Support NeoGAF

[Pizoxuat]

All this effort goes back to a woman not wanting to be hit on in an elevator.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Alan Sokal did this correctly in the 1990s.

Postmodernism IS largely an intellectual swamp, but these guys appear to be the denizens of a different swamp.

 

[televator]

What was the original intent of the hoax paper? I'm still trying to uderstand. That said, I dislike Dave Rubin and have grown disenchanted with the white male dominated, hollier than though, circle jerking figureheads of the atheist/skeptic community. Bunch of whiny men yelling at "SJW" clouds.

 

[tcrunch]

Being proud you don't believe in a god doesn't mean you are rational. I like the twitter overview in the OP because it gets right to it.

 

[HappyBivouac]

This is what happens when shit gets diluted by people who think they're aiding in the search for truth and objectivity, but end up aiding only in their own self-validation and desperate desire to win. Not really surprising. It's pretty much why atheism and Co. have all ended up with such a bad rep. These are the people who ruin good things.

 

[The Technomancer]

Regarding this specifically, I don't think many of the people I've seen have been trumpeting the Bell Curve as forbidden knowledge as much as they've been arguing against the complete misrepresentation of his views and arguments.

The recent Vox piece, based on the podcast that Murray had with Sam Harris, is a good example: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/20...murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech

The Vox piece, which is representative of the anti-Murray literature, is staggering in how inaccurate it is. You'd suspect the authors haven't even listened to the podcast and if you actually analyse the arguments as put forth, they're broadly in agreement with a lot of what Murray says.

There's a good rebuttal piece here: https://medium.com/@houstoneuler/th...e-in-voxs-charles-murray-article-bd534a9c4476

I don't really agree with the thrust of your post as well. Every group has their shibboleths, but I don't think you're doing any favours by broadly generalising 'so-called rationalists' as being irrational. Sure, there'll be thousands of 'ha, SJWs destroyed' comments on Twitter but there's a miasma of idiots orbiting around any sensible opinion on part of the political spectrum. It's basically true that a lot of critical theory stuff in the academy is genuine bunk that throws up a wall of obscurities to disguise its shoddy argumentation. I'm certain there are problems with other academic disciplines which are unique to them, but this is a clear and well recognised problem with critical theory generally.

Here we go again. I listened to the entire podcast and read the entire Vox piece. Murray comes off as incredibly racist and incredible ignorant in the field he claims to be talking about in the podcast and him couching it in "well I'm just going where the data suggests" is exactly the "rationalist" problem we're discussing

EDIT: To be clear I'm not making any claims about Murray's knowledge of intelligence, I'm making claims about his knowledge of race and ethnicity. There's a point in the podcast where he discusses how they looked at "blacks as a race and Hispanics as an ethnicity" which is laughable

 

[HStallion]

I find rationalism is like racism in that if you have to keep telling everyone that you're rational, you probably aren't. Its an ego and pride thing after a while more than an outlook on life in my opinion.

 

[Regiruler]

Stop taking philosophy concepts please world, it's making my readings that much harder and screwing my brain.

No joke I immediately thought of Descartes. I can't be the only one.

 

[The Technomancer]

Also yes Dawkins and Harris are prominent figures in the rationalist community and brushing them off as "well don't judge us by them and all the people who follow them" is...guys you know you can just stop self IDing as "rationalist" right? Its what I did like three years ago. I'm still the same person (with similar beliefs) I just don't associate with them

 

[Stumpokapow]

Does the OP even know the basics of paying to publish in open access journals? I'm not sure the OP does.

There are two models for publishing. Pay to access or pay to publish. Pay to access has been the historical model but more and more journals are switching or starting open access journals of their own. (Cell Reports, Elife, Nature Comm, PLOS).

So attempting to dismiss the fact that a fake article was accepted by a peer reviewed journal (and indirectly by the first journal as well) by connecting with the fact that they paid a fee for it to go to said open access journal is stupid.

