Personal beliefs based on an appeal to authority . . . in science?

[Koxinga]

@Czarcasm

Is there some sort of mystical barrier that prevents you from delving into the science papers and confirm the theories and experiments firsthand, or do you just choose not to? The information is there, is it not? If the information wasn’t there, the method to obtain such information is available, is it not? The education needed to use these methods is available, is it not?

Like the vast majority of non-scientists–that is, the majority of people-you’re absolutely right, I choose not to. I’ve only got one lifetime and the ability to specialize in a couple of things. So I come to rely on the words of people who identify themselves as experts to tell me what’s true.

Let me reiterate a couple of things I said upthread:

[F]or argument’s sake, let’s say Pope Benedict strongly claims that chili ought to be eaten with beans, whereas Stephen Hawking is horrified at the idea and says chili ought to be eaten with crackers, at most; never beans.

Now chili cooking is obviously outside both PB’s and SH’s respective fields of expertise (AFAIK). Neither one has any more valid opinion about chili than UDS or Der Trihs.

But as Joe Blow Liberal Arts Graduate, do I necessarily discern this? I’ve been sort of inculcated with the idea that Stephen Hawking is the Authority. Authority about what? Science, of course. And chili. Whoa, how do you know this? Stephen Hawking said so. But just because a dude’s an expert in physics, that doesn’t mean he knows necessarily knows anything about chili. Not according to Stephen Hawking.

Perhaps I’m not entirely certain of my own point here. But one thing I can say is, the thing I find a bit disturbing is that while “appeal to authority” isn’t necessarily a logical fallacy, how do judge when it isn’t, if that’s your default mechanism for understanding the world?

My question . . . is an epistemological one: for a layman, not proficient in the math, what can be known and how is it known, especially regarding the bigger scientific theories on where did we come from and why are we here? Are they known in a way that’s any different than how people come to believe the non-science-based questions? And does it make a difference?

[O]ne reason I ask is this: Why, in this world of scientific wonders where everything around us is perfectly explained by [thomas dolby] SCIENCE! [/tb], why does nonsense like the “law of attraction” or anti-vaccination activism, or, fine, religion itself, still gain traction? It may be obvious to those proficient in science that the latter stuff is all BS, but from the layman’s perspective, are they all legimately accepted as possibly valid? Is it possible to tell Joe Schmoe that he’s wrong in any other terms except “accept my authority and not theirs”?

Another thing is: as math and science education gets progressively worse, and the boundaries of scientific discovery become progressively more occult (can any non-physicist really explain to me what’s going on with quantum mechanics?), it really seems like we’re approaching the point where sufficiently advanced technology becomes indistinguishable from magic. From a layman’s perspective, who’s to say it’s not magic, practically speaking, and what’s the implication of that?

[Koxinga]

@Aji_de_Gallina

Koxinga:
The nerve your questions has hit is evident by the “religion teh sux00r” answers. Of course, if people had read the OP and understand what you wanted.

Thanks, to you and a few other folks who seem to parse my ramblings here!

[Koxinga]

Since this thread has probably run its course, I hope you don’t mind my indulging in one more lengthy post before I let it go.

A certain thinker once spun the following tale:

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: “I am looking for God! I am looking for God!” As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

“Where has God gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves.”

It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: “what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?”

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Koxinga

And if I look around at the sky and the birds and the flowers, I see confirmation of the wonderful world that God has created. [That’s sarcasm, by the way.]

Well, no-one’s stopping you.

Or construction of huge buildings that produce electricity in a way that involves something other than quantum mechanics.

Such as? At some point it has to shift from an appeal to authority to an appeal to plausibility, i.e. while it’s possible that a physics professor who discusses quantum mechanics is speaking nonsense, but the thousands upon thousands of people who work in nuclear power production are relying on quantum mechanics doing what the professor says it does.

I’m willing to tolerate a fair amount of personal mystery to get results, myself. If I have to compare the promises of physics versus the promises of religion, I see the former as delivering pretty regularly, while the latter is lacking. And if I have to rely on an authority, that’ll be my guide.

