Facts versus opinions and values. A primer for a post-fact society.

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1. There are real facts. When you are talking about issues the safety of GM foods, or the reality of global climate change... there is a set of real facts that are agreed upon by the people who have the expertise. These facts aren't really in question.

First, you have to understand that these are policitized issues, so there is no way for you or anyone else to know exactly who is meddling with which research processes and discourses that establish 'facts' in the interests of those funding and steering things in whatever ways they can.

Experts are not unbiased. Many if not most are for sale. You have new regimes and administrators that come into various positions and steer people in directions that they aren't willing to lose their jobs and professional credentials to resist. You have academic/professional careers that are dependent on publications that are subject to editorial pressures based on their funding. All these subtle interests steer discourses and the 'facts' they commodify as professional/political capital.

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2. I can't force anyone to accept the actual facts... but it doesn't mean that the facts don't exist.

Facts are part and parcel of the discourses that generate and make use of them in various ways. But there is such a thing as Truth and true facts are truly true and not relatively true, although fake facts also exists which are relatively true and many people cannot or will not distinguish or attempt to distinguish fake/relative truth from real truth because doing so would cause them political/economic inconvenience.

Then, you're also going to have people who are so good at political/economic spin that they are going to work that much harder to distinguish their relative truths/facts as being not relative/fake precisely because they want to establish their politics as being based on truth and not the opposite. There's no way to stop liars from developing amazingly elaborate strongholds for their lies.

Google, "regimes of truth: Michel Foucault" to get a sense of how deep the rabbit hole(s) can go.

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3. Even if two people accept the actual facts, they can still come up with different conclusions. This is because conclusions include interpretation and values. This is fine, but you should be clear that conclusions aren't facts.

I agree. It would help if more people would develop a stronger awareness of the difference between conclusions based on facts and the facts the conclusions are based on. Both can be manipulated, but they are separate parts of the BS.

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When people confuse conclusions and values with facts it makes meaningful conversation much more difficult.

As do all forms of confusion and confounding, obfuscation, lying, etc.

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This is why I am suggesting we should agree on the facts first... to have a fact-based discussion. My suggestion is for each person to list the facts they believe are important and then agree on as many of them as possible.

What happens when you are a strong intellect is that people resist accepting your premises, even if they are simple facts, because they don't trust where you are going with the facts. You can start with something so amazingly indisputable as the difference between night and day and they will hesitate to concede because they are already bracing themselves to resist your powers of reasoning, i.e. because they want to have the freedom to pick and choose what conclusions they accept and reject, regardless of the facts, the validity of the reasoning/logic, etc.

Really the question is when people ever actually grasp sound reasoning/logic and accept a conclusion, especially one that is inconvenient for them. It takes a willingness to sacrifice for the truth, and many people just aren't willing to sacrifice anything; so they would prefer to maintain false beliefs/understandings that to set themselves up for sacrifices that they don't want to make.

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@livinglava,

I disagree with your main thesis (if I understand what you are saying correctly).

1) The facts on political issues are accessible. People choose to accept them or not, but saying that there "is no way to know the facts" is simply wrong.

If you want to know the facts, listen to the experts. There are people who have spent 12-14 years of their life studying biology. They have studied the math, read the papers, spent time in the lab. They actually know what they are talking about (far more than I). When they tell me the results of GM foods... they are right.

We are in a mature, open democracy. We have well-functioning scientific and academic institutions with processes for evaluating facts and an open discussion on opinions.

2) I do not accept the conspiracy theories against scientific and academic institutions. Most of these issues have been confirmed by multiple independent researchers.

3) If you reject scientific or academic facts because you believe that science or education is corrupt... then reject all of it.

The issue is that conservatives accept the science on GM foods, but reject climate change science because Environmentalists. Liberals accept climate change science but reject the science on GM foods because Monsanto.

At least be consistent.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I disagree with your main thesis (if I understand what you are saying correctly).

1) The facts on political issues are accessible. People choose to accept them or not, but saying that there "is no way to know the facts" is simply wrong.

If you want to know the facts, listen to the experts. There are people who have spent 12-14 years of their life studying biology. They have studied the math, read the papers, spent time in the lab. They actually know what they are talking about (far more than I). When they tell me the results of GM foods... they are right.

Here's the problem with that: the person who is going to lie to you most effectively is going to be a person who is well-established as an authority on the subject. There is simply no way to exclude the possibility of bias and interests filtering into 'truth' and 'facts.' That is why Foucault could legitimately write about 'regimes of truth.' It's not that it isn't possible for established experts and trusted authorities to tell the real truth and discover real facts; but that it isn't inevitable.

If non-experts have no critical faculties for questioning established truth, then they can only trust established authorities or reject them outright. For people to not be sheeple, they have to hone the ability to think beyond simple 1/0 trust/distrust of authority and develop the ability to question authority in a way that is fruitful and constructive, not just oriented toward rejecting anything that doesn't pass their trust filters.

