>The scientific method as practiced by fallible and irrational humans
This is giving me flashbacks to Catholic school :)
'Christ is perfect, his earthly church is not. Because the church consists of fallible human clergy and laity it is vulnerable to corruption, ambition, lust, and politics, oh the politics'
It's interesting to know that secular students get the same arguments just in defense of scientism instead of Christianity. All apologists sound alike.
Not a criticism, just interesting
My point is that the central dogma of science is to be skeptical of existing thought and to update the model. The central dogma of most religions is to preserve tradition and be skeptical of challenges to existing thought.
An inherent conservatism avoids a lot of weird, faddish behavior.
Religion is the result of evolutionary processes and like all evolutionary processes it changes slowly and is not perfect. D.S. Wilson's Darwin's Cathedral is the go-to book for this argument and contains a beautiful section that goes like this:
We look at a bird's wing and marvel that it is so wonderfully adapted for flying. But we do not scorn birds for not being able to fly faster than the speed of sound. Their wings never required that to be successful in their evolutionary niches. Why do we look at religion which is also a marvel of adaptation for helping humans live together and get mad at it that it has not brought about world peace? World peace or perfection were never required for them to be successful in their evolutionary niches.
That said, religion is based on the idea of worshiping a core idea, that shouldn't be contested, while science is based on the idea of contesting your core ideas, and never accepting pure belief. They are similar on the way that opposite things always have some similarity.
(Anyway, "the scientific method is perfect" is a very bad misquote of the OP. Believing your method is perfect is anti-scientific, you should be always on the hunt for a better method.)
:o
It's not a misquote, the comment I replied to really said that!
But the original is "the scientific method is anti-fragile, The harder you attack it, the sturdier it becomes." The comment you replied to threw a lot of nuance away when it was replaced by "perfect", and you threw the context that kept it reasonable away when you decided to compare with a similar phrase from anpother context. So, you both together made a misquote.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2011-12&ve...
>Is the scientific method perfect though? Isn't it the result of the same fallible human minds that make it's implementation inherently flawed as well?
Maybe the scientific method is not perfect, but itself is still open to improvement in fundamental ways. This is more interesting to me than debates about ancient Judaean fig tree parables.
But in case you're curious! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursing_the_fig_tree
We build stuff out of trees, so I think he straight-up killed that tree to build a parable out of doing it. It was in his sovereignty to uproot what isn’t Good. In the very next paragraph, he does the same by throwing the merchants out of the temple.
His response to his apostles after they mention the dead tree is interesting. It seems like he ignores them to explain that if they pray about anything, it will happen if they believe it. I think this has something to do with 1) the role of faith in avoiding the tree’s fate so that they may be bear the fruit no matter how impossible it seems since it was “not the season for bearing fruit”, or 2) a picture of the reality of the Kingdom after the harvest, where the Good will have reign to move mountains.
Proofs blossom like trees from epistemic axioms. It’s confounding to believe “Christ is perfect”, but it does bear fruit, however confounding it is. Theology isn’t popularly known, but it’s there if you’re curious.
Another example is the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene and possibly some other women. At the time women were considered to be more untrustworthy, so the argument was that if the story was fabricated, surely the author would have decided to make the empty tomb discovered by a group of men since it would have been viewed by contemporary readers that this (already implausible) story was coming from a more trustworthy source.
Of course, the most prominent example is the crucifixion itself, since crucifixion was reserved for traitors and the lowest criminals. If you're trying to argue that this man was the Son of God, why write a story in which at the climax he is executed as a despised criminal?
(1) Fig trees bear a type of pre-fruit. If that pre-fruit isn't there in the earlier season, then you know it won't bear any fruit in the final season.
(2) It's super obvious from the context that the fig is a metaphor for Israel. The temple system hasn't been bearing fruit because the Pharisees/scribes running it have so misinterpreted God that they will end up killing his Son. This is a foreshadowing of the destruction of the temple sacrificial system (begun in ~32 AD when Jesus died, finalized with the temple's destruction around 70 AD, never to be rebuilt again because the Muslims have built dome of the rock there now).
Individual interpretations outside of a conciliar approach to Christianity (which started in the Book of Acts with the Counsel of Jerusalem, and continued into the Ecumenical Councils) has never resulted in anything but sectarianism and confusion.
At least from a perspective of consistency, readers may be interested in the perspective of conciliar, dogmatic foundations which cannot be changed in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
As regards for Mark 11: https://catenabible.com/mk/11 This website provides a range of commentaries which one can choose the earliest Church Fathers. However, blessed Theophylact is the most accessible commentary, largely based on St John Chrysostom, which is a harder read due to depth and language.
