Tag: mailvox

Wängsty doubles down again

His posterior still clearly giving him an amount of pain, R. Scott Bakker keeps desperately trying to come up with a means of attacking me while avoiding the direct engagement that will expose him as the intellectual fraud he so clearly is:

Vox, it appears, has decided to wage a war of attrition, to keep throwing his cherries until people turn their bowls upside down. I’ve decided to oblige him. But since it stings my vanity knowing the self-aggrandizing way he’ll inevitably spin this, I figured I had better lay out some reasons, as well as discharge an old promise I made regarding the uses of abuses of arguing ad hominem.

Vox literally believes, if you recall, that he really is the winner of the Magical Belief Lottery. You might be inclined, on a occasion, to think that he is simply having one on, but I assure you, when he says things like, “Of course, I am a superintelligence, so the fact that [delevagus] been studying it for years whereas I read Sextus once on an airplane meant that it really wasn’t a fair contest,” he genuinely means it.

At this point, I’m inclined to simply take him as ‘Exhibit A’ of human irrationality. Some, in the jungle that has overrun the comment thread on the previous post, have suggested that I’m ‘running scared’ and the fact is, I am. But from what he represents, not what he ‘argues.’ Vox is what you might call an ‘epistemic bombast’–self-described. He literally believes he has the most powerful three pound brain in the universe. That, in my books, counts as delusional.

One thing I was always big on in my teaching days was what I called the ‘minimum condition of rationality.’ Once you realize that reason is primarily argumentative, as opposed to epistemic, you realize that reason is just as liable to deceive as to reveal. So the question you always need to ask yourself in any debate is whether you are the victim of your own ingenuity. You are more apt to use you intelligence to justify your stupidity post hoc—to rationalize—than otherwise. And that’s a fact Jack.

Thus the crucial importance of epistemic humility. Rational debate is impossible with epistemic bombasts simply because, as more and more research shows, reason is primarily a public relations device, a way to snag other three pound brains, and only secondarily epistemic, a way to snag the world. It is quite literally impossible to convince an epistemic bombast of anything on theoretical subject matters lacking any clear, consensually defined truth conditions.

This is why some cognitive psychologists are now arguing that rationality is quite independent of intelligence.

So what then is the measure of epistemic humility? How can you tell whether you should trust yourself, let alone your interlocutor?

Well some interlocutors, like Vox, make things easy for you. Vox is a self-declared epistemic bombast. As such, given that you accept that science is the best tool we have ever devised for sorting—even if only contingently—fact from fiction, you can write him off as a serious interlocutor.

In other words, you can safely dismiss him on ad hominem grounds.

He’s certainly desperate to do so. This is little more than another attempt to justify his own cowardice in failing to either answer my questions or accept my invitation to a written debate concerning his claims regarding the importance of Uncertainty and the intrinsic dangers of Certainty. His argument that he can safely dismiss me on ad hominem grounds, much less do so convincingly, doesn’t hold up, however, not only because it is a logical fallacy, but also because it is based on a complete falsehood. Wängsty is such a shameless liar, can anyone wonder why I repeatedly call him out for being such an intellectually dishonest charlatan? I don’t believe, literally or otherwise, that I possess “the most powerful three pound brain in the universe”. I’ve never claimed anything like that. I’m not the smartest one in my extended family and I wasn’t even the second-smartest in a house I shared with three other guys after college; both Horn and Big Chilly test out higher than I do. But I am a superintelligence nevertheless, and I do believe, with considerable evidence to justify that belief, that I’m observably more intelligent than Wängsty and his fellow wannabe PhD, Delavagus. This quite clearly, bothers them, as it appears to offend their sense of multiversal order that someone who does not share either their left-liberal ideological orientation or academic credentials could actually be more intelligent than they are.

Of course I genuinely believe it wasn’t a fair contest between Delavagus and me. Is there anyone who read the Dissecting the Skeptics series who did not? If so, do speak up and share your reasoning with us.