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We are in a mature, open democracy. We have well-functioning scientific and academic institutions with processes for evaluating facts and an open discussion on opinions.

What you're talking about is technocracy, rule by experts.

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2) I do not accept the conspiracy theories against scientific and academic institutions. Most of these issues have been confirmed by multiple independent researchers.

The word, 'conspiracy,' is not really a useful word because all it really refers to is the level of secrecy with which socially-organized planning and execution of operations takes place. To the extent that corporate board rooms aren't publicly accessible means that everything that goes on there is technically 'conspiratorial,' but it's just not relevant in the way that so-called 'conspiracy theorists' use the term.

The bottom line is that humans and human processes aren't perfect and so whenever you are unaware of flaws/biases/mistakes for whatever reason, there is potential for fake facts, misunderstandings, bad interpretation, etc. to filter their way through to becoming established as knowledge/facts that can pass as legitimate because it is associated with academic institutions, courts, other government institutions, etc.

In fact, you can even see how corporate marketing and other business information comes to pass as true/factual when people fail to question it. Gullible people can fall for even the oldest marketing techniques if they don't stop and reflect critically on them. As P.T. Barnum said, "there's one born every minute."

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3) If you reject scientific or academic facts because you believe that science or education is corrupt... then reject all of it.

That's totally faulty logic. That lends legitimacy to any and all bad information that makes it through academia by reference to whatever good/valid information they produce. In short, it validates'whitewashes the bathwater by reference to the baby being part of it.

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The issue is that conservatives accept the science on GM foods, but reject climate change science because Environmentalists. Liberals accept climate change science but reject the science on GM foods because Monsanto.

At least be consistent.

It has nothing to do with consistency. Technically, you don't have to question everything to question anything. What you're arguing now is exactly the opposite of what you said before about facts being independent of other facts. Now you are saying that people can't question climate science if they believe GM food science or vice versa.

That's silly. You have to question anything if you want to strengthen your critical understanding and acceptance of it. If you just accept things because you trust the source, you don't really understand/believe it. You're just going along with it because it is a culturally-established thing.

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@livinglava,

"Rule by experts" is the only rational way to understand anything. The alternative is rule by the ignorant. People who have studied science for 12-14 years of their lives, have done the research, read the papers and spent time in the labs understand science. You don't understand science without doing the work to gain this expertise.

You either listen to experts... or you make stuff up on your own. I choose the former.

Our society has safeguards against corruption among our expert. They aren't perfect, but they work very well especially in the scientific fields where results are reproduced, data is transparent and papers are peer-reviewed.

I have no problem defending what you are calling "rule by experts".

When the facts you believe are determined by political ideology, then the facts and knowledge understood by experts is meaningless.

You can listen to scientists when it comes to science, or you can listen to politicians. I don't think the latter makes sense if your goal is to be fact-based.

When it comes to modern science (or other advanced fields of study) you have no choice to accept the source... because most people couldn't pass a first year Physics exam, and the expertise needed to understand the science is significantly more advanced than that.

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@livinglava,

If you want to truly understand global warming, you need to start with a background in Physics (this will take a couple of years at least to get). You need to understand blackbody radiation, how molecules work etc. The people actually doing work in climate science all have this background. And that is just a start.

People who understand climate science have an addition 8-10 years of study that includes differential equations (critical for understanding climate models).

Saying that anyone can just jump in with no knowledge and start questioning the work of real scientists is ridiculous.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

"Rule by experts" is the only rational way to understand anything. The alternative is rule by the ignorant. People who have studied science for 12-14 years of their lives, have done the research, read the papers and spent time in the labs understand science. You don't understand science without doing the work to gain this expertise.

It's more like collaborative reasoning. If you have studied something and I haven't, you can listen to my questions and respond. Hypothetically, you critically questioned claims you studied throughout your academic training, so you know how to answer them from others. If you learn a subject well enough to teach other students, then you should also be able to interact constructively with a critical public.

The challenge also falls on students and the public to question the science in a way that leads to constructive reasoning and not obfuscation for the sake of defending culture against reform. So, for example, it's easy to question the ability to come up with a definitive model of global climate that matches any possible compilation of data from various detectors, satellite observations, etc. but we should still ask what it is about greenhouse gases that reflect infrared and how rising concentrations of such gases thus blanket more heat than if those same gases were drawn out of the atmosphere by ground-based mechanisms, such as forests, cooler land, etc.

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You either listen to experts... or you make stuff up on your own. I choose the former.

Any time someone says something you aren't an expert on, you become a student of that expert. As a student, you shouldn't just accept whatever you're taught unquestioningly but rather you should question why it's true and why some other conclusion is excluded. That way, you actually understand what you're taught and don't just accept it as dogma without reason.

