>The scientific method has built in processes (like repeatability and falsifiability) to help eliminate bias.

Has this stopped scientists in the past from falsifying or censoring data to suit their own agenda?

You can find investigations into the topic, into any topic, from any point of view. There are many sources out there. The biggest issue in all of this is the glut of information that we have to process in order to make informed decisions. How much information do we need to imbibe in order to make our value-judgements educated, or seem educated? Educated to whom? Even having knowledge itself isn't enough to compel action, one cannot turn an Is into an Ought. Science is a tool of understanding reality, not for discerning which actions we should take. This depends on our values.

That is the implicit issue with talking about these topics, that these beliefs are bundled together with other beliefs and their corresponding action (or inaction). When we talk about affirming the validity of Climate Change, what does that even mean? To say aloud, "Climate Change is true", what does this change? What does it change to say the opposite?

Take a look at Germany and their mothballing of some of their nuclear power plants in favor of sustainable green energy initiatives. In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the tightening of oil supplies, Germany has had to burn more fossil fuels to make up for the lack of energy that would have been supplied by these nuclear reactors. I am sure there are other reasons as to why the nuclear reactors were shuttered, but climate change rhetoric was touted when decommissioning them. I would have much rather that energy come from nuclear power plants than from burning fossil fuels, because it is better for the environment and it loosens the grip that Russia has over continental Europe when making foreign policy decisions.

Would someone who affirms the validity of climate change want both the burning of more fossil fuels and a tighter Russian grip over Ukraine? Probably not. But such rhetoric has in part lead to such a thing, and such a thing should be investigated.

You know how quickly people can take this too far, though, right? Sorry, just being sceptical.

A nuance is sometimes teased out between the synonyms fact vs. truth. Facts are those which pass muster on the basis of scientific skepticism as defined here. Truth, however, incorporates concepts that may be vital to who we are or are striving to become, yet by their nature cannot be evaluated by the scientific method. These are often used interchangeably. Yet to the extent there is this distinction of nuance I would contend that Truth, in appropriate forms, must be understood, accepted, and incorporated into our lives. I therefore come down on the side of ethical skepticism.

This is silly.

Science has a peer review process.

The scientific method has built in processes (like repeatability and falsifiability) to help eliminate bias.

Telling laymen to be "sceptical" about science is irresponsible, especially at a time when Measles and TB are making comebacks

Skepticism isn't just taking the contrarian point of view. As Mr. Pigliucci explains, it's about "taking a look". Which side of the climate change or vaccination debate is actually investigating the claims of that they make?

A great example of this plays out in the Beyond the Curve flat earth documentary. Those attempting to prove the earth is flat are superficially skeptical. They perform experiments that would demonstrate the earth is flat. That's taking a look. However, when the results confirm the earth is round, they don't accept that evidence. Their belief is more fundamental than evidence.

I've noticed lately that a certain group of people will be skeptical about all the wrong things. They're not skeptical about a company telling them their untested product cures ailments or that clean coal can save the planet.

They're skeptical about massive scientific research and clearly proven facts. And they're skeptical-bordering-on-conspiracy about the mundane and meaningless. Questioning the wrong authority on things they know nothing about.

Is skepticism opposed by faith? Each one can be beneficial and we could not live without both. Could the inappropriate application of these modes be the real problem behind "conspiracy theories"? Is it possible to know for certain when one should be skeptical and when to have faith?

It is an inversion of which belief system is socially dominant. All of this is made more interesting considering that climate denial and anti-vax sentiments are both skeptical of their socially dominant counter parts. This is to say nothing of truthfulness or utility of such beliefs, I have not taste of debating the exact details of either case.

Should we be skeptical of that which claims to be skepticism? Most certainly, especially the claims which others posit have passed through the skepticism sniff-test. There seems to be this implicit game of Socratic chicken, in which both parties claim to be the proprietors of true Skepticism and that therefore their truth-claims of the world are factually correct. This easily ends in solipsism in which no claims on reality can be verified.

True, the age of being "Sceptical" of spherical Earth, entry-level scientific takes and hatred of all things elevated is upon us. Mostly due to to American super-exeptionalism and hyper-individuallity.

We didn't make it as species because everyone was a sovereign citizen.

No, but anti-vax and climate denial don't have any real foundation in reality, and work with conspiracy theories and religious zealotry and not with evidence and logic on their side.

So, we have an ethical responsibility to evaluate things.

If we go to real scientific theories, we must demand good evidence, definition and consistency in them, and depending on the topic, this is normally provided. The main scientific theories that the scientific community tends to hold, already hold enough evidence and information to be accepted, but the important point there is to also accept that if we found more information and those things need to be discarded, we need to accept that.

