In the blogosphere and on twitter I see lots of people wrestling with the question of whether we should “believe the science”. It’s clear that they are searching for some sort of Reliable Epistemological Principle, and struggle to articulate exactly what that principle is. Clearly the “science” is not always correct. So how do we know when to believe the science? And which scientists do we believe?
Richard Rorty made a career arguing that there is no Reliable Epistemological Principle. We need to look at each claim being made, and try to the best of our ability to figure out if it is true. The fact that lots of experts believe something is true is certainly one piece of evidence that deserves serious consideration. But that’s all it is.
I’m rather bemused by the anguish that some people clearly feel when they find out that science is wrong on some point, especially when the anti-science crazies took the opposite side of that particular issue. They seem to think this is some sort of threat to the Reliable Epistemological Principle, the final arbiter of Objective Truth.
People need to lighten up. We’ll be debating scientific questions from now until the end of time. Take comfort in the fact that science often has practical value. If you believe in the efficacy of vaccines, then you are likely to live longer than if you don’t.
Here’s Rorty:
We need a way of explaining why scientists are, and deserve to be, moral exemplars which does not depend on a distinction between objective fact and something softer, squishier, and more dubious.
To get such a way of thinking, we can start by distinguishing two senses of the term ‘rationality’. In one sense, the one I have already discussed, to be rational is to be methodical: that is, to have criteria for success laid down in advance. . . .
Another meaning for ‘rational’ is, in fact, available. In this sense, the word means something like ‘sane’ or ‘reasonable’ rather than ‘methodical’. It names a set of moral virtues: tolerance, respect for the opinions of those around one, willingness to listen, reliance on persuasion rather than force. These are the virtues which members of a civilized society must possess if the society is to endure. In this sense of ‘rational’, the word means something more like ‘civilized’ than like ‘methodical’. When so construed, the distinction between the rational and the irrational has nothing in particular to do with the difference between the arts and the sciences. On this construction, to be rational is simply to discuss any topic – religious, literary, or scientific – in a way which eschews dogmatism, defensiveness, and
righteous indignation.There is no problem about whether, in this latter, weaker, sense, the humanities are ‘rational disciplines’. Usually humanists display the moral virtues in question. Sometimes they don’t, but then sometimes scientists don’t either. Yet these moral virtues are felt to be not enough. Both humanists and the public hanker after rationality in the first, stronger sense of the term: a sense which is associated with objective truth, correspondence to reality, and method, and criteria.
We should not try to satisfy this hankering, but rather try to eradicate it.
It seems to me that you can think of scientific institutions such as the CDC and FDA as having spent the last 18 months obsessed with rationality of the first type, obsessed with method. Trust the science became trust in rigid and arbitrary methods that were followed because no one in the bureaucracy had the courage to suggest another approach.
Alex Tabarrok spent the past 18 months engaged in rational analysis of the second kind, looking at all of the Covid-19 evidence in a reasonable way and trying to figure out the most useful way of interpreting that evidence. There is no cookbook for doing what he did; it’s either persuasive or it isn’t. Science is inevitably a messy human activity, reflecting all of our biases and assumptions. The output is not objective reality; rather it is useful models and tools that we can use to make our lives better.
And that’s OK.
READER COMMENTS
Steve X
Jul 20 2021 at 7:18pm
This is a very good piece.
Some of my left wing friends now make fun of people saying ‘the science’.
But they take the vaccine. Perhaps the public in general is actually less impressed by scientific experts than many people in the press and government.
Lots of people have spent a lot of time looking at diet and exercise science, which is a great area of contested science. Few spend time looking at particle physics where the standards are super high, the experiments can be done with the exact same conditions many times and where the scientists are disinterested in the result.
It will be interesting to see where an increased questioning of ‘the science’ leads on climate change where there is a very complex climate system that also must be balanced against the even more complex economic system.
Steve X
Jul 20 2021 at 9:26pm
Just for the record also I’m fully vaccinated as are most of my right wing friends.
Also, a guy I worked with who has a PhD in Theoretical Physics would say ‘If it hasn’t got error bars it isn’t science’ which is very interesting to think about in terms of climate models and climate and economic models. The error bars are rarely, if ever, discussed in the press and the sensitivity of the models to changes in the value of various assumptions even less so.