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Our society has safeguards against corruption among our expert. They aren't perfect, but they work very well especially in the scientific fields where results are reproduced, data is transparent and papers are peer-reviewed.

I have no problem defending what you are calling "rule by experts".

What can you do then, if anything, when/if such 'experts' start abusing their power over trusting subjects to exploit them and their resources?

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When the facts you believe are determined by political ideology, then the facts and knowledge understood by experts is meaningless.

You can't know when the 'facts and knowledge' understood by experts is being determined by political ideology if you accept what they say unquestioningly.

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You can listen to scientists when it comes to science, or you can listen to politicians. I don't think the latter makes sense if your goal is to be fact-based.

You forget to consider that scientists can be politically-oriented and biased. Think about it. How many scientists do you know that are politically neutral?

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When it comes to modern science (or other advanced fields of study) you have no choice to accept the source... because most people couldn't pass a first year Physics exam, and the expertise needed to understand the science is significantly more advanced than that.

True. The public does have the responsibility to learn things well enough to fruitfully question what they're told/taught. If they are trained to accept what they're told without question, then how can they ever know if what they're learning or being told holds water or not?

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@livinglava,

A student is someone who studies (that is what the word "student" means). You don't learn anything by heckling professors (and the professor won't up up with it).

There are two ways to question someone who has expertise. One is to accept that the person you are question knows a great deal more than you do, and that they understand things that you have no idea about. When you are a student... that is what you do.

I have expertise in Physics and in Engineering. After I started taking graduate courses, I got to the point where I understood enough to start asking real questions. Before that point, the question I was asking led to me learning more about the basics.

When I taught Physics, students had to start with calculus (without calculus you can't really understand anything, professors can tell you things but you don't have the tools to figure it out for themselves). After mastering calculus, learning Physics is applying the math. You learn to see the consistency... how it all holds together. But you aren't going to have the tools to challenge it until you have mastered the basics.

The public doesn't have the time to become experts on everything. That is why we have professional scientists.

If by questioning you mean rejecting the knowledge of scientists... that is foolishness. It isn't reasonable to reject things simply because you don't understand them (and there is a lot that it is very difficult to understand for people without the education).

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

A student is someone who studies (that is what the word "student" means). You don't learn anything by heckling professors (and the professor won't up up with it).

No, heckling isn't constructive questioning. Constructive questioning is when you receive an explanation or fact and you investigate it more closely to understand why/how it can be valid.

When you question received knowledge-claims, you are effectively a 'student' whether or not that is your formal status; because you are strengthening your knowledge/understanding of the subject matter you are interacting with.

To give a simple example: when you read the news, you can look for ways to verify and/or question the veracity of claims made in the news. Most news claims are not really verifiable, but if you read that there was a heat-wave, for example, you could compare that news with your experience of the weather and if you noticed the heat, that would allow you to verify the weather report. If it was rainy and cold during the period where the news report said it was sunny and hot, you would discount the news credibility. Similarly, if you question how hot and cold fronts move, you strengthen your understanding of why/how there was a heat-wave. In that way, you are studying weather even though you are not officially in school to do so. There are public resources available on the internet, in libraries, etc. that allow you to investigate and explore received information in order to understand it more thoroughly instead of accepting it at face value.

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There are two ways to question someone who has expertise. One is to accept that the person you are question knows a great deal more than you do, and that they understand things that you have no idea about. When you are a student... that is what you do.

That isn't questioning. It's unquestioning acceptance/trust. To question something, you have to think about what can verify and/or explain the thing you're questioning. E.g. if someone tells you the climate is changing, you can ask how they know that and why it's happening instead of just accepting the claim as true without further investigation.

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I have expertise in Physics and in Engineering. After I started taking graduate courses, I got to the point where I understood enough to start asking real questions. Before that point, the question I was asking led to me learning more about the basics.

Either way, you are learning from questioning. Everything seems 'basic' once you begin using it as a basis to study further. E.g. understanding what 'temperature' and 'pressure' are is a basis for understanding Boyle's law, but then understanding Boyle's law is a basis for understanding compression-machines, etc. You could say that a 'basic' understanding of Boyle's law is required for understanding how a steam engine works, but you could also say that understanding what temperature and pressure are is 'basic' knowledge needed to grasp Boyle's law.

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When I taught Physics, students had to start with calculus (without calculus you can't really understand anything, professors can tell you things but you don't have the tools to figure it out for themselves). After mastering calculus, learning Physics is applying the math. You learn to see the consistency... how it all holds together. But you aren't going to have the tools to challenge it until you have mastered the basics.

Younger students learn about things like temperature, pressure, Boyle's law, etc. without calculus. You are making assumptions without questioning whether other paths are possible.

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The public doesn't have the time to become experts on everything. That is why we have professional scientists.

If you don't question something that isn't true, you won't know it's false. Likewise, if you don't question a claim that something true is false, you will assume it's false and never find out that it was in fact true.