It is amusing, to be sure, that Scott asserts I am delusional while being simultaneously dumb enough to lie about things that anyone can easily check and confirm to be false. And it is even more amusing that he insists on a “minimum condition of rationality” while apparently failing to be aware that in the aforementioned unfair contest, Delavagus’s argument attacked human reason and asserted its self-refuting nature.

Scott is running scared and inclined to simply take me “as ‘Exhibit A’ of human irrationality” because I have consistently exposed his cowardice, his dishonesty, and his inability to argue his way out of a paper bag. He’s desperate to avoid direct engagement because he knows that what I will do to his arguments will make what I did to those presented by Delavagus look merciful in comparison. People have been telling Wängsty nearly from the start, eight months ago, that he had gotten me all wrong, but he keeps doubling down again and again on his original position… because you are a complete fraud when it comes to your Uncertainty Doctrine.

But as all the long-time readers here know, I won’t hesitate to continue beating the dead horse that is The Prince of Wängst until there is no longer so much as a maggot wriggling in the corpse. By the time the white flag flies, absolutely no one will take any of his claims seriously, mostly because he’ll have stripped every last vestige of intellectual integrity from himself.

Mailvox: evolutionary ideology

Anonymous Conservative writes of an amusing spin on the “science says conservatives are crazy” theme:

I’ve done a ton of research into the linkage between r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Ecology and political ideology. The short of it is
ideology looks like it’s just an intellectual expression of the underlying psychologies motivating r/K behaviors. Obviously, this likely speaks to the mechanism by which our ideologies evolved. That ideology and r/K behaviors are both related to the same DRD4 gene, and that the brain
structures which govern these behaviors is also the same also raises interesting questions about their evolutionary linkage.

This material is pure gold, if you’ve ever wondered why our species has this psychological divide within it. It even answers where exactly
Liberals came from, given their obvious reduced ability to function in what we often call “the state of nature” (ie a K-selected, competitive
state of nature – they would thrive in an r-selected stated of nature, where competitiveness is disfavored).

I’ve run this work by liberals, and it devastating to them, on a visceral level. They do not want to be the bunny-rabbit people, embodying a prey
species psychology within a highly K-selected, competitive species. I posted for a bit at TED, very benignly on this, just to test my
presentation in a hostile, more Liberal environment. I got the feedback and insight I needed (every liberal abandoned any thread this was posted
to), and then I left for six months. When I went back every one of my postings referencing this had been quietly deleted, despite the fact I
purposely was hyper-civil and cited everything I asserted. I don’t think they’ve ever done that to anyone else. Liberals are horrified by this
work, and the implications which naturally arise from it.

Now, I tend to regard all of this evo-psych as a ludicrous joke, especially since I am a confirmed evolutionary skeptic. Because there is so little scientific evidence in support of evolution by natural selection, I conclude it is unlikely to be the mechanism distinguishing the liberal Bunny People from the conservative Wolf People. And, of course, being a libertarian and rejecting both big government ideologies, I have neither a wolf nor a rabbit in that hunt. That being said, this is certainly a potentially useful rhetorical response to the faux-scientific rhetoric so often presented by liberals in a misguided attempt to somehow shame conservatives out of their psychologically inferior ideological perspective. (The very attempt betrays both the intrinsic intellectual flexibility of liberals as well as their inability to understand the other side.) And it certainly explains the way in which liberals are constantly looking to the government as a way to rein in their more successful competitors; because the Bunny People can’t do anything to control the Wolf People themselves, they need to appeal to the Hunter… never stopping to think that the Hunter is just as pleased to shoot bunnies as wolves… and may in fact prefer eating rabbit meat.

Anyhow, if you happen to find this sort of thing interesting, you can read a related paper on it.

