The Science of Ignorance

American Thinker ^ | June 22, 2012 | G. Murphy Donovan

[neverdem]

The first attempt to formalize the study of ignorance came recently with historian Robert Proctor of Stanford University who coined the neologism "Agnotology" to describe what he believed to be culturally produced ignorance. His purpose was to expose junk science used by tobacco companies. Proctor's best contribution may be rhetorical, however. Science has lots of junk in the trunk, as do many other disciplines. Where method masks error, historic examples are legion.

Phrenology, graphology, and astrology were all, at one time, considered sciences. And reason or precedent is often used to promote falsehoods. Even Galileo capitulated when confronted with the received wisdom of the church. Luther and Calvin promoted predestination, the devil's influence, and anti-Semitism at the expense of reason, choice, and free will. Edison clung to direct current long after the advantages of Tesla's alternating current was known. William Randolph Hearst promoted the errors of National Socialism until Kristallnacht. And like a politician, Einstein was for nuclear weapons much longer than he was against them. Alas, Bob Proctor seems to be more concerned with the willful misuse use of science or method, rather than the study of the vice and virtue of ignorance

That vacuum was filled, in part, recently by Stuart Firestein at Columbia University, who now attempts to explain the large scientific role of ignorance in a small book. If brevity is the soul of wit, Firestein hits the mark. He criticizes the traditional brick building, or hypothesis based, approach to science and recommends more metaphors, more questions -- and more humility. Socratic nostalgia is not novel, but any use of metaphors or modesty is sure to annoy empiricists. With artistic aplomb, Firestein invokes the metaphorical black cat in a dark room.

When or if we turn on the lights, we often find that there are no...

[Diamond]

"Luther and Calvin promoted predestination, the devil's influence, and anti-Semitism at the expense of reason, choice, and free will."

There are enough theological, philosophical and epistemological errors in that statement by itself to prove that G. Murphy Donovan himself does not know what he does not know.

Cordially,

[expat2]

I agree with your post, but physics has also descended into unrigorous assertions, esp. in the climate thing.

[samtheman]

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html

[samtheman]

Aliens Cause Global Warming (Michael Crichton)

It's a pdf but my Firefox 9 had no trouble opening it up.

It's a very important lecture on "consensus" in science and he does mention how it worked in the second-hand-smoke junk science debacle.

[HiTech RedNeck]

By diving as a non-expert into the subject of theology and doing a drive-by shooting, he certainly opens himself up to much flak. There is so much nuance in theology. He should hardly preach about ignoramuses.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Most modern web browsers know how to open common PDF viewers. Mine opened Adobe Reader in a browser frame.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Speaking of “tedious” I don’t know if I’m the only engineering student who found it droll that in the calculus of the thermodynamics of engines, one literally speaks of T*dS work. (Temperature on absolute scale multiplied by differential increment in entropy.) Did someone come up with S to stand for entropy just to produce that pun???

[Stosh]

You’re absolutely correct about the whole “climate change / global warming” crap, but that’s because the emphasis there is political (”consensus”) rather than scientific.

Global climate is actually a really interesting field because it’s so doggone complex - everything from cosmic rays (which operate at the atomic level) to the earth’s albedo (which operates at the scale of the size of continents), as well as dozens of things in between influence global climate and its dynamics. Physicists should be having decades of fun trying to sort out all this stuff, because it’s just so complicated.

But the current debate has been dominated by politics, even in the professional scientific societies, like the American Chemical Society and the American Physical Society.

And that should be the key point - keep the science and the politics as much separated from each other as possible; failing to do so will just destroy what credibility the physical sciences have earned over the past couple of centuries.

And by the way, I’m not one of those folks who think science is the be all and end all of human endeavors; it does what it does exceptionally well, but it has limited value in dealing with most of the most important questions human’s face (like “why are we here?” and “how should we live?”).

[zeugma]

I agree with your post, but physics has also descended into unrigorous assertions, esp. in the climate thing.

And 'string theory'. 

It's not even wrong.

