WEBVTT 00:00:26.809 --> 00:00:31.289 So there's a specific way that science tends 00:00:31.289 --> 00:00:34.100 to be taught in grade school. The story is one 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:38.079 of progress in which newer generations of scientists 00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:40.960 make bold discoveries that demonstrate conclusively 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:43.899 that the older beliefs were wrong, and then people 00:00:43.899 --> 00:00:46.960 become aware of the errors of their past, correct 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:49.380 it immediately, and then just keep progressing 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:53.479 forward until the next big discovery. This process 00:00:53.479 --> 00:00:57.630 by which these changes... change in views of 00:00:57.630 --> 00:00:59.609 what's right and wrong, the discoveries and so 00:00:59.609 --> 00:01:02.670 on. The process by which these are made is called 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:06.069 the scientific method. A lot of this should sound 00:01:06.069 --> 00:01:08.730 familiar, right? This is one where you form a 00:01:08.730 --> 00:01:11.769 hypothesis, run some objective experiment that 00:01:11.769 --> 00:01:14.269 is either consistent with the hypothesis or falsifies 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:17.829 it. If falsified, then you revise your hypothesis, 00:01:18.069 --> 00:01:20.590 run another experiment, do it all over again. 00:01:20.890 --> 00:01:23.709 And each step brings you closer and closer to, 00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:27.299 quote unquote, the truth, right? As a scientific 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:29.280 community, scientists keep each other in check. 00:01:29.459 --> 00:01:31.840 They do that by running independent experiments 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:35.420 to confirm results of another, right? This is 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:38.980 the ability to kind of reproduce the results, 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:41.640 right? To show that it wasn't some weird fluke 00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:43.700 or something, right? There wasn't some one -off, 00:01:43.780 --> 00:01:47.359 right? Well, there are two experiences in my 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:50.459 own life that shattered this view, right? Okay, 00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:54.420 the first came as an undergrad. I was lucky enough. 00:01:55.129 --> 00:01:57.129 through the honors program there, to do some 00:01:57.129 --> 00:02:00.129 independent research with a cognitive psychologist 00:02:00.129 --> 00:02:04.780 on... memory, perception, all kinds of cool stuff, 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:07.459 right? So part of the research left me in the 00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:11.539 dreaded biomedical library at UCLA. That haunting, 00:02:11.719 --> 00:02:14.659 like, I think it was like 10 stories of research 00:02:14.659 --> 00:02:17.280 articles just stacked on top of each other. This 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:19.039 was back in the days when not everything was 00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:22.120 digitized. So, you know, you sometimes had to 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:25.860 physically copy these articles to take it back 00:02:25.860 --> 00:02:30.599 home with you if you're going to do that. And 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:32.400 reading through so many of these articles in 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:35.460 neuroscience and cognitive science, psychology, 00:02:35.819 --> 00:02:38.939 biology, right, I learned that the scientific 00:02:38.939 --> 00:02:42.580 methods seem to be more of a suggestion than 00:02:42.580 --> 00:02:47.520 a rule in scientific research. I regularly saw 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:50.060 this in the conclusions of these papers that, 00:02:50.180 --> 00:02:52.419 you know, though the experiment did not fit the 00:02:52.419 --> 00:02:54.680 hypothesis at all, like the results of the experiment, 00:02:54.740 --> 00:02:57.360 right? The experimenter had all kinds of explanations 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:00.580 for what might have happened other than the hypothesis 00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:02.979 just simply being wrong, right? It was something 00:03:02.979 --> 00:03:05.099 about the