Cyril of Jerusalem AD 386 Remember at the time of the sin of Adam and Eve they clothed themselves—with what? Fig leaves. That was their first act after the fall. So now Jesus is making the same figure of the fig tree the very last of his wondrous signs. Just as he was headed toward the cross, he cursed the fig tree—not every fig tree, but that one alone for its symbolic significance—saying: “May no one ever eat fruit of you again.” In this way the curse laid upon Adam and Eve was being reversed. For they had clothed themselves with fig leaves.
St John Chrysostom: https://catenabible.com/com/5735de63ec4bd7c9723b9c17
Eastern Orthodox history of the canonization of scripture: http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/ntcanon_emergence.aspx
What it probably was is a representation of one of Jesus’ goals for his time here. The Israelites were being their usual disobedient selves as they always have been. Instead, the job of spreading the gospel has been relegated to the gentiles, since the Israelites were not producing fruit…ie spreading the gospel, following the law, etc.
At the present time, AD, we are in the age of the church…where the gentiles are the ones working. Israel won’t be back to being the focus until sometime in the future. Thus that situation could be an allegory for what was going to happen.
The story of the fig tree takes place within a Markan intercalation. Jesus’s entrance into and cleansing of the temple is sandwiched between the cursing of the fig tree and the observation that the fig tree has withered. Edwards’ central thesis is that “the middle story nearly always provides the key to the theological purpose of the sandwich.” The fig tree is best interpreted through the lens of the temple.
In the middle of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus declares “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17, NRSV). The quotation is from Isa 56:7, which takes place amidst an eschatological vision of the covenant being extended to Gentiles. The failure of the second temple to adequately address Isaiah’s vision suggests that it is not the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise. The phrase “den of robbers” comes from Jer 7:11. Kirk comments that word den is “aptly chosen to represent the practice of a people who see the temple as a place of safety to which they can flee after committing various forms of injustice in other spheres.” Thus, the leaders who are in the temple are not merely condemned for their practices in the temple, but for the way in which they assume participation in the temple system guarantees their forgiveness and safety regardless of their unjust actions elsewhere. They are not the sort of people Isaiah commended, who “maintain justice, and do what is right” (Isa 56:1) but rather seek their own profit and work to kill the Messiah (Mark 11:18).
This is why Jesus’ teaching in response to Peter’s comment in Mark 11:19 focuses on the destruction and replacement of the temple. His explanation in 11:20-25 focuses on prayer and how “this mountain” (i.e. the temple mount toward which they were heading) may be thrown into the sea. The use of the demonstrative pronoun τούτῳ in reference to the mountain indicates that Jesus was referring to this specific mountain, not offering a discourse on the general power of prayer. The mountain serves as a metonymy representing the entire temple system, which is to be overthrown; the fig tree serves as an additional symbol of how this temple system will be cursed. To further clarify, Jesus proposes an alternative pathway to fulfill the function that the temple performs. Rather than perform sacrifices in the temple to receive forgiveness from God, the disciples need only pray and forgive others. This alternative route to forgiveness indicates the temple system is no longer necessary.
Shortly following this sandwich is a story with parallel language that also illuminates the meaning of the passage: the parable of the tenants (Mark 12:1-11). The two words καιρὸς and καρπῶν are found in both passages. Few commentaries have focused on the use of the word καιρὸς, likely because it is such a common word. However, a closer look indicates that it is used in the gospels primarily in two ways: either as a common phrase (e.g. Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ in Matt 12:1) or with an eschatological reference point (e.g. ἄχρι οὗ πληρωθῶσιν καιροὶ ἐθνῶν in Luke 21:24). Unlike the other synoptics, Mark never uses καιρὸς as a common phrase, which suggests that there may be greater linkages between passages where he uses the term. The placement of these words so closely to one another would likely raise more commentary if the fig tree was not already part of a Markan sandwich. Specifically, the themes raised in Mark 11:12-25 continue to be raised in the subsequent chapters in complex ways, such that the fig tree may be part of a “double intercalation” or triple decker sandwich.
Needless to say, I was very hungry after writing this paper...
If you can make it through the paper, I'm happy to answer any further questions more specifically: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FLh6voQlieHMfUMckU83C2gNKjF...
The parent noticed this similarity because both are in the same business.
Sorry I failed to communicate that more clearly!
That said, there is something to be said for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_analogy
The word "perfect" is problematic to me. It's ascribed to God to contrast with man, as most of us would agree that nothing we do is perfect. Using it implies the same religious status of being above man's foibles.
I like the word "useful" here, or "anti-fragile" in the original comment.