[expat2]

I agree with what you say here, and am speaking as a physicist who has published in the field of climatology, in the area of radiation physics. This area, which impinges directly on the CO2 issue is quite tricky.

However, the problem is that the direct, 'bare' effect of CO2 can be calculated, but there is considerable uncertainty in the net effect when feedback effects are included.

The climate modelers assume a large positive feedback, because it suits their purposes, but it could be negative, thereby reducing the effect of CO2 well below the levels assumed by the AGW activists/'scientists'. A small temperature increase can increase the humidity, thereby adding water-vapor effects to the CO2 effect, but the increased humidity can also increase cloud-cover which blocks the sun and thus reduces the effect.

No-one knows whether it is positive or negative, but the best guess IMO is that the feedback is NEGATIVE in the tropics and positive near the poles. This would give a net negative effect since most of the outward IR radiation is coming from the warmest regions of the globe.

[Right Wing Assault]

But not in good poems and essays.

Agreed. Which is why I kept his original modifier "tedious."

[Right Wing Assault]

Did someone come up with S to stand for entropy just to produce that pun???

Sounds like a good explanation instead of just saying they ran out of letters to use as symbols. Just like 'p' for momentum.

I tell people they picked 'p' since it was first used to find the momentum of a stream of urine. Especially useful if you REALLY have to go.

Another geek oddity in physics is that "mass = rho v" but not Mass times Wade does not equal Roe v. Wade.

[Right Wing Assault]

Oops. Got an extra “not” in there.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the links.

[FreedomPoster]

Pournelle calls these the Voodoo Sciences and largely agrees with you. He first well-addressed the issue almost 25 years ago.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/voodoo.html

Worthwhile reading. A good thing to have in your pocket should someone trot out a Voodoo “Scientist” to support his agenda.

We have a real problem in that agenda-driven “Science” is pushing real hard Sciences into being more like the Voodoo Sciences. I am thinking specifically of Anthropogenic Global Warming. I have been saying for some time that the worst result of the AGW mongers is the damage their whole program is doing to real Science. Consensus is not Science no matter how many times it is proclaimed thus.

[1010RD]

Another problem that political science, social science and economics face is isolating a single variable. They can’t come up with a solution to multiple unknowns. They do a good job when they just study one variable.

[exDemMom]

Ah, I thought this article was going to address the phenomenon of people who learn a little bit about a subject, and think they understand it better than the experts (i.e., those who've spent years studying that subject). But it's a bit different--it seems to touch more on pathological science than anything else.

He criticizes the traditional brick building, or hypothesis based, approach to science and recommends more metaphors, more questions -- and more humility.

I wonder what the criticism is. A hypothesis is a question asked after making observations--is he recommending that we change the language? I'm not sure how metaphors would advance science, though. And I disagree that scientists need more humility. We try to make certain of our facts, but certainty is not arrogance (although some view it that way).

[Stosh]

Thanks for the detailed reply - my scientific background is well-removed from atmospheric physics, but I still follow what I can of it because of the political implications there.

I’ve always been suspicious of the feedback equation - not just because it seemed like the sign of that particular coefficient was chosen to give positive feedback, but also that its magnitude was conveniently large enough to give a significant warming increase, but not so large as to imply an irreversible runaway affect.

I’d never seen anyone propose that the feedback might vary with latitude. For what it’s worth, I think that’s a really neat approach, and I hope you have some success chasing it down.

And especially thanks for plugging away at the problem objectively in the face of whatever political crap you folks in the field have to deal with.

[Stosh]

A wonderful article - thanks for linking to it.

I’m always interested in intelligent discussion of the “two cultures” aspect of things like this, and Pournelle’s article was an easy read, as well as a lot of fun.

[FreedomPoster]

FWIW, Pournelle and Free Republic are the two sites I contribute money to. Well, and a little to Michael Yon.

He is very, very worthwhile. I’ve been reading him for about 35 years, in various guises. He is a true Modern Renaissance Man. He is getting up there age wise, and I will seriously miss him when he passes from the scene.