9 Comments

Good description of the process. A good name for ‘authoritarian science’ = “Faucian”. A good description of Faucian tactics. Let’s just call them what they are: Liars!

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Lyingwailering bullshit.

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And yet, here is your comment.

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well for me this confirms/matches the social/psychological drivers which i model perceive is creating your well described phenomenon...

that our will to power drive falsely believing that it is the entire us, of how our valuating desire for relatedness drive is shadowed into a mostly unconscious empowerment of who we think we are...

leading to a mindset that tends to seek absolutism this shadow empowered by the unresolved fear of uncertainty...

that science speaks of meaningful predictability which best we all then need to do our due diligence to valuate from a perspective empowered by a conscious vs unconscious desire for relatedness...

vs authoritarian science, or scientism, which seeks absolute answers justified by privileged top down is done for you valuation of what they think you should believe...

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The most important problem with Popper's philosophy is the "Death of the scientific method". Without old standards, scale, errors of measurement, and calibrated methods we cant perform real measurements. And without real physical measurements like "systems biology" or "psychology constructs", we need the insight to interpret it and it gives back only our biases. We are subjective observers, so we need objective methods. The scientific method is quite limited but it gives us the information about the real world we can use. We can prove our knowledge very easily. We don't need to know everything - our scientific endeavors generate technology or valid predictions. So every time we light the electric lamp we prove the theory of electricity, and every time we can predict the trajectory of a satellite, we prove the gravitation theory - it is enough for us. There is no philosophy of science just an old methodology of science. Francis Bacon and Renee Descartes made our technological progress possible and Carl Popper led us into a sophist paradox. A new generation of scientists doesn't understand that the most important thing is to measure physical variables according to the scientific method, they think they can use unvalidated methods and then filter it with statistics. We predictably went to the medieval ages in 2019 and we are bogged down there now. Our knowledge now is subjective and our feelings are objective. It is an upside-down world of medieval men. and that world is quite cruel. We need a new reinessanse with the rebirth of the scientific method.

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Working on that. However, EO Wilson came pretty close with his call to pay heed to the consilience of evidence. Learning objectively appropriate weights for different types of evidence and how to use them together should be the goal of every scientist who holds a sincere goal of understanding.

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We unfortunately don't have the ability to "objectively appropriate weights for different types of evidence", we only could measure with calibrated and validated methods. For example, we can measure a person's height only because we have a calibrated ruler. If the scale would stretch or squeeze in an unpredictable manner we could not compare people's heights, our comparisons would be meaningless. Without etalons (standards) there is no calibrated method and without calibrated method, there are no real measurements. There is no objectivity in humans, the only way to know anything about the world around us is to measure something with the scientific method. We stopped doing it, we believe that we are kissed by God and could do objective analysis of shoddy data and select real information with our insight. All subjective evidence will converge on our intuition and internal biases and generate absurd consensus. As a result, we see a technologically advanced medieval society, we can't even use our accumulated knowledge.

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In fact, we have many methods. To an empirical scientist, having a method is not as important as the track record of potential methods. Again, consilience is a good start.

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The best example of consilience was how scientists for 15 years counted human chromosomes and most scientists got 48 just to agree with a guru in the field but some rebels had 47. Then one guy found how to use a hypotonic solution to spread chromosomes and then another one used dye which colors chromosomes uniquely and he counted chromosomes and it was 46 of them. From the development of the proper method, it was always 46. Consilience does not guarantee the right results. Several methods could have the same biases, especially in situations of high peer pressure. Scientists are people and they tend to have a confirmation bias. Science without the strict scientific method of measurement is just another way of money laundering. This is what we saw in covid. The easiest group for propaganda manipulation was scientists and doctors. They just followed the biggest authority in their group. And they thought that if they all agree on something their consensus will make it true. And it is why nobody believes in science anymore. People are starting to believe in a flat earth, no viruses, and no moon landing. and I can't blame them. Empirical scientists are not high priests, they have only the scientific method at their disposal and without it, they are powerless and useless. I hope we will go back to the drawing board.

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