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If by questioning you mean rejecting the knowledge of scientists... that is foolishness. It isn't reasonable to reject things simply because you don't understand them (and there is a lot that it is very difficult to understand for people without the education).

No, I already told you that questioning is how you go beyond the simple either/or choice of uncritical acceptance or rejection. Now I think you aren't fully reading the posts you're responding to, so it's time for me to stop investing so much time and effort in typing explanations you're not bothering to read.

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@livinglava,

1. The only way to become an expert is to study. This doesn't mean "asking questions".

Studying means going to lectures where the present experts tell you what you need to know. Studying means learning the background topics the experts know are important. Studying means being taught to do the experiments, solve the problems.

Science has advanced over thousands of years of human knowledge. You can't advance science until you do the work to bring yourself to the current level of knowledge.

2. If you haven't done the work (i.e. received a university degree or done the equivalent work) then you have no choice but to rely on the people who have. People who have done the work to become experts have the knowledge. People who haven't don't have the tools required to form a factually valid understanding.

3. The problem is that non-experts know simple principles without understanding the real science. This leads to misunderstandings... and sometimes persistent misunderstandings.

This happens all of the time... someone who has read a law (say Boyle's law) will come up with an idea. They will tell it to a scientist who will chuckle and say "sorry, but it doesn't work that way".

The "student" will protest... but the law says that the volume will double. The scientist will try to explain why they either misunderstood the law, or that it doesn't apply. The "student" will stomp off and declare that scientists don't know anything.

Of course the scientist is right, they have actually done the work and actually know what they are talking about.

If this scientist were explaining it to a serious student, he would go to a whiteboard, draw out the differential equation and offer mathematical proof as well as instruction on the correct way to derive the proper function. A serious student will have the mathematical background to check that the function works.

Of course, with someone who doesn't have the background... all the scientist can do is try to explain a simplified version which the unprepared student will be unable to to check because they don't have the tools.

4. I am not a biologist. I kind of understand how vaccination works because I read wikipedia. I have zero real experience... I have never studied epidemiology or looked a viruses in a microscope or seriously read paper in biology.

In fields where I have no expertise, I have no choice but to trust what the experts say. And, I get the vaccinations they recommend.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1. The only way to become an expert is to study. This doesn't mean "asking questions".

"Asking questions" doesn't have to be out-loud or interactive with other people. When you read a book, you are 'asking' the author about what you are reading about. When you attend and listen to a lecture, you are 'asking' the speaker to provide information; and you should be considering what you're hearing critically while listening so that you can follow up with questions and/or further research. Passive learning is not learning.

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Studying means going to lectures where the present experts tell you what you need to know. Studying means learning the background topics the experts know are important. Studying means being taught to do the experiments, solve the problems.

You're assuming passive-reception and unquestioning following of authoritarian guidance in all of this. That doesn't result in knowledge and understanding; it results in dogma and mindless conformity.

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Science has advanced over thousands of years of human knowledge. You can't advance science until you do the work to bring yourself to the current level of knowledge.

Memorizing Newton's laws of motion doesn't cause you to understand them. You have to think critically about how they apply (and not) to truly understand/master them. Memorizing and reciting dogma isn't the same as knowing/understanding.

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2. If you haven't done the work (i.e. received a university degree or done the equivalent work) then you have no choice but to rely on the people who have. People who have done the work to become experts have the knowledge. People who haven't don't have the tools required to form a factually valid understanding.

Universities, other schools, and degrees are just formalized methods for conferring and processing information to build knowledge and understanding. The same information can be conferred and processed by other means, hence the emergence of online education, for example. Public libraries are an older alternative to structured classwork. It all comes down to how you interact with information, and what results you get from your brain in the process.

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3. The problem is that non-experts know simple principles without understanding the real science. This leads to misunderstandings... and sometimes persistent misunderstandings.

It can indeed, but so can dogmatic learning that occurs with people who follow official programs of academic study and graduate with degrees, gain employment/status, and recite memorized dogma to others without really understanding it or only understanding it in some ways but not others that may also be applicable.

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This happens all of the time... someone who has read a law (say Boyle's law) will come up with an idea. They will tell it to a scientist who will chuckle and say "sorry, but it doesn't work that way".

Of course. That is a moment of hypothesis testing. The person interprets what they have read and attempts to apply it by deducing an application. They then test their application by consulting an expert.

Imagine the problems it causes when the 'expert' doesn't understand the law deeply enough to grasp the questioner's thought process enough to help clarify and help the person progress in their understanding. Critical/questioning has to occur in both directions of communication for experts to effectively help students gain enlightenment.

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The "student" will protest... but the law says that the volume will double. The scientist will try to explain why they either misunderstood the law, or that it doesn't apply. The "student" will stomp off and declare that scientists don't know anything.

