demagogue on 22/3/2015 at 08:08
I think it depends on the maturity of a science. The theories of plate techtonics or the Big Bang, or hell Special & General Relativity, were minority positions in their respective fields when they were still young and immature, but they are mainstays of the fields now when they've become mature and established, because of how many times and ways those theories have been reconfirmed at every step (in a way, eg, Hoyle's Steady State Universe or the aether theory of light weren't, despite being consensus positions in their day.)
That is, consensus means different things at different periods of maturity in a science. And the consensus in a mature period isn't trustworthy because it's consensus, but because so many smart people that would love nothing more than to overturn it haven't been able to, and they have the developed tools to try it. When a science is immature, they simply don't have the tools developed to attempt overturning a theory, so it stands as a default. In that case, consensus doesn't mean much.
I think for most fields, practioners are quite self-aware of how mature their own field is, and how much weight to give to consensus. Cf what's happening in String Theory, which is still so immature it's not about making grand theories at all, but for now just developing the tools to say anything sensible at all, and they know it.
Nicker on 22/3/2015 at 08:58
There may be a bit of an equivocation problem going on here. The term, freedom of thought, seems to refer to several distinct categories of personal, creative and intellectual liberty.
As a creative force, freedom of thought is the permission to imagine without constraint, without self editing. It's a process often explored in creative thinking exercises for people or groups. NO is not permitted. All ideas are simply allowed, regardless of how mad they might sound. They are not judged and they don't have to make a practical case for themselves. Improvisation and riffing.
Freedom of thought is also conflated with freedom of opinion or belief. These are more emotional states. As with creative free thinking, one does not need to justify an opinion or belief, you can simply hold one. That is until phase two, when an opinion may be expected to provide some sort of factual, practical or moral support. Even then, believers may not comply.
But since thought is ultimately semantic in nature, real free thought cannot be truly free because it must be constrained by evidence and logical consistency. If it doesn't, it's not really thinking anymore, no matter how much cognitive effort is expended.
So while free thought may be constrained in one sense, it must be resistant to prejudice and distortion. Freedom of thought, in this case, is not freedom TO but freedom FROM.
faetal on 22/3/2015 at 10:27
I'm not arguing for general consensus, I'm arguing for robust scientific consensus, often by referring to specific aspects of scientific research. Tony doesn't like this because he isn't a scientist and therefore loses some qualification, so the only way he can continue to try to cling to some kind of equal position in the debate is to try somehow to undermine science. Which, if he was trained, he could easily do by referencing either a number of well-designed studies to contradict a point or, in the case of established (or mature, as Demagogue nicely put it) theory, a systematic review. But he can't do that, so we get the typical, facile, tired "science doesn't know everything" argument, limply propped up with a few confirmation bias searches for anything peer-reviewed he can find which sounds loosely like it might align with his opinions. Which adds precisely zero information. It's getting a little boring.
Another good pointer for consensus is how global it is when refined by actual empirical observation. We know that anthropogenic climate change is real because as we gather more data, the theory gets more robust globally. If you look at local consensus, then in certain parts of e.g. America, the Christian god is immutably real, whereas in areas of e.g. India, Vishnu, Shiva etc are. The funny thing also with people's individual assertion of where science might be wrong, tends to focus on things which they personally don't like. Where the scientific consensus says things that people are OK with, then people are OK with the consensus. Where it says things that people don't like, all of the sudden the scientists involved are arrogant and any confidence in the research is hubris.
froghawk on 23/3/2015 at 20:42
Faetal, what are your thoughts on the whole idea of endocrine disruption and the idea that toxicity actually follows an inverted bell curve (Freddie Vom Saal and such)? I've heard a lot of talk that it's all hack work, but I've seen positive articles on him turn up in journals like Nature, so it's not clear to me....
faetal on 23/3/2015 at 21:26
Link me an article and I'll tell you. Like any field - toxicology is huge, so I don't know it all.
faetal on 24/3/2015 at 09:48
Seems interesting, I'll read it over the next few days. One thing which stands out though is the following:
"Many toxicologists, however, are not convinced — especially those in industry or government who have spent their careers deeply involved in traditional risk assessment."
This is contentious, non-quantified and not backed up, which makes it sound like a way of front-loading the debate in a kind of fallacious way.
There are plenty of non-standard curves in toxicology, because there are a startlingly complex array of compensatory mechanisms which will kick in at and cut off at different points. A detoxification mechanism may well not trigger below X dose (leading to toxicity at lower doses), kick in and be increasingly effective at Y to Z concentrations (leading to an inverse dose-response at the lower end) and be overwhelmed or saturated above Z leading to a normal dose response from Z onwards. The overall graph would indeed resemble a U shape. This is further complicated by a variety of things, like for example something I am looking at which is the detoxification molecule glutathione, a tri-peptide which is used to quench electrophilic compounds which are toxic by way of modifying proteins at nucleophilic amino acid side-chains. Ordinarily, conjugation of said compounds to glutathione will neutralise them, allowing them to be further metabolised to be water soluble, rendering them able to be excreted via sweat and urine. However, some compounds actually gain toxic effect by glutathione conjugation, which makes for some very interesting dose-response dynamics.