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People's ethics today are self centered self righteous and self-serving. They fully believe their opinions outweigh what others believe regardless of what facts prove. They will fully manipulate science or economics to support their position no matter how negatively it affects those who don't think like they do. Ethics do not exist today.

"There are consequences for ourselves and others if we accept things such as climate denial or ant-vax movements without properly assessing the foundations of those claims."

This quote is interesting considering that both belief in climate change and supporting vaccinations are components of the dominant metanarrative in the Western world, while the quote itself makes it seem that climate denial and anti-vax are the strains of regime approved thinking that need to be scrutinized. This is an odd-inversion of reality. Climate denial and anti-vax are beliefs that are scrutinized by default, as they stand in contrast to the institutionally-supported metanarrative. Are we to be skeptical only of those things that we are allowed to be skeptical of?

We should all be skeptics unless we are omniscience gods, lol.

Nobody can ever know everything there is to know about anything, its just not possible, this means everything people produce will be incomplete (even scientific facts), which is why we should never be absolutist about anything, even for the simplest basic facts.

We know enough to survive and do stuff, that's it, reality is far too vast and complex to be understood in its entirety.

In this talk philosopher Massimo Pigliucci argues twobranches of scepticism that have split in recent history – ethical scepticism and scientific scepticism – should be reunited in an attempt to define a good way of living.

Ethical scepticism, he explains, demands that we either suspend judgment on non evident matters, or act on the basis of probability given available facts. If apparent facts change, or our assessment of facts change, our judgment of the probability that non-evident claims are true should also be updated.

Scientific scepticism, he suggests, means we should demand clarity of definition, consistency of logic and adequacy of evidence for anyclaim made. We must recognise that not everyone is equally equipped to assessevery claim – Pigliucci cites Socrates’ discussion in the Charmides dialogue. Andwe must recognise we have an ethical responsibility to ensure we don’t supporterroneous claims – citing Cicero.

There are consequences for ourselves and others if we accept things such as climate denial or ant-vax movements without properly assessing the foundations of those claims.

Therefore, we have an ethical responsibility to adopt asceptical attitude towards all claims in life. We must recognise knowledge is tentative – the probability of any claims truth is never 0 nor 1 – and be open to revising our judgment in light of new evidence.

In the scenario where happiness is the penultimate goal, what is the ultimate goal? 🤔

C’mon now, his blog is literally called Fake Nous 😂

I think the level of analysis should be adequate to support the claim made, regardless of the format. So if a claim like "the great philosophers of the western canon are all wrong and bad at philosophy" can't be supported in blog post length, it probably ought not be made in a blog post. Unless of course the point is just to be provocative without substance, which would be pretty ironic in this case.

😂😂

Please tell me which degrees you have completed mate, it’s not self congratulatory it’s providing my credibility to back up the statements I make. What is self congratulatory is you saying “I have completed superior degrees to yours”.

Show me my mistake? I am so confused what you are all hung up about, where did I claim neural networks were the only trading strategy?

In general, the instigator of the debate is required to present their argument, you have no argument if you provide no evidence. You haven’t showed me what you are talking about, I don’t believe you have “superior degrees of either”. Get over yourself mate 😅

Don't even get me started on season 4.

I’m so confused, do you know what “pragmatic” means? Because it just seems like you compliment my way of thinking and then say that I am ignorant and so are the rest of people who learn neuroscience and god forbid - choose to believe it.

No idea what you mean by atoms shifting 98% that’s just complete nonsense you wrote to make yourself seem more credible. At least give context to the things you say or provide some evidence? Either would be great.

It's hard to engage with this comment because it feels like it was made by ChatGPT.

>Are we more than the electric and chemical signals in our brains?

Yes: speaking loosely, we have organic bodies with highly sensitive nerves and hormonal pathways. Those are the basis of emotion and sensation. That's the foundation of consciousness or awareness.

An AI without our organic pathways is categorically different. That's what makes it artificial.

At some point, if we combine an AI with organic sensitivity, we will be creating intelligence itself, not artificial intelligence. So we can't ever create AI with consciousness, but we could artificially create consciousness.

>I don't think we are any more than the electric and chemical signals in our brains, simply because there isn't anything else that we can point at yet.

Pragmatic.

The limitation of the practice is that it presumes anything humans haven't discovered yet isn't relevant... while simultaneously refusing to allow for what people haven't learned.

Yet science is merely observation of what is - any incomplete observation will be suspect in its conclusions due to the variables not yet grasped.

That the atoms comprising your system shift by 98% annually indicates that - at some level - what makes up "you" is not physical.

Which leaves a lot of room for learning.