While you are correct -- the journal they were accepted by is also a scam publish-anything vanity journal that does not reject papers based on lack of contribution. It's true that there are pay-to-publish open access journals that have a good reputation, but this is not one of them. This is a non-ranked zero-impact vanity journal.

So, OP. Let me get this straight.
You're indicting a community due a fringe within it indicted a community due to a fringe within it?

There's some poetry in this.
You cannot indict Gender Studies of male-hating due to a paper being accepted by a journal. Anecdotical evidence isn't data.
You cannot indict Skepticism of relevant confirmation bias due to four guys on twitter. Anecdotical evidence isn't data.

Sokal is an indictment of philosophy of science in its era because it was accepted by a leading journal in the field and the content of the paper, while nonsense, was absolutely in keeping with the nonsense published by leading scholars. This is not an indictment of modern gender studies because it was accepted in a publish-anything unranked zero-impact vanity journal. Whether the rope-a-dope is an indictment of rationalism and new atheism depends on whether the reception of this "hoax" among central figures in the movement is positive or negative, not whether or not random people on twitter react in a certain way. Who are the central figures of rationalism / new atheism?

 

[Zaru]

I'm still the same person (with similar beliefs) I just don't associate with them

At this point it feels like any label gets turned to toxic shit with sufficiently long internet exposure

 

[Platy]

All this effort goes back to a woman not wanting to be hit on in an elevator.

That is probably the saddest part in all of this

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Also yes Dawkins and Harris are prominent figures in the rationalist community and brushing them off as "well don't judge us by them and all the people who follow them" is...guys you know you can just stop self IDing as "rationalist" right? Its what I did like three years ago. I'm still the same person (with similar beliefs) I just don't associate with them

I stopped associating, culturally, with these science popularizers (Steven Pinker and I are still cool, tho) when they would not stop weighing in on EVERY damn thing, culturally, whether it's Bill Nye's cringeworthy show on seemingly everything BUT science, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's endless pontification on matters other than contemporary astronomy (and extremely puerile Cosmos reboot), Dawkins apparently deciding the whole world is nails for him to hit with his anti-religion hammer (Elevatorgate was a nothingburger, though, the only underlying truth being the original interaction was not even worth mentioning since it was so banal and inoffensive), and Sam Harris just going off the intellectual deep end AND going full Islamophobia, simultaneously.

 

[Arkage]

Regarding this specifically, I don't think many of the people I've seen have been trumpeting the Bell Curve as forbidden knowledge as much as they've been arguing against the complete misrepresentation of his views and arguments.

The recent Vox piece, based on the podcast that Murray had with Sam Harris, is a good example: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/20...murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech

The Vox piece, which is representative of the anti-Murray literature, is staggering in how inaccurate it is. You'd suspect the authors haven't even listened to the podcast and if you actually analyse the arguments as put forth, they're broadly in agreement with a lot of what Murray says.

There's a good rebuttal piece here: https://medium.com/@houstoneuler/th...e-in-voxs-charles-murray-article-bd534a9c4476

I don't really agree with the thrust of your post as well. Every group has their shibboleths, but I don't think you're doing any favours by broadly generalising 'so-called rationalists' as being irrational. Sure, there'll be thousands of 'ha, SJWs destroyed' comments on Twitter but there's a miasma of idiots orbiting around any sensible opinion on part of the political spectrum. It's basically true that a lot of critical theory stuff in the academy is genuine bunk that throws up a wall of obscurities to disguise its shoddy argumentation. I'm certain there are problems with other academic disciplines which are unique to them, but this is a clear and well recognised problem with critical theory generally.

I pretty much agree with everything you say here.

Also interestingly, those trying to lump Harris, via his Murray interview, into these claims against gender science doesn't really hold up. On his most recent AMA he said that while he hasn't looked at any of the science, he thinks transgender people are likely born that way and should have all rights afforded to them (ie bathroom stuff). The only place he (and Peterson) start drawing the line is when there are 30-50+ gender labels people start using to identify themself, essentially in completely arbitrary ways, and then laws are passed to enforce these terms via discrimination laws, as is happening to an extent in Canada.