Mailvox: the fifty trillion dollar question

KJ offers the opportunity to ask a question of some European functionaries:

The former and long-serving vice chancellor of Germany (Dr Joschka Fischer) and the EU’s High Representative for Common and Security Policy (Dr. Javier Solana) are here… debating the economic situation (and potential solutions). The Spaniard is (in summary) saying the situation is looking pretty shit right now and it could be fixed by Germany “opening up” to the rest of poorer/less-productive Europe (when pressed he confessed that includes offering up more of its – i.e. Germany’s – money).
The German is (in summary) saying the situation is looking pretty shit and what we need is to centralise and consolidate political power in Europe. Lol! 4th Reich anyone!? According to both, the Euro breaking up would just be catastrophic. We can ask questions but I don’t have the heart to ask any. It’s so depressing listening to this glossy, typical politic speak from which no straight answers can be extracted. Do you questions for the German Vice Chancellor or EU’s High Representative?

I wrote back: Yes. Since inflation or default are the only way to escape debt of this magnitude, which is the vice-chancellor’s preference? If you get a second question, ask why the successful bank defaults in Iceland have not been permitted to take place in the EU.

Completely admits that historic 1920s inflation destroyed the German middle class, and admits not a result of market developments but intentionally by German central bank to write off war debt, so accepts inflation is going to have to play its part in the current situation!! Greek default, (and kicking them out), is not an option apparently, not forthcoming as to why other than that it would be “hugely detrimental to the rest of Europe”. No luck on the second question; earlier on he had alluded to “endless lawsuits” and “serious capital restrictions” to anyone taking the opt-out of paying their debts which he implied would make that option not viable. I didn’t hear Iceland mentioned at all.

This lends further support to what most of us here have always assumed, that the central banks and governments will inflate. The question is, can they do so? This is where the question of the nature of money, and if credit is more properly considered money or simply the accounting of money, becomes the 50 trillion dollar question. Nate and I will be debating this in the reasonably near future, but I’ll leave you with this thought: given their performance over the last four years, what are the chances that the core monetary assumption of the central banks and governments is correct?

Mailvox: exposing the false skeptic

R. Scott Bakker asks why I believe his skepticism is nothing more than a pose:

And what is ‘faux’ about my skepticism?

That’s a fair question. I can count seven reasons right off the bat, but it’s hardly a comprehensive list.

1. His skepticism predominantly runs in one direction. This indicates that he isn’t actually a skeptic, he is merely using skeptical tactics as a tool in service to his dogma, his very conventional left-liberal dogma. When he talks about the “need” to challenge those who are certain of various things and the danger their certainty presents, he openly demonstrates his anti-skepticism.

2. He does not construct his arguments on the basis of what other people hold to be true. For example, when he has taken exception to what I have written, he does not exclusively utilize my beliefs, convictions, and assumptions, but instead attempts to criticize them on the basis of his own first-order beliefs. Again, he’s showing that he is a dogmatist, using dogmatic dialectic, not a skeptic using skeptical dialectic.

3. He makes absolutely no attempt to reach suspension of judgment. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact, he repeatedly attempts to judge his interlocutors and place himself in an assumed position of superiority vis-a-vis them. I presume this is why he fears to engage in an actual debate, as opposed to his usual sniping and empty posturing.

4. He does not place competing dogmas in opposition to each other, but rather, attempts to change the discussion to a nonsensical one concerning second-order beliefs. He doesn’t seem to understand that repeatedly asking “why?” and “but how do you know that you know?” is a childish tactic, not a skeptical one.

5. He observably possess little imperturbability or tranquility. By this metric, even I am far more of a skeptic than he will ever be. I can only think of a few authors who are more sensitive and more prone to getting upset over perceived criticism than The Prince of Wängst. That’s how he earned the title in the first place!

6. He assents to many things that are unknown. His confessed faith in science, for example, is profoundly unskeptical.

7. He does not pay any observable heed to nature or the tradition of laws and customs. In fact, he even uses his faux skepticism as an excuse to attack traditional laws and customs as well as those who hold to them.

UPDATE – Cornucopia makes some fascinating admissions concerning the supposed skepticism of the Three Pound Brain gang:

I don’t know of anyone here who has used skepticism in such a way as “we cannot know for sure that water boils at 100 deg.” If that is actually true, nobody here really gives a damn. As far as I now it’s usually limited to categories of moral certainty and things like that, where skepticism may really could have an impact for the better. There’s the Hitler example and the Breivik example. What good might have come if these men had continued to second guess themselves and not convinced themselves they were sure of what they believed?

