House of Eratosthenes

Not too pleased with the idea of creating potentially a third thread-that-won’t-die, when I already have two. But this thing needs naming, and it needs naming rather badly:

Anti-Science (n.)

Whereas real science is a disciplined accumulation of knowledge, toward a more useful and complete understanding of the world around us, this is the exact opposite. It starts at the opposite end and runs perfectly backwards. The conclusion comes first, and then as evidence arrives it is compared to this conclusion. If the evidence doesn’t support the desired conclusion, an elaborate anti-treatise will be prepared giving reasons why the evidence has to be discarded. There is an extremely low bar of adequacy for this anti-treatise. It can be entirely an appeal to emotion, or an appeal to authority, a bunch of ad hom attacks, or it can be a complaint that some paper making entirely legitimate points was not properly “vetted” or peer-reviewed, or that its author is “on the take” from the oil companies. Or, has never written up an article that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But the common and indispensable element to the anti-treatise is that the problematic information has to be discarded. It is like a lawyer arguing that evidence has been contaminated and is not to be allowed in court.

By way of these anti-treatises that remove information while pretending to add it, anti-science anti-learns about nature and the world around us, by pretending to learn it. It functions exactly the same way as a sculptor creating an image of a horse by starting with a block and removing everything that doesn’t look like a horse.

The “color wheel” is never too far from my mind when I get in these arguments with liberals. When you create colors by way of pigment, you subtract some colors from solid white, to leave a residual which is the antithesis of what you’ve removed. Do it some more, and you leave a smaller residual. When you create colors by way of light, you add some colors to form others. Pigment subtracts, color adds. This turns everything around: You overlay a blue film over a yellow film you get green, so green seems to be a composite color. What a simple experiment, and what a certain result you have. It’s right in front of you, how can you deny it? But in reality it’s the yellow that is a product of the green and the red. Green is not a product, it is a primary color. Things look entirely upside-down when you take things away, as opposed to putting them together.

Now it is certainly true that in real science, certain disciplines have to be followed. That’s where a lot of the effort goes. Entire experiments have to be started over again, with their data sets thrown out, after it’s discovered something wasn’t done quite right. Anyone who’s ever conducted a phone survey, is going to understand this. It can be truly exasperating. But only in anti-science is there this obligation to pretend something never happened, when it did, and even though there is arguably some kind of tainting that happened it still means something. Only in anti-science do things start to resemble a courtroom, in which the judge sternly lectures the jury to disregard the testimony.

The Zachriel objected to my noticing that science was being hijacked, and we had this exchange:

mkfreeberg: But when the theory says something, and practical experience says the opposite, and the science starts to “preach” much like a religious order would preach, that this observed practical experience should be invalidated, discarded, discredited, nudged aside, whatever is necessary to make the dogma come out right…that is an event that has the virtue of being testable.

Zachriel: …modern climate science does not meet your definition of “faux-science”. As we said, climate scientists collect observational evidence, often under difficult conditions, work across multiple disciplines, providing important cross-checks, subject their hypotheses to rigorous empirical testing, publish for their peers, and change their positions as new data becomes available. That’s contrary to your definition.

Line by line, I demonstrated the obvious: Not a single one of these glittering-generality statements about the noble work of the climate scientists, is mutually exclusive in any way from my testable complaint about this chisel-from-the-block-of-marble anti-science, that I called “faux science.” I’m sure counterfeiters do hard work across multiple disciplines in difficult conditions, too. And yet The Zachriel came back with a mixture of squid ink and “not sure what you mean by.”

Observation to be made here — and it is meaningful, for The Zachriel are not alone in doing this, by any means — in the course of denying there is any such thing as this counterfeit science, which “proves” things by taking knowledge away instead of by gathering it…they use this process to make their point. I point out the obvious and they come up with some kind of anti-treatise to “block” the information. Starting with the block, chiseling down to the horse. In exactly the same moment, in the same sentence, as insisting that is not what the climate scientists do.

It’s like yelling into a microphone to deny the existence of microphones.