Separately, while gender studies itself are valid, there also many studies that become a parody of what people view to be frivolous naval-gazing. This Twitter feed does a good job collecting them: https://mobile.twitter.com/realpeerreview

Also, the large majority of intelligence scientists view g variance as 25-50% inheritable. The real debate with Murray is over how much of this heritability can be overridden by environmental factors. Murray tends to say that it can't be, which leads people to say he's racist. The most politically correct thing to say is that all heritable intelligence traits can be overridden by environment, but very few intelligence scientists view g as 100% environmentally controlled.

And all of this ignores that the biggest problem with psychology/sociology studies is the current replication crises. Section II of this blog is a great read on everything being debated in this thread:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/17/learning-to-love-scientific-consensus/

 

[ugaboga232]

I pretty much agree with everything you say here.

Also interestingly, those trying to lump Harris, via his Murray interview, into these claims against gender science doesn't really hold up. On his most recent AMA he said that while he hasn't looked at any of the science, he thinks transgender people are likely born that way and should have all rights afforded to them (ie bathroom stuff). The only place he (and Peterson) start drawing the line is when there are 30-50+ gender labels people start using to identify themself, essentially in completely arbitrary ways, and then laws are passed to enforce these terms via discrimination laws, as is happening to an extent in Canada.

Separately, while gender studies itself are valid, there also many studies that become a parody of what people view to be frivolous naval-gazing. This Twitter feed does a good job collecting them: https://mobile.twitter.com/realpeerreview

Also, the large majority of intelligence scientists view g as 25-50% inheritable. The real debate with Murray is over how much of this heritability can be overridden by environmental factors. Murray tends to say that it can't be, which leads people to say he's racist. The most politically correct thing to say is that all heritable intelligence traits can be overridden by environment, but very few intelligence scientists view g as 100% environmentally controlled.

And all of this ignores that the biggest problem with psychology/sociology studies is the current replication crises. Section II of this blog is a great read on everything being debated in this thread:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/17/learning-to-love-scientific-consensus/

What is intelligence science and why is it not a meme version of neuroscience? We are so far away from any truly rigorous description of intelligence in any real biological terms.

 

[Arkage]

What is intelligence science and why is it not a meme version of neuroscience? We are so far away from any truly rigorous description of intelligence in any real biological terms.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/110746143X/?tag=neogaf0e-20

I mean, there is a whole literature on this if you bother to go looking.

 

[ugaboga232]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/110746143X/?tag=neogaf0e-20

I mean, there is a whole literature on this if you bother to go looking.

I am a neuroscience researcher which is why I asked. This is not primary literature, this is a book. Where is the primary research on "intelligence?" Modern neuroscience is nowhere near answering questions of what is intelligence and how it can quantitatively be measured.

Pubmed links would be fine.

 

[Messofanego]

Like "nice guys", if you have to label yourself as a "rationalist" you're probably not one.

 

[Arkage]

I am a neuroscience researcher which is why I asked. This is not primary literature, this is a book. Where is the primary research on "intelligence?" Modern neuroscience is nowhere near answering questions of what is intelligence and how it can quantitatively be measured.

Pubmed links would be fine.

If anything you can only make the case that on a neuroscience level the evidence is causally incomplete despite showing good correlative data. This doesn't address the genetic studies done, nor the strength of g's predictive power in societal outcome. Viewing the field of intelligence science as a meme of neuroscience is kind of like when people view the entire field of gender studies as a meme of biology, no?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_intelligence

See the "references" tab for direct links to studies. There are 53 different studies linked.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Wow they sure showed them. *eye-roll*

So, OP. Let me get this straight.
You're indicting a community due a fringe within it indicted a community due to a fringe within it?

