When you disagree with Science...

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Success is admittedly a product of the truth, but it is not necessarily evidence of it.

I find discussions about truth increasingly unhelpful, as people get distracted by ideas like what is truth, what is objective truth, what is absolute truth, etc..

For me, truth is the quality that facts possess, facts being linguistic strings (sentences, paragraphs) that accurately map a portion of reality, which is decided empirically - does the idea work to help us anticipate and at times control outcomes? Any other idea is confusing and leads to semantic inefficiencies and errors, or metaphysical claims with no practical value...

Let me illustrate. Correct ideas work, or as you say, produce success. That's what lets us know they're correct. If I tell you that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier, the deciding factor of whether that is correct or not will be whether this idea can be used to get me to the pier. If walking 5 blocks south and three blocks west works as hoped to get me to the pier, then the idea is correct. If I end up anywhere else, it was wrong. That's what I mean by true - it works.

We've already considered the correspondence definition of truth - that a statement is true to the extent that it conforms to / corresponds with / accurately reflects (objective) reality as the statement about where the pier is from my front door. Please consider these ideas as well:

Empirical adequacy - A theory or claim of fact is empirically adequate, roughly, if all of what it says about observable aspects of the world (past, present, and future) can be confirmed

Instrumentalism - belief that statements or theories may be used as tools for useful prediction without reference to their possible truth or falsity. Peirce and other pragmatists defended an instrumentalist account of modern science.

Fallibilism - the principle that propositions concerning empirical knowledge can be accepted even though they cannot be proved with certainty.

For me, these ideas are changing my understanding of what I mean by truth.

One more thing. I really like this formulation by an anonymous Internet source, who has affected my thinking in this area:

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue.

"If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything." - AntiCitizenX

This is a pragmatic approach to truth, fact, knowledge, etc.. It's not distracted by useless metaphysical speculations. It's all about empirical results, or success as you call it. That is the sine qua non of a correct idea - that it can be used this way. Was Newton correct? Did he have the truth, even though some of his physics falls short, as Einstein showed us? Well, I don't want to get bogged down in that discussion, which is unproductive. Newton's ideas have empirical adequacy in the realms in which it is applied, such as the New Horizons space probe. It works, and nothing else is relevant to deciding if this idea is a keeper or not.

People could well have claimed Astrology was successful in the middle ages in demonstrating the existence of a relationship between the movement of celestial bodies and human activities on earth.

That would not make astrology successful. That is determined by mapping reality onto its predictions, which reveals that astrology has no predictive value, and is successful at nothing. I have to return to empirical adequacy here. The predictions of astrology can be seen to be false empirically.

But because we know the causal relationships of the orbits of planets and moons around the sun, we are successful at predicting where the moon will be.

And that's all we need to know to consider the math and science involved to be [insert your favorite word here: correct, true, factual, etc..]

I am aware of the correspondence theory of truth, which is why I'm wondering whether I should accept a claim as true if I don't know how it corresponds to objective reality.

I wouldn't accept such a claim or any other claim without evidentiary support. But the success of an idea alone serves as that evidence. Nothing more need be understood - not the chemistry of stains and detergents, nor of fabrics.

we are facing a larger problem about scientific literacy

Agreed, but that is, I believe, a different topic. The greatest barrier to scientific literacy is the idea that science is just somebody's opinion, and can be rejected on faith, which they are taught is a virtue. This is a serious problem in the area of climate change and climate deniers.

But such people cannot be reached. They are cut off from us and the greater scientific discussion by a resistance to reason applied to evidence as the means of determining what is true about the world. We have nothing else to offer them except to ask them to believe the opposite by faith, which they won't do. So, they are unreachable. The target has to be their children, but of course, they have first access to them, and can have already poisoned them against a rationalist and empirical, epistemology.

I like this from Sam Harris:

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water"? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over." - Sam Harris

Science is the study of objective reality and that reality is one we share. Scientific knowledge is therefore not the exclusive property of a trained elites but is accessible to all. So I would prefer that the scientific method be treated as a democratic method where we celebrate the curiosity and understanding of ordinary people.

Perhaps you mean the fruits of science and scientific education be distributed equally, but the only democracy in science is the community of relevant scientists in any given area. I frequently tell creationists that the scientists aren't listening to them, but not to feel picked on. I happen to agree with them, but they don't care about that, either. Outsiders have no vote.

 

[LuisDantas]

We all have beliefs that maybe other people think are a bit "weird", but what happens if you believe something that is widely regarded as pseudo-scientific or as rejected by science?

Do you accept the science and change your opinions? Or do you stand by your beliefs and try to reason them out?

I am just not sure of what this would be like.

Science is supposed to be about findings and theories, not beliefs, after all.

 

[exchemist]

It is true that a lot of scientists are ignorant of the philosophy of science though, and are merely proficient in technique. This is something that has long been recognised as problematic by the more insightful and reflective scientists.

I suppose it is a consequence of the modern trend towards narrow specialisation that negatively impacts many areas of enquiry.

