/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4476688]

I want to get a discussion going on the difference between "appeal to scientific consensus" and "appeal to authority" or "appeal to the masses"

When I say scientific consensus I don't mean appeal to evidence - remember, evidence by itself means nothing. What I mean by consensus is scientist's INTERPRETATION of the evidence. I acknowledge that human logic can falter, and theories can be falsified.

So what do you think makes informed consensus (informed by data) different from an appeal to authority/the masses?

[Anonymous No.4476692]

pier review

[mathgenius (not trolling) !!Ceavr+zDPUk No.4476700]

"Human logic" is not universal logic. While the former is a nonsensical term (incorrect, a fallacy), the latter is the basis for objectivity.

[Anonymous No.4476703]

>>4476692

[Anonymous No.4476718]

>>4476700
Isn't logic something a mind utilizes to make sense of the world? Can logic exist without the mind? I'm not saying logic and facts/the laws of physics are equivalent things, but if logic does exist outside a mind able to comprehend it, how can we access it?

Barring aliens, that is.

[mathgenius (not trolling) !!Ceavr+zDPUk No.4476730]

>>4476718
Logic is an abstract concept that completely exists outside of human minds. The failure of most humans to correctly utilize logic is another problem, but doesn't affect the consistency and uiniversality of logic.

[Anonymous No.4476733]

>>4476730
You have the Platonic notion that abstractions exist independent of minds, and are not the product of minds.

[Anonymous No.4476739]

You know, don't forget that we are always doing leaps of faith, we are constantly trusting people, "facts", ultimately: things we perceive.

Reality is what we can get away with, solving an equation as your teacher taught you to do it, or saying amen to the priest, or being social when discussing things in a bar, etc. Sometimes, with a joke you can make yourself look right in a way that a serious argument can't do it (even if you are talking bullshit).

We are constantly making excuses, what changes is their nature. A rational excuse, an authority excuse, etc. Logic is limited by language, you understand what you can put into language, into mathematics, or drawing a model or explaining with words.

We are slaves of our instruments, our senses, our technology. That's why being humble about knowledge looks like such a wise thing to do.

[Jim Profit !DgnrydpFYU No.4476752]

Appeal to scientific consensus is by it's nature, a revolutionary and radical ideology. Science requires constant advancement, constant challenges, and constant rhetoric. Or else it isn't science.

Now it's one thing to call ourselves champions of this clause, and another to actually do it. Most technocrats would be no different then any other system. Advocating stagnation, oppression of the mind, and faulty systems of governance, because anyone who disagrees with them is "stupid". Whether willfully or incidentally. Just like denying the holocaust is illegal in some countries, challenging the status quo could earn you similar jail time under a technocracy. How is that living life by reason?

The appeal to authority is out of cowardice, laziness, and willful ignorance. It's easier to let others decide things for you. And as much as the pseudo intellectuals love to bitch about the uncaring masses ascribing to this, how is letting private industries run our lives any better if not directly worse? 4chan is worst then any government. It holds no accountability, no regulatory process, no democratic elections, no internal investigations. It's just completely unrestricted abuse and bossing around by the mods. And their best fucking argument is "make your own forum, huuur huuur huuur!!!"

So get banned, or leave.
Starvation or slavery.
These are not choices, they are threats. And reactionaries who believe this can be solved by more democracy and populism, are just setting themselves up for failure. Because it is that evil nature of men that always lead us down this road. The only difference between a popular dictatorship, a totalitarian branch of government, or a criminal syndicate of mob bosses... is how it does, it's timing, and the likelihood of collapse.

[Anonymous No.4476767]

>>4476739
I think reality exists independent of us, but how we understand it is limited by our brain, senses and technology, yes. Hume had a point when he spoke about us not being able to be absolutely certain of anything, but come on. Given mountains of evidence I think we can have a degree of certainty that in practical terms(though not absolute terms) translates to something being completely true.

But here's the thing about evidence - it tells us that X occurs under Y circumstances. It's up to us to determine the mechanism that causes it/the set of principles that guides the process. How we interpret data is limited by our brains' capacity to think, and you raise an interesting point in that the evidence we've gathered is also limited by our senses' and brains' ability to gather data.

Perhaps it will be a long time before certain core truths of the cosmos are revealed to us, either by ourselves or some outside influence who CAN understand these things.

[Anonymous No.4476846]

>>4476767
I see your point, but I don't think reality exists independent of us. I think that the relationship us-world is also a leap of faith because of the vague definition on "us" and "world". Because of that, I think reality is what happends between those two things, not merely the world around us.

Anyway, just saying.