There's some poetry in this.
You cannot indict Gender Studies of male-hating due to a paper being accepted by a journal. Anecdotical evidence isn't data.
You cannot indict Skepticism of relevant confirmation bias due to four guys on twitter. Anecdotical evidence isn't data.

Yeah, pretty much.

Arrogant childish idiots. Those people will be the end of society if they aren't put into place.

Huh?

The end of society? lol, dramatic much? Look at who's in power in the US right now, and what kind of people are effecting changes and drafting policies. It sure ain't rationalists and evidence-based lawmakers.

Also yes Dawkins and Harris are prominent figures in the rationalist community and brushing them off as "well don't judge us by them and all the people who follow them" is...guys you know you can just stop self IDing as "rationalist" right? Its what I did like three years ago. I'm still the same person (with similar beliefs) I just don't associate with them

This is like refusing to call yourself a feminist because of Germaine Greer. How often do we hear "I believe in equal rights for women but I refuse to call myself a feminist because the label is so ~toxic~ you know"?

 

[The Technomancer]

This is like refusing to call yourself a feminist because of Germaine Greer. How often do we hear "I believe in equal rights for women but I refuse to call myself a feminist because the label is so ~toxic~ you know"?

Sure but like...who are the good "rationalist" figures right now? What good work is the movement doing that isn't a larger part of just science?

 

[ugaboga232]

If anything you can only make the case that on a neuroscience level the evidence is causally incomplete despite showing good correlative data. This doesn't address the genetic studies done, nor the strength of g's predictive power in societal outcome. Viewing the field of intelligence science as a meme of neuroscience is kind of like when people view the entire field of gender studies as a meme of biology, no?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_intelligence

See the "references" tab for direct links to studies. There are 53 different studies linked.

Good correlative data of what? We don't even know how the mouse brain makes the simplest of computations. Genetic studies of what? What good does knowing that the D3 receptor allele XYZ is linked to higher intelligence when it really is dependent on being in X situation and comes with Y negative effects. Gender studies is not at all like intelligence science and is a non sequitur here.

Please don't just link wikipedia pages and point to the citations. Give me the primary sources that aren't slightly more advanced phrenology. More gray and white matter isn't a good thing!

 

[Aureon]

Sokal is an indictment of philosophy of science in its era because it was accepted by a leading journal in the field and the content of the paper, while nonsense, was absolutely in keeping with the nonsense published by leading scholars. This is not an indictment of modern gender studies because it was accepted in a publish-anything unranked zero-impact vanity journal. Whether the rope-a-dope is an indictment of rationalism and new atheism depends on whether the reception of this "hoax" among central figures in the movement is positive or negative, not whether or not random people on twitter react in a certain way. Who are the central figures of rationalism / new atheism?

I'd argue atheism\rationalism doesn't have central figures. That's kind of the whole point, exacerbated by the fact that the few prominent exponents are pretty much all controversial, and atheism isn't really a membership of any community.

Plenty of people (include myself) will define themselves as rationalist (In the rare context such a definition even applies), and while passing knowledge of Dawkins is widespread (Selfish Gene is still a great book), tolerance for his later antics isn't that common.

Bogossian, that's literally the first time i've heard of him.

(On a separate note, rereading the article, i had definitely grabbed a "People pretending to be rationalists are just as biased as everyone else and therefore hypocrites" line of critique that actually wasn't there. I'm more on OP's comment on "When did atheism get like this" - the answer is "It didn't", and annoying people on twitter with mid-large followings aren't proof it did)

 

[Makai]

This is like refusing to call yourself a feminist because of Germaine Greer. How often do we hear "I believe in equal rights for women but I refuse to call myself a feminist because the label is so ~toxic~ you know"?

This is a good way to put it. Seems like a good tactic for convincing people to stop organizing.

Sure but like...who are the good "rationalist" figures right now? What good work is the movement doing that isn't a larger part of just science?

I was gonna say any popular science educator but they all seem to get character assassinated by the internet sooner or later. A lot of people seem to hate Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Maybe Bill Nye is still cool - probably not.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Sure but like...who are the good "rationalist" figures right now? What good work is the movement doing that isn't a larger part of just science?