Maybe you’re generalizing a little too much, in which case I can see why a lot of what’s been said might seem hypocritical. True, a lot of people here are probably to the left of center, which by Phrrhonism standards is probably an off limits opinion. Oh well.

While it may be true that no one there uses skepticism in such a way, all that objection serves to do is prove my point that no one there is a philosophical skeptic. The attempt to limit skepticism to the categories “of moral certainty and things like that” is precisely why I am both mocking the TPB gang for its intellectual incoherence and condemning it for its intellectual dishonesty. There is absolutely no basis in skeptical philosophy for anyone to attempt to limit its scope to the realm of morality; the very idea that “skepticism may really have an impact for the better” on phenomena is itself intrinsically anti-skeptical! Cornucopia is admitting exactly what I accused Scott of doing: utilizing the pretense of skepticism in service of his own dogma.

He brings up two examples, Hitler and Breivik, and asks what good might have come of it if either man had been less sure of himself. Conversely, what if the Wehrmacht generals possessed more certainty, stopped second guessing themselves, and deposed Hitler before the Austrian Anschluss? That would have brought about precisely the same hypothetical good… never mind that preventing World War II and the Holocaust cannot be considered by the skeptic to be an abstract good in the first place. And what if the Norwegian left had been less certain about the good of multiculturalism and not permitted massive third world immigration? That, even more definitely than uncertainty on Breivik’s part, would have prevented the slaughter on Utoya island.

Does everyone see what I did there? That is actual skepticism at work. Balancing two ideas that are opposed to each other and thus reaching suspension of judgment. Philosophical skepticism isn’t something that one can simply apply here and there as one wishes to attack someone else’s beliefs. It’s a system, even an agōgē, if we are to believe Delavagus. What Cornucopia and Scott are advocating isn’t merely dogmatic, anti-skeptical, and incoherent, it’s also dishonest and intellectually reprehensible.

Mailvox: various and sundry

First, a prayer request from RS:

I’m a long time reader of your blog and I know the most of the Ilk are Christians and know first hand the power of prayer. I have a friend whose little girl is going through a very rare form of cancer. She is a fiery redhead and now is facing the loss of her hair due to the chemo and radiation. Would you please ask the Ilk to pray for this little one? She is facing this bravely, but her parents are having a very hard time. It would mean the world to her knowing that so many people are praying for her and her family. Her name is Libby and she is seven years old.

BS asks the wrong person about law school:

I’m very intrigued with your musings regarding lawyers. Are there any situations where going to law school is beneficial? I’ve read some law school guidebooks since you started mentioning this and some of them say that unless you attend one of the top-14 schools (Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, Berkeley, Michigan, Penn, Virginia, Duke, Cornell, Georgetown & Northwestern) then you may as well just forget it and not go to law school as it won’t be worth the time & effort. If a kid were to get into Columbia or Chicago, would it then be OK for him to attend or even then would he need to get scholarship money to make it a worthwhile investment? Let’s assume that if you do not get into one of the aforementioned top-14 schools that it automatically disqualifies you from attending. In your mind what are the scenarios in which it would be enough to make it worth the effort? Is acceptance into the top-14 enough?

Since the supply of lawyers is already excessive, I see no reason to go to law school unless you’re going to a top five school and you have fairly serious connections in the legal world, by which I mean that you’re going to be made a partner barring any major criminal convictions. Merely being able to get into Columbia or Chicago is irrelevant, sans connections you’re still a dime a dozen.

Hermit, meanwhile, inquires concerning calcio:

My oldest son, who is 7, is a month into his first season of soccer. I don’t have a ton of experience in many contact sports, but I did play soccer for a few years when I was his age. His biggest current weakness is lack of aggressiveness. One kid on his team isn’t the best player, but is always on top of the ball and keeps the opponents off. Which, for now at least, makes up for his lack of skill. I’ve tried to implement Game and assertiveness teaching elsewhere in his life, with mixed results. I was considering doing a daily boot camp ala Full Metal Jacket: “This is my soccer ball, there are many like it, but this is mine. Without my ball, I am useless…”, “Show me your war face!!”, or something to that effect. Do you have any advice on this?