equipment or maybe the experimental 00:03:05.099 --> 00:03:10.280 design or maybe some, you know, fluke luck thing 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:13.020 or some unknown factor that they haven't discovered 00:03:13.020 --> 00:03:16.219 yet, right? It also became fairly evident to 00:03:16.219 --> 00:03:19.599 me quickly that no one seemed to be recreating 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:21.699 any of the experiments done. At least it wasn't 00:03:21.699 --> 00:03:23.759 published. Maybe there are people doing it, but 00:03:23.759 --> 00:03:26.479 it wasn't published material, right? So the closest 00:03:26.479 --> 00:03:29.219 I saw was experiments that copied some of the 00:03:29.219 --> 00:03:32.120 experimental design of another, but maybe added 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:33.979 some new elements to it. So it essentially was 00:03:33.979 --> 00:03:35.759 a different experiment measuring something different, 00:03:35.819 --> 00:03:38.560 but they were building off of some interesting 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:43.000 design that another experiment did, right? So 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:44.680 it was essentially a different hypothesis that 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:48.060 was being tested and with a very different experiment. 00:03:48.419 --> 00:03:52.759 So that was the first experience that made me 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:56.139 question, like, oh, is it really how I was taught 00:03:56.139 --> 00:03:57.800 in science class? Like, is this really how it 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:01.300 happens? The other experience actually came much 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:03.639 later in graduate school when I was taking a 00:04:03.639 --> 00:04:05.699 philosophy of science class. This was at Boston 00:04:05.699 --> 00:04:09.400 University. And I read Thomas Kuhn's Structure 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:11.479 of Scientific Revolutions for the first time. 00:04:11.819 --> 00:04:15.379 Now, Kuhn is not actually a philosopher or a 00:04:15.379 --> 00:04:18.779 scientist. He's actually a historian and went 00:04:18.779 --> 00:04:21.220 through the records to kind of make better sense 00:04:21.220 --> 00:04:23.279 of what kind of happened when there were these 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:26.319 major paradigm shifts in the sciences, right, 00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:28.649 when these scientific revolutions. happened, 00:04:28.730 --> 00:04:32.829 right? You know, Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, 00:04:33.209 --> 00:04:36.290 you know, Einstein with his theory of relativity 00:04:36.290 --> 00:04:39.889 and so on. And as I read through these scientific, 00:04:40.149 --> 00:04:42.310 you know, the history of these scientific revolutions, 00:04:42.509 --> 00:04:46.569 I saw that scientific progress did not happen 00:04:46.569 --> 00:04:50.009 in the way that it was taught in the science 00:04:50.009 --> 00:04:51.670 classes I took back when I was much younger, 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:54.790 right? At least not according to Kuhn, right? 00:04:55.489 --> 00:04:57.870 there were tensions between those wanting to 00:04:57.870 --> 00:05:00.629 hold on to the older paradigms, the older frameworks 00:05:00.629 --> 00:05:03.470 for understanding the world, and those that wanted 00:05:03.470 --> 00:05:06.550 to embrace the new. And these weren't settled 00:05:06.550 --> 00:05:11.009 through any rational discourse, but rather by 00:05:11.009 --> 00:05:13.790 the older generations holding on to the older 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:18.269 paradigms. dying out, and then the newer generations 00:05:18.269 --> 00:05:21.910 having a preference for these newer frameworks, 00:05:22.149 --> 00:05:24.910 and they end up in the positions of power in 00:05:24.910 --> 00:05:27.290 these scientific institutions. And so as a result, 00:05:27.389 --> 00:05:30.750 people just shifted in that way. It almost sounds 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:34.209 as if it wasn't necessarily through rational 00:05:34.209 --> 00:05:36.629 discourse at all. It just seems a matter of preference, 00:05:36.730 --> 00:05:39.990 right? Now, to be fair, right, it wasn't quite 00:05:39.990 --> 00:05:43.360 like just mere preference, but... At least in 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.800 terms of the scientific community and how the 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:49.800 scientific community seems to ebb and flow in 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:51.779 preference for certain frameworks over others. 