????

Why does skepticism or rationalism need a "figure"? Leave that shit to religion and other kinds of populist cult-of-personality BS.

I don't call myself a feminist because good feminist role-models exist, I call myself a feminist because my values match the label. Same with atheism, rationalism, skepticism, etc.

But if anyone must insist, what, exactly, is wrong with Neil deGrasse Tyson or Phil Plait or James Randi? Or lesser-known ones like Ben Goldacre, Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers... or hell something like Snopes.

This is a good way to put it. Seems like a good tactic for convincing people to stop organizing.

I was gonna say any popular science educator but they all seem to get character assassinated by the internet sooner or later. A lot of people seem to hate Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Maybe Bill Nye is still cool - probably not.

People hate Neil now? WTF. -_-

Bill Nye is no longer cool. Because he made one mediocre TV show on Netflix, so he's forever awful now. Or something.

 

[Dongs Macabre]

Sure but like...who are the good "rationalist" figures right now? What good work is the movement doing that isn't a larger part of just science?

Skeptical communities do lots of good work, especially when it comes to debunking pseudoscience and promoting scientific literacy in general.

 

[Toxi]

Looking at the impact factor (or lack thereof), literally nobody publishing outside the journal they got published in cites its articles.

So uh... Way to go?

 

[yanipheonu]

There's some real skepticism to be found in rationalism, if only because it's become pretty clear we've got some built in biases that really mess with our ability to be rational.

This doesn't mean rationalism is dead mind you. It just means that even the most rational and scientific studies need to be very self reflective and scrutinized to avoid our subconscious biases.

It's a really easy trap to fall into.

 

[SoCoRoBo]

Sure but like...who are the good "rationalist" figures right now? What good work is the movement doing that isn't a larger part of just science?

In the first place, I don't think this was ever a discussion about whether rationalism is a 'good' movement, but rationalism generally can be associated quite closely with evidence-based policymaking, scientific literacy and regularly updating outmoded or baseless beliefs. Seems pretty good to me. Rationalism as a specific movement is very closely associated with Effective Altruism and things like 80,000 Hours, which are both wonderful and very laudable projects.

Having grown up in what was a deeply religious country, it annoys just how much emphasis people place on the unappealing personal qualities of the atheist movement, which is essentially irrelevant to the arguments surrounding belief in religion. I find it hard to overstate just how much damage organised religion has done to my country. They've done a very important service for the world in making atheism a mainstream, if still not fully acceptable, position.

Like "nice guys", if you have to label yourself as a "rationalist" you're probably not one.

This feels dumb. It's a particular set of commitments that don't come intuitively to most people. It's a commitment to try and restructure one's thinking in a particular way. I don't think most self-described rationalists are merely stating that they think rationally as almost every human being does almost all of the time.

 

[Arkage]

Good correlative data of what? We don't even know how the mouse brain makes the simplest of computations. Genetic studies of what? What good does knowing that the D3 receptor allele XYZ is linked to higher intelligence when it really is dependent on being in X situation and comes with Y negative effects. Gender studies is not at all like intelligence science and is a non sequitur here.

Please don't just link wikipedia pages and point to the citations. Give me the primary sources that aren't slightly more advanced phrenology. More gray and white matter isn't a good thing!

The wikipedia page and subsequent studies, as well as the book I linked, all make the case for strong correlative data. I'm getting the strong impression that you really haven't studied this area of neuroscience to any significant extent. I mean, you're the one making claims with literally no evidence or studies or links to back them up. I feel I've provided enough info at this point to defend the assertions that 1) intelligence science is a legitimate science and 2) the large majority of intelligence science believes in a significant genetic and neurological component for intelligence and intelligence variation.

Making poorly constructed emotional appeals to how phrenology is bad isn't going to invalidate modern empiracle neuroscience correlations.

