|FEATURES$type=ticker$count=12$cols=4$cate=0

Yet another attempt to undermine science with rotten logic

I've written before about the difference between science, the sciences, and scientists. These kind of differences are essential to make if you want your arguments make sense.  Confusing science and scientists is like confusing biology and a medical doctor - it's stupid. Making these kinds of mistakes ends up letting one prove things like 1 = 2 and that the moon is made of blue cheese and that murder is perfectly acceptable.

Here's an example.  In a recent post, Jerry Coyne quotes Jackson Lears as the latter tries - and fails miserably - to dissemble the work of Sam Harris.  Lears wrote: "To define science as the source of absolute truth, Harris must first ignore the messy realities of power in the world of Big Science."

No, Mr. Lears, you are wrong.  Science is what it is, regardless of how poorly humans may undertake it.  Science is a process of iteratively improving one's understanding of things by making observations, developing predictive theories that explain those observations, and then making more observations to either verify or falsify those theories.  Every single human on earth uses this basic approach to learn.  We use it to learn how to ride a bicycle, how to find the fastest route home from work, how to negotiate social situations, and how to play poker.  Even Jackson Lears uses science.

Science is what it is.

Scientists, on the other hand, are fallible human beings.  Scientists make mistakes.  But that's not bad, because we only learn from our mistakes.  And that's why replication of experiments is so fundamental to science: it weeds out the mistakes.  Science is, overall, self-correcting, because scientists, more than anyone else, know they make mistakes.

So here comes Jackson Lears, a professor of history for crying out loud, telling us that science cannot be trusted because scientists make mistakes.  Wow.  Does that mean penicillin is bad medicine because doctors can make mistakes?  Is mathematics wrong because a mathematician makes a mistake?  Of course not.  This kind of ridiculous reasoning is the type you expect from freshmen who party too much.

Jackson Lears is a fountain of childish prattle.  He is categorically, utterly, and totally wrong.

COMMENTS

BLOGGER: 2

Name

academia,15,academic,2,activism,1,adaptation,1,additive manufacturing,1,admin,14,aesthetics,7,affect,1,ageing,2,AI,18,analogy,2,android,1,animation,1,anthropology,3,anticipation,1,app,1,architecture,51,art,2,arts,73,Asia,3,assistive technology,2,authority,1,automobile,1,award,1,balance,28,biology,5,biomimetics,17,book,8,branding,4,building,3,built environment,4,business,7,CAD,5,Canada,29,care,1,case,11,cfp,689,change revision,1,children,2,cinema,1,Circa,3,circular design,1,circular economy,4,codesign,3,cognition,12,collaboration,4,colonization,1,commercialization,3,commonplacing,1,communication,3,communication design,12,competition,5,complexity,5,computation,24,computer science,1,computing,18,concept map,4,conference,354,constructivism,1,conversation,1,conversational analysis,1,covid-19,4,craft,11,creative arts,1,creativity,15,crime,1,CSCW,1,culture,35,cybernetics,2,data science,1,decision-making,1,decolonization,1,degrowth,1,dementia,4,design,111,design science,1,design thinking,12,digital,3,digital media,5,digital reproduction,1,digital scholarship,1,disability,3,dissertation,1,drawing,7,economics,23,education,71,effectiveness,14,efficiency,12,emotion,1,engineering,45,entertainment,1,entrepreneurship,6,environment,28,ergonomics,3,ethics,51,ethnography,2,Evernote,1,evolution,4,exhibition,3,exoskeleton,1,experience,5,experimental studies,3,fail,1,fashion,15,featured,10,film,1,food,5,function modeling,1,futurism,16,gender,1,gender studies,3,geography,2,Germany,2,globalization,3,grantsmanship,1,graphic design,32,Greece,1,HCI,53,health,29,heritage,2,history,33,HMI,1,Hobonichi,1,housing,2,human factors,3,humanism,56,humanities,2,identity,1,illustration,2,image,4,inclusivity,2,industrial design,6,informatics,4,information,9,innovation,19,interaction,26,interdisciplinarity,4,interior design,9,internet of things,3,intervention,1,iphone,16,jobs,1,journal,194,journalism,1,justice,2,landscape,6,language,5,law,2,library,1,life,105,life cycle,3,lifehack,10,literature,1,literature review,1,logistics,2,luxury,1,maintenance,1,making,5,management,12,manufacturing,9,material culture,7,materials,6,mechanics,1,media,17,method,46,migration,1,mobile,2,mobility,1,motion design,2,movie,3,multimedia,3,music,1,nature,3,new product development,5,Nexus 6,1,olfaction,1,online,2,open design,2,organization,1,packaging,2,paper,19,participatory design,16,PBL,1,pengate,1,performance,1,PhD,34,philosophy,46,planning,5,play,1,policy,9,politics,52,postdoc,1,practice,26,predatory,3,preservation,2,printing,1,prison,1,proceedings,1,product,1,product lifetime,1,product longevity,1,productivity,106,project management,1,prototyping,4,public space,6,publishing,3,reading,1,Remember The Milk,1,repair,1,reproduction,1,research,117,research through design,2,resilience,1,resource-limited design,1,reuse,1,review,74,robust design,1,Samsung,3,scale,1,scholarship,54,science,48,science fiction,5,semiotics,5,senses,1,service design,12,simplicity,5,society,136,sociology,11,software,61,somatics,1,space,5,STEM,1,strategic design,6,student,8,sustainability,68,sustainable consumption,1,sustainable design,1,sustainable production,1,systems,67,tactile,1,tangibility,1,technology,25,textile,7,theatre,3,theory,7,Toodledo,2,Toronto,3,tourism,2,traffic,1,transhumanism,1,transnationalism,1,transportation,3,tv,3,typography,1,uncertainty,1,universal design,4,upcycling,2,urban,30,usa,9,usability,1,user experience,8,virtual reality,1,visualization,24,waste management,1,wearable,3,well-being,17,women,1,workshop,74,writing,2,
ltr
item
The Trouble with Normal...: Yet another attempt to undermine science with rotten logic
Yet another attempt to undermine science with rotten logic
http://filsalustri.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/sciencerocks.jpeg
The Trouble with Normal...
https://filsalustri.blogspot.com/2011/05/yet-another-attempt-to-undermine.html
https://filsalustri.blogspot.com/
https://filsalustri.blogspot.com/
https://filsalustri.blogspot.com/2011/05/yet-another-attempt-to-undermine.html
true
389378225362699292
UTF-8
Loaded All Posts Not found any posts VIEW ALL Readmore Reply Cancel reply Delete By Home PAGES POSTS View All RECOMMENDED FOR YOU LABEL ARCHIVE SEARCH ALL POSTS Not found any post match with your request Back Home Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat January February March April May June July August September October November December Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec just now 1 minute ago $$1$$ minutes ago 1 hour ago $$1$$ hours ago Yesterday $$1$$ days ago $$1$$ weeks ago more than 5 weeks ago Followers Follow THIS PREMIUM CONTENT IS LOCKED STEP 1: Share to a social network STEP 2: Click the link on your social network Copy All Code Select All Code All codes were copied to your clipboard Can not copy the codes / texts, please press [CTRL]+[C] (or CMD+C with Mac) to copy