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165 comments
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True but people also use this as an excuse to dismiss any research they disagree with which is idiotic.
Most research is legit. It just might not be interpreted correctly, or it might not be the whole picture. But it shouldn’t be ignored because you don’t like it.
People are especially prone to this with Econ research in my experience.
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For sure, but it’s important to keep in mind in fields with large financial interests.
Medicine especially. Most studies claiming Cealiac disease (gluten allergy) was not real before it was conclusively proven to be legitimate were funded by bread companies. You won’t believe the number of studies funded by insurance companies trying to show that certain diseases aren’t really disabling, (even though they really are).
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The entire thing is an edgy strawman. Honest practitioners obviously take seriously the need to understand and articulate the limits of empiricism, and are hostile towards those who abuse the public trust placed in scientific authority. It would honestlt be great if we could do the same with our critiques of capitalism.
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Isn't there a replication crisis. I am not sure you can really claim "most" research is legit.
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I wouldn't call it a broad crisis, and it isn't universal. More theoretical sciences or social sciences are more prone to it because the experiments are more expensive and you can't really control the environment the way you can with e.g. mice or specific chemicals. But most biology, chemistry, etc that isn't bleeding edge or incredibly niche will be validated dozens to hundreds of times as people build on the work and true retractions are rare
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There's a replication crisis in a handful of more recent fields that use human subjects and didn't have hard rules and restrictions on how to treat human subjects in the early 20th century. Psychology is the field that has had the biggest issue, with many old studies having what we now see as serious methodology issues. It doesn't inherently mean all of those studies are wrong, just that they need to be revised with updated methodology to confirm if their results are accurate.
There's also about 1500 years of scientific study aside from that which doesn't relate to human subjects at all, and by this point has been replicated numerous times, so I would not doubt the claim that most research is replicable and valid. I would expect about 80-90% of our collective scientific knowledge to be accurate.
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This is a clean example of an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
Statement B attempts to use Statement A to make an unrelated point that isn't necessarily untrue, but it is still unrelated.
This could be done with any combination of...
"Under capitalism,
<random thing>
is..."
"Under<random ism>
, science is..."They would all result in a statement that supports Speaker B, but is no longer relevant to what Speaker A stated, as the topic has changed. In this case, from science to capitalism.
I.e. It's an anti-capitalism meme attempting to use science to appeal to a broader audience through relevance fallacy. Both statements may be true, but do not belong in the same picture.
Unless, of course, "that's the joke" and I'm just that dumb.
Edit: I'm not a supporter of capitalism. But I am a supporter of science—haha, like it needs me to exist—and this is an interesting example of social science. It seems personal opinion is paramount to some individuals rather than unbiased assessment of the statement as a whole. Call me boring and autistic, but that's what science be and anything else isn't science, it's just personal opinion, belief, theory, etc.
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I think you're reading statement B too literally. I'm pretty sure the idea behind it is related to critical theory and is an objection to the idea that rationality is trustworthy and that class conflict should be regarded as a higher truth. In that way statement B is relevant to statement A; it's an implicit rejection of it.
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It's not literal; as the fallacy credits, neither is it necessarily wrong. But(!!!), they're just not related.
The entire post itself—and your reply—is social science. But science is incapable of alignment to any -ism. All isms are human-made. If they are 100% true, they are not isms.
Edit: Sorry, I'm drunk af, so probably you are right...maybe... At least in my mind, I'm just reading Statement B as literally as Statement A and therefore can't see correlation without social agenda—theyre just two very different things. Science and agenda; or agenda using "science". It's bias. That's very unscientific.
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Wow thanks! I’ve seen other instances of this fallacy but never knew its name (nor recognized that it is a common fallacy form).
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Any process unless specifically adjusted to compensate for it (and the adjustment itself is a distortion of it and has secondary effects) will be affected by the environment it is working in.
So specifically for Capitalism and the practice of Science under it, funding and the societal pressure on everybody including scientists to have more money - as wealth is a status symbol in that environment - are he main pathways via which Capitalism influences the practice of Science.
It's incredibly Reductionist and even anti-Scientific to start from the axiom that environment does not at all influence the way Science is practiced (hence Capitalism is unrelated to Science) and then just make an entire argument on top of such a deeply flawed assumption
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Assuming this meme is some form of Marxist propaganda, it would be a self-defeating meme, since Marxism is rooted in dialectical materialism which is itself a scientific process. At least according to Marx.
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I don't want to deflate your assumption, but "Science is pure objectivity and truth".
The assumption you introduced just added another layer on by bringing Marxism into it. And here's the thing with that fallacy; you may be very right! But, it's got nothing to do with the original statement anymore. It's just going down tangents of a tangent that should be explored under their own initiative, not the blanket of "science".
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Unfortunately that's not how communism works in practice
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Thank you. Something about me was rubbing me the wrong way, but I couldn't articulate it.
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Also statement A isn't the truth either. It's a highly exaggerated belief.