Further, I like defining context. Useful in what class of problems? For I don't think the scientific method is regarded as particularly useful in all domains. Consciousness and the subjective are valid realms of human experience worth dedicated inquiry, for which the scientific method seems woefully lacking.
Ideas like these must be judged based on their actual real world performance, and not on the lofty promises of the ideologues that promote the ideas.
Luckily science doesn't require perfectly rational practitioners. It still works even if practiced human beings.
Nonsense. Nothing is perfect, especially nothing ever created by a human. The scientific method is the best we have developed, in my opinion, but it's not perfect. The scientific method itself was developed by "fallible and irrational humans". Even with the best of intentions and the utmost in effort, all humans are susceptible to fallibility and irrationality. You are, I am, everyone is.
The 3/4/5 right triangle is perfect. The perfect fifth in music is (tautologically) perfect. "p or not p" is perfect. Perhaps none of these things can be reproduced in the physical world in a perfect manner, but the concepts really are perfect. Anything in idea-space can in fact be perfect, and the scientific method lives in idea-space.
In the realm of perfection, there isn't really any difference between "developing" something and "discovering" it. Did we "develop" the scientific method or "discover" it? I think that's a meaningless distinction. It's the loop that describes how inductive reasoning is applied by limited observers to a structured universe. People were doing it before it was "developed".
> Perhaps none of these things can be reproduced in the physical world in a perfect manner, but the concepts really are perfect.
In the "marketplace of ideas" practising the scientific method isn't antifragile in the face of such reckless certainty, it's downright fragile, because it's requires being the only side of the argument which will admit that its hypotheses aren't proven and some of its previous theories were wrong. Worse still, when the motivated sceptic has their "stopped clock" moment, practising the scientific method requires conceding they are right. The more science you practice, the more the opponent gets to point to the stuff you've conceded wasn't quite as expected.
Science might become sturdier in terms of better theory in response to attacks (where said attacks are accompanied by experimentation) but it's more vulnerable to losing trust
Here are just a few questions that expose the imperfection of the scientific method:
1. Does it require you to do experiments?
2. What P value threshold does the scientific method require?
3. What can it be applied to? Just the natural world? People? Economies? Artificial machines? Is AI research using the scientific method, or is it just engineering?
4. How should uncertainty be treated? Does the scientific method require the use of subjective or objective Bayesian theory, or does it not matter at all?
5. If you build a statistical model, are you allowed to use assumptions? If yes, how many and of what type? If there are no restrictions on it, what stops astrology being scientific?
6. Does the scientific method require pre-registration of studies? If it does, then does it mean every study before this became a common approach were unscientific? If not, then why are scientists encouraged to do it?
Etc.
The method itself is simple. It is agnostic to bad faith implementations, to bad measurements, to completely fallacious conclusions, etc. It is intended to be iterative; individual errors wash out in time with enough new experiments.
What non-scientists learn from secondary or tertiary sources is irrelevant — those misunderstandings do not mean the Method “failed”.
It's good principles but really is less a method and more guiding principles.
That is the good and the bad of the scientific method. Implementing any one of the steps poorly and you've got crap studies which technically followed the scientific method but are ultimately "unscientific".
You get into the same sorts of arguments as a result. "Agile is pefect, but scrum sucks" "The scientific method is perfect, but nutrition survey studies suck".
The part that the scientific method lacks is determining what a good implementation looks like.
That seems like a feature, not a bug, to me. Descriptions of good implementations are likely subjective and vary based on what is being tested. It may even change over time as human knowledge improves.
> Nothing is perfect.
Meh. You are being unnecessarily pedantic here. If nothing is perfect then we wouldn’t have a word for it. It is so close to perfect for anything that humans have made that it is almost indistinguishable. In fact, language evolves with how people use it. The word perfect has another definition which very well applies here.
Fact is that The Method is resilient to the infallibility or maliciousness of scientists or charlatans. It has survived hundreds of years of charlatans running bad experiments, faked data, lots of oversimplified press coverage, etc and The Method itself is every bit as accurate and useful as it was when first formulated.
Your picking precise word definitions and expecting me to guess which ones your using and yet calling me pedantic. The irony.
The scientific method is not perfect, but the best method that we currently have.
This is true for the subset of "scientific professionals, devoting significant amounts of time to their field". That's not all of the public. That's not even all of most scientific disciplines.
The scientific method is perfect.
The scientific method as practiced by fallible and irrational humans is subject to starts and stops, groupthink and cargo culting, and politics ad nauseam.
The even more common case of "laypeople, with limited technical background knowledge, devoting limited amounts of time to understanding issues, who want to appear informed and intelligent about issues" is significantly more fraught with danger. And the source of most ineffective outcomes.