Michael Rulle
Jul 21 2021 at 8:39am
I assume an anti-science crazy is some one who takes the right side of an issue for the wrong reason. And—-who also take the wrong side of an issue for the wrong reason. Many anti- science” people think they are “pro science” people. It is not a “useful” way to characterize people.
Big picture, so to speak, I believe it is possible to know certain things with an extremely high degree of probability——even if later on some other idea incorporates it (for example, Einstein versus Newton).
But so many more things are dependent on faith—-or if one prefers—-belief—-or “premises”. For example, Free markets produced Facebook. Should it be regulated? Should they be allowed to prevent certain views? Net, has it been good for society? Is there any methodological approach which can determine these answers? I don’t think so. What if it’s bad for society—-but by eliminating it it causes other actions that prevent good things.
Forty’s second definition of Rational is what I call those things dependent on Faith, beliefs, etc. His first definition is what I think of as science. One can make a case there is some transition between “science” and his second meaning of “rational”.
Even “useful” Is dependent on faith. Something can be useful (it predicts X or Y, it accomplishes A B or C). But we cannot know if useful is good—or in a grander sense useful at all.
Society’s do best when the overwhelming majority have the same idea of what Rational means—-this does not mean agreement on all things but agreement on how to decide things.
Right now, I believe Rational meaning number 2 is in danger of being eliminated.
Michael Rulle
Jul 23 2021 at 1:39pm
I have a real question.
The National Academy of Sciences (“Excess Mortality In the United States in the 21st Century”)–published in April 2021—raises a seemingly bizarre point. I had noticed that the increase in deaths in the US (the year of the Avian Flu–2014) jumped to 1.29% and stayed there until 2020–(Macrotrends—they have 2021 also—-but I ignored that) and it dropped to 1.12% in 2020—The 2020 calculations by NAS were done by the end of Feb 2021.
I assume the NAS is at least honest. They claim that for those under age 85, there were almost 500,000 excess deaths in 2017–(I will not review what they explain better in great detail). And 400,000 excess deaths counting over age 85 (yes, over 85 died at a lower rate relative to their age). This is much higher than 2020.
They definitely were not making political statements. Deaths per 1000 climbed every year, so obviously, a higher percentage of people died every year. So excess deaths incorporate age adjustments one assumes. Further, “years lost” were triple in 2017 versus 2020.
There are many hypothetical answers to what this all really means and represents—however, from what I can discern from this essay—there is no actual explanation—just a description.
No, I am not promoting conspiracies—although if one were a TRUE science person, one would no exclude anything before explaining.
Any “TRUE” science ideas anyone? I have none.
MikeP
Jul 24 2021 at 2:08pm
If I understand your question, these effects are probably due to overdose deaths, which occur in the younger and lowered average age of death in recent years.
Indeed, 2019 was a year when overdose deaths finally dropped relative to their rising trend — only to rise 30%+ in 2020 likely in response to lockdowns.
Michael Rulle
Jul 26 2021 at 11:14am
Thanks MikeP. Interesting—your hypothesis is 2017 was caused by opioids–which is consistent with the age distribution and not a bad idea at all.
Could be–although the authors did not mention it. But how did we not notice it then? At least by those specific numbers?
This year we began to emphasize the concept of “excess deaths”. I thought the idea made sense. This way we could stop arguing about what was “really” a Covid death etc. In other words, I believed the idea of “excess deaths” was objective—a true count that was hard to emphasize “misinformation”
But I now believe —what appears apparent—- those excess deaths are derived from a model—which in this essay is using Europe death rates, age-adjusted as the benchmark. Your hypothesis is intriguing and may be right.—still no evidence however.
The essay I referenced uses Europe as a benchmark to calculate excess deaths—but the authors clearly believe it applies to the difference between 2020 and 2017. Obviously, the rate of change by age can be different in Europe than the US—still relative to the Euro Benchmark—excess deaths were higher in 2017 than 2020—especially for those below age 85.
What does this mean? Why did we have “excess deaths” in 2017? It does not matter that Europe is the benchmark—-it was a huge number and presumably something “caused it”. Why did we not notice it? Did this method create a much larger Standard error? How many years do we have to have excess deaths before they are not excess deaths?
MikeP has a good guess—anyone else?
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