Oh yes I quite agree (and have lamented this elsewhere on this forum). What I meant was nobody n this thread discussion and certainly not myself - I suppose I should have expressed it differently.

I think it becomes problematic mainly when communicating with non-scientists: there can be a tendency to be inappropriately dogmatic about theories.

 

[Laika]

I find discussions about truth increasingly unhelpful, as people get distracted by ideas like what is truth, what is objective truth, what is absolute truth, etc..

For me, truth is the quality that facts possess, facts being linguistic strings (sentences, paragraphs) that accurately map a portion of reality, which is decided empirically - does the idea work to help us anticipate and at times control outcomes? Any other idea is confusing and leads to semantic inefficiencies and errors, or metaphysical claims with no practical value...

Let me illustrate. Correct ideas work, or as you say, produce success. That's what lets us know they're correct. If I tell you that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier, the deciding factor of whether that is correct or not will be whether this idea can be used to get me to the pier. If walking 5 blocks south and three blocks west works as hoped to get me to the pier, then the idea is correct. If I end up anywhere else, it was wrong. That's what I mean by true - it works.

We've already considered the correspondence definition of truth - that a statement is true to the extent that it conforms to / corresponds with / accurately reflects (objective) reality as the statement about where the pier is from my front door. Please consider these ideas as well:

Empirical adequacy - A theory or claim of fact is empirically adequate, roughly, if all of what it says about observable aspects of the world (past, present, and future) can be confirmed

Instrumentalism - belief that statements or theories may be used as tools for useful prediction without reference to their possible truth or falsity. Peirce and other pragmatists defended an instrumentalist account of modern science.

Fallibilism - the principle that propositions concerning empirical knowledge can be accepted even though they cannot be proved with certainty.

For me, these ideas are changing my understanding of what I mean by truth.

One more thing. I really like this formulation by an anonymous Internet source, who has affected my thinking in this area:

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue.

"If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything." - AntiCitizenX

This is a pragmatic approach to truth, fact, knowledge, etc.. It's not distracted by useless metaphysical speculations. It's all about empirical results, or success as you call it. That is the sine qua non of a correct idea - that it can be used this way. Was Newton correct? Did he have the truth, even though some of his physics falls short, as Einstein showed us? Well, I don't want to get bogged down in that discussion, which is unproductive. Newton's ideas have empirical adequacy in the realms in which it is applied, such as the New Horizons space probe. It works, and nothing else is relevant to deciding if this idea is a keeper or not.



That would not make astrology successful. That is determined by mapping reality onto its predictions, which reveals that astrology has no predictive value, and is successful at nothing. I have to return to empirical adequacy here. The predictions of astrology can be seen to be false empirically.



And that's all we need to know to consider the math and science involved to be [insert your favorite word here: correct, true, factual, etc..]



I wouldn't accept such a claim or any other claim without evidentiary support. But the success of an idea alone serves as that evidence. Nothing more need be understood - not the chemistry of stains and detergents, nor of fabrics.



Agreed, but that is, I believe, a different topic. The greatest barrier to scientific literacy is the idea that science is just somebody's opinion, and can be rejected on faith, which they are taught is a virtue. This is a serious problem in the area of climate change and climate deniers.

But such people cannot be reached. They are cut off from us and the greater scientific discussion by a resistance to reason applied to evidence as the means of determining what is true about the world. We have nothing else to offer them except to ask them to believe the opposite by faith, which they won't do. So, they are unreachable. The target has to be their children, but of course, they have first access to them, and can have already poisoned them against a rationalist and empirical, epistemology.

I like this from Sam Harris:

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water"? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over." - Sam Harris



Perhaps you mean the fruits of science and scientific education be distributed equally, but the only democracy in science is the community of relevant scientists in any given area. I frequently tell creationists that the scientists aren't listening to them, but not to feel picked on. I happen to agree with them, but they don't care about that, either. Outsiders have no vote.

I don't feel that I am really prepared to dive deep in to a response to this, so I will let it stand. I expect I may eventually have to deal with the points you've raised here in other discussions, but I don't think I am intellectually ready for that kind of challenge.

I will have to keep reading and studying before I am more confident in considering such advanced questions. There is quite a difference between reading philosophy and debating it with the exactness to do it justice, which I am sure you can appreciate. It is still interesting to see how you lay out the arguments you are making and how you approach many of the issues I have raised in this thread, so I am grateful for the effort you have made in your response.

If at some point you want to explore these issues further, we could perhaps do a one-on-one discussion and see how it goes.

 

[Jim]

I don't feel that I am really prepared to dive deep in to a response to this, so I will let it stand. I expect I may eventually have to deal with the points you've raised here in other discussions, but I don't think I am intellectually ready for that kind of challenge.

I’m thinking now of one problem as using some words and ways of thinking in ways that draw lines of alienation between people, or using them as reasons for unfriendly attitudes and behavior towards other people, or for disparaging their character and capacities. I’ll be discussing that in another thread.