When you say "but come on", or "I think we can have..." you are using linguistic tricks that makes me see your point, that puts some sense in what you are saying, for you and for me. You see what I mean? This "make sense" feel is what we call knowledge and truth.

Science has an important job in making it more accurate, I think. Math is more accurate than just saying, clean test tubes are more accurate than a pool of mud, a thousand textbooks are more accurate than common sense, reports are more accurate than myths. But in the end, it poses a question on what bloody thing are we trying to reach with accuracy? And that is the "world", instead of us and yet, we cannot separate the two, so it doesn't matter if somewhere there is a textbook waiting for you to read and clear your head about a certain issue, while you are at it, living and talking, it still "makes no sense".

And this "sense" is always personal, even if reasonable and cold. It's when we apply all that math and things continue to work, it's when we talk to each other and we are able to understand, that things are settled down. I'm speaking English, you are speaking English, we understand each other to an acceptable ammount, but we will never read each other's head. You know what I mean? It's this "acceptance" that makes it seem true. And it's okay, but for the given context you are working with.

[Anonymous No.4476864]

>So what do you think makes informed consensus (informed by data) different from an appeal to authority/the masses?

There is effectively no difference for people who are not part of the consensus forming process. Is there really a difference at all?

[Anonymous No.4476871]

>>4476688
Appeal to scientific consensus is not appeal to the masses nor appeal to authority. It is an invocation of trust. We all have evidence that these people are trustworthy based on previous actions, aka evidence. It's subtly different than appeal to authority, and there may be some overlap.

tl;dr the alternative is to believe you're in The Truman Show.

[Anonymous No.4476885]

>>4476871
>We all have evidence that these people are trustworthy based on previous actions

But that's what makes them authorities, no?

[Anonymous No.4476918]

>>4476885
Appeal to authority is subtly different. Usually appeal to authority takes the form of "He's an accepted authority, and therefore your plausible argument is wrong."

Appeal to scientific consensus is "All the scientists we know of claim they did experiment or observation X, and saw Y, therefore if we did that experiment or observation then we would see the same thing."

Evidence always trumps scientific consensus.

[Anonymous No.4476926]

>>4476918
I thought this was what the OP was explicitly not talking about.

>When I say scientific consensus I don't mean appeal to evidence

[Anonymous No.4476932]

>>4476926
Then he's participating in a strawman of some kind. That's what scientific consensus is, that we can trust them that
1- they've done the experiments, and
2- they haven't grossly misinterpreted the results.

[Anonymous No.4476943]

>>4476932
I see -- how can we trust that they've done it right? Because science is objective. They make models that have falsifiable predictions. Their predictions are testable. That's why the OP is simply wrong. He's forgetting about the part where they test their ideas.

[Anonymous No.4476959]

>>4476918
>Appeal to authority is subtly different. Usually appeal to authority takes the form of "He's an accepted authority, and therefore your plausible argument is wrong."
>Appeal to scientific consensus is "All the scientists we know of claim they did experiment or observation X, and saw Y, therefore if we did that experiment or observation then we would see the same thing."

Ok, it's a very subtle difference, but I'm not sure it's a significant enough difference to warrant one being a fallacy and the other not.

>>4476932
>That's what scientific consensus is, that we can trust them that [...] 2- they haven't grossly misinterpreted the results.

Well that's what OP is asking about,
>What I mean by consensus is scientist's INTERPRETATION of the evidence.

Assuming that they can be trusted on the matter of what the data are, trusting them on the interpretation is essentially an acceptance of authority.

[Anonymous No.4476965]

>>4476959

Interpretation usually comes out of the results of statistical tests though... A lot of results aren't really up for debate.

[Anonymous No.4476973]

>>4476965
Then I don't see how it's not an appeal to (plural) authorit(y/ies).

[Anonymous No.4476981]

>>4476973
Once you accept that they did the experiments/observations and got the listed results, the rest is just math. There is no room for interpretation. Either their falsifiable predictions are supported by evidence, or they're not.

Perhaps if their models are so muddled as to be ambiguous and useless, like intelligent design, then you have a point. But that's why we laugh at intelligent design, because it's so confused as to be untestable.

[Anonymous No.4476991]

>>4476981
I'm not trying to lend a shred of credibility to ID, and I'm willing to accept your argument that the interpretations are not significantly different from the evidence. My point is that this appeal to scientific consensus doesn't sound any different from an appeal to authority. The correctness of the scientific consensus or the single recognized authority doesn't matter, the problem is in using authority/consensus as a debate tactic.