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:55.339 At least in the moments when this tension arises, 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:59.160 it's not as if people just suddenly become enlightened 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:02.360 by some new discovery. Rather, there's a genuine 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:05.300 tension and there's a struggle between maintaining 00:06:05.300 --> 00:06:08.079 some of the older frameworks and adopting some 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:12.290 of the new. In other words, these shifts in scientific 00:06:12.290 --> 00:06:14.410 paradigms weren't through some scientific method 00:06:14.410 --> 00:06:18.250 or some definitive experiments that objectively 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:22.050 showed one to be true and the other false. All 00:06:22.050 --> 00:06:23.569 this, of course, simply confirmed what I was 00:06:23.569 --> 00:06:25.730 already picking up on from my own experience 00:06:25.730 --> 00:06:29.689 in research in the sciences. Does that mean that 00:06:29.689 --> 00:06:33.329 science is nothing more than a collective working 00:06:33.329 --> 00:06:37.350 under some, you know, group preference or something 00:06:37.350 --> 00:06:39.569 like that? No, no, no, no, no. Clearly, there's 00:06:39.569 --> 00:06:42.790 a difference between what people do in the sciences, 00:06:42.850 --> 00:06:46.350 collectively anyways, and in what some people 00:06:46.350 --> 00:06:50.350 might say is a pseudoscience, right? And the 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:53.430 difference is marked often by something like 00:06:53.430 --> 00:06:55.569 the scientific method, right? Experimentation, 00:06:55.670 --> 00:06:58.610 falsification of hypotheses, predictive power, 00:06:58.709 --> 00:07:02.170 and so on, right? But it does raise real questions 00:07:02.170 --> 00:07:06.990 about exactly what the demarcating line is between 00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:11.410 science and not science, between certain methodology 00:07:11.410 --> 00:07:17.250 that we might uphold as a good way of learning 00:07:17.250 --> 00:07:19.370 something about the world around us and some 00:07:19.370 --> 00:07:21.930 other ways of approaching it that are not so 00:07:21.930 --> 00:07:27.029 good, right? If it's not merely the employment 00:07:27.029 --> 00:07:29.670 of the scientific method, then what exactly is 00:07:29.670 --> 00:07:32.509 it? Clearly, there is something. There is a difference, 00:07:32.629 --> 00:07:34.490 right? There is a difference between the medical 00:07:34.490 --> 00:07:36.449 sciences and all the advancements and the predictive 00:07:36.449 --> 00:07:39.290 power that medical sciences have and whatever 00:07:39.290 --> 00:07:41.990 the hell it is that astrology is doing, right? 00:07:42.649 --> 00:07:45.389 And clearly, there's a good reason to put a trust 00:07:45.389 --> 00:07:47.810 in one over the other. Like, there's a good reason 00:07:47.810 --> 00:07:49.949 to put trust in the medical sciences, like if 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:51.269 I have cancer and I'm looking for treatment, 00:07:51.350 --> 00:07:54.870 rather than the astrological signs. At least 00:07:54.870 --> 00:07:57.319 I think there is a good reason to. prefer the 00:07:57.319 --> 00:07:59.740 medical sciences, right? So then the question 00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:02.319 then is, what is it? What is the difference? 00:08:02.379 --> 00:08:05.879 Because if you can't give an explanation of why 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:09.459 we should trust one over the other, then now 00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:11.740 you have a free -for -all. Now you can't really 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:16.639 convince other people to prefer one over the 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:20.079 other. The answer to the question is just not 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:22.740 as simple as what I was taught in high school. 