And when that happens, the critical/questioning learning interaction momentarily fails.

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Of course the scientist is right, they have actually done the work and actually know what they are talking about.

You can't assume 'of course' they are right. It is possible they are not right. It is possible for 'experts' to make mistakes and have inadequate grasp of knowledge, even if they have adequate understandings in other ways. Learning/progress is a lifelong process.

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If this scientist were explaining it to a serious student, he would go to a whiteboard, draw out the differential equation and offer mathematical proof as well as instruction on the correct way to derive the proper function. A serious student will have the mathematical background to check that the function works.

Maybe that would work or maybe the math would just lull the student into accepting whatever is being claimed dogmatically instead of really understanding it.

E.g. you teach Newton's laws, then you teach F=MA and give some examples. If the student realizes they can do the math, they might assume they have mastered the concept and then later still fail to understand how equal and opposite reactions involve force-interactions and energy-transfers; i.e. they might still fail to understand how the knowledge applies to reality.

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Of course, with someone who doesn't have the background... all the scientist can do is try to explain a simplified version which the unprepared student will be unable to to check because they don't have the tools.

You can try to explain anything you know/understand to anyone. Their response will determine whether they are capable/willing to work with the information critically to the point of fully understanding. If they lose patience, they may give up and start again later . . . or never.

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4. I am not a biologist. I kind of understand how vaccination works because I read wikipedia. I have zero real experience... I have never studied epidemiology or looked a viruses in a microscope or seriously read paper in biology.

It doesn't matter. If you keep interacting with the knowledge/claims critically and finding answers to your questions, your knowledge/understanding would continue to deepen.

You might now understand that immunization involves having antibodies for pathogens. Then you ask how antibodies are produced, how they help the immune system fight the pathogens, and then you take whatever new information you get, synthesize it, and keep asking further questions to clarify further.

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In fields where I have no expertise, I have no choice but to trust what the experts say. And, I get the vaccinations they recommend.

And what if the experts haven't fully explored the consequences of the vaccinations you get? You mentioned scientific questioning of GM food-modification, but somehow you see vaccination as something completely different from other forms of genetic-modification.

You complained about inconsistency in accepting some science and rejecting other science, but isn't it inconsistent to critically question and even reject GM foods while uncritically accepting vaccination? Or will you return to your previous view that facts should be taken independently of each other?

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@livinglava,

You are arguing against formal education. I am not sure how interesting this argument is since you are taking this tack. But I will start (until it gets boring)

I have been on both sides of education... as a student and as a teacher. Let's take Newton's laws (something I have studied as a student and taught as a teacher) since you brought it up, it is a good example.

One big challenge in understanding Newton's laws is understanding the principle of independent frames of reference. This is an abstract concept that is difficult for many people to grasp. I can tell if student understands the concept after talking for five minutes, if you don't get it you start misunderstanding Newton's laws pretty soon... and the result is that you arrive at wrong conclusions that you wrongly think are the result of Newton's laws.

As a Physics teacher... the only thing I can do at this point is go back and fix the problem, the student doesn't understand a key concept. At this point the teacher is the expert. I have to tell the student that they have a basic misconception that is preventing them from understanding the science... and they have to listen.

Once the student has learned; meaning they have seen how they were looking at things incorrectly and now understand the correct principle, then then can go back and analyze the issue correct. When you reach a level of understanding... you can then check your work and see how it all fits together. But before you reach that point, the teacher is all you have.

Some students are unwilling or unable to learn. They stubbornly stick to their incorrect way of thinking. These students never become scientists our academic system filters them out quite effectively.

You could argue that by filtering out students who are unable to solve the problems correctly you are creating conformity. But this is nonsense, there are right answer in science that have been developed over thousands of years. Aristotle pulled science "facts" out of his imagination... and we are still cleaning up his messes. Over the past 1000 years we have been building up on human knowledge... no one starts from his own imagination. Scientists need to study the existing knowledge to reach the point where they can advance.

I have never heard of anyone in the past 500 years who has learned Physics from a library. You need to learn from an teacher, you need someone who knows more than you to correct your misconceptions and to teach you the way to think scientifically.

Formal education, in a University, is the only realistic way to learn science in modern times. The subject has advanced too far for someone to glean it from reading books in a library.

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@maxdancona,

There is a challenge for high school Physics teachers... it isn't easy teaching Newton's laws to students who don't understand calculus. After all, Newton developed calculus specifically as a way to express Newton's laws.

High school teachers kind of cheat.

You may remember the function d(t) = d0t + (1/2) at^2. There is no way for a student who hasn't had calculus to know where this function comes from, or to prove that it is correct. They have to simply trust the teacher.

Once a student has reached a point in her study of calculus I can then say... "Look at that!". It is a integral! At that point a good student will have an "aha" moment and a new link will be formed. The trust that she put in her teacher will have paid off.

