Final thoughts on the wonderful irrationality of modern science

Having finished Michael Strevens book, 'The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science," I wanted to close the book on this book, so to speak, by sharing some further ideas about how Strevens' Big Idea applies to us in everyday life.

(My three previous posts about The Knowledge Machine are here, here, and here.)

The Big Idea that makes modern science a highly effective way of generating knowledge is restricting scientific communications -- journal articles, research reports, and the like -- to only empirical evidence. 

So if a scientist wants to argue some point, they must do so on the basis of empirical evidence, not on philosophy, religion, personal beliefs, and so on.

In their non-official life, scientists are free to speculate all they want about whatever they want. Only in their official communications are they limited to what Strevens calls the Iron Law -- the Big Idea in his book.

Most of us aren't professional scientists. 

However, I think we all would benefit from embracing the wonderful irrationality of modern science when this is appropriate in everyday life.

At first I found it difficult to understand the subtitle of The Knowledge Machine, since I've always considered rationality to be a hallmark of science. 

Surely, it is.

But as Strevens discusses, it took a long time for the Iron Law of empirical evidence to take root, because we humans are so addicted to philosophizing, telling stories about our life, finding reasons for why this or that happened that make sense to us.

Giving that up would have seemed crazy to the early Greeks, as to medieval thinkers like Descartes. They wanted to fathom the workings of the entire universe, the cosmos. 

Thus to them the scientific method involved grand conceptual schemes, not data-driven empirical evidence. Hence, the seeming irrationality of the Iron Law.

Given the many examples offered up in The Knowledge Machine about how almost obsessive attention to minute detail is how scientific progress usually occurs, I came away convinced that our everyday lives would also benefit from fewer stories in our heads and more empirical facts.

Here's a couple of examples from my own recent life.

Last night I wrote a post for my Salem Political Snark blog about a controversy over Salem's Mayor, Chuck Bennett, failing to assign a progressive city councilor, Jackie Leung, to any City Council committees other than a single spot as an alternate.

Since Leung is a woman of color, quite a few people commented on Facebook that this showed how racist and sexist Bennett is.

They were outraged that Leung had been treated so badly by the Mayor, since other members of the City Council got three, four, five, or six committee assignemts.

At first I shared some of that outrage, but the more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that racism and sexism explained Bennett's behavior.

So I emailed the Mayor, asking him to explain himself. 

In other words, I sought some empirical evidence in the form of a reply to my message. That reply turned out to be highly believable. Bennett told me that last year Leung hadn't wanted any committee assignments because she was too busy.

When she failed to respond to a request from the Mayor to list her committee preferences for 2021, he figured that once again she wasn't interested in being assigned to some committees. Yet actually she was. 

It turned out, then, that a failure to communicate by Bennett and Leung led to a simple mistake. As far as I can tell, the claims of racism and sexism were just stories people used to explain what the Mayor did.

Here's another more personal example of how a failure to use empirical evidence and attention to detail led to a preventable error.

This morning I got a call from an unknown number on my iPhone that didn't ring, because the caller wasn't in my Contact list. That happens frequently. 

I did what I usually do: click on the "phone" icon on the home screen, so by going to Recents, the red "1" (for one call) above the icon would go away.

But after doing this, or at least believing I'd done this, the red "1" was still there. That made me think that perhaps the caller had left a voice mail message, and that message was creating the "1."

Checking Voicemail, I listened to the top message. I couldn't understand all of it, the gist of it being that Amber wanted me, Brian, to call back at _____ Health. When I Googled the phone number, I saw that it belonged to Salem Health Urgent Care.

Which perplexed me, since I haven't been there for quite a few months.

Still, I wanted to find out what Amber wanted. I called the number on the voicemail and found that I was third in line to have my call answered. I listened to annoying music and repeated messages to be patient because my call was important to them for about ten minutes.

Then I was able to talk with someone. "Amber left a message for me," I said. "Is she there?" "No," I was told, "Amber isn't working today." 

That led to me being asked my name and date of birth so they could look up my records and try to figure out what Amber wanted. Eventually I was asked a simple question, "What time was the voice mail message left?"

