This is a linkpost for https://rootsofprogress.org/what-does-it-mean-to-trust-science
This is aimed at those who can't make an informed opinion themselves. (And most of us can't. Even a scientist can't often make an informed opinion about a result from a different discipline.) What it means is: "Trust the official scientific institutions. However broken they may be you are still better off trusting them than trusting the alternative sources of information."
Instead, we should trust that it will find the truth eventually, and that it is our best and only method for doing so.
Science is not the only method for finding truth. Science is about creating knowledge that can be evaluated independently of the person having the knowledge. Practically many times, listening to a superforcaster with a good track record is a valid method for finding the truth.
The idea that science is the only way to find truth is probably one of the causes of the Great Stagnation. If it would be true that science is the only way to find out whether or not a drug can hit the market, it makes a lot of sense for the FDA to require science to be done before a drug can hit the market.
Robert Moses didn't study architecture. "Trust the Science" implies that we should trust people who studied architecture over people like Moses when it comes to getting buildings built.
Good point. Maybe I should say it is the only method for finding out general truths about the world. It's not the only way to answer specific, narrow, practical questions like whether a particular building or road can be built.
Do you believe that philosophy is science? Do you believe it can be used to find out any general truths about the world?
A majority of knowledge that human experts in most fields have is implicit knowledge and not the kind of knowledge that you could write down in a book. Do you think that knowledge contains no general truths about the world?
Maybe “general truths” is still too broad. Let's approach this a different way. I submit that science is the best and only method for establishing a certain class of truths. I'm not totally sure how to describe that class. They are general truths about the world, but maybe it's narrower than that. But I'm pretty sure there is such a class. Do you agree? How would you describe the type of knowledge that science (and only science) can get us?
I think a key feature of science is that it's about public knowledge as opposed to private knowledge. You can verify whether or not a scientific claim is true. If you are on the other hand dealing with a superforcaster you can verify whether or not the superforcaster overall has a good track record but you can't verify whether or not specific claims are true in the way you can with scientific claims.
You can write down all your scientific knowledge in a textbook and then the knowledge is independent of the reader. An expert can't write down his implicit knowledge in a similar way and a reader gets all the knowledge by reading it.
Science is inherently about using systematized ways to understand a subject. An expert that unsystematically explores the subject can still understand all the truths about the subject
One of the interesting things about LLMs is that people used to believe that an AI has to reason much more systematically to be truly intelligent. LLMs proved that wrong and show that a very unsystematic approach still leads to an AI that's more intelligent than all the approaches to build AI in a more systematic way.
That means that you can't easily verify whether the claims of the LLM are true but I still think that the LLM can learn "general truths" from the data it has access to.
Uncharitably, "Trust the Science" is a talking point in debates that have some component which one portrays as "fact-based" and which one wants to make an "argument" about based on the authority of some "experts". In this context, "trust the science" means "believe what I say".
Charitably, it means trusting that thinking honestly about some topic, seeking truth and making careful observations and measurements actually leads to knowledge, that knowledge is inteligibly attainable. This isn't obvious, which is why there's something there to be trusted. It means trusting that the knowledge gained this way can be useful, that it's worth at least hearing out people who seem or claim to have it, that it's worth stopping for a moment to honestly question one's own motivations and priors, the origins of one's beliefs and to ponder the possible consequences in case of failure, whenever one willingly disbelieves or dismisses that knowledge. In this context, "trust the science" means "talk to me and we'll figure it out".
And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, science definitely exists—I’ve seen it. But not everything that calls itself science is science, and even good science sometimes gets wrong results. –Megan McArdle
Should we “trust science” or “believe in science”?
I think this is a fuzzy idea that we would do well to make clear and precise. What does it mean to “trust science?”
Does it mean “trust scientists”? Which scientists? They disagree, often vehemently. Which statements of theirs? Surely not all of them; scientists do not speak ex cathedra for “Science.”
Does it mean “trust scientific institutions”? Again, which ones?
Does it mean “trust scientific papers”? Any one paper can be wrong in its conclusions or even its methods. The study itself could have been mistaken, or the writeup might not reflect the study.
And it certainly can’t mean “trust science news,” which is notoriously inaccurate.
More charitably, it could mean “trust the scientific process,” if that is properly understood to mean not some rigid Scientific Method but a rational process of observation, measurement, evidence, logic, debate, and iterative revision of concepts and theories. Even in that case, though, what we should trust is not the particular output of the scientific process at any given time. It can make wrong turns. Instead, we should trust that it will find the truth eventually, and that it is our best and only method for doing so.
The motto of science is not “trust us.” (!) The true motto of science is the opposite. It is that of the Royal Society: nullius in verba, or roughly: “take no one’s word.”
There is no capital-S Science—a new authority to substitute for God or King. There is only science, which is nothing more or less than the human faculty of reason exercised deliberately, systematically, methodically, meticulously to discover general knowledge about the world.
So when someone laments a lack of “trust” in science today, what do they mean? Do they mean placing religion over science, faith over reason? Do they mean the growing distrust of elites and institutions, a sort of folksy populism that dismisses education and expertise in general? Or do they mean “you have to follow my favored politician / political program, because Science”? (That’s the one to watch out for. Physics, chemistry and biology can point out problems, but we need history, economics and philosophy to solve them.)
Anyway, here’s to science—the system that asks you not to trust, but to think.
Adapted from a 2019 Twitter thread.