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In any discussion of evolutionary psychology, or human sciences in general, it is very important to avoid two logical fallacies. They are called the naturalistic fallacy and the moralistic fallacy. Read More
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Why does it follow "of course" that you don't care about solving social problems? Had you left out the final clause of the last sentence of this blog post, could one not have reasonably speculated that you were perhaps indeed interested in solving social problems, and that you regard your work as contributing to the foundation of true observations on the basis of which such solutions might be constructed?
Real scientists, accordingly, would be those who prevent their cares about what ought to be from interfering with their care about what is -- not those who lack, or affect to lack, any care about what ought to be.
The truth and nothing but the truth
What Satoshi is trying to say with the 'of course' is that he is a pure scientist--he doesn't try to solve a social problem--he is just interested in what the truth is.
It is up to the 'world improvers' to take the truth and use it to solve their problems.
I suppose you people thaink
I suppose you people thaink the earth is roun too.
inferior races
i'm going to cite this for my eugenics blog about how black people are inferior. take that, liberal media!
Informed Comment on Race
That's not a very well though out comment, and exactly demonstrates the issue of this article.
The idea that races are different is indisputable. This does not imply inferiority at any point, just difference. It is evident that different evolutionary environments necessitated the development of different skills both mental and physical. It is no accident that the 100m finals at the Olympics is short of white men. This doesn't mean that asians or whites are inferior, just that the best runners of those races don't run 100m as fast.
It also doesn't mean that every black man is faster than every Asian man.
There are undoubtedly differences in mental function as well, though which way it goes is anyone's guess. On the whole, Asians may well be smarter than whites, Eskimos and Indians, we have no idea and anyone who tries to investigate it will probably be lynched.
Get back to the science and what is, not what religious or moral imperatives propose ought to be.
Actually in the case you
Actually in the case you cite it means they're inferior at running (just not necessarily generally inferior).
No, actually, if you took
No, actually, if you took your time to read his post you would have probably noticed that he said:
"This doesn't mean that asians or whites are inferior, just that the best runners of those races don't run 100m as fast."
which means that the best runners of those races run faster than the best runners of the other ones.
that doesn't say anything about whether an average runner of one race will be faster than the average runner of the other race.
the 100m is not a valid test
...or, maybe it means that the best opportunities for black children are in running, whereas the best for non-black are in other activities. so it's not necessarily that the runners are better, but that their lives direct them towards running.
so given a larger pool of black men than non-black, we might expect the best of the larger pool to be better than the best in the smaller pool, in general, because we've got more samples at the tail of the (Gaussian) high end of the population. that's why china wins so many gold medals, right?
this does not imply a test of genes, but of their expression and of many many interacting variables not tested or controlled.
Statistically
That would require more than 10 or 15 times more black people to be entering the 100m than other races.
Granted, the statistics may be skewed but my initial feeling would be that they would not be skewed that wildly in favour of black people had they not an innate advantage in this regard.
Just how many stats do you need to draw a conclusion? Pool: the world's population. Result: 10 black men in the 100m.
Hmmmm.
Specific Inferiority
You mean inferior -- or, maybe, more accurately: unable -- to run *as fast*, on the whole, as a black man. To say "inferior at running" implies to broad a judgment, as, possibly, the Asian man may be superior -- better able -- to run for a longer period of time, say, than a black man.
Indisputable?
> The idea that races are different is indisputable.
The idea that differences in specific inherited morphological characteristics exist is indisputable.
But there's considerable room for dispute in the idea that races are different. We see differences, but are those differences racial? What is a race, exactly? What criteria are you using to divide humans into racial categories? The closer you examine those questions, the clearer it becomes that the meaning of "race" is highly dependent on what society needs it to mean. There's very little dispute among anthropologists on this matter: race is a social construction.
> It is no accident that the 100m finals at the
> Olympics is short of white men.
Given the range of human biological and social variation, it's foolish to look at a sample as tiny as the 100m finals at the Olympics and think that it has anything at all to tell you about the source of the trait you're observing - let alone think that it's telling you that whether the source is biological or social.
