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Which idea must die because it is blocking scientific progress?

In 2014, John Brockman asked 178 scientists this question.

"WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?"

Science advances by discovering new things and developing new ideas. Few truly new ideas are developed without abandoning old ones first. As theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) noted, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
In other words, science advances by a series of funerals. Why wait that long? Which idea should be abandon right now?

If you need any suggestions, look at the table of contents of this book:
[amazon.com]

Matias 8 Apr 12
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4 comments

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The idea that stem cells or embryos are people.

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Science is true whether or not you believe in it.

@Matias No it is not. There isn't a single scientific theory (proven explanatory framework) since the modern scientific method came into use, that has been shown to be wrong.

There are theories that have been elaborated for edge cases (e.g., quantum electrodynamics vs relativity vs Newtonian physics, but Newtonian physics still suffices for most celestial mechanics).

What has "turned out to be wrong" are scientific hypotheses, but this is a feature, not a bug. The SM seeks to DISprove scientifically valid hypotheses as a first step to validating them and perhaps elevating them to be part of a scientific theory. Part of what a scientifically valid hypothesis consists of, is that you can describe how you'd go about DISproving it. And most such hypotheses ARE disproven. And that's a good thing.

What often also "turned out to be wrong" were conclusions prematurely drawn from association rather than cause, because most laypersons and much of the science press fails to distinguish association from cause either due to ignorance of the difference, or because there are economic incentives (e.g., clickbait) to conflate them. Also, there are fundamental issues with statistics; they are often misused because of a weird historic bias against factoring in causal influences. This is slowly changing through the efforts of people like Judea Pearl, and it's another source of the conflation of cause and effect (statistics, as generally practiced, can easily get cause and effect exactly backward).

And yes there's a certain amount of scientific fraud in the pursuit of tenure or research funding. This is primarily a problem with human nature, though, not with the SM itself.

Given the track record of science and technology in improving the human experience and reducing human suffering, my money is on refining and managing the SM better, not wrongly disparaging it as being no better than non-scientific inquiry. I am not aware of a single time that, for instance, religion has invented something or corrected science or math or even introduced helpful innovations.

Does this mean we have an overdetermined respect for science such that we think it will single-handedly save us ("scientism" )? No. We need philosophical and psychological inquiry and there's some value in exploring intersubjective experiences and the like. But I maintain that there is ZERO value in giving assent to random assertions of fact that are not substantiatable. So while I would not accept for example that meditation is a path to oneness with the divine, I would accept that it can reduce or manage anxiety in some people, or produce a subjective experience of non-duality that can have helpful knock-on effects (and probably unhelpful ones as well).

@Matias I didn't point that out for your benefit. You know better (or should anyway).

Theory (in the scientific sense) vs hypothesis is not simply picking nits of grammar. Words matter in this instance. It isn't a question of some pedantic preference on my part. It is a question of what the words mean and whether it's true that actual scientific theories proven via the SM have been constantly (or ever!) overturned. It matters whether you're citing one or the other -- or citing notions from ancient or medieval inquiry and making those equivalent to science as practiced today.

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This is an article I posted a while back and was very impressed with. It's tangentially related:
[getpocket.com]

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Interesting book. I don't like speculation, there are enough hard facts to learn for one lifetime without deviation, but just for fun here goes. Perhaps the idea itself that old ideas have to die before new ones can be added to science, I see that it is on the list, and perhaps science is maturing, not hopefully into dogma but to the point where core values are stable. If not then I would guess that either a new insight may over turn the standard model, I am no physicist but there seem to to too many small problems, like where is all the dark matter, for there not to be a major new thought needed, or maybe someone will find the dark matter or something that does its job, it has to be one or the other.

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