[Czarcasm]

Is it not better to rely on an approachable authority, as opposed to an unapproachable authority?

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

@Bryan_Ekers

Well, no-one’s stopping you.
Such as? At some point it has to shift from an appeal to authority to an appeal to plausibility, i.e. while it’s possible that a physics professor who discusses quantum mechanics is speaking nonsense, but the thousands upon thousands of people who work in nuclear power production are relying on quantum mechanics doing what the professor says it does.

I’m willing to tolerate a fair amount of personal mystery to get results, myself. If I have to compare the promises of physics versus the promises of religion, I see the former as delivering pretty regularly, while the latter is lacking. And if I have to rely on an authority, that’ll be my guide.

For that matter I’d like to know how I’m posting this if quantum mechanics, and therefore, transistors are nonsense.

Society is the biggest argument for the validity of the results of scientific exploration. The only way to argue against it really is solipsism like arguments. While solipsism is a logically valid philosophical position, it’s some what limited in practical applications.

Edit: almost forgot, even untrained layman can make discoveries in science.

Galaxy Zoo Discovers New Group of Galaxies: 'Green Peas'

A new classification of galaxies was discovered by untrained volunteers looking through galaxy images to catalog them.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@The_Tao_s_Revenge

**For that matter I’d like to know how I’m posting this if quantum mechanics, and therefore, transistors are nonsense. **Society is the biggest argument for the validity of the results of scientific exploration. The only way to argue against it really is solipsism like arguments. While solipsism is a logically valid philosophical position, it’s some what limited in practical applications.

Edit: almost forgot, even untrained layman can make discoveries in science.
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/07/27/galaxy-zoo-discovers-new-group-of-galaxies-green-peas/

A new classification of galaxies was discovered by untrained volunteers looking through galaxy images to catalog them.

(my bolding)

???
WHO said anything even remotely like this? at all?

The good thing is that my stock of StrawMan Inc. is going up, keep building them.

Discovering galaxies by looking through at telescope is simply observation, UNDERSTANDING how they are formed and the beautiful interaction of the laws of physics that make them go is a whole 'nother thing.

You still don’t get the OP.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Aji_de_Gallina

Discovering galaxies by looking through at telescope is simply observation, UNDERSTANDING how they are formed and the beautiful interaction of the laws of physics that make them go is a whole 'nother thing.

You still don’t get the OP.

Perhaps you don’t “get” science. It notes facts and makes predictions on how the interactions work. It’s never claimed to convey any kind of understanding of WHY they work, so if that’s the kind of “understanding” you want, you won’t get it from science.

I don’t have any evidence you can find it any of the billion flavours of religion, either, though you might think you have, which I guess helps a little.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Bryan_Ekers

Perhaps you don’t “get” science. It notes facts and makes predictions on how the interactions work. It’s never claimed to convey any kind of understanding of WHY they work, so if that’s the kind of “understanding” you want, you won’t get it from science.

I don’t have any evidence you can find it any of the billion flavours of religion, either, though you might think you have, which I guess helps a little.

I hope those zoo keepers help you find where I said science expalined WHY things worked or mentioned religion at all.

Look! StrawMan Inc. went up 3/8!

[Bryan_Ekers]

Well, I’m not going to play the “I never said you said I said that!” game. Your post #107 is nonsensical on its face.

[Der_Trihs]

@Aji_de_Gallina

Koxinga:
The nerve your questions has hit is evident by the “religion teh sux00r” answers. Of course, if people had read the OP and understand what you wanted.

Oh, please. I did read it; and the baselessness and history of being wrong of religion are very relevant as to how are “such beliefs any different than espousal of (say) transubstantiation, reincarnation or karma”. It has nothing to do with “hitting a nerve”, it has to do with pointing out one of the major reasons why one should indeed reject such things as “transubstantiation, reincarnation or karma” rather than the claims of science.