And it's all the more foolish to claim that a tiny foray into the worlds of sampling and confirmation bias is "Get[ting] back to science."
or...
....could it be that running fast has nothing to do with race and everything to do with environment? Maybe a fast runner is one that is naturally active which lends to manipulting the body's muscles, etc. in such a way that leads him/her to run fast. Maybe a fast runner consumes a diet that supports their activity? Maybe a fast runner initially runs for need rather than desire? Couldn't I just as easily be the faster runner if I decided to train just as much and just as hard?
truth and nothing but the truth
Define 'inferior'. I bet YOU can't define it objectively.
Not as good as.
How hard was that?
Actually what he said is the
Actually what he said is the perfect example of a naturalistic fallacy as defined in the above article. He's saying that since everyone is genetically different, and imbued with their own abilities and characteristics, that one race ought to be superior and one ought to be inferior. Way to miss the point. The author clearly was trying to warn that most scientific discussion is skewed by personal beliefs and that a real scientist would check his subjectivity at the door.
Truth
Would it not be better to say that "what is and what is not" is the guiding principal of science. Perhaps just the facts and nothing but the facts. The moment you introduce the "T" word I think things get muddy. The same as when you label a thing ugly, good or bad, as you say, implies a judgement. Judgements are things that are relative. I think "Truth" is the same. I think it is a very human word and not a scientific one.
Anyway enjoyed the read.
Truth
I find this observation worth supporting. Truth, while having a basis in observable phenomena, also generates a gut feeling. Truth has become so polarizing as a concept (my truth vs. your truth) that it has become quite popular in satire as Truthiness.
I feel like this article has a lot of truthiness, but I feel like truth should stay out of science. Scientists have data, which maintains objectivity over truth's subjectivity.
Semantics
Your argument is about semantics, not truth.
You are attempting to redefine "truth" to mean "your opinion", which happens to be quite convenient if your counter argument is flawed in some way.
Careful
Are you not making the very leap you warn against when you say that truth is the only principal in science? It certainly seems like it OUGHT to be a goal, but science to me has always been about describing what is observable. This is why philosophers will rarely explicitly use science in their work--science to them is just another religion.
Any thinker knows that science can't answer any of the really interesting questions.
There are philosophers who
There are philosophers who think this way, but not the majority.
To defend your viewpoint, you must either have such strong criteria for truth, that there are no answers at all, or you must have such weak criteria that you accept any random idea as truth.
About your last sentence, it obviously depends on what you think is interesting. Sadly the questions I believe you're talking about, are not only unanswerable through thought and observations (science), they can't be answered at all - that's why wild guesses get accepted as answers.
"Truth is the only guiding
"Truth is the only guiding principle in science, and it is the most important thing for all scientists."
Well, no. Truth "OUGHT" to be the only guiding principle in science, but as you state in this very article, scientists "ARE" guided by all kinds of other principles.
"In fact, [truth] is the only important thing; nothing else matters in science besides the truth."
Well, no. Truth "OUGHT" to be the only important thing, and OUGTH to be the only thing that matters. But any scientist who is not independently wealthy knows that he/she must kowtow to those who hold the purse strings; your study will never get done unless it gets the funding you need, so there "ARE" many other important things in science besides the truth. Unfortunately.
Ironic that you commit errors in the very article in which you write about commiting these errors.
well.
I've understood theory to be the guiding principle of science.
Truthiness
There is no truth, only results. Truth implies right and wrong. There is no good or bad, these are just concepts, the same as up and down.
That's why blogs are not science.
Blogs like this one present solutions to a problem, and therefore, themselves, are not science.
As soon as you acknowledge there being a problem, you leave the realm of science, because problems are human. Science is "that particle went 10 mph with respect to that one". Human is "that cake tasted good". Science is "What are the physical happenings in the brain of a man killing another man?" Human is "Is it wrong to kill?" That's why we will never solve social problems with science. Those who say they do so are imposing that their solution to the problem is the right one, and therefore are being entirely subjective.