 

[Yoshi]

This is not limited to gender studies. A computer science paper that was software-generated (meaning, it was complete nonsense but looked and sort of sounded legitimate) was accepted to a conference as a non-reviewed paper (that was in 2005). See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen#Prominent_results Trying to discredit a whole area of studies based on one paper being accepted into a journal that probably accepts all sorts of junk doesn't seem very rational to me.

Well, non-reviewed means, that no professional checked it. In theoretical computer science, which is my field, I am quite positive, that reviewed papers will not get published when they are produced this way. Personally, I don't want to say a paper with errors couldn't pass a review I write, but I am certain such a paper would require quite a solid understanding of tcs and mathematics to produce something with very well hidden errors in the proofs (and then such a paper would not be significantly less work than a proper paper).

 

[Dicktatorship]

I don't know much about gender studies to comment, but I will comment on the "rationals" thing.

The idea that we are rational animals has been mocked by philosophers for thousands of years. If anyone calls themselves rational, at some point you'll probably hear them complaining about, or posting about SJWs online.

 

[SoCoRoBo]

The idea that we are rational animals has been mocked by philosophers for thousands of years. If anyone calls themselves rational, at some point you'll probably hear them complaining about, or posting about SJWs online.

Yes, philosophers are notorious for downplaying the importance of rationality and reason in decisionmaking and the question as to what extent we are rational beings has been resolved for the entirety of the history of western philosophy. Regarding the last sentence, do you really think this is, in any manner, a productive way to talk about the issue?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

The idea that we are rational animals has been mocked by philosophers for thousands of years. If anyone calls themselves rational, at some point you'll probably hear them complaining about, or posting about SJWs online.

What an insipid post. Rationalism isn't the claim that humans are rational creatures, it's an ideology that makes one (and society in general) strive to be more rational.

Humans are selfish creatures too, that's well documented. So anyone calling themselves an altruist, or one that strives to be more altruistic, should be mocked. Right?

Spoiler

/s

 

[ugaboga232]

The wikipedia page and subsequent studies, as well as the book I linked, all make the case for strong correlative data. I'm getting the strong impression that you really haven't studied this area of neuroscience to any significant extent. I mean, you're the one making claims with literally no evidence or studies or links to back them up. I feel I've provided enough info at this point to defend the assertions that 1) intelligence science is a legitimate science and 2) the large majority of intelligence science believes in a significant genetic and neurological component for intelligence and intelligence variation.

Making poorly constructed emotional appeals to how phrenology is bad isn't going to invalidate modern empiracle neuroscience correlations.

I would argue I study the part of neuroscience that is most involved in the basic mechanisms of how executive function works. I'm getting the strong impression you don't study biology because just because some genes are correlated with higher IQ scores and vice versa doesn't mean we can make more intricate conclusions (also gene and fMRI studies are pretty uninformative for a variety of reasons and I brought up phrenology because many of those wikipedia citations were about brain size correlations which are equally as valid as phrenology given how the brain is not just 1 cell type and involves circuits). My point is not that there isn't links between inheritance and intelligence but that these correlations do not make a field of study and there is no real push in neuroscience/biology to study "intelligence."

 

[JackDT]

Literally hundreds of hoax and gibberish papers have made it into journals across all scientific disciplines. It is completely silly that people think this one paper proves anything those other examples didn't. Further reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2013/oct/04/open-access-journals-fake-paper
http://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishing

 

[AntraxSuicide]

I say this as a mathematician: science worship needs to die. I'm sooooooo tired of shitbags like Dawkins and the dozens of idiots sharing "I fucking love science" posts.

The idea that one can practice scientific methods without a rigorous and coherent philosophy of science is garbage.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I say this as a mathematician: science worship needs to die. I'm sooooooo tired of shitbags like Dawkins and the dozens of idiots sharing "I fucking love science" posts.

The idea that one can practice scientific methods without a rigorous and coherent philosophy of science is garbage.

...What is "science worship"?