Until the student reaches this point, she doesn't really understand Newton's laws.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are arguing against formal education. I am not sure how interesting this argument is since you are taking this tack. But I will start (until it gets boring)

I'm not arguing for or against formal education. I am just pointing out that the point of formal education is to organize information exchanges and facilitate development processes, and there are other ways to do that.

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I have been on both sides of education... as a student and as a teacher. Let's take Newton's laws (something I have studied as a student and taught as a teacher) since you brought it up, it is a good example.

One big challenge in understanding Newton's laws is understanding the principle of independent frames of reference. This is an abstract concept that is difficult for many people to grasp. I can tell if student understands the concept after talking for five minutes, if you don't get it you start misunderstanding Newton's laws pretty soon... and the result is that you arrive at wrong conclusions that you wrongly think are the result of Newton's laws.

It may be useful or not, depending on what it means. Many academicians create specialized concepts as a status barrier. They are in the business of selling elite status/certification to limit competition for good jobs, so sometimes these specialized concepts are not as useful as they market them as being. You can't just tell people straight out, "if you learn this abstract/counterintuitive way of applying knowledge, you can get ahead in job-competitions regardless of whether it is actually a useful tool or not. You have to insist that it's truly useful in order to peddle it as a status-item.

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As a Physics teacher... the only thing I can do at this point is go back and fix the problem, the student doesn't understand a key concept. At this point the teacher is the expert. I have to tell the student that they have a basic misconception that is preventing them from understanding the science... and they have to listen.

Are you aware of your own bias toward maintaining vertical hierarchical status vis-a-vis students and others with less credentials than you? Or are you aware that knowledge has been developed throughout history by individuals and exchanged with other individuals in many ways that don't always involve status-hierarchy?

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Once the student has learned; meaning they have seen how they were looking at things incorrectly and now understand the correct principle, then then can go back and analyze the issue correct. When you reach a level of understanding... you can then check your work and see how it all fits together. But before you reach that point, the teacher is all you have.

Yes, but 'teachers' come in many forms. Much of science is built around the principle that nature can teach us directly through observation and analysis. How did Newton connect the falling apple with the orbits of celestial bodies except by studying nature directly?

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Some students are unwilling or unable to learn. They stubbornly stick to their incorrect way of thinking. These students never become scientists our academic system filters them out quite effectively.

You put too much faith in systems.

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You could argue that by filtering out students who are unable to solve the problems correctly you are creating conformity.

Not necessarily. Mindless conformity occurs at the individual level, as do critical thinking and questioning that leads to deeper understanding.

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But this is nonsense, there are right answer in science that have been developed over thousands of years. Aristotle pulled science "facts" out of his imagination... and we are still cleaning up his messes. Over the past 1000 years we have been building up on human knowledge... no one starts from his own imagination. Scientists need to study the existing knowledge to reach the point where they can advance.

Aristotle's knowledge is defensible in many cases. Modern science puts effort into discrediting and undermining concepts that are in conflict with its favorite sons' instead of looking deeper to understand how those concepts were derived and why the held water.

Aristotle's law of motion simply dealt with friction in a different way than Newton's. Whereas Newton created a separate law for equal-and-opposite reactions to describe friction-producing interactions, Aristotle simply noted that energy must be continuously added to a moving object to keep it in motion. Both are true, but Newton came up with the abstract idea of momentum within an ideal vacuum to illustrate how friction is a product of interaction and not simply to be taken for granted.

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I have never heard of anyone in the past 500 years who has learned Physics from a library. You need to learn from an teacher, you need someone who knows more than you to correct your misconceptions and to teach you the way to think scientifically.

Books are ways for authors to communicate with readers. How many times have you tried to explain something verbally that you could more accurately communicate in a written text?

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Formal education, in a University, is the only realistic way to learn science in modern times. The subject has advanced too far for someone to glean it from reading books in a library.

Formal education commodifies learning processes, for better and for worse. It is effective and beneficial in some ways, and in other ways it discourages people from seeking education because of the costs and risks involved.

It is good that there are public libraries and other alternatives for education besides formal schooling. If the government started outlawing libraries, etc. so that people would have to pay tuition, that would be a travesty. It is bad enough that they have already gotten so far with excluding people from competing for jobs except by formal credentials. The reality is that skills and knowledge are what they are, whether you develop them in school or independently on your own time.

It's just like homemade clothing that get ridiculed because they aren't 'store-bought.' Many people used to make clothes for themselves and their families, yet the culture of forcing economic-participation and job-creation resulted in discrimination against homemade clothing. It is utterly contrary to the principles of liberty and independence to hold such bias and discriminate in this way.

Humans can do the same things outside formal institutions as they can within formal institutions. The freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness recognizes this implicitly.

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@livinglava,

1. You are right about social status and education. The way you fix this is to made a solid university education available to everyone with the ability and desire. Minimizing the value of education doesn't fix the problem.