I found that the best way was to simply play in the backyard every now and then and have the kid take the ball away from you. Do it slowly at first, then gradually pick up speed. Once he’s not afraid of attacking an adult running relatively fast, he’s not going to be afraid of attacking kids on the ball who are much closer to his size. It’s also useful, when he’s on the bench, to point out the difference between kids going in hard and kids just sticking their feet out. Ender had a terrible game two weeks ago because he was playing very tentatively after missing a few games on top of a week’s break in the schedule for spring vacation. But now that he understands the importance of controlled aggression, he went out last weekend and had an excellent game while marking the opposing team’s best striker and holding him scoreless. In general, the only way to deal with instinctive fears in sport is to expose the young player to them and gradually help them become inured to it.

Mailvox: Sextus say relax

Not being a reader of this blog, Delavagus would have had no reason to know I’d read Sextus Empiricus last October, which is why I’m somewhat more familiar with Pyrrhonian scepticism than he probably assumed. Anyhow, the two questions he presented weren’t difficult to answer, although I leave it to the reader to decide how effectively I answered them.

I’m particularly interested if, after reading [his two posts on ancient skepticism], you still want to charge skepticism with incoherence. If so, (a) what do you think the incoherence consists in? and (b) in what way does Sextus’s argument against peritrope fail?

First, let me point out that I’ve told Delavagus I am quite willing to respond in detail to those two posts on ancient skepticism if he’s willing to allow me to post large chunks of them – properly credited to him, of course – here on the blog so that everyone easily can follow along. But it’s not necessary to go into that level of detail to answer these two questions, although I have to point out that my charge of incoherence was not directed at Sextus Empiricus, the Pyrrhonian school of scepticism, or even skepticism in general, but rather at the professed uncertainty of R. Scott Bakker.

That being said, yes, I do still want to charge skepticism, specifically Pyrrhonian scepticism, with incoherence. In answer to (a), I think the incoherence consists of the inherent contradiction between its arguments and its aims. In Chapter XII What Is the Aim of Scepticism, Empiricus writes: “It follows naturally to treat of the aim of the Sceptical School. An aim is that for which as an end all things are done or thought, itself depending on nothing, or in other words, it is the ultimatum of things to be desired. We say, then, that he aim of the Sceptic is “tranquility of soul” in those things which pertain to the opinion and moderation in the things that life imposes.”

This creates two problems. It should be readily apparent that we can observe here that the Sceptic is claiming knowledge of things that, by virtue of his own philosophical system, he cannot possibly know. If he cannot know that the soul exists, he cannot reasonably aim for its tranquility. If he cannot know what tranquility is, he cannot aim for helping his soul reach that state. If he has no quantifiable metric for the things that life imposes, he cannot know what is excess, what is insufficient, and still less what is that desired moderation. Pyrrhonian scepticism is incoherent as both a philosophy and as a way of life because it is little more than a philosophically offensive weapon that can be trained just as effectively on its own stated purposes as on anything else.

Moreover, it can be shown to empirically fail as well, at least to the extent that it actually exists today. One of the arguments presented by the Uncertainty crowd is that the unquestioning nature of belief certainty is dangerous because it permits people to act freely without remorse or guilty conscience. But what is the most extreme belief certainty if not “‘tranquility of soul’ in those things which pertain to the opinion”? The member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände who was morally certain of the rightness of the Final Solution and liquidated the enemies of the National Socialist regime during the day without losing any sleep over it at night is, by Sextus Empiricus’s own chosen measure, a more perfect Sceptic than the philosophy student who tosses and turns throughout the night wrestling with the troubling question of his own existence. Moreover, in discussing various beliefs with the Uncertainty crowd at Three Pound Brain, (who are not necessarily proper Pyrrhonian School Sceptics by any means), it is readily observable that they possess no tranquility of soul, as they are, by their own admission, deeply bothered by the mere existence of beliefs with which they strongly disagree.