If my feelings & emotions exist to me, they cannot be scientifically proven right or wrong, and I therefore have no reason to calculate what is right and wrong. Therefore the "truth" can only be what "feels right" at the time, and therefore truths will change with emotion. And so the "truth" of doing what pleases you turns us into animals, doing as we please, until only the most able to do so are happy. And so the weak or sympathetic seek a set of rules to make us all "equal" by trying to find what generally feels good, which means there will always be problems where it doesn't feel good. The only complete solution is to all feel the same way -- universal thought. So if we all want to be happy, we all have to always want done what is done. We would all have to see our beliefs fulfilled by society, and so it is in our immediate interest to have others think the way we do -- have faith in the same rules we have faith in. Some have tried this by killing those who don't believe what they do. Others coax them with promises of happiness. Either way, the only way to lack of conflict is through universal belief, not science. Faith is the solution, not science. But then which existing faith is in the best interest for all people to adopt...
No, he's not committing the fallacy
ZeroBomb and Head in the Sand,
The *definition* of science is "describing what is observable", truly. The "ought" is bound up in the premises. If you aren't interested in _that_ ought, you aren't talking about science. Quit playing games.
Nice
Makes perfect sense to me. Very good.
www.privacy-center.be.tc
Citicism
You can not criticise science - well why not? Some holy cow!
Science is not Ptolemic is it? It's just another incomplete piece of knowledge. If it were complete, then there's no need for research, is there?
These days all scientific findings are motivated by need of sponsors than that of the society at large, isn't it?
And, for headline grabbing:
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12376658
Knowledge exists whether discovered on not. It's for people to use it as they like. Social responsibility is imperative and no holy cow should claim superiority at the cost of needs of the society. After all, what use is truth or knowledge otherwise?
--
Criticism
I think you missed the context of the article. It is article about *logical* fallacies used to criticize science.
It is quite obvious that anyone can criticize science by any means they wish. This article is pointing out that they are invalid criticisms unless they are problems with the logic or evidence. Nowhere in the article does it claim that science is above criticism.
I don't completely agree with the article, however. I agree that criticisms of conclusions based on logical fallacies are invalid. That ought to be obvious, but unfortunately isn't to many people as the article points out.
However, science doesn't occur in a vacuum. There are legitimate criticisms about *how* science is performed. For example, ethical criticisms of testing on animals and humans are legitimate. Safety and consequential criticisms are legitimate. For example, discovering a principle that can be used to make massively destructive weapons ought to (yes, legitimate use of "ought") be carefully secured.
Like the above two examples, the ethical and safety concerns surrounding discoveries in evolutionary psychology need to be addressed. It is one thing to say let science do it's work. But we are humans. We are not machines. The output of science does affect how we live and act. If the result of it will be social chaos, we need to legitimately deal with these potential problems. I do not mean changing or avoiding the science, but we need to address how to communicate and deal with the results socially.
The article is correct in its limited scope of logical fallacies. The problem is that this scope is too limited. Ironically, evolutionary psychology indeed should be the best equipped to understand what social impacts a conclusion might have. Perhaps it can also offer solutions on how to best integrate the knowledge into our social structure to do the least damage. That's an "ought" question, but one that I think is very important to address.
No *real* scientist (repeating the "no true Scotsman" fallacy in this article) should perform their work in a vacuum, but rather understand the implications and ensure that these issues are addressed. Science doesn't exist for its own sake. It exists to help the human condition, not to harm it.
Citicism
You are right, but then one or two points to note. Logical fallacies - it's like making a ground rule for criticism, they may be invalid within the narrow confines of such rules, doesn't go well with open mindedness required while seeking truth. Narrowing down the scope of research is to facilitate focus the efforts in seeking truth, which once found is invariably integrated into larger scheme of things. However, narrow confines for criticism indicates a certain close minded avoidence of criticism. Is it not so?
"Science doesn't exist for
"Science doesn't exist for its own sake. It exists to help the human condition, not to harm it."
Here we have another naturalistic fallacy. Perhaps to you, science *ought* to exist to help the human condition, but in reality, science exists solely for the interest of scientists. A scientist's drive to understand is what drove all science up to this age, and it is that drive which will push science further yet.