Just why is it that science and reason is seen as important?

I don't like how science is always described so esotericly.

You use your senses. You compare what you observed with what other people observed ("Did you see that?!"). You use logic when possible ("I did not go in that room, so my keys cannot be there.").

That is almost science in a nutshell. We use the tools we were born with to the best of our ability. If something else starts working, we will use that instead unless we are masochists or suicidal.

why would you dumb fucks even reply to this extremely obvious bait

>It sounds like you are making erroneous assumptions instead of arguments.
Interesting how you ignored the rest of my post. Is it because you don't even know what being skeptical about science means?

Good post. "If it ain't broke don't fix it." Obviously this sort of reasoning doesn't work for studying, say , elementary particles, but for subjects that are closer to our own lived experience, I agree there should be an onus on the research community to justify the use of complex mathematical techniques beyond "well that's just what everybody does". ironically, modern science is akin in some ways to the catholic church, where detailed knowledge of its inner workings is available only to an ordained few.

All beliefs require some faith, including science. If you had didn't have faith, you wouldn't believe you even exist, you wouldn't believe existence is real. You would be nothing, have nothing.

For science you need to have faith that those who did the scientific groundwork of basic scientific principles, got it correct. Of course you could always check this yourself if you don't believe. But checking it yourself requires you have faith your measuring instruments work and function the way they're suppose to. And that requires faith that your senses and faculties haven't left you completely.

Everything requires a little bit of faith, but the scientific method and scientific thinking requires the least amount of faith possible. This is by design.

I wouldn't call it faith. Rather the difference between skepticism and solipsism. Many don't seem to understand the difference, because they choose certain facts to deny and call themselves skeptics when what they are really practicing is a hypocritically selective solipsism.

>ironically, modern science is akin in some ways to the catholic church, where detailed knowledge of its inner workings is available only to an ordained few.

I think, for the most, the knowledge is available to everyone. The exception maybe being paywalls in front of research publications.

None-the-less there is a gap. 8+ years of knowledge is sometimes hard to convey to others, especially if the person with the knowledge is not a people person and does not know how to present well.

It is a conundrum. How to convey knowledge efficiently and accessibly? And on the other side of things, how to know what is real and what is bs when learning information outside of your specialty? I do not know of a good solution.

>Paul Feyerabend
Thanks for this

>You don't think there's anything to be worried about, even after the new White House press secretary's comments the other day?

Whoops, didn't mean to green text that

Even solipsism requires some belief or faith in the self. What if all reality were just a dream, not even your own dream, but some one else. You think you have thought, but only because the dreamer put those thoughts in your head. Some people actually believe this.

You're trying to use rational thoughts to argue against rational thoughts. I don't think you thought this through too well. It would make more sense to lose all rationality and just fling shit at your monitor out of raw emotion. In which case you'll realize how important rationality is.

>Just why is it that science and reason is seen as important?
he said, using his silicon transistor-based computational machine networked with thousands and thousands of other similar machines to communicate with hundreds of other individuals (none of whom have died of cholera or the plague) spread across the continents through the medium of a Bhutanese cheesemaking imageboard

sage and move on.

>Just look at how INCREDIBLE our achievements are! Humans sure are awesome, aren't they? Now go back to wasting your life away on Veeky Forums while millions of children starve and die of diseases across the globe, and don't think twice about how much you FUCKING love science!

Good goy.

>OH NO! The press secretary lied about the number of people who attended the inauguration! Clearly the fabric of reality is ripping apart and it's all because of the GOSH DARNED IRRATIONALS!!

What annoys me with scientists isn't that science is useful and that it's a good thing to spread it around, what annoys me is that they refuse to even concede that the scientific enterprise is amoral, and therefore dangerous.

They actually believe that our values are sufficient to actually stop us from using our technological and scientific power to immoral purposes.

Which is ridiculously naive, but they have zero problems identifying this problem the moment they imagine an Islamic terrorist in possession of a nuclear weapon, but they seem to think that their own values are sufficient to stop such from happening with themselves, because they think they are moral superheroes.

>science has not (yet) solved this humanitarian problem
>therefore science sucks

If there is a way to help these people then it's going to be with technology based on science, or economics which is also based on science.

are you retarded?

>scientific enterprise is amoral, and therefore dangerous.

You're right science is amoral, but it's not meant to be a system of ethics. The problem isn't scientific pursuits but the philosophy of those in positions of power.

>because they think they are moral superheroes.

I know lots of people like that, but most of them aren't scientists. Everyone thinks they hold the best moral values, that they are the best moral arbitrators (you're even doing it in this post).

>but the philosophy of those in positions of power.

The point is that scientific knowledge is power. And it's power without any moral grounding at all.

The fact/value distinction actually is a problem user.

That's like blaming soldiers for the results of a war, instead of blaming the politicians who ordered and planned it.
Scientists discover shit, that's what they do. It's the public/government who decides what research they want to fund. If you dedicate huge sums to the development of horrible weapons, then you will get horrible weapons. The obvious solution is to not fund the development of horrible weapons. It's not the job of scientists to be moral guardians for the rest of the population in a democracy.

>Scientists discover shit, that's what they do

Sounds like evasion of responsibility to me.

Richard Feynman said in his memoirs that he regretted having anything to do with the Manhattan Project, and fell into a deep depression when he realized he was one of the people responsible for the total annihilation of 150000 people.

Maybe he should've thought of that before it happened.

>sci - science and math
>science is so stupid and it doesn't do anything

>po - papercraft and origami
>origami is so stupid and it doesn't do anything

Is it really this easy?