"science is good" turns to "science is pure truth and always right"
When actually science can be manipulated because humans are, well, humans. It shouldn't be taken as always 100% fact. -
You're dead on. Science is a process. I can science the shit out of baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano, and I don't need government funding to do it. What you science is effected by capitalism, but capitalism is just a scare word. No matter what you want to do, if it requires a significant amount of power or work to create your materials, a cost is accrued somewhere, and someone has to pay it, whether it costs dollars or beaver pelts.
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Capitalism isn't just about "things need funding" the point of the meme is that capitalists determine what gets funding. A socialist state might put economic force behind other scientific endeavors, ones driven by capital are intended to create profit. The profit motive drives innovation instead of the pure ideological pursuit of truth or any other driver.
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This is reductive to the extreme.
Clearly if all you want to do is to build a baking soda volcano you can go ahead.
It's also pretty clear that baking soda volcanoes aren't the kind of science the meme is talking about.
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This is why the last step of science is broad consensus, which has solved literally every single example of bad science in this entire thread. All this means is people should pay more attention to sources.
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Broad consensus may be the "last step of science" only insofar as the scientific community accepting a theoretical framework as a complete, perfect, objective truth would mean no more science and no more scientific community, only fools and fanatics.
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Let's also not forget that Scientists are also humans. Humans with their own beliefs and biases which do get transferred into studies. Peer review can help reduce that but since peers are also humans with their own biases, but also common biases shared amongst humans it's not bulletproof either.
There will always be some level of bias which clouds judgement, or makes you see/think things that aren't objectively true, sometimes it comes with good intention, others not so much. It's always there though, and probably always will be. The key to good science is making it as minimal as possible.
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Science doesn't change just because some groups try to use it to forward an agenda.
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ignoring the other examples you've been given: it absolutely does even when it goes well. The scientific method is literally based on "other people must change and refine this, one person's work is not immutable nor should be taken as gospel"
Also what science is has changed. Science used to be natural philosophy and thus was combined with other non-scientific (to us) disciplines. Social sciences have only been around 200 years tops.
Some would debate that applied mathematics is science, others would say all sociology isn't science.
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I'd argue the scientific method does not have to include multiple people at all. All it is, is the process of coming up with a hypothesis, designing an experiment to check that hypothesis, and then repeating while trying to control for external factors (like your own personal bias). You can absolutely do science on your own.
The broader field of academia and getting scientific papers published is more of a governance thing than science. You can come up with better hypotheses by reviewing other people's science, but that doesn't mean when a flat earther ignores all current consensus and does their own tests that it isn't still science.
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No True Scotsman argument sort of.
Now, I'm not saying we ignore science or throw it out, but there are flaws.
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Is it made by humans? Yah, there are flaws.
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But it does. Cigarettes were healthy and climate change didn't exist 50 years ago
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Neither of those things were backed by science. Confusing convincing lobbying with science is a problem today was it was then.
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Science is the process of getting things a little less wrong.
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If you catch your friends using Science as a religion, tell them they're not a skeptic, they're a cunt.
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Am scientist (well, was, before career change), can confirm. Fuck dogmatic scientists, they're worse than regular dogmatists because they've been given many opportunities to know better.
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Ah SoleInvictus, he is an average [Insert Career Here], but he was a BRILLIANT Scientist!
Memes aside - (https://youtu.be/F_DFJ-OXTzQ)
This is such a common problem that it's lead to the phrase "Science progresses at the march of funerals.", what with all the people so attached to their pet theories they can't humor anything that contradicts them.....
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Well look here buddy this was proven better than p>0.05 therefore it is scientifically accurate !
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Why not both?
What's decided to be worthy of study is subjective. The process to hypothesize, experiment, and conclude what's being studied is objective.
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Do you or have you ever worked in science? I did for a bit and that was not my impression.
One cannot really argue that science as practiced is very effective at certain things but it is also extremely far from being objective in practice. Especially the further you stray from simple physical systems.
Also like I never saw someone formulate a hypothesis in any sort of formal sense haha.
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Do you or have you ever worked in science? I did for a bit and that was not my impression.
I imagine it depends heavily on the field. In some fields there are ideas that one can't seriously study because they're considered settled or can't be studied without doing more harm than any believed good that could be achieved. There are others subject to essentially ideological capture where the barrier to publish is largely determined by how ideologically aligned you are (fields linked to an identity group have a bad habit of being about activism first and accurate observation of reality second).
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Probably depends on the field or even the institution. My experience is much more positive.
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Ideally, absolutely. That’s what makes the hallmarks of a great scientist.
In practice, institutionalized science can be just as dogmatic and closed-minded as some of the worst religions.
I have had advisors/coworkers/management straight up ignore certain evidence because it didn’t fit their preconceived views of what the results “should be”. This doesn’t make the process of science objective anymore when people are crafting experiments in ways to fit their views, or cherry picking data that conforms to their views.
And you would be surprised at how often this happens in very high-stakes science industries (people’s lives are at stake). It’s fucking disgusting, and extremely dangerous.
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Even by itself, the first statement might not be the case. I don't remember the book that well, but I remember thinking it was a good introduction to this topic. Philosophy of Science: A Very Brief Introduction by Samir Okasha.
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The fact that capitalism taints everything it touches is not a criticism of the things it touches.