More from me, after these messages.
demagogue on 24/3/2015 at 10:05
Right now I'm writing on an issue, well I don't know if I can say more complex, but wildly complex. Some people are trying to make a connection between climate change and human displacement for regulation purposes, or in terms of responsibility (which itself, "A is responsible for B", has a complicated relationship to causation, "A caused B"; what kind of causal link do you have to show to trigger responsibility?). But there are so many layers and nuances to both sides of the equation (what causes climate change, what effects climate change causes on the ground, and what causes human displacement) that even trying to model some connection like the emission of X tons of greenhouse gas corresponds to Y numbers of people being displaced is approaching the asymptote of sublime ridiculousness.
But then you don't want to make the mistake in the other direction that there's no connection, because climate change is going to be associated with a lot more displacement, and states emitting a lot of GHGs bear more responsibility for that compared to, e.g., the tiny island states getting hit by sea inundation or central African states whose farmers have to deal with desertification, and those states don't have much capacity to help their population so they have to go somewhere for relief ... the kinds of states whose greenhouse gas emissions are miniscule by orders of magnitude in comparison.
faetal on 24/3/2015 at 14:40
Reading a bit more the the article (first one) and it's an opinion piece, so not sure it's proof of anything. Raises some interesting issues which I'll look into more simply from professional curiosity anyway as you never know when a high level bit of paradigm waving might throw some interesting info your way. Just wary of an article which seems to use such charged language. WHen a proponent of paradigm A is referring to differences between it and paradigm B as a "schism" in the field, it's worth investigating to see if they are doing the same thing that global warming deniers do with the whole "teach the controversy" thing, i.e. creating the appearance that a field is split down the middle.
There are some interesting points in terms of definition, particularly the "is this toxicology?" one. Since toxicology deals with noxious response to dose as opposed to any response to dose. If there are eccentric responses of a particular readout to a dose range of molecule A, then calling that molecule eccentrically toxic relies on the output being described to be a measure of toxicity rather than just intervening effect.
Naturally industry which bases its toxicology assessments on an existing framework are going to be resistant to new ideas which may introduce doubt and thus the need for additional testing (and cost) to maintain their ability to use certain compounds*. However, unless it's only industry toxicologists opposing the idea, it's not something which can just be dismissed with the wave of a hand. Also, a corollary to the fact that industry stalwarts will resist new ideas is that those working with something which contradicts the status quo, will be disposed to over-state the scale of their findings or its importance in order to fire their career up. The reality of the debate and the controversy with paradigm alterations are rarely as extreme as the polar camps tend to make out.
* This isn't a toxicology issue though, it's a business one - just look at how the American meat processing lobby reacted to legislation to reduce bacterial food poisoning from high throughput meat processing plants by requiring several screening steps which would have cost the industry hundreds of millions per year - they appealed against the legislation and buried the process in so much paperwork that it never saw the light of day (unless it has happened since I read about it). It seems that if the cost of paying out compensation for killing / harming people is less than the cost of ongoing safety measures, they'll spend as much as possible to bury it, so long as it is significantly less than the difference/tangent.
Still not read both articles though, so don't take me definitely yet.
Tony_Tarantula on 25/3/2015 at 00:16
Quote Posted by faetal
* This isn't a toxicology issue though, it's a business one - just look at how the American meat processing lobby reacted to legislation to reduce bacterial food poisoning from high throughput meat processing plants by requiring several screening steps which would have cost the industry hundreds of millions per year - they appealed against the legislation and buried the process in so much paperwork that it never saw the light of day (unless it has happened since I read about it). It seems that if the cost of paying out compensation for killing / harming people is less than the cost of ongoing safety measures, they'll spend as much as possible to bury it, so long as it is significantly less than the difference/tangent.
Still not read both articles though, so don't take me definitely yet.
Can agree with where you're headed, and that's my tentative(NOT final) conclusion about the issue and why it's going to be difficult to find a solution to this. It's probably that the most effective solution won't be the cheapest which will make it difficult to implement.
Anyway Blackjack, I came across this gem from NYT Sunday Review:
Quote:
The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space.
“I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being “bombarded” by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints. Think of the safe space as the live-action version of the better-known trigger warning, a notice put on top of a syllabus or an assigned reading to alert students to the presence of potentially disturbing material.
Some people trace safe spaces back to the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and 1970s, others to the gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. In most cases, safe spaces are innocuous gatherings of like-minded people who agree to refrain from ridicule, criticism or what they term microaggressions — subtle displays of racial or sexual bias — so that everyone can relax enough to explore the nuances of, say, a fluid gender identity. As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea.
So now today's millenials are so resistent to having to think that they have to retreat to a play room with coloring books and play-do because they are exposed to ideas they don't like?