"Well, it was February... oops. February 27, 2020. A year ago. Wow, sorry. Last night I deleted a bunch of old voice mail messages and the one from Amber a  long time ago now was at the top. So I thought it was a recent message, having forgotten that I'd deleted other old ones."

The Salem Health Urgent Care person laughed and said that she's done something like that before. That made me feel a bit better, a little less embarrassed. 

Now, in retrospect I should have paid more attention to details rather than jumping to the conclusion that today I'd gotten a voice mail message from Salem Health. I'd stared at the message several times, but never noticed the date of the message, since I'd assumed it was from today.

Not a scientific attitude. If I'd gathered more empirical evidence rather than believing the story I'd told myself, I wouldn't have spent time trying to unravel a mystery of my own making.

Comments

[E.M.]

Thank you, Brian, for sharing your personal blog example of the wisdom of seeking empirical evidence in support of a set of values, conclusions and/or beliefs.

[Dragonslayer]

If you look at science you see it has some how been inspired by off planet entities. Study how all these great philosophers got there inspiration. RSSB in particular GSD boasts that their path is a science from within -also called inner guru, or an off planet entity or alien. A science being a technique that gives 100% results. But have you ever asked where these results are taking you? and the method used? It starts with a mantra which you are told to constantly say and if you study the etomolgy of the mantra , in particular the first one , it is clearly referring to the light (jot) of the devil, ie the so called lord of the first region. The scientific results is that you are calling demonic entities to willingly enter your body and take full possession. It's like giving your own body and mind remote control to someone else to control. Why would you do that? Also why else do you see people shake uncontrollably in front of your eyes in satsang - I'm sure most have seen this and there is no explanation and it is brushed under the carpet. So this science is nothing but a path further into the devils web. You become enlightened to the way of lucifer/ satan. So GSD knowingly does this and himself is fully possessed with this entity.

Also have you ever asked yourself why does GSD insists on giving darshan ?and why you are indirectly encouraged to look into his eyes? why has no other paths such as Sikh gurus or saints never given so called darshan? GSD does a kind of hypnosis and spell with his eyes, ( the evil eye) which anchors the sangat to him, and it waters that seed in them so they become helpless puppets to this power. This makes GSD truly evil and worse than Hitler and a very dangerous subconscious manipulator.

[6sigmablackbelt]

"To defy the authority of empirical evidence is to disqualify oneself as someone worthy of critical engagement in a dialogue." ~ Dalai Lama

[um]

@ dragon slayer
>>If you look at science you see it has some how been inspired by off planet entities>Various new religious movements including some branches of theosophy, Scientology, Raëlism, and Heaven's Gate believe in ancient and present-day contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Many of these faiths see both ancient scriptures and recent revelations as connected with the action of aliens from other planetary systems. Psychologists have found that UFO religions have similarities which suggest that members of these groups consciously or subliminally associate enchantment with the memes of science fiction.[42<<

[Dragonslayer]

Um
@Various new religious movements including some branches of theosophy, Scientology, Raëlism, and Heaven's Gate believe in ancient and present-day contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.

Im surprised you didn't add Shiva, vishnu, and brahma, the biggest Gods /aliens. Also bear in mind JAIMEL originated beas RSSB, and that he had never perssonnally met Soami ji in agra. So who did JAIMEL contact on the inside meditations - was it god or was it an alien or a cloaked demon that lead him astray. To figure it out just look at the results of RSSB today. The crazy unhealthy and obsessive expansion of RSSB by a self proclaimed god by contract, GSD, and his compulsive greed for money, power, and control. Also, have you ever wandered why GSD calls him self babaji , it is because Jaimal was known as Babaji by his disciples.
This naracist entity has completely possesed GSD at will, to enjoy the spoils he had sown many years ago - now you have a clearer picture. These demons always get incarnated into the same families so that the wealth and the power they accumulated always goes down through the blood line and be worshipped like gods on earth. Ever wandered why the RSSB gurudom stays more or less in the same family and why Shivinder, GSD nephew, was supposed to be the successor. My advise is stay away from this sickly satanic self serving cult. The spiders web of kaal