Year: 2016

Who Knows What?

A long piece from Massimo Pigliucci on why it’s wrong for either science or humanities to vie for supremacy in the quest for knowledge. Wisdom is more than knowledge I’d say, but Massimo’s piece covers a lot of ground and references well trodden here on Psybertron.

As Dan Dennett wrote in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea:

“There’s no such thing as philosophy-free science;
there is only science whose philosophical baggage
is taken on board without examination.”

Zen and the Art of Stoicism?

Hat tip to Massimo Pigliucci IIRC?

As someone who’s first forays into philosophy were encouraged by Robert Pirsig I was intrigued to see the reference in this piece on Stoicism to Eugen Herrigel’s Zen and the Art of Archery, the work that prompted the form of Pirsig’s famous title.

The Stoic philosopher Antipater is a new one for me. Never really taken enough interest in the Stoics beyond the natural language use of the term. I may have to fix that.

Climate Change Wisdom

George Monbiot lamenting that mainstream media is still failing to recognise the reality of climate change and that real life has already moved-on to adopting significant changes in behaviour is pulled-up by Nick Maxwell. It’s not just “cultural amnesia”.

Nick’s letter in the Grauniad points out that whilst academic institutions are commercial knowledge machines they are largely to blame for the failure to communicate and educate real wisdom.

(Hat tip to David Morey).

Example of the Species

Political correctness that is.

Jon Butterworth reacts to being branded a “cockwomble” after an event is relocated from his home institution (UCL) on his advice. (Using his own WordPress blog rather than his Grauniad outlet.) As public scientists go, I find Jon one of the most grounded.

More on the Court Jester from David Mitchell

Grauniad piece by David Mitchell, on my recurring topic of offence in free speech generally and comedy specifically – (ie  The Court Jester. See also Frankie Boyle generally.)

The David Mitchell example is in defense of the real case that led to Mike Ward being fined for offense!

We need to separate case of the general public (and authorities) from those of our court jesters.

Hat tip to Sarah Brown.

Me & My Free Will

I gave a very brief presentation (total 15 minute slot including Q&A) at Teesside’s Skeptics in the Pub (SitP) open-mike night last Thursday. Since it was my first such outing I gave a couple of minutes intro to what I’m doing here in and around Psybertron, before choosing to major on Free-Will.

A PDF of the presentation MeAndMyFreeWill is here with all the links to the reference sources.

It seemed to go down pretty well and going last of 6 presentations left me with the advantage of an audience able to continue the Q&A into discussions. Having the “hooks” in the introductory slides on my many interconnected topics and sources was not only useful to the discussion, but the entire exercise of condensing my whole interconnected agenda into a few bullet points and slides was useful too.

Thanks to Teesside SitP and the audience, and appreciation to the other presenters on the night. See here for a fuller post of my notes on the other presentations that evening.

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[Post Note: The most up to date / topical stuff – the continuation of the Harris / Dennett conversation happened only the week before so not had chance to review and comment in detail. From my initial notes – despite now returning to respectful dialogue, the differences remain great and real. From my notes Dennett is still on the right track. More later.]

[Post Note: And so up to date & ever-topical this piece from the Grauniad the following day – Oliver Burkeman with reference to Jonah Berger. Hat tip to Sue Whitcombe from the audience on the night.]

[Post Note: Also worth contrasting with my reaction to Graham Bell’s opposing talk at London Active Atheists Group last year. Lots of other reference links.]

[Post Note: Some later research alternatives showing that even Libet was a conservative overstatement of reality when the decisions actually have subjective value beyond mere test participation. Hat tip to Massimo Pigliucci who, like me, already believes even with Libet the real interpretation of mental events is nevertheless clear.]

[Post Note: And another recent John-Hopkins research result on evidence of free-will pre-meditation in the brain. Hat tip to @JudyStout.]

More on the Myths of Science

Further to the rant by Jerry Coyne about James Blachovicz piece which I reacted to here, there’s more. Forbes’ Ethan Siegel responded and so did Bill Storage at The Multidisciplinarian. Hat tip @chrisoldfield in all cases.

Where to start? It’s still all about turf wars over broad and narrow definitions – and I’ve said what I needed to say. Science (broadly) has many methods it shares with many other rational and creative disciplines, but (narrowly) has one specific distinguishing feature that makes it scientific – science as a species. Framing it’s hypotheses logically-objectively and empirically-falsifiably.

The recurring problem though is the turf-war, the arrogance of (some) scientists believing there are no bounds to what (narrow) science can speak about authoritatively. Obviously anyone can (broadly) speak about anything they like, but if we’re staking claims, good fences make good neighbours, and narrow definitions have their place.

The problem arises with the so-called “priviledged” position of science, in the minds of some scientists. Bill Storage in his piece opens with what he sees as a given:

“[S]cience deserves the special epistemic status that it acquired in the scientific revolution. By special epistemic status, I mean that science stands privileged as a way of knowing. Few but nihilists, new-agers, and postmodernist diehards would disagree.”

And he makes that claim from authority – that the history of science has been so successful – so it must be true.

Priviledged as “a” way of knowing. Sure. But not “the priviledged way” of knowing anything and everything across the broadest purview of scientific interest just because of its interest. Not all of science’s interest is science. The particular point in my response to Coyne’s rant was science’s fence with its philosophical neighbours. It needs to satisfy the standards of both camps. Coincidentally, today Nassim Taleb also tweeted this:

The graphic is from this post by The Logic of Science, which I haven’t fully digested yet, but it’s on the side of defending science against the accusations of arrogance (that I am making). But on this point it is wrong, a category error about the species that makes it special or priviledged. Several very astute comments in the various threads following from those two tweets above. Not all accusations of arrogance are spurious or ad-hominem.

Talking “about science” – as in the content of science – scientists can be as scientific and fallibly human as they like. The content is science, of scientific quality, or it isn’t. Science has the priviledge of deciding.

But, talking “about” science – as in the fences about it and the fields beyond them – science does need to get that not everything is scientific, not everything is objectively decidable, not necessarily evidentially, not even statistically. And Taleb would know.

The metaphors substituting plumbers and mechanics for scientists (in the graphic) are completely spurious, and missing the aboutness. Wake up science. Many of us accusing you of arrogance are sincerely trying to help you, and the rest of us into the bargain.

[Incidentally though, and probably ironically, and definitely very risky given the post-modern new-agey “attack is the best form of defence” tone of the original piece, ….

… the mechanic – the careful, self-knowing, scientific, mechanic, the kind we can trust – is precisely the vehicle used by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and in derivation by Matthew Crawford in Shop Class as Soul Craft. Just sayin’.]