Poor people can't be heart surgeons because they don't have the resources to meet the requirements. That isn't fair... but I still don't want someone cutting open my chest who hasn't spent 8 years getting med school certified.

I believe that a quality university education should be accessible to anyone. But it still takes work, you can't eliminate the years of study (learning mathematics, reading papers, attending lectures, taking exams, doing laboratory work) needed to master a subject.

2. Isaac Newton had access to the best education in his time. Starting at the age of 12 he went to a prestigious school where he was drilled in the classics and in mathematics. At 18 he went to Trinity College.

I don't know if the story of the apple really happened or not. But there is no question that Newton had the educational background to advance science.

3. There are right answers in science. Some of the preconceptions you get from nature directly are simply wrong. Science education gives you the mathematical tools to see which of your ideas are incorrect... people who aren't science have some basic misunderstandings of how science really works. There are many examples where your basic experience leads you to believe things that are factually incorrect.

4. I disagree with you about Aristotle. He was simply wrong... if you make predictions based on Aristotelian physics, you will get wildly incorrect answers.

You would not want to fly on an airplane designed by someone who didn't use Newtonian Physics.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1. You are right about social status and education. The way you fix this is to made a solid university education available to everyone with the ability and desire. Minimizing the value of education doesn't fix the problem.

That's an opinion, not a fact.

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Poor people can't be heart surgeons because they don't have the resources to meet the requirements. That isn't fair... but I still don't want someone cutting open my chest who hasn't spent 8 years getting med school certified.

If a heart surgeon got her or his education for free/cheap and then worked for the poor for very little money, she or he would be poor.

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I believe that a quality university education should be accessible to anyone. But it still takes work, you can't eliminate the years of study (learning mathematics, reading papers, attending lectures, taking exams, doing laboratory work) needed to master a subject.

Of course learning takes work. My point was that formal educational institutions just get paid to structure the learning process.

Let's say you buy a used textbook and read the textbook and do all the questions to test yourself on what you learned. If you did that on your own, you could learn the same material that students in a formal classroom setting learned, yet you would not get credit for it because no one pays enough attention to knowledge to be able to assess others' knowledge without seeing they have formal educational credentials.

That, in itself, should tell you something about how well many if not most people retain what they learn in formal educational institutions.

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2. Isaac Newton had access to the best education in his time. Starting at the age of 12 he went to a prestigious school where he was drilled in the classics and in mathematics. At 18 he went to Trinity College.

Are you saying he couldn't have developed his three laws of motion from just studying nature?

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I don't know if the story of the apple really happened or not. But there is no question that Newton had the educational background to advance science.

If someone uneducated had discovered the same laws of motion, would formally educated people have been able to recognize them as valid?

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3. There are right answers in science. Some of the preconceptions you get from nature directly are simply wrong. Science education gives you the mathematical tools to see which of your ideas are incorrect... people who aren't science have some basic misunderstandings of how science really works. There are many examples where your basic experience leads you to believe things that are factually incorrect.

That's why it's good to read what others have to say about the subject you're studying and think critically about what they say and what you observe both. You don't have to formally attend school to do so.

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4. I disagree with you about Aristotle. He was simply wrong... if you make predictions based on Aristotelian physics, you will get wildly incorrect answers.

Can you think of any situation in the universe totally devoid of friction? If not, Aristotle was right that energy has to continuously be added for a moving body to maintain its speed.

How can you argue with the simple truth of that?

It would be like arguing with the simple truth that bodies in motion stay in motion except insofar as they are acted upon by outside force.

Aristotle's and Newton's laws are just two ways of saying the same thing, i.e the truth about motion.

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@livinglava,

This discussion is getting silly (and off topic).

1. Aristotle's greatest sin was that he made stuff up that he thought sounded correct and declared them true without testing them. He was often ridiculously wrong... he declared that rocks fall to the Earth because they "want" to be near their elemental state. Aristotle seemed to be OK with celestial bodies moving forever.

2. Isaac Newton appreciated his education. He declared that he could "see further" then other men because "he stood on the shoulders of giants".

3. There is no realistic way in modern society to get a real education without going to a university.

But if you did, it would involve studying advanced mathematics, solving problems and getting feedback from professor, reading and writing papers and getting feedback from professors and peers, and doing lab work. I suppose it would be theoretically possible to do this, but I doubt that anyone actually has.

4. This thread is supposed to be about facts (as opposed to opinions).

If you want to know the scientific facts, talk to a scientist. That should be a pretty straightforward principle. When liberals have one set of scientific facts, and conservatives have a different set of scientific facts, science can't serve its purpose as an independent source of knowledge.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1. Aristotle's greatest sin was that he made stuff up that he thought sounded correct and declared them true without testing them. He was often ridiculously wrong... he declared that rocks fall to the Earth because they "want" to be near their elemental state. Aristotle seemed to be OK with celestial bodies moving forever.