@Koxinga

[F]or argument’s sake, let’s say Pope Benedict strongly claims that chili ought to be eaten with beans, whereas Stephen Hawking is horrified at the idea and says chili ought to be eaten with crackers, at most; never beans.

Now chili cooking is obviously outside both PB’s and SH’s respective fields of expertise (AFAIK). Neither one has any more valid opinion about chili than UDS or Der Trihs.

But as Joe Blow Liberal Arts Graduate, do I necessarily discern this? I’ve been sort of inculcated with the idea that Stephen Hawking is the Authority. Authority about what? Science, of course. And chili. Whoa, how do you know this? Stephen Hawking said so. But just because a dude’s an expert in physics, that doesn’t mean he knows necessarily knows anything about chili. Not according to Stephen Hawking.

Perhaps I’m not entirely certain of my own point here.

You don’t have much of one. The problem with your whole argument here is that the best accompaniment to chili is a matter of pure opinion; there IS no authority on a subject like that.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Bryan_Ekers

Well, I’m not going to play the “I never said you said I said that!” game. Your post #107 is nonsensical on its face.

Even when I say that science works I get flak. Let’s try one final time

I will never completely (to MY OWN PERSONAL satisfaction) understand some things, but that I know they work on purely physical/chemical/nuclear/quantum levels and that I also know that people have asked and answered with repeatable experiments and completely trust that, if I had the time, money, and inclination could do myself. No spirits, angels, devas, avatars are invloved.

For example I have some workng knowledge on special relativity and can explain to most people. But I have no clue as to the workings of matter and energy that make them happen. How does time dilate? No clue. Does time dilate? 100% sure but without any direct fisrt hand evidence but much much more than enough than enough second-hand evidence.
and this is what the OP was about.

Wether or not I believe in reincarnation, transubstanciation or the propiciatorial power of human sacrifices for Ai Apaec has nothing to do with it.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Aji_de_Gallina

I will never completely (to MY OWN PERSONAL satisfaction) understand some things, but that I know they work on purely physical/chemical/nuclear/quantum levels and that I also know that people have asked and answered with repeatable experiments and completely trust that, if I had the time, money, and inclination could do myself. No spirits, angels, devas, avatars are invloved.

That’s fine, I have no illusions I (or anyone) will ever fully understand physics either. Actually, I accept quantum mechanics as a workable model, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it contains some subtle contradictions that will only be resolved at the next paradigm shift (which will itself introduce contradictions, but they’ll be even more subtle and there will be fewer of them). Asimov’s essay “The Relativity of Wrong” was quite instructive on this, in that each refinement is more gradual than the last.

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

@Aji_de_Gallina

(my bolding)

???
WHO said anything even remotely like this? at all?

Well how do you think transistors were invented? The Oracle of Delphi spit out the plans? Transistors are result of applied science. If Quantum Mechanics is wrong then they would have never worked.

Discovering galaxies by looking through at telescope is simply observation, UNDERSTANDING how they are formed and the beautiful interaction of the laws of physics that make them go is a whole 'nother thing.

Did you even read the bloody article? The first step to understanding is observation. How might observing a new type of galaxy help scientist to understand how they work?

You still don’t get the OP.

You should try getting decaf.

[Voyager]

@Koxinga

Sorry, but once again I think you’re by default adopting the perspective of the scientist, while I’m talking about the perspective of the layman who accepts what the scientist says is true. If you plop a bunch of readings from a radio telescope in front of Joe Schmoe and ask him to figure out whether they demonstrate lumps in cosmic background radiation, what’s he gonna say?

That’s not even how science works. Plop the same thing down in front of 95% of scientists, and they’d be just as clueless. Biologists don’t understand black body radiation all that well.

It doesn’t matter how someone came up with the prediction - only that the prediction was accurate. Unless you think they are psychics for some reason, that is. The details will be of interest to only a few specialists in that same field, working on the same problem.

