If I have learned anything over 40 years, is that the number of people who actually live in a way consistent with hypothesis testing, data collection, evidence evaluation framework required to have scientific confidence in future action or even claims is effectively zero
That includes people who consider themselves professional scientists, PhD‘s authors, leaders etc.
The only people I know who live “scientifically” consistently are people considered “neurodivergent”, along the autism-adhd-odd spectrum, which forces them into creating the type of mechanisms that are actually scientific and as required by their conditions.
Nevertheless, we should expect better from people; and on average need to do better in aligning how they think to how science, when robustly demonstrated, demonstrates with staggering predictability how the world works, compared to all other methods of understanding the universe.
The fact that the people carrying the torch of science don’t live up to the standard is expected - hence peer review.
This is an indictment of the incentives and pace at which bad science is revealed (like in this case) is always too slow, but science is the one place where eventually you’re going to either get exposed as a fraud or never followed in the first place.
There’s no other philosophy that has a higher bar of having to conform with all versions of reality forever.
I would just like to point out the irony of claiming that people live in a way inconsistent with scientific rigour, based solely on personal experience.
I think you’re suggesting that I’m making a conclusion without sufficient evidence - hence the “irony”
Recall I’m discussing how people live, namely that they don’t live based on their own claims as to how to live. You’d have to evaluate my behaviors to derive if my claim is ironic.
However I’m Happy to provide that epistemological chain if requested
I would like to hear more about why you are confident the number is so low as to be effectively zero. What is your confidence interval, and what reasons do you have for your estimate and level of certainty?
The reason many people hate children is because children are not satisfied with the level of epistemology that most people can provide them, and have no compunction in saying “that answer is unsatisfactory”
Hence why institutional pedagogy is so often rote and has nothing to do with understanding - when we know science of learning says that every human craves understanding (montessori, piaget etc…)
In fact, the shortest way to break the majority of people’s brains is to ask them one of the following questions:
- Can you Explain the reasoning behind your behavior?
- How would you test your hypothesis?
- What led you to the conclusion you just stated?
- Can you clarify the assumptions embedded in your claim?
-Have you evaluated the alternatives to your position?
Those questions esp 1, 3, 5 sound almost like therapy. Maybe CBT, ACT?
Good orgs would ask at all 5 in every power gradient direction: so peers, managers, ICs, execs ... although not for everything as you would grind to a halt!
It's a dilemma- do you want to be virtuous or do you want to maximize your money? I get a sense around here that only the law matters (morals be damned) and we do whatever work pays best.
That feels extreme. Zero is a cold, dark, lonely number. Maybe it’s correct—i dont know. Ive worked on only a couple of projects in this space, and while the incentives certainly involved publishing, i dont feel that it equated to abandoning the SciMethod. Instead, it was the cost to pay for the ability to continue doing science.
Can you really stand by ZERO? How about a 1%. Meet me somewhere above zero, or, if you’d be so kind, make a compelling case why were truly rock bottom.
It exists but not to an extent the impact to the overall social structure is actually functionally impactful
They serve as “impossible standards” and generally excluded as outliers - occasionally as leaders but in many cases they are assassinated for challenging authorities or otherwise demonized.
The American version of the cultural Revolution is about to begin, and everybody recognizes that the labor class is coming
So everybody’s trying to align themselves with a victimized group as closely to reality as possible
To such an extent where people are actively making up victimization reasons such that they can find themselves in an affinity group with other victims so they are safe from prosecution during the troubles
That includes people who consider themselves professional scientists, PhD‘s authors, leaders etc.
The only people I know who live “scientifically” consistently are people considered “neurodivergent”, along the autism-adhd-odd spectrum, which forces them into creating the type of mechanisms that are actually scientific and as required by their conditions.
Nevertheless, we should expect better from people; and on average need to do better in aligning how they think to how science, when robustly demonstrated, demonstrates with staggering predictability how the world works, compared to all other methods of understanding the universe.
The fact that the people carrying the torch of science don’t live up to the standard is expected - hence peer review.
This is an indictment of the incentives and pace at which bad science is revealed (like in this case) is always too slow, but science is the one place where eventually you’re going to either get exposed as a fraud or never followed in the first place.
There’s no other philosophy that has a higher bar of having to conform with all versions of reality forever.