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Yet, it's not as simple as "scientists are under capitalists' interests", but "the ideologies within capitalism permeate the way we do science". A common example is how we measure functionality (and therefore pathology itself) in medicine.
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Actually, it is.
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Science is a method of empiricism and inductive logic.
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There's antitrust litigation against the publishers. Here's one article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2024/09/16/scientists-file-antitrust-lawsuit-against-six-journal-publishers/
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science is science. it can be (sometimes necessarily) prioritized via societal influence, culture and monetary means.
socialist countries have different types scientific spend but I don't see femboys taking things in the ass for them I guess.
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Look, the only thing in the world which hasn't been corrupted by capitalism is OP's brain, which happens to be in a jar, on a shelf, owned by an evil demon, who lives in a hole at the bottom of the sea. Just be thankful that the capitalists have not figured out how to harness this phenomenological power yet.
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Oh, we're totally going to do brains in vats
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Nihilism is fun! Science as a framework for truth seeking, and big S Science are functionally different things. Nobody is making the argument that Science is free from political or economic bias, or even that empiricism is the sole arbiter of truth. Literally just finish reading Kant, I'll wait.
On the other hand, you can look at the world and very plainly see that science... does things. It discovers truth with a far better track record than every other imperfect epistemology. But sure, capitalism bad. Twitter man cringe. And the internet is just like, an opinion, or something.
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And under socialism in the 20th century, science was an institution that only funds research that advances whatever narrative the hermetic powers-that-be decided to push and strengthen their grip on power, their obsession with secretiveness and projecting an image of infallibility.
Take the Soviet Union.
T.D. Lysenko and his crackpot food engineering ideas is one such glaring example. But boy oh boy could he talk a "toe the party line" game and suck up to Stalin.
Or how about how the kremlin rendered nearly one quarter of Kazakhstan uninhabitable due to their relentless nuclear testing. And they nearly did that for all of western Europe with Chernobyl.In the name of workers and science, we shall poison your land. Science for the workers' paradise, rejoice, comrades!
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Okay, you have one point of data, the USSR, can you list a second point of data, otherwise this is not a trend of socialism but of a single country.
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The entire eastern block adopted Lysenkoism.
The USSR also abused medical science to imprison dissidents in mental institutions based on false diagnoses.
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Science is easily corruptible, but of most relevance to us is how it is being corrupted here
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OK and? Also source?
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If you’d like to read into this I recommend these books.
1 “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn
2 “Science as Social Knowledge” by Helen Longino
3 “The Politics of Science” by David Politzer
4 “The Science Industry” by Philip Mirowski
5 “The Commodification of Science: A Critical Perspective” by various authors
An example of why this matters would be that research claiming ME was psychological was heavily funded, by both governments and insurance companies because it meant that they didn’t have to spend money on people disabled with ME. No effort was made to look at possible biological causes. Only a couple decades later, we now know it is a neuroimmune disease. But since insurers and government don’t benefit from that fact, it took decades to show and disprove the mountain of research claiming it is psychological. This meant thousands of people died from the disease or were in severe poverty.
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Critical theory, my beloved
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Also corporations tie employment of scientists to the number of papers they publish, as well as burying data that is financially harmful.
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It doesn't matters what it is, if you use a strawman I will automatically disagree.
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You're going to hate wojak comics
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🔫👨🚀 I always have.
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Even if you follow the rules strictly, confirmation bias can kick in... which is basically "always" because you have to start somewhere and will think a certain way.
Based on that argument, why bother? /s
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Does anybody understand what this meme is trying to say? I feel like its pretty obvious
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Neil DeGrass Tyson rails femboy doomers from behind while debating science or something idk.
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Some kind of commie drivel that’s literally incomprehensible since the last nail in the coffin of scientific Marxism in the 70s
You can even see identity politics held at the gunpoint to make it more appealing to minorities though no one knows how those matters relate to any of this
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scientists are like gold prospectors dependent on assayers for their continuing in the mine
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I dunno about science, but truth is proof. That just infers that science is various forms of proof, and I'm ok with that as it lets our notion of proof evolve as we do _
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Does anyone remember all the bogus studies that showed smoking was healthy?
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Wrong example. Here better example would be "does anyone remember how underfunded were those studies, that said smoking was not healthy?"
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Fair enough, yeah from what I remember big tobacco was funding the former. They even had the surgeon general recommending smoking.
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Yes and? Is the premise that capital only chooses bad things to research?
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Capital has certain interests. If your research doesn't produce the results that capital is looking for, you're unlikely to get more funding. As such, it leaves a bias on what we have research for, which can already skew our perception of reality, and sometimes researchers will even fake their results or select certain data to reach a conclusion that's in the interest of the capital.
There are mechanisms in place to try to prevent that, namely peer reviews and reproduction of previous studies, so we'll hopefully get to the truth eventually, but the bias still has a big impact.
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nothing to see here :)
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does tankie just mean "critiques capitalism" now?
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I’m an anarchist who despises authoritairian tankies.
This is just critical theory, and meta science. Both of which are legitimate fields.
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ok, but according to science everyone is worthless
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Based
165 comments