Concerning (b), Sextus’s argument against peritrope fails on three counts. First, he erroneously conflates the subset (his particular philosophy) with the set (all philosophico-rational thought); because there is philosophico-rational thought that is not Pyrrhonian scepticism, all refutation of the latter cannot automatically be taken as any refutation of the former. Second, even if Sextus were correct and charging the skeptic with self-refutation did amount to charging philosophico-rational thought as such with self-refutation, that doesn’t change the fact that since Pyrrhonian scepticism is a subset of philosophico-rational thought, if the charge is substantiated and all philosophico-rational thought is, in fact, self-refuting, then the charge of peritrope against Scepticism must also be correct! It’s not a valid defense. Third, Sextus doesn’t realize that the intended target of Pyrrhonian arguments is irrelevant with regards to its self-refuting nature; it doesn’t matter what he is intending to target when it can be shown that his arguments necessarily also target his own stated aims.

And in conclusion, I note that it is not only the core aims that are susceptible to a valid charge of peritrope, but each of the Ten Tropes that are used to justify Pyrrhonian “suspension of judgment” as well.

Mailvox: writing advice

AD has a few questions about the business:

I am a fan of your writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and own three of your books. I have thought about writing both fiction and non-fiction on topics that I think have not been written on or I am just ignorant of such books existing, and I want to write these books. I still think that my writing skills have a long ways to go before I can turn out a book that I would feel happy about (and just to clarify, I am not looking to earn a living via writing, there are just some books I must write). Let me just list my brief questions in a list:

1. Are sample chapters worth sending to publishers?

2. What are some pitfalls people should avoid (both non-fiction and fiction)?

3. If you could mention one or two resources that will help someone write either non-fiction or fiction work, what would the resource(s) be?

4. What do you think of self-publishing or using a publisher for your work?

5. If one uses a publisher, how would one make the book available for free or a very low price?

6. What have you found to be the best three ways to advertise your book?

First, I’m pleased to see that AD has the common sense to pursue writing as a past time and isn’t thinking that it’s a practical way to make a living these days. In answer to his questions:

1. Yes. The usual submission consists of three sample chapters. Even if you send a complete manuscript, there is almost no chance anyone is going to read the whole thing anyhow. Nor is it necessary. When I was doing the slush pile reading for a SF/F publisher six or seven years ago, I usually had a sound basis for rejecting a submission within the first three pages. Those who can’t write, quite clearly can’t write. And most people can’t write.

2. The biggest pitfall I’ve had to deal with is the feeling that one’s work has to be tremendously brilliant or original in order to be good or successful. No one actually gives a damn about such things except other writers and the writer himself. The Tolkiens and Ecos are the rare exceptions. I agonized over attempting to fit the story of Summa Elvetica to the philosophical structure, couldn’t manage to do it, and was subsequently bemused to find that absolutely no one noticed, much less cared, about what was arguably the most structurally original fantasy novel in years… and the only reviewer who even commented on the philosophical argument actually mistook it for a real one from Thomas Aquinas. The main focus should simply be on writing a good story with interesting characters, everything else is window dressing.

3. Obtain a book or two that is directly relevant to your general subject and will give your book solid depth of detail. TIA would have been much less effective without An Encyclopedia of Wars. In the novel I’m currently writing, I’m making heavy use of various letters and speeches by Cicero and other Romans.

4. Electronic self-publishing is now without question the way to go. In fact, I’d originally intended to self-publish Arts of Dark and Light, and it was only because I was contractually obligated to offer it to Marcher Lord due to its connection to Summa Elvetica that I ended up, to my surprise, publishing it through them.

5. Negotiate it in the contract. That’s why my ebooks are much less expensive than most. I made it clear to all three of my publishers that I wanted the price to be 1.99 and not the full price or 9.99 that most publishers at the time were charging. When the EW ebooks are released, hopefully next month, they’ll most likely be priced at 1.99 as well.