00:08:22.860 --> 00:08:26.240 I imagine there's a good answer. but it's not 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:31.079 the oversimplified kind of inaccurate, you know, 00:08:31.100 --> 00:08:33.899 presentation of the sciences that I got when 00:08:33.899 --> 00:08:37.659 I was younger. Rather, I imagine there's something 00:08:37.659 --> 00:08:40.779 more to it, right? And that's what's explored 00:08:40.779 --> 00:08:43.539 in the philosophy of science, right? You'll begin 00:08:43.539 --> 00:08:46.139 to realize this as well as you kind of dig into 00:08:46.139 --> 00:08:49.600 the questions, right? That, you know, there is 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:52.220 something different about what the sciences are 00:08:52.220 --> 00:08:57.600 doing. as opposed to astrology. I'm just using 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:00.080 that as an example. There's a reason that a lot 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:03.159 of people were skeptical of psychology in its 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:05.860 early days. There is a reason that people were 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:07.879 skeptical of, in fact, most of the social sciences 00:09:07.879 --> 00:09:13.159 and humanities as being included in the sciences 00:09:13.159 --> 00:09:17.840 in any sort of way. And reasons why we might 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:20.200 be a little bit more willing now to accept at 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:25.330 least... empirical psychology uh and in at least 00:09:25.330 --> 00:09:27.490 in the way that ideally it might or maybe should 00:09:27.490 --> 00:09:30.330 be practiced right into the sciences and not 00:09:30.330 --> 00:09:34.370 others right and so it's important to kind of 00:09:34.370 --> 00:09:37.169 get to the roots of those questions because mainly 00:09:37.169 --> 00:09:40.029 for each and every one of us right like we want 00:09:40.029 --> 00:09:42.750 to know what we can trust like i i need to know 00:09:43.629 --> 00:09:46.309 whether or not I can trust what it is that a 00:09:46.309 --> 00:09:47.970 scientist is telling me. I need to know whether 00:09:47.970 --> 00:09:50.769 or not I need consensus in the sciences to be 00:09:50.769 --> 00:09:52.429 able to believe it. I need to know, I mean, these 00:09:52.429 --> 00:09:54.970 are important decisions, life -altering decisions 00:09:54.970 --> 00:09:56.870 that we're trying to make here, right? Decisions 00:09:56.870 --> 00:09:59.250 we're trying to make about climate change, decisions 00:09:59.250 --> 00:10:02.009 we're trying to make about policy with regards 00:10:02.009 --> 00:10:06.629 to crime rates, with regards to, I don't know. 00:10:07.210 --> 00:10:11.929 With regards to epidemiology, right, and vaccination 00:10:11.929 --> 00:10:16.450 policies. These are real -life matters that we're 00:10:16.450 --> 00:10:18.190 trying to deal with. We need to know where we 00:10:18.190 --> 00:10:21.429 can get our information from, what we can trust, 00:10:21.610 --> 00:10:25.889 what we should rely on as the source and arbiters 00:10:25.889 --> 00:10:29.549 of truth. And one of the ways in which we're 00:10:29.549 --> 00:10:31.889 going to differentiate between what we can trust 00:10:31.889 --> 00:10:34.169 and not is which one uses better methodology. 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:38.440 And so it's clear that, at least for me anyways, 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:42.799 I have good reason to trust what the scientific 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.820 community kind of comes to a conclusion on, at 00:10:45.820 --> 00:10:49.620 least, you know, arrives at some sort of consensus 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:52.440 on, right, where the majority of the scientific 00:10:52.440 --> 00:10:56.240 community agrees on something, right? I put faith 00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:00.220 in it. I trust it to some degree, but it really 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:02.200 begs the question, like, why is it that I trust 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:07.129 it as opposed to something else? Right. And so 00:11:07.129 --> 00:11:08.750 those are the kinds of questions that we're trying 00:11:08.750 --> 00:11:11.470 to really unpack and make better sense of in 00:11:11.470 --> 00:11:14.690 the philosophy of science. The point being this, 00:11:14.789 --> 00:11:18.830 science might not be exactly what you might think 00:11:18.830 --> 00:11:22.269 it is, but it doesn't mean we should just throw 00:11:22.269 --> 00:11:26.549 it out altogether. How are we going to make sense 00:11:26.549 --> 00:11:32.129 of navigating those two extremes? Well, we're 00:11:32.129 --> 00:11:33.570 going to have to talk about it in more detail 00:11:33.570 --> 00:11:37.059 by taking. and unpacking some of the discussions 00:11:37.059 --> 00:11:38.639 that have been had in the philosophy of science.