[Anonymous No.4477003]

>>4476991
In a formal debate, I would use the scientific consensus as a starting point. That should be the default of any discussion or debate. It's based on trust. However, evidence and good argument always trumps this trust, so if the alternate side wants to challenge the point, and preferably if they have evidence and good argument, then you can do so. To refuse that is to use argument by authority.

Argument by authority - you're wrong and they're right because they're authorities.

Argument by scientific consensus - you have no new evidence or argument, and the scientific community has examined the existing evidence, and thus by trust they've reached this conclusion. If you wish to challenge any particular point, let's go.

In an honest discussion, I would use scientific consensus only as a premise if it was not a point of contention. If it was a point of contention, I would do my best to google the evidences for the point myself.

[Anonymous No.4477168]

Let's not forget that at one time the scientific consensus said the universe was static and life spontaneously generated. Given time, obviously, the bullshit is winnowed from the truth, but the refining process never stops...at least for the foreseeable future.

The point is that the consensus CAN be wrong. The evidence is evidence, and unless shown to be grossly collected or fabricated will always hold. But the interpretation of those facts gathered CAN change, and most likely WILL change at some time in the future.

Some new model will come along that explains the current data plus new data that will arise which contradicts a current model (choose whichever you like). That's the scientific process.

I don't really have a point or destination with this post, just thought I'd contribute.

[Anonymous No.4477175]

>>4477168
Also let's remember that certain aspects of statistics (p<0.05, for example) were arbitrarily chosen long ago.

[Anonymous No.4477184]

>>4477175
And such standards are only "standard" in a given context. IIRC in particle physics you need five sigma before you can say you've found a particle.

[Anonymous No.4477189]

I didn't read a single goddamn post ITT, but the bottom line is this:

By virtue of being limited humans with imperfect information, in order to make cohesive statements about things that actually matter to our lives we MUST make some assumptions, otherwise we'd be stuck in the dark ages with very narrow knowledge. Not scientists, mind you, but people. So, we The best that can be done with imperfect information is to find sources of information other than yourself and trust in it. The key caveat, though, is that we need to be incredibly skilled at ascertaining the quality of the source. Fox news? Bad. PubMed? Good.

Make guesses with a lot of assumptions and then quickly adjust when and if one of your assumptions proves to be false.

[Anonymous No.4477211]

>>4477184
True, but at wouldn't an objector just point to this as yet another example of scientists choosing their own standards? Moving the goalpost and so on (although in the example you gave the goalpost was moved significantly further out, making it more difficult to prove the theory)

[Anonymous No.4477220]

ITT: more philosophy.
Never disappoint me sci never...

[Anonymous No.4477225]

>>4477220
I once heard science described as "the hope that induction is possible"

Dat philosophy territory mayne

[Anonymous No.4477256]

>>4477225
zach weiner SMBC
smbc-comics.com

[Anonymous No.4477264]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus
/thread

[Anonymous No.4477309]

It is an appeal to authority, but there are many key differences between appeal to scientific consensus and straight appeal to authority, or an appeal to the masses.

Transparency. The argument, the data, the reasoning, everything is available for examination. This might not be much help to a layman, but the fact that this is the ideal, the standard, makes a lot of difference. Nowhere in science is there a point where a scientist can get away with just stating that they know something without citations.

Applications. Science works, basically. The proof of the pudding, and all that. There is a scientific explanation for how electronics works. The application of this knowledge is available for all of us. Maybe it doesn't work how science currently thinks it works. But the rules we have ascertained by now allow us to exploit nature to greater effect than we used to.

Convergence. The entire body of science is a dispute resolution mechanism, and when a matter is settled, there is little disagreement over it until something new comes to light. Compare this to typical arguments from authority, where they rarely agree with any other arguments from authority, and they do not even have a means to resolve this dispute, never mind being based on it.

So while for the layman, appealing to scientific consensus IS an appeal to authority, by examining the way science works they can have good reason to buy into it. Any claims that seem particularly outlandish can always be investigated in more detail, and if they can't, then they probably aren't actually the scientific consensus.

[a strong ai No.4478297]

There is no difference and they are all fallacies. An appeal implies that you are making an argument or trying to persuade someone based on what you have taken for granted. That makes no sense.

If you actually understand it, you can just present the reasoning yourself. If you do not understand it, then
A) You don't know that the consensus actually agrees with what you are saying
B) You don't know who the legitimate sources are. You just know what people who are your friends have told you the legitimate sources are, but without understanding it yourself, you could have simply been misled.

These might seem like ok risks if you know nothing of the subject, but that does not put you in a position to disagree with someone else about it