6. I am not the correct person to answer this question, as I think I have done a very poor job of advertising them. Pretty much all I do is write a reasonably popular blog and showcase a cover or two on the sidebar. Judging by the results, this isn’t ineffective, but also is not the best way to go about advertising one’s books.

Mailvox: considering self-correction

Azimus is interested in the possibility that science is not, in fact, self-correcting.

Experimental replication, in the very rare instances it is actually performed and is successful, is nothing more than auditing. There is no substantial difference between one scientist re-running another scientist’s experiment and one accountant re-calculating another accountant’s books. In other words, science isn’t self-correcting in any meaningful sense even in its ideal form.”

Interesting thought. Tilting a little in the direction of a “let’s have a definition war” argument, but an interesting thought. By that yardstick would you call the market, or engineering self-correcting?

Very well, we can certainly do this the methodical way. Rather than risk a definition war, I will first ask Azimus for his definition of “self-correcting” before I answer his question about the market or engineering being self-correcting. I’m not avoiding his question, it’s only that as I’ve pointed out before, depending upon how one defines “self-correcting”, science is either NOT self-correcting or else it is TRIVIALLY self-correcting in the same manner that practically every human activity is.

To which Azimus responded:

As I read your post, it struck me that the definition of “self” is scaleable. In your accountant example, accountant #1 may not be self correcting, but if accountant #2 audits #1 as part of a departmental auditing system, the accounting department is “self correcting.” In the same way an engineering firm has a green-horn doing most of the design work, which is then reviewed by a 5yr+ experienced PE who examines the work and makes corrections. The greenhorn is not self correcting, but scaling the word “self” to be the engineering firm, would the firm not be “self correcting”?

A marksman firing at a target makes allowances for distance, elevation distances, windspeed, etc. His first shot misses. He interprets the fall of the round and hypothesizes the wind was stronger than he allowed for and he adjusts accordingly in the second shot hitting the target. Is this self correcting?

Since there is no argument on the word “correctiong”, The battle line seems to be drawn along the word “self”. I see it as scaleable and will define the term thus:

Self correcting: an entity is self correcting if it contains a mechanism by which error is identifed and eliminated.

Very good. So, Azimus has chosen the option by which we must ultimately conclude that science is TRIVIALLY self-correcting. He is correct, and in his examples given, the auditing department, the engineering firm, and the marksman would all be considered self-correcting.

But from both his definition and his examples follow three obvious questions. They are:

1. What is the entity of science?
2. If there is no successful replication of a scientific experiment, and therefore no self-correction, is the experiment still science?
3. Since scientific reliability and authority claim is based on its self-correcting mechanism, how is science any more reliable than any other entity that possesses its own mechanism for self-correction?

I’m sure we shall all await his answers to those three questions with interest. In the meantime, I owe him a direct answer to his previous question: yes, the market and the engineering discipline are both self-correcting by his definition provided. The market self-corrects incorrect corporate valuations. Engineering self-corrects technologies that do not work and structures that do not stand.

That touching faith in science

I thought it was interesting to see that one of Wängsty’s commenters, Cornucopia, still erroneously clings to a blind faith in the “self-correcting” nature of science:

In the operational sense, does it really matter whether science is intrinsically or extrinsically self-correcting? The study you alluded to previously was done by confirming the results of scientists by scientific means. It’s not as if somebody sat down with a Ouija board and confirmed or refuted scientific findings or had them fed to them by revelation. If you happen to be basing your claim that science is not intrinsically self-correcting on something as superficial as who happens to be funding the effort to confirm it, I think you’ll just engaged in a cheap slander against the process of science.

He missed the point. Science isn’t self-correcting by any sense that doesn’t apply equally well to any number of other non-scientific fields. Peer review is nothing more than editing. Experimental replication, in the very rare instances it is actually performed and is successful, is nothing more than auditing. There is no substantial difference between one scientist re-running another scientist’s experiment and one accountant re-calculating another accountant’s books. In other words, science isn’t self-correcting in any meaningful sense even in its ideal form.