Again, the Manhatten project would not have existed without being ordered by the democratically elected government, which then also used it to do the actual killing of 150000 people. A gun manufacturer is not responsible for the murderer in the dark ally who uses the gun to do horrible things.

Evasion of responsibility? It's the other way around, people blame the scientists so they don't have to feel guilty themselves.

So what you're saying is that oil companies aren't responsible for the increasing climate change, you are for buying a car.

its essentially human error/greed that give science a bad name. Dogmatic scientists or advocates are using incomplete evidence for personal gain and affirmation. Much of the evidence is still incomplete (i.e. we thought the atom could not be split) so a lot of people are just epitomizing the results wrongly. It's the lack of forethought that we stil haven't seen the whole picture that gives rise to the modern day sjw and feminism.

Yes, how is that a controversial statement?

Stop using your car so much and/or enforce restrictive legislation on the companies per democratic process. The companies themselves only have the responsibility of creating as much profit as possible within the restrictions of the law.

Wow, what an easy task, I wonder why it has been done before!

hasn't been*

It has happened in some countries, but I guess you mean the US. It has not happened in the US because the people are not convinced climate change is a serious enough issue apparently. They just voted in a president who does not seem to give a fuck about it. Also your democratic system sucks.

This topic is being derailed.

Realize that scientists, just like everyone else have moral responsibilities which can't be reduced to "Hey man, I'm just trying to figure out the truth, look at how much of a good guy I am!"

It has not been derailed, you are just trying to keep shifting the blame for your actions on the people who enable you. You keep pumping CO2 into the air? Must be the fault of the gas companies. You are getting overweight and diabetic? Must be the fault of the food companies. You are wasting your live on Veeky Forums? Must the fault of the people who invented the internet.

Besides that. It is not only counter-productive, but also simply impossible for a scientist to predict all possible outcomes of his potential findings.

So scientists have zero responsibility for anything they do then. Fine. You pay the price.

>So scientists have zero responsibility for anything they do then.

They still have to follow the rules of their field and the laws of the land in general. Just like every other profession or business. But they don't have to play soothsayer or be retrospectively pilloried by cunts like you because the electric toothbrush they have invented can be used to torture war prisoners without leaving marks.

Which is the whole point. They are unique in that respect.

I mean, not less than a century ago biologists were almost unequivocally scientific racists who believed whites were at the top of the food chain and spread that meme all over society to the extent that everyone had a justification for being a racist(Look, even the scientists are saying it's correct!), but I guess they had zero moral responsibility for that at all.

That's a stupid question
You're asking why the west values reason something that is not a fitting question for this board

A better question would be:
Is science and technology necessarily a good thing or are there downsides to it that we choose to ignore?

Falsifying evidence to promote your preconceptions or ideologies is the biggest primary sin of scientific research. If someone would try something like this today, then they would be shunned out of the scientific community and never get published again.

The problem there would be not telling the truth though, rather than what you are trying to get at.

I have to ask
Have you even read those biologists (anthropologist is the current term btw) papers?
A lot of what they said is still used in the fields but like the aether in physics it's just scrubbed that part away

>If someone would try something like this today, then they would be shunned out of the scientific community and never get published again.

And why do you think that is precisely?

Oh my god you mean scientists are humans susceptible to the biases and prevailing ideologies of their time? What the fuck I hate science now!

Yes of course, it had to be *ideology* that made them reach such conclusions.

I mean, is the space program also a result of ideology imposing itself on science? Obviously cancer research can't be scientific, it has to be ideological.

Because those are the rules established in their scientific fields.

Rules based on what? Science?

You logic is in cohesive and full of double thinks.
You're acting like a little child looking to point fingers at people for all the worlds problems, while actually doing nothing to fix anything yourself.

>It seems to me that many scientists are very ideological.
>The point is that scientific knowledge is power. And it's power without any moral grounding at all.
double think

Science tries to be as objective as possible but there is still a code of ethics all scientist operate on and a set of values that they all share. One value being, any scientific discovery needs to be shared. If knowledge can't be shared then it's worthless. Like sending a probe to mars, with no way to transmit data any data back home. With that in mind, there are still some scientific discoveries that are "black boxed" and not shared, simply because they're too dangerous.

No, people decided it would be the best way of doing things and it seemed to work. Most sensitive professions have spoken or unspoken work ethics.

Misquote?

Erm..guys..

Not that user but while there's an element of ethics there's also creditials at stake.

If you publish studies with potentially inaccurate data and get called out on it by follow up studies/publications by other parties. Your career is pretty much shot as a researcher.

It's not faith. Faith (or belief if you prefer that term) is reserved for something you have no evidence for but want to believe has happened/will happen/is happening anyway.

Trust is what you have when you are very sure something will happen because it's has been proven to work many times in the past; there is a significant body of evidence that it will work.

There is endless evidence everywhere you look for the efficacy of science.

So what we have in science is trust, not faith...Bitches.

>Just why is it that science and reason is seen as important?

Because it literally allows us to reshape reality and preform feats that our ancestors would describe as magic.

Not to mention all of the applications of science, transportation, entertainment, agriculture, communications, defense, education, medicine, etc...

Are you literally advocating for a return to a less educated civilization?

>what annoys me is that they refuse to even concede that the scientific enterprise is amoral, and therefore dangerous.

Maybe in the fifties and early sixties. In the late sixties and early seventies, primarily because of Vietnam, a huge upswing of ethical/moral consideration entered into scientific enterprise and the public policy relating to it.

>If you take a second to take a step out outside
>of the bubble, you will see that modern society...
...comprises many subcultures, some of which reject areas of scientific thinking selectively (based upon emotion, preconception, religion); and others that reject science almost entirely.

>Fine with a member of government publicly lying.
Wow, you ARE an American.