!So, I thought I've figured out an effective and a true response to such claims. Simply, I say something like:
Me Wrote:I admire your attempt to honestly follow science. However, you seem to have been misled about what science is. See, science is basically when people more or less educated about some issue try to honestly study it. And by honestly, that means making falsifiable claims (that means, that there is a conceivable observation that would prove them wrong), doing their best to tell whether that claim could be true given what is already known (and possibly doing some experiment) before shouting it out loud, and discussing what logically follows from those claims and what doesn't and whether it's really the simplest explanation. God is, by its definition, not falsifiable (since it mustn't be put to test), therefore, science can't study it.When I talk about my research in the field of Croatian toponyms to people in real life, the responses I get are almost always very positive.
I have published 3 papers about linguistics in peer-reviewed journals (all of which have at least something to do with my alternative interpretation of the Croatian toponyms, you can read about it here), so I know how science works.
However, many people on the Internet forums seem to have this idea of the hierarchy of sciences and that linguistics and other social sciences are "soft sciences" or somehow not real sciences. The logic is that, if you study natural sciences (the "hard sciences"), it's relatively easy to know if you are wrong, since you can see whether the predictions you've made are right very soon. And that, if you study social sciences, it's very easy get something wrong and end up never knowing that, because it's very hard or impossible to do controlled experiments and/or systematic observation.
If you ask me that notion is very problematic, if not outright self-contradictory. So, when you talk about things that are harder to properly study, you have, by that logic, less credibility. And the hierarchy of sciences is the hardest thing to properly study (Saying "You are more likely to be wrong about linguistics and not ending up knowing that than about physics." is a way less-formally-defined claim than, for example, the Grimm's Law in linguistics is.), therefore, when you make a statement about it, you have no credibility. Perhaps it made sense to say something like that when Auguste Comte made such a statement back in the early 1800s, when social sciences didn't quite exist (apart from Adam Smith in economics and William Jones in linguistics) while natural sciences did, but now it's just an incredibly arrogant and a practically unfalsifiable assertion ("I know enough of all the fields of all sciences to tell how credible they are compared to each other!").
Nevertheless, many people not only believe that, but also insist on that.
So, what do you think, is saying "I've published three papers about linguistics in peer-reviewed journals (about...), so I can safely tell you that's not how science works." more likely to be productive or counter-productive?