What we’re seeing practiced with anti-science is not science at all, but modern liberalism. Information is treated as a contaminant, with the weird understanding in place that true wisdom is a vestigial remnant to be left standing, like the horse, after all the undesirable knowledge has been stripped away. Yes, our friends the liberals seem to think you are wiser when you know less. And learning, therefore, is a disciplined process of forgetting. Once one achieves wisdom in this way, by forgetting enough stuff, one is supposed to see the light and spread the knowledge around, by dissuading others from ever learning in the first place, what the original “learner” spent all that effort to forget. I know. Quite bizarre. But it explains quite a few of the things they do.

Cross-posted at Rotten Chestnuts.

A bit confused on where we’re supposed to post this.

mkfreeberg: The conclusion comes first, and then as evidence arrives it is compared to this conclusion.

Zachriel: change their positions as new data becomes available

Are those two statement compatible?

By the way, you do realize that the hypothesis comes before the test?
- Zachriel | 02/12/2013 @ 10:38
mkfreeberg: It’s already been established that this faux-science arrives at its conclusions not by accumulating additional knowledge, but by discarding knowledge.

That’s your definition, not a determination. May as well add that, although you’ve defined “anti-science”, you haven’t applied the definition to any particular.
- Zachriel | 02/12/2013 @ 10:38
The hypothesis is certainly supposed to come before the test. When it doesn’t, we identify a problem.

Morgan, I think your reference to the courtroom is exactly right. Lawyers are supposed to be advocates. Scientists normally should not be. Not that individual scientists don’t become passionately caught up in a theory they consider to be very well established, but good scientists know that this is a dangerous temptation and they try to minimize its expression. By the time you get scientists talking about how to balance effectiveness with honesty and “hoping” that they’ll be able to remain effective (priority number one) without jettisoning honesty (priority number two), you’ve got scientists acting like lawyers. And you know how confident people are in what lawyers say: their credibility is right up there with that of politicians.

Scientists ought to be more like judges. Judges aren’t supposed to gag one side and listen raptly to the other. They’re not supposed to make up their minds in advance. Yes, they sometimes do, but if they get caught at it they find that their judgments don’t inspire confidence in the public, and they start getting overturned on appeal. If a whole bunch of judges get a collective reputation for that kind of thing, we call their whole setup a “kangaroo court” and expose it to contempt and ridicule. A good scientist is like an honest, capable judge who avoids these common errors.

The public also has to act a lot like a judge: assessing competing claims and deciding who’s most persuasive. Like judges, they get used to one side or the other jumping up and down saying, “I’m right! My opponent is a crook! Throw his evidence out of court and instruct the jury to disregard everything he says!” Experienced, honest judges take all this noise in stride and keep trying to listen to all the sides before coming to a conclusion. Boy, they can get cranky while doing it, though, because the histrionics get really old.
- Texan99 | 02/12/2013 @ 12:30
Texan99: Not that individual scientists don’t become passionately caught up in a theory they consider to be very well established, but good scientists know that this is a dangerous temptation and they try to minimize its expression.

Scientists are people, so we have a methodology to minimize subjectivity, the most important of which is peer publication of results, independently deriving results with differing methodologies, and by establishing consistency across related fields of science. Edarrell gave a few examples in relation to climate science, including agriculture, oceanography, forestry, meteorology, ornithology, entomology and glaciology.
- Zachriel | 02/12/2013 @ 12:46
Morgan, I think Scott Adams said it best: “Always postpone meetings with time-wasting morons.”
- Rich Fader | 02/12/2013 @ 14:38
Another important safety tip: refuse to attend any meeting that lacks an agenda. Otherwise, how will you know when it’s finished?
- Texan99 | 02/12/2013 @ 15:29
“Scientists are people, so we have a methodology to minimize subjectivity . . . .”

Yes, and as I said, good scientists employ it. The problem is that you do not, and many climate “scientists” have been caught red-headed in the same error.
- Texan99 | 02/12/2013 @ 15:31
Texan99: many climate “scientists” have been caught red-headed in the same error.

Galileo was arrogant. Newton delved into the occult. Tesla was a huge geek.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Science doesn’t depend on the personality traits of individual scientists. It depends on what can be shown.
- Zachriel | 02/12/2013 @ 16:48
“Science doesn’t depend on the personality traits of individual scientists. It depends on what can be shown.”