And, of course, as was demonstrated in the paper I cited, most “science” is not performed according to the ideal form, and even when it is, it often turns out to be unreliable. Even the best, “gold standard” science has been reported to be 89 percent unreliable, as a matter of fact. It must also be pointed out that if scientific error is identified by non-scientists who aren’t engaged in science, then the correction cannot be considered extrinsic self-correction because it is not self-correcting in any sense.

One might as reasonably claim that crime is self-correcting because the police sometimes arrest criminals.

And while I find it strange to have to point this out, my argument about the unreliability of science is absolutely not based upon an appeal to a genetic fallacy of who happens to be funding the science, although it is worth noting that the intrinsic unreliability of modern science does create the opportunity for a significant amount of undetected corruption.

Mailvox: the divine metric

G asks a question that is much easier than many who ask it suppose it to be:

I was brought up in a Presbyterian church and settled in Church of God (national headquarters to boot). I have been a staunch believer and keeper of the faith for well over 30 years. I have begun to question why the Bible is the Truth. I’ve spoken with members of more than a few faiths (and others without faith) & as we know they all KNOW their God is the true & powerful force in the universe, all galaxies, clusters, solar systems, planets, but most significantly our lil inhabitable asteroid. I was raised a Christian and the only way to get to the promise land is through Christ. Allah and others have a different plan for the ultimate prize. Folks are dieing and have killed for gods that their parents told them was real and true. Why am I blessed to have parents that taught me the “right” religion. My Jewish pal & atheist pals are more than pleased with what they have been taught.

As far as the Bible,(noted that I did not do the research myself) tis my understanding that several books were left out or added to the original work? That a group of men decided which books would be in the teachings that the world would learn and preach as the truth. Some say they were guided by a divine hand (no free will?). Also, I know it is a tired argument but I have not ever received a answer that quite satisfies me- the talking serpents, forbidden fruit, adam and eve- who recorded they info,a rib, much of Jesus’ time written about was well after his death (accuracy?). Some things are to be taken litteraly & some are fables – which ones – who decides – each church and divisions within have different interpretations. I seem to get the “He works in mysterious ways & some things we’ll never know”. That is a whole cart load of bison dung. I don’t know- guess im rambling now with errant thoughts but I’m beginning to question my faith as measured by others faiths & those with a lack of a belief in a god or gods. Using Occams Razor, it is pretty well deduced that I well have been wasting my time. I non-trivially pray that I’m wrong and will once again see the light.

First, G reveals that his “research”, such as it is, doesn’t even rise to the level of reading Wikipedia about the major world religions. He hasn’t actually spoken to “members of more than a few faiths”; we know this because only a very small number of religions are even monotheistic and therefore make the sort of claim of God that G erroneously declares they do. Of the five religions with a globally significant number of faithful, precisely two of them believe in a ruling divinity, Christianity and Islam.

And it is a tremendous misapplication of Occam’s Razor to think that it favors atheism in any way. The correct divine metric is to compare the truth claims of a religion or anti-religion with observable reality. Is it true, for example, that the poor will always be with us or was Marx correct and the elimination of poverty is merely a matter of first establishing the worker’s paradise? Does Man have free will, as the Bible teaches, or are two of the leading New Atheists right to declare, like the Muslims, that he does not? Is Sam Harris correct in insisting that religion is the greatest current threat to human existence, and if so, how has it failed to destroy the planet for the previous 8,000 years of recorded human history?

The Bible says “seek and ye shall find”. But, of course, it is necessary to do so in a genuine spirit of honest inquiry. If it is patently obvious to me that G’s “search” has hitherto been superficial and unserious, I tend to doubt it is capable of fooling God. Furthermore, before attempting to wrestle with the queen of all sciences, I strongly suggest G cut his teeth on some easier ones. The fact that he appears to believe that he presently dwells upon an “inhabitable asteroid” suggests that his ability to correctly distinguish between fact and fiction is rather limited.