These days the language of science in popular media always remind me of Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World with science as a candle in the dark and while corpora analysis is cool to create a bunch of word stats I believe modern science (supported by the recent steady lack of change in its language as shown in one of the article graphs) has inherently a problem of discourse and not of words to be clearer to the layperson. Discourse in the storytelling sense that appeal to their specific audience, but also not like those flourish articles that start like a romance which are pretty preposterous. In that way, perhaps, dunno, it's impossible to have a language of science that is efficient today while at the same time trying to appeal to everybody as it would be impossible to have an universal discourse that appeals equally to a person on minimum wage and a trader with a nice suit... in the end any universal language of science no matter how well its words are selected will fail, due to bad discourse IMHO.
In my words, because I agree: We are all entangled and entrenched in our self-interests and group interests, and cannot undermine the profit motive or the need to win. Scientists are just players in a vast field of this entrenchment who do not always get the last word, nor win, nor able to always stick strictly to the science to begin with.
Self interest, group interest, and profit are, in my opinion, part of the picture of producing good science. Something would be amiss without them. Good science happens at some desirable equilibrium between those and other factors. Perhaps we have deviated from that equilibrium, but it's not because of bad faith, adversarial sabotage. In my opinion, the root of the problem is that the very system for communication and exchange among scientists needs to be updated.
Any good system keeps malincentives in check. In the political realm, that would be America's system of checks and balances. Perhaps it needs updating, but it has served us very well. Critically, America's political system does not fundamentally remove the desire for competitive sabotage. It takes that desire and channels it into something good, while precluding the worst outcomes through a system of checks and balances. Those checks and balances are themselves adversarial in nature. America's founding fathers implicitly took the view that everyone is capable of wrong. Rationality is an emergent product of competition. We have to be careful not to pin too much blame on competitive behavior, even if it seems polemical, domineering, and protective. The system of scientific discourse requires more attention. Moreover, we have to fundamentally believe that it can be improved. If we don't, then we won't start to improve it, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All that being said, I'm talking about improving something that is already very good. The progress in almost all fields of science in the last 10-20 years has been mind-blowing. Some of it has already born fruit, and some areas of research, like graphene perhaps, will amaze the biggest cynics in the future with their transformational output.
First, no math problem or physics problem or chemistry problem or science problem involves politics or ethics. Give great scientists a great problem, and they will solve it. It's always up to the administrators and managers and executives to tell them when to stop, often by cutting funding or firing. These are not the scientists, though they may be made to represent them.
Ethics and politics is a completely separate discipline from logic and science. But often those doing the logic and science aren't given a say. They are just placed in their labs and made comfortable.
Second, most scientists know when they are right. You can check your work. You know how you did it. You are aware of what you understand. And being right is mostly enough in a purely scientific context.
But in the real world, you have the Donald and an endless army of careerists who don't mind serving for a naked king that get to decide what is right.
For the most part I don't believe scientists have much of a communication problem. They trade information and are happy to make progress. That's about it.
The truth is not enough. It needs promoting and needs to be fought for. But the best paid promoters and fighters can win regardless of how true anything is, allowing those with the power and money to select the truth that suits them. And rarely are scientists good fighters.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 39.6 ms ] threadCan you clarify on what you mean by bad scientific discourse, and why it is inevitable?
Any good system keeps malincentives in check. In the political realm, that would be America's system of checks and balances. Perhaps it needs updating, but it has served us very well. Critically, America's political system does not fundamentally remove the desire for competitive sabotage. It takes that desire and channels it into something good, while precluding the worst outcomes through a system of checks and balances. Those checks and balances are themselves adversarial in nature. America's founding fathers implicitly took the view that everyone is capable of wrong. Rationality is an emergent product of competition. We have to be careful not to pin too much blame on competitive behavior, even if it seems polemical, domineering, and protective. The system of scientific discourse requires more attention. Moreover, we have to fundamentally believe that it can be improved. If we don't, then we won't start to improve it, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All that being said, I'm talking about improving something that is already very good. The progress in almost all fields of science in the last 10-20 years has been mind-blowing. Some of it has already born fruit, and some areas of research, like graphene perhaps, will amaze the biggest cynics in the future with their transformational output.
First, no math problem or physics problem or chemistry problem or science problem involves politics or ethics. Give great scientists a great problem, and they will solve it. It's always up to the administrators and managers and executives to tell them when to stop, often by cutting funding or firing. These are not the scientists, though they may be made to represent them.
Ethics and politics is a completely separate discipline from logic and science. But often those doing the logic and science aren't given a say. They are just placed in their labs and made comfortable.
Second, most scientists know when they are right. You can check your work. You know how you did it. You are aware of what you understand. And being right is mostly enough in a purely scientific context.
But in the real world, you have the Donald and an endless army of careerists who don't mind serving for a naked king that get to decide what is right.
For the most part I don't believe scientists have much of a communication problem. They trade information and are happy to make progress. That's about it.