That’s an interesting approach. I agree that it’s not important whether a scientist is arrogant, interested in the occult (OK, that one may be a little dated), or geekish. There probably are a lot of other personal quirks that are unimportant to a scientist’s professional skill and reputation, such as whether he’s introverted, likes sardines, or has perfect pitch. I don’t care if he’s a good athlete or is kind to dogs.

But does it follow that it doesn’t matter whether a scientist is honest, whether he has integrity? Isaac Newton didn’t secure his place in history by lying about his experiments or skipping steps in his analyses so his conclusions would sound like they had more basis than they really did.

I would say that a failure in the areas of honesty and integrity will undermine a scientist in two ways. First, if he lacks intellectual integrity he will not be honest enough even with himself to develop true rigor of thought, and therefore he is unlikely to formulate any intellectual structures of lasting value. Second, if he is obviously dishonest, no one will listen to his purported discoveries. Of course, it’s certainly true that if a dishonest scientist stumbles on something true and breaks out of character long enough to tell the truth about it, then it’s the work that’s important, not what an unprincipled creep he is. It’s just that he might as well have saved his effort, because his conclusions will have no value until someone else (someone honest) discovers them independently.

So again, I’m not getting the impression that you really understand what’s fundamentally important about honesty. That doesn’t make you more persuasive or credible. I really don’t know what to think about you. Can you possibly be this confused?
- Texan99 | 02/12/2013 @ 17:12
Richard Feynman famously articulated the foundation of scientific integrity: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. . . . After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”
- Texan99 | 02/12/2013 @ 17:14
Texan99: I’m not getting the impression that you really understand what’s fundamentally important about honesty.

Of course honesty is important. But that wasn’t the point of discussion, which was scientists “passionately caught up in a theory”.
- Zachriel | 02/12/2013 @ 17:31
Well, actually, that was the point. Scientists so passionately caught up in personal loyalty to a pet theory, knowing that if they’re right, the fate of humanity is at stake, that they need to fudge the facts in order to get the public on their side. Scientists, in fact, acting like lawyer-advocates rather than like impartial judges. Scientists who say they’re torn between being effective in changing public opinion and being honest, wistfully hoping that they can continue to exhibit some minimal honesty while carrying out their first priority, which is to be effective in changing public opinion.
- Texan99 | 02/12/2013 @ 21:24
Texan99: Well, actually, that was the point. Scientists so passionately caught up in personal loyalty to a pet theory, knowing that if they’re right, the fate of humanity is at stake, that they need to fudge the facts in order to get the public on their side.

Sort of like Galileo and his treatise on the tides. Evidence trumps. Independent verification by separate investigators using different methodologies across multiple fields of study is what determined that Galileo was right about the movement of the Earth, not his modesty.

Sure, some climate scientists hyperventilate. So? The findings are supported by the evidence across multiple fields of study. That’s all that matters in science.
- Zachriel | 02/13/2013 @ 06:02
“That’s all that matters in science.”

That’s all that should in science. Unfortunately, in the areas of research funding, research publication, peer review, public announcements of findings, government-sponsored panels to analyze and report findings, and proposals for spending trillions of dollars to address findings, that’s not all that matters. The dishonesty screws the process up.
- Texan99 | 02/13/2013 @ 07:03
Texan99: Unfortunately, in the areas of research funding, research publication, peer review, public announcements of findings, government-sponsored panels to analyze and report findings, and proposals for spending trillions of dollars to address findings, that’s not all that matters. The dishonesty screws the process up.

Ambition and recognition is probably a much greater problem than scientists getting rich on grants. Science seems to muddle along. In any case, we can test for this by checking with scientists outside the U.S.

“Climate change is real… It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities.” — National Academies of Science of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States.

More important, that is what the data shows. Here’s the new HadCRUT4:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/HadCRUT4vs3.jpg
- Zachriel | 02/13/2013 @ 07:41
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- House of Eratosthenes | 03/22/2014 @ 09:59

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