This reply is in invitation to Emanuele and myself to continue to think deeply about science and help our recent reasoning on inquiry and inquisitiveness.
The point of the post is to show that science is mostly about generating ideas instead of providing proofs that something is true or false, right or wrong. If science is about generating ideas then the role of inquiry is particularly relevant and, in fact, it is critical for the scientific enterprise to develop. Whether and how much I agree with this is probably materials for another post but I like the idea that science "glorifies" the inquisitive mind.
Instead, what I would like to reflect on here is the lax picture of science Emanuele describes as typical of some journalists. There we go:
Very often science – be it natural science or social science – is reduced to a kind of device whose main function is to provide proofs. That is, it is as if the whole enterprise of science is ultimately a game whose main goal is to prove that something is in fact the case or just a myth.And he continues with the following:
A quite compelling example pointing to that is the number of articles in magazines and newspapers, in which rather trivial beliefs and stereotypes are scientifically proven as true (or false). [...] In other cases, science provides the solid basis for making (alleged) "rational" decisions regarding an almost endless list of things, like the kind of food to eat, the amount of hours to devote to physical exercise or the best economical policy to implement. In all those cases science provides proofs telling us – beyond any reasonable doubt – what we should hold true, believe in or make happen for our own good.
My take is that this kind of "attitude" towards science is rooted in the assumption, which is never quite discussed, that science is superior to other epistemic practices (that is, practices chiefly devoted to knowing) because of the scientific method that is used. So, the superiority of science would rest in the application of a specific procedure whose main role is to test ideas and that type of procedure would then guarantee us that we have achieved certified or beyond-any-reasonable-doubt results.First of all, a trivial question: do we (as scientists) care about popularized versions of science appearing in magazines and newspapers? It is clear that those journalists or so-called "experts" who portray these views sometimes are as ignorant about science as one could possibly be. To some extent, I agree we should care about what gets popularized, because the views Emanuele refers to contribute to the belief that science is some kind of religion, something you believe in or not. To some extent, you do "believe" in what you are doing. However, believing in oneself or in the doing is arguably more rational than believing in some god (or goddess). And it is different because of the tools, resources, environment, mindset, instruments available to make up your mind. Science is open. No question is forbidden, no faith is mandatory. It is one of the most powerful resources we have to understand, analyze, process, synthesize, re-process, etc., or, in short, to know ourselves and what is around and beyond us.
Anyway, the point here is that we should probably care about the image of science that some portray. However, there is probably no point in debunking something that is clearly inaccurate or done with careless attention. This is why I would not take time to debunk what I do not think one should be too serious about. A portrait of science of the kind provided by Emanuele is too weak. Everything is questionable about it. Hence, building a good and interesting point off something that is not so serious, casts doubts on the consistency of this point Emanuele (and I) are making.
The second element is not on the scientific method (that comes only third here). It is on the "beyond any reasonable doubt" sentence that Emanuele uses in the post. I do not think that this sentence is consistent with scientific phrasing. In fact, I am not too sure a scientist would use those words. In fact, we know that is a famous phrase coming from (American fashioned) tribunals. The purpose of science is to have doubts even when you have that a given cause determines an effect, with a given explained variance, an "impact" coefficient, and under a significance level. Due to the many errors possible (e.g., measurement, coding, instrument-based, interpretative), fallacious hypotheses, methodological uncertainties, or ill-intentioned researchers, any scientific result is always subject to further scrutiny. It is neither "right" or "wrong"; it is neither "true" or "false". What scientific results give you — I am referring to quantitative studies in the social sciences in particular (...because that is what I know!) —is some circumstantiated information on a relation, a mechanism, a difference, or else concerning a given phenomenon. In short, you assert that A positively affects B with "intensity" (or "impact") X, and explaining B's variance of a quantity Y, within a certain significance level low enough to make results probable (under the conditions specified). Note that every words mentioned (even the words in parentheses) are crucial to understand the meaning of scientific results. This is probably far away from "beyond reasonable doubts". In fact, the phrase used to describe results is actually a statement that we never know for sure. Doubts are here, there, and everywhere. Doubts are extremely welcome.
The scientific method (there we go!) is my third point, as anticipated. The way science produces its results has to do with the methods it uses but, of course, that is not it. Can we reduce science to its methods? Is that what science is all about? What is in it more than method that makes it different from other ways of knowing? Most importantly, can we use scientific methods to produce bogus results? If we can, then science is not just about methods. And this is the strongest point Emanuele is making. It is not just about methods, also the questions science asks and how we ask them are very relevant to the scientific enterprise.
There is much more to write but I stop here. Thanks to Emanuele for his challenging views expressed on this post and, well, let's see where we go with this!