We can start another thread to discuss Aristotle's other ideas, but the fact remains that his law motion was factually correct.

You asked who would want to fly in an airplane not designed based on Newton's laws, but in fact all airplanes follow Aristotle's law of adding energy continuously to maintain constant speed. If an airplane tried to remain in motion under its own momentum until acted upon by external force, it would lose speed and eventually stall and crash.

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2. Isaac Newton appreciated his education. He declared that he could "see further" then other men because "he stood on the shoulders of giants".

He probably knew the difference between 'then' and than' then.

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3. There is no realistic way in modern society to get a real education without going to a university.

Read a textbook and do the problems. If you learn what's in the textbook, then you do. It's that simple.

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But if you did, it would involve studying advanced mathematics, solving problems and getting feedback from professor, reading and writing papers and getting feedback from professors and peers, and doing lab work. I suppose it would be theoretically possible to do this, but I doubt that anyone actually has.

4. This thread is supposed to be about facts (as opposed to opinions).

Then why do you keep asserting your opinions instead of sticking to facts?

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If you want to know the scientific facts, talk to a scientist. That should be a pretty straightforward principle. When liberals have one set of scientific facts, and conservatives have a different set of scientific facts, science can't serve its purpose as an independent source of knowledge.

Facts are facts regardless of whether they come from a scientist, liberal, conservative, or whatever. Scientists are not perfect. It is faulty to assume that anything and everything they say will be true and/or factual.

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@livinglava,

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but the fact remains that [Aristotle's] law motion was factually correct.

No, Aristotle's law of motion was not correct.

Aristotle differentiated between "natural" motion and "unnatural motion" where force was needed not to cause acceleration... but to make an object behave in an unnatural way. Falling under Aristotle required no force because it was an object returning to natural state.

The worst part of Aristotle is that it is incapable of making predictions about where object would be.

It is silly to say that since Aristotle said that you needed a force to maintain a motion he was correct... because Aristotle didn't say this, in fact as long as a motion was "natural" in Aristotle's view it required no force.

Aristotle was laughably wrong.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

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but the fact remains that [Aristotle's] law motion was factually correct.

No, Aristotle's law of motion was not correct.

Aristotle differentiated between "natural" motion and "unnatural motion" where force was needed not to cause acceleration... but to make an object behave in an unnatural way. Falling under Aristotle required no force because it was an object returning to natural state.

The worst part of Aristotle is that it is incapable of making predictions about where object would be.

Aristotle's claim that objects require consistent energy-input to remain in motion at constant speed is true in all real situations. Newton's law is useful as an abstraction for conceptualizing how momentum and friction interact as equal-and-opposite forces when an object is moving. Both are true, for different reasons and in different ways.

What you keep doing is taking examples of other Aristotelian claims in hopes that I will recognize those as bad and therefore wholly reject Aristotle, and thus also ignore the truth of his claim that maintaining constant speed requires consistent energy-input.

You yourself said that facts are independent of each other, so that means you can't claim that one Aristotelian claim is not true by reference to others.

You seem to know a lot about Aristotelian science/philosophy, so why don't you start a new thread about it so we can look more closely at the various claims and figure out why he made them and what was valid about them despite any criticisms there might be?

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It is silly to say that since Aristotle said that you needed a force to maintain a motion he was correct... because Aristotle didn't say this, in fact as long as a motion was "natural" in Aristotle's view it required no force.

I don't remember this aspect of classifying motion, according to Aristotle, but I do remember the claim that energy-input is required to maintain constant speed, and that claim is valid in real situations, where there is always some form of friction due to interaction with other particles/waves, however slight and/or weak.

That is the only claim I am talking about at this time. If you want to discuss other Aristotelian claims, post another thread. The issue isn't Aristotle as a whole but only this one claim's truth value, because the thread is about facts versus opinions and values. You are posting a lot of negative opinions and values about Aristotle and failing to identify facts, facts which may have been misinterpreted in various ways, but which are factual nonetheless.

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Aristotle was laughably wrong.

People who laugh at others are laughably short-sighted. The history of true philosophy is honorable, even though false ideas can and should be criticized. Ultimately, humans will never reach 'final truth' so everything anyone believes will come to seem laughable at some future time.

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@livinglava,

You are being silly...

1. Aristotle never said that objects need "constant energy input to remain in motion at a constant speed". You are making this up. Aristotle believed that there was "natural" motion and "unnatural motion" based on what the object "wanted". The former, according to Aristotle required no force.

2. By your logic of "independent facts"... the "stork theory" of human reproduction that your mom told you (that the large birds bring babies to married couple) is correct because sperm (like stokes) have tails.

If Aristotle can be considered to be correct.... then you can twist any theory ever to be correct.

1 Reply

Facts versus opinions and values. A primer for a post-fact society.

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