But it does. Cigarettes were healthy and climate change didn’t exist 50 years ago
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Antiproton@programming.dev 2 months ago
Science doesn’t change just because some groups try to use it to forward an agenda.
SparrowHawk@feddit.it 2 months ago
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Leviathan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Neither of those things were backed by science. Confusing convincing lobbying with science is a problem today was it was then.
Antiproton@programming.dev 2 months ago
There was never any science saying “cigarettes are healthy”.
dariusj18@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Define healthy. Nicotine is a stimulant and does improve mental acuity.
Draconic_NEO@mander.xyz 2 months ago
I mean those things didn’t change, it was just about how research was manipulated by money and human biases.
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
The truth doesn’t change. Scientific consensus does. Scientific consensus has been wrong on countless things. After all, science is about getting things a little less wrong every time.
Draconic_NEO@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Exactly.
SparrowHawk@feddit.it 2 months ago
Yes but science is a process, not a thing, and that process is corruptible.
There is a differentiation between the natural world for how it’s made and the human process that quantifies that knowledge.
Science has always changed, just like human culture did
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 2 months ago
What it is vs how it’s (ab)used
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Or “real science” versus “imaginary science”
Bonus round : “real science has never been tried”
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 2 months ago
One more to fill the bingo card
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 months ago
No True Scotsman argument sort of.
Now, I’m not saying we ignore science or throw it out, but there are flaws.
Chuymatt@beehaw.org 2 months ago
Is it made by humans? Yah, there are flaws.
glitchcake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
wooooosh
that’s the point flying over your head
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
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.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 months ago
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.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I’d counter argue that a test that is not communicated, reported, described or otherwise transmitted to another party is identical to it not happening, therefore one needs to tell “someone” (even if that is a private journal), and while in theory falsifability is possible solo, it increases the problem of induction, and science is, in essence, a language: a description of phenomena not the phenomena itself.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 months ago
I’d agree for the result to be useful to society, the science should be published. But science can still be useful to an individual without sharing. I use the scientific method regularly in my daily life for mundane things, and often it’s just not worth the time to communicate to others because the situation is unique to me. I write it down for myself later, which doesn’t make the science any less valid.
Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml 2 months ago
You cannot separate the 2. There is no pure science out there which can be done without “governance”.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 months ago
I’m explicitly arguing that you can separate the two. I can perform a completely independent experiments in my house. For example:
I make a hypothesis that my stove can boil 1L of water in 10 minutes. I then measure how long my stove takes to boil that water. I can then record these results to inform my future cooking and water boiling experiments. I don’t have to publish the results anywhere or even talk with another person, yet I’ve still used the scientific method. I’m not a professional scientist, but I am an amateur one.