We have things which I call read-only journals - which are the most prestigious if you are going for tenure, by the way. There experts present their work in excruciating detail. The circulation of these things is tiny, and I’d be surprised if a dozen people read some of these articles. But they are there if needed. Scientists trust just as much as I’m saying laymen should trust.

[Voyager]

@Koxinga

Missed edit window before:

And perhaps to anticipate your response, yes, Joe Schmoe could take a couple of semesters at the local community college and train himself to understand it, but the point is, he doesn’t.

Well, that’s his problem, I hear you say.

Is it only his problem, though? Multiply Joe Schmoe by 200 million and you’ve got a country full of people who listen to Carl Sagan on one channel and Jenny Craig on the other with equal openness of mind. Unless you don’t mind that, then don’t go dismissing Joe Schmoe’s epistemology.

Now, that is a good point. We should be teaching logic and how the scientific method works, and the basics, rather than the details. A couple of semesters wouldn’t be enough to understand the stuff at the frontiers, but one semester of logic would help in letting Joe evaluate the claims.

I’ve got a pretty good high level understanding of evolution, but I know zippo about mutation rates and some of the complexities of the genome which is where I suspect the action is these days. My only formal training is high school bio, and one term of micro. My informal training is reading Gould and Dawkins, (and Darwin) and that is plenty. Absolutely nothing there that Joe couldn’t do.

[Voyager]

@kanicbird

You point out a big difference, believing in science is for the most part appealing to authority of man and taking their word, most of it is untestable by man, and those who can test can only test a small percentage.

On the contrary, everything written which is not an opinion piece has been experimentally tested by at least one man. If it is important (like cold fusion) it will be tested by many men.

[Voyager]

@Czarcasm

Is there some sort of mystical barrier that prevents you from delving into the science papers and confirm the theories and experiments firsthand, or do you just choose not to? The information is there, is it not? If the information wasn’t there, the method to obtain such information is available, is it not? The education needed to use these methods is available, is it not?

Come on, guy, have you even looked at a paper? There certainly is such a barrier - it is the background knowledge assumed by the person writing the paper.

I once visited the home of a famous topologist, and looked at a paper on his coffee table. The mystical barrier that prevented me from understanding it was probably 8 years of intensive math - which I’m probably not intellectually capable of understanding anyway. Lets be realistic, shall we?

[Voyager]

@Aji_de_Gallina

For example I have some workng knowledge on special relativity and can explain to most people. But I have no clue as to the workings of matter and energy that make them happen. How does time dilate? No clue. Does time dilate? 100% sure but without any direct fisrt hand evidence but much much more than enough than enough second-hand evidence.
and this is what the OP was about.

Surely you’re not saying that anything believed on second hand evidence is only believed as an appeal to authority? I’d never been to Rome before last April; did I believe in its existence based on authority before then?

[Koxinga]

@Voyager

Surely you’re not saying that anything believed on second hand evidence is only believed as an appeal to authority? I’d never been to Rome before last April; did I believe in its existence based on authority before then?

Hmm, now we’re getting into real epistemological questions here–and probably a more than a bit out of my depth! Before you went to Rome, did you really know that there was such a place? And how did you know it?

But we could count those angels dancing on a pinhead all day: if that is thrown into question, then so is everything else, naturally and my question of the layman believing in quantum theory vs. “The Secret” becomes moot.

So why this particular question? I guess it comes down not only to epistemology but also ontology. What do you know about what is real, and how do you know it? There might be a place called Rome and there mightn’t be; does it really effect how you essentially perceive yourself, your life and the meaning of it all? But the question of whether or not there are atoms, or a soul, or an expanding universe, or an afterlife effect your personal reality in the most fundamental way. Both science and religion try to tell you the answers, and many people believe they personally know at least some of the answers based on one or the other (or both). Is there a fundamental difference how we personally arrive at the answers to life, the universe and everything in terms of science on the one hand and spirituality/religion/whatnot on the other? In some respects, I think there may be no difference at all.