In any case, I can think of far worse things for society to be doing than glorifying science in goofy pop culture...

 

[akira28]

if only it stopped at goofy pop culture references.

 

[John Kowalski]

Since we're on this topic i read The Gods Themselves recently. Great book.

 

[Gotchaye]

????

Why does skepticism or rationalism need a "figure"? Leave that shit to religion and other kinds of populist cult-of-personality BS.

I don't call myself a feminist because good feminist role-models exist, I call myself a feminist because my values match the label. Same with atheism, rationalism, skepticism, etc.

But if anyone must insist, what, exactly, is wrong with Neil deGrasse Tyson or Phil Plait or James Randi? Or lesser-known ones like Ben Goldacre, Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers... or hell something like Snopes.

I don't associate any of these people with "rationalism". To my knowledge "rationalist" is not a label any of them are in the habit of using. I know that at least James Randi, Phil Plait, and Rebecca Watson tend to prefer "skeptic". PZ Myers seems to primarily talk about himself as an atheist or maybe humanist. Tyson is more of a general science advocate in his public role. I don't know much about Ben Goldacre but the stuff he does looks a lot like the sort of skeptical advocacy that the other three skeptics you named do a lot of.

But anyway, of course labels are mostly about identifying with the other people using the label. I mean, what's the alternative and what's the point? Who's deciding what a label is actually about? These things don't have official definitions apart from whatever the people using them stand for.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

...What is "science worship"?

In any case, I can think of far worse things for society to be doing than glorifying science in goofy pop culture...

The idea that only STEM fields are valid. The idea that scientists are deities. The idea that science is separate from culture. All common beliefs that are all terrible.

And of course we can think of worse things! This is a pointless statement. The existence of Nazis does not preclude other bad or dumb things.

 

[Nabbis]

The idea that only STEM fields are valid. The idea that scientists are deities. The idea that science is separate from culture. All common beliefs that are all terrible.

And of course we can think of worse things! This is a pointless statement. The existence of Nazis does not preclude other bad or dumb things.

What about outside US? Internet culture is basically global at this point, the problems you are pointing out are not the same in other parts of the globe. STEM fields for instance are not seen very valuable here, at the very least there is no cultural appreciation for them. On the other hand engineering seems to be a pretty big thing in India even to the point of detriment, for example. Though even with the bad parts, id rather people worship science instead of some other "ism". Other countries don't really have their own Bill Nye or Tyson, we take inspiration from the same people but the effects are different.

 

[iamblades]

I don't associate any of these people with "rationalism". To my knowledge "rationalist" is not a label any of them are in the habit of using. I know that at least James Randi, Phil Plait, and Rebecca Watson tend to prefer "skeptic". PZ Myers seems to primarily talk about himself as an atheist or maybe humanist. Tyson is more of a general science advocate in his public role. I don't know much about Ben Goldacre but the stuff he does looks a lot like the sort of skeptical advocacy that the other three skeptics you named do a lot of.

But anyway, of course labels are mostly about identifying with the other people using the label. I mean, what's the alternative and what's the point? Who's deciding what a label is actually about? These things don't have official definitions apart from whatever the people using them stand for.

^^

I would be really surprised if any of these people called themselves rationalist. That term has a pretty specific meaning in philosophy, and it is about 180 degrees from what science and skepticism are all about.

This is entirely different from being in favor of reason and rationality in general, which basically everyone is for, the question is how we derive the basic knowledge of the world around us to be able to reason about it. Rationalists believe that you can reason from innate knowledge, empiricists believe you must reason based on what your senses observe.

Science clearly fits in the latter camp.

 

[Telosfortelos]

I pretty much agree with everything you say here.

Also interestingly, those trying to lump Harris, via his Murray interview, into these claims against gender science doesn't really hold up. On his most recent AMA he said that while he hasn't looked at any of the science, he thinks transgender people are likely born that way and should have all rights afforded to them (ie bathroom stuff). The only place he (and Peterson) start drawing the line is when there are 30-50+ gender labels people start using to identify themself, essentially in completely arbitrary ways, and then laws are passed to enforce these terms via discrimination laws, as is happening to an extent in Canada.

Separately, while gender studies itself are valid, there also many studies that become a parody of what people view to be frivolous naval-gazing. This Twitter feed does a good job collecting them: https://mobile.twitter.com/realpeerreview

Also, the large majority of intelligence scientists view g variance as 25-50% inheritable. The real debate with Murray is over how much of this heritability can be overridden by environmental factors. Murray tends to say that it can't be, which leads people to say he's racist. The most politically correct thing to say is that all heritable intelligence traits can be overridden by environment, but very few intelligence scientists view g as 100% environmentally controlled.

And all of this ignores that the biggest problem with psychology/sociology studies is the current replication crises. Section II of this blog is a great read on everything being debated in this thread:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/17/learning-to-love-scientific-consensus/

Thanks for the post (posts).

Just as it's irrational to draw strong conclusions from one false paper published to a single small journal, it's irrational to draw conclusions about "skeptics", etc from loud internet trolls that draw conclusions from said paper. And yes, there are many feminists that take issue with quality of papers published in some social science journals.

The idea that only STEM fields are valid. The idea that scientists are deities. The idea that science is separate from culture. All common beliefs that are all terrible.

I don't agree that these are common beliefs.

I do think it's important to use scientific principles for social sciences, and I imagine that's a fairly common belief that perhaps some find objectionable. They shouldn't!

 

[Zaru]

My point is not that there isn't links between inheritance and intelligence but that these correlations do not make a field of study and there is no real push in neuroscience/biology to study "intelligence."

You're starting to sound like you don't WANT that to be studied because it makes you feel uncomfortable

 

[Toxi]

You're starting to sound like you don't WANT that to be studied because it makes you feel uncomfortable

You're starting to sound like you're setting up a strawman.

 

[ugaboga232]

You're starting to sound like you don't WANT that to be studied because it makes you feel uncomfortable

I don't want to study how the brain works yet I am doing an 8 year program to study just that? Didn't realize I was playing 5th dimensional chess.

I'm just giving you the perspective of someone who actually studies the brain. There are many uncomfortable truths about the brain but the nature of "intelligence" is barely up there compared to the issues of agency/addiction.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

^^

I would be really surprised if any of these people called themselves rationalist. That term has a pretty specific meaning in philosophy, and it is about 180 degrees from what science and skepticism are all about.

This is entirely different from being in favor of reason and rationality in general, which basically everyone is for, the question is how we derive the basic knowledge of the world around us to be able to reason about it. Rationalists believe that you can reason from innate knowledge, empiricists believe you must reason based on what your senses observe.

Science clearly fits in the latter camp.

I think you're mostly right. The idea of innate knowledge hasn't really been a thing since Kant, but how we'd use rationalism now would probably be to describe the practice or preoccupation of establishing a strong theoretical foundation for something (or just seeing value in theory in general). And if we go with that definition it is pretty ironic that scientists would want to call themselves rationalists, since often scientists are too factually-minded to see theorizing as particularly valuable.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

I don't agree that these are common beliefs.

I do think it's important to use scientific principles for social sciences, and I imagine that's a fairly common belief that perhaps some find objectionable. They shouldn't!

I see it all the time. And I have no issue with applying the scientific method to things. But a lot of the science groupies think this is impossible and not worth doing. I agree that they're wrong.

What about outside US? Internet culture is basically global at this point, the problems you are pointing out are not the same in other parts of the globe. STEM fields for instance are not seen very valuable here, at the very least there is no cultural appreciation for them. On the other hand engineering seems to be a pretty big thing in India even to the point of detriment, for example. Though even with the bad parts, id rather people worship science instead of some other "ism". Other countries don't really have their own Bill Nye or Tyson, we take inspiration from the same people but the effects are different.

Good point. I'm American and so that colors what